{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4363/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4363","id":"gutenberg_4363","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4363","summary":null,"tags":["Atheism","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Ethics","Philosophy","Philosophy, German"],"text":"Produced by John Mamoun, Charles Franks and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBEYOND GOOD AND EVIL\n\nBy Friedrich Nietzsche\n\n\nTranslated by Helen Zimmern\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION:\n\nThe following is a reprint of the Helen Zimmern translation from German\ninto English of \"Beyond Good and Evil,\" as published in The Complete\nWorks of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909-1913). Some adaptations from the\noriginal text were made to format it into an e-text. Italics in the\noriginal book are capitalized in this e-text, except for most foreign\nlanguage phrases that were italicized. Original footnotes are put in\nbrackets \"[]\" at the points where they are cited in the text. Some\nspellings were altered. \"To-day\" and \"To-morrow\" are spelled \"today\"\nand \"tomorrow.\" Some words containing the letters \"ise\" in the original\ntext, such as \"idealise,\" had these letters changed to \"ize,\" such as\n\"idealize.\" \"Sceptic\" was changed to \"skeptic.\"\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n    PREFACE\n    BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL\n\n    CHAPTER I:    PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS\n    CHAPTER II:   THE FREE SPIRIT\n    CHAPTER III:  THE RELIGIOUS MOOD\n    CHAPTER IV:   APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES\n    CHAPTER V:    THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS\n    CHAPTER VI:   WE SCHOLARS\n    CHAPTER VII:  OUR VIRTUES\n    CHAPTER VIII: PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES\n    CHAPTER IX:   WHAT IS NOBLE?\n\n    FROM THE HEIGHTS (POEM TRANSLATED BY L.A. MAGNUS)\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nSUPPOSING that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground\nfor suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been\ndogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible\nseriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid\ntheir addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for\nwinning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won; and\nat present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien--IF,\nindeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it\nhas fallen, that all dogma lies on the ground--nay more, that it is at\nits last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping\nthat all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive\nand decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism\nand tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it will be once\nand again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such\nimposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have\nhitherto reared: perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time\n(such as the soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject- and\nego-superstition, has not yet ceased doing mischief): perhaps some\nplay upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an\naudacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very\nhuman--all-too-human facts. The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to\nbe hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was\nastrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more\nlabour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any\nactual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its \"super-terrestrial\"\npretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems\nthat in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with\neverlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the\nearth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmatic philosophy has\nbeen a caricature of this kind--for instance, the Vedanta doctrine in\nAsia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although\nit must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome,\nand the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist\nerror--namely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself.\nBut now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare,\ncan again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier--sleep,\nwe, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength\nwhich the struggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to\nthe very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE--the\nfundamental condition--of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato\nspoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: \"How did such a\nmalady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked\nSocrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of\nyouths, and deserved his hemlock?\" But the struggle against Plato,\nor--to speak plainer, and for the \"people\"--the struggle against\nthe ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR\nCHRISTIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE \"PEOPLE\"), produced in Europe\na magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anywhere\npreviously; with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the\nfurthest goals. As a matter of fact, the European feels this tension as\na state of distress, and twice attempts have been made in grand style to\nunbend the bow: once by means of Jesuitism, and the second time by means\nof democratic enlightenment--which, with the aid of liberty of the press\nand newspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spirit\nwould not so easily find itself in \"distress\"! (The Germans invented\ngunpowder--all credit to them! but they again made things square--they\ninvented printing.) But we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats,\nnor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free\nspirits--we have it still, all the distress of spirit and all the\ntension of its bow! And perhaps also the arrow, the duty, and, who\nknows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT....\n\nSils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS\n\n\n1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous\nenterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have\nhitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not\nlaid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is\nalready a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is\nit any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn\nimpatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions\nourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really\nis this \"Will to Truth\" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the\nquestion as to the origin of this Will--until at last we came to an\nabsolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired\nabout the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT\nRATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the\nvalue of truth presented itself before us--or was it we who presented\nourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which\nthe Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of\ninterrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as\nif the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first\nto discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk\nin raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk.\n\n2. \"HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth\nout of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the\ngenerous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the\nwise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams\nof it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest\nvalue must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own--in this\ntransitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of\ndelusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in\nthe lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the\n'Thing-in-itself--THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!\"--This\nmode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which\nmetaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation\nis at the back of all their logical procedure; through this \"belief\" of\ntheirs, they exert themselves for their \"knowledge,\" for something that\nis in the end solemnly christened \"the Truth.\" The fundamental belief of\nmetaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred\neven to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where\ndoubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn\nvow, \"DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM.\" For it may be doubted, firstly, whether\nantitheses exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations\nand antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their\nseal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional\nperspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from\nbelow--\"frog perspectives,\" as it were, to borrow an expression current\namong painters. In spite of all the value which may belong to the true,\nthe positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher\nand more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to\npretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It\nmight even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and\nrespected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously\nrelated, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed\nthings--perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps!\nBut who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous \"Perhapses\"!\nFor that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of\nphilosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the\nreverse of those hitherto prevalent--philosophers of the dangerous\n\"Perhaps\" in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I\nsee such new philosophers beginning to appear.\n\n3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between\ntheir lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of\nconscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and\nit is so even in the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to\nlearn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and \"innateness.\" As\nlittle as the act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process\nand procedure of heredity, just as little is \"being-conscious\" OPPOSED\nto the instinctive in any decisive sense; the greater part of the\nconscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his\ninstincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and\nits seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak\nmore plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite\nmode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the\nuncertain, that illusion is less valuable than \"truth\" such valuations,\nin spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be\nonly superficial valuations, special kinds of _niaiserie_, such as may\nbe necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing,\nin effect, that man is not just the \"measure of things.\"\n\n4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is\nhere, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The\nquestion is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving,\nspecies-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally\ninclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic\njudgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that\nwithout a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of\nreality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable,\nwithout a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers,\nman could not live--that the renunciation of false opinions would be\na renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A\nCONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of\nvalue in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so,\nhas thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil.\n\n5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully\nand half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they\nare--how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in\nshort, how childish and childlike they are,--but that there is not\nenough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and\nvirtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in\nthe remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had\nbeen discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure,\ndivinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics,\nwho, fairer and foolisher, talk of \"inspiration\"), whereas, in fact, a\nprejudiced proposition, idea, or \"suggestion,\" which is generally\ntheir heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with\narguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not\nwish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their\nprejudices, which they dub \"truths,\"--and VERY far from having the\nconscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having\nthe good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be\nunderstood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence\nand self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally\nstiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic\nby-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his \"categorical\nimperative\"--makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small\namusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical\npreachers. Or, still more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by\nmeans of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and\nmask--in fact, the \"love of HIS wisdom,\" to translate the term fairly\nand squarely--in order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart\nof the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible\nmaiden, that Pallas Athene:--how much of personal timidity and\nvulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!\n\n6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up\ntill now has consisted of--namely, the confession of its originator, and\na species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover\nthat the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted\nthe true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown.\nIndeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a\nphilosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first\nask oneself: \"What morality do they (or does he) aim at?\" Accordingly,\nI do not believe that an \"impulse to knowledge\" is the father of\nphilosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made\nuse of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever\nconsiders the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining\nhow far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and\ncobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time\nor another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to\nlook upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate\nLORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as\nSUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in\nthe case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise--\"better,\" if\nyou will; there there may really be such a thing as an \"impulse to\nknowledge,\" some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well\nwound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of\nthe scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual\n\"interests\" of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another\ndirection--in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics;\nit is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little\nmachine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a\ngood philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not\nCHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the\ncontrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all,\nhis morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE\nIS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature\nstand to each other.\n\n7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging\nthan the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the\nPlatonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense,\nand on the face of it, the word signifies \"Flatterers of\nDionysius\"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles;\nbesides this, however, it is as much as to say, \"They are all ACTORS,\nthere is nothing genuine about them\" (for Dionysiokolax was a popular\nname for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that\nEpicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the\nmise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters--of\nwhich Epicurus was not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos,\nwho sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three\nhundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who\nknows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god\nEpicurus really was. Did she ever find out?\n\n8. There is a point in every philosophy at which the \"conviction\" of\nthe philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an\nancient mystery:\n\nAdventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus.\n\n9. You desire to LIVE \"according to Nature\"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what\nfraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly\nextravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration,\nwithout pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain:\nimagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live\nin accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just\nendeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing,\npreferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different?\nAnd granted that your imperative, \"living according to Nature,\" means\nactually the same as \"living according to life\"--how could you do\nDIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves\nare, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you:\nwhile you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature,\nyou want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players\nand self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and\nideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein;\nyou insist that it shall be Nature \"according to the Stoa,\" and would\nlike everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal\nglorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth,\nyou have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such\nhypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically,\nthat you are no longer able to see it otherwise--and to crown all, some\nunfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that\nBECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is\nself-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is\nnot the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting\nstory: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today,\nas soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always\ncreates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy\nis this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the\nwill to \"creation of the world,\" the will to the causa prima.\n\n10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with\nwhich the problem of \"the real and the apparent world\" is dealt with at\npresent throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention; and\nhe who hears only a \"Will to Truth\" in the background, and nothing else,\ncannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolated\ncases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Truth--a certain\nextravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition of the\nforlorn hope--has participated therein: that which in the end always\nprefers a handful of \"certainty\" to a whole cartload of beautiful\npossibilities; there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience,\nwho prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an\nuncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing,\nmortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a\nvirtue may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger\nand livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side\nAGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of \"perspective,\" in\nthat they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the\ncredibility of the ocular evidence that \"the earth stands still,\" and\nthus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession\nto escape (for what does one at present believe in more firmly than\nin one's body?),--who knows if they are not really trying to win back\nsomething which was formerly an even securer possession, something\nof the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the \"immortal\nsoul,\" perhaps \"the old God,\" in short, ideas by which they could live\nbetter, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by\n\"modern ideas\"? There is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode\nof looking at things, a disbelief in all that has been constructed\nyesterday and today; there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety\nand scorn, which can no longer endure the BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the\nmost varied origin, such as so-called Positivism at present throws on\nthe market; a disgust of the more refined taste at the village-fair\nmotleyness and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whom\nthere is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. Therein it\nseems to me that we should agree with those skeptical anti-realists and\nknowledge-microscopists of the present day; their instinct, which repels\nthem from MODERN reality, is unrefuted... what do their retrograde\nby-paths concern us! The main thing about them is NOT that they wish\nto go \"back,\" but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MORE\nstrength, swing, courage, and artistic power, and they would be OFF--and\nnot back!\n\n11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to\ndivert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on\nGerman philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which\nhe set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of\nCategories; with it in his hand he said: \"This is the most difficult\nthing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics.\" Let us\nonly understand this \"could be\"! He was proud of having DISCOVERED a\nnew faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting\nthat he deceived himself in this matter; the development and rapid\nflourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his pride, and\non the eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible\nsomething--at all events \"new faculties\"--of which to be still\nprouder!--But let us reflect for a moment--it is high time to do so.\n\"How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE?\" Kant asks himself--and\nwhat is really his answer? \"BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)\"--but\nunfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly,\nand with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that\none altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved\nin such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this\nnew faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further\ndiscovered a moral faculty in man--for at that time Germans were still\nmoral, not yet dabbling in the \"Politics of hard fact.\" Then came\nthe honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the\nTubingen institution went immediately into the groves--all seeking for\n\"faculties.\" And what did they not find--in that innocent, rich, and\nstill youthful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the\nmalicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish\nbetween \"finding\" and \"inventing\"! Above all a faculty for the\n\"transcendental\"; Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition,\nand thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the naturally\npious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of\nthis exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness,\nnotwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile\nconceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral\nindignation. Enough, however--the world grew older, and the dream\nvanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still\nrub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old\nKant. \"By means of a means (faculty)\"--he had said, or at least meant to\nsay. But, is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely\na repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? \"By means of\na means (faculty),\" namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in\nMoliere,\n\n    Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva,\n    Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.\n\nBut such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high time\nto replace the Kantian question, \"How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI\npossible?\" by another question, \"Why is belief in such judgments\nnecessary?\"--in effect, it is high time that we should understand\nthat such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the\npreservation of creatures like ourselves; though they still might\nnaturally be false judgments! Or, more plainly spoken, and roughly and\nreadily--synthetic judgments a priori should not \"be possible\" at all;\nwe have no right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false\njudgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as\nplausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective view\nof life. And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which\n\"German philosophy\"--I hope you understand its right to inverted commas\n(goosefeet)?--has exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is\nno doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it; thanks to\nGerman philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous,\nthe mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the\npolitical obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still\noverwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into\nthis, in short--\"sensus assoupire.\"...\n\n12. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted\ntheories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps\nno one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious\nsignification to it, except for convenient everyday use (as an\nabbreviation of the means of expression)--thanks chiefly to the Pole\nBoscovich: he and the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatest\nand most successful opponents of ocular evidence. For while Copernicus\nhas persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth\ndoes NOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the\nlast thing that \"stood fast\" of the earth--the belief in \"substance,\" in\n\"matter,\" in the earth-residuum, and particle-atom: it is the greatest\ntriumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth. One\nmust, however, go still further, and also declare war, relentless war\nto the knife, against the \"atomistic requirements\" which still lead a\ndangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more\ncelebrated \"metaphysical requirements\": one must also above all give\nthe finishing stroke to that other and more portentous atomism which\nChristianity has taught best and longest, the SOUL-ATOMISM. Let it be\npermitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the\nsoul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad,\nas an atomon: this belief ought to be expelled from science! Between\nourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of \"the soul\" thereby,\nand thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypotheses--as\nhappens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly\ntouch on the soul without immediately losing it. But the way is open\nfor new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis; and such\nconceptions as \"mortal soul,\" and \"soul of subjective multiplicity,\"\nand \"soul as social structure of the instincts and passions,\" want\nhenceforth to have legitimate rights in science. In that the NEW\npsychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have\nhitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of\nthe soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into a new desert\nand a new distrust--it is possible that the older psychologists had a\nmerrier and more comfortable time of it; eventually, however, he finds\nthat precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENT--and, who knows?\nperhaps to DISCOVER the new.\n\n13. Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the\ninstinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic\nbeing. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength--life\nitself is WILL TO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect\nand most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else,\nlet us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles!--one of which\nis the instinct of self-preservation (we owe it to Spinoza's\ninconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must\nbe essentially economy of principles.\n\n14. It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that natural\nphilosophy is only a world-exposition and world-arrangement (according\nto us, if I may say so!) and NOT a world-explanation; but in so far as\nit is based on belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a\nlong time to come must be regarded as more--namely, as an explanation.\nIt has eyes and fingers of its own, it has ocular evidence and\npalpableness of its own: this operates fascinatingly, persuasively, and\nCONVINCINGLY upon an age with fundamentally plebeian tastes--in fact, it\nfollows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism.\nWhat is clear, what is \"explained\"? Only that which can be seen and\nfelt--one must pursue every problem thus far. Obversely, however, the\ncharm of the Platonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode,\nconsisted precisely in RESISTANCE to obvious sense-evidence--perhaps\namong men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than our\ncontemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher triumph in remaining\nmasters of them: and this by means of pale, cold, grey conceptional\nnetworks which they threw over the motley whirl of the senses--the\nmob of the senses, as Plato said. In this overcoming of the world, and\ninterpreting of the world in the manner of Plato, there was an ENJOYMENT\ndifferent from that which the physicists of today offer us--and likewise\nthe Darwinists and anti-teleologists among the physiological workers,\nwith their principle of the \"smallest possible effort,\" and the greatest\npossible blunder. \"Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there\nis also nothing more for men to do\"--that is certainly an imperative\ndifferent from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the right\nimperative for a hardy, laborious race of machinists and bridge-builders\nof the future, who have nothing but ROUGH work to perform.\n\n15. To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on\nthe fact that the sense-organs are not phenomena in the sense of the\nidealistic philosophy; as such they certainly could not be causes!\nSensualism, therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not as\nheuristic principle. What? And others say even that the external world\nis the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external\nworld, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves\nwould be the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a\ncomplete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something\nfundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT the work\nof our organs--?\n\n16. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are\n\"immediate certainties\"; for instance, \"I think,\" or as the superstition\nof Schopenhauer puts it, \"I will\"; as though cognition here got hold\nof its object purely and simply as \"the thing in itself,\" without any\nfalsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the\nobject. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that \"immediate\ncertainty,\" as well as \"absolute knowledge\" and the \"thing in itself,\"\ninvolve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves\nfrom the misleading significance of words! The people on their part may\nthink that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher\nmust say to himself: \"When I analyze the process that is expressed in\nthe sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the\nargumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible:\nfor instance, that it is _I_ who think, that there must necessarily be\nsomething that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the\npart of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,'\nand finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by\nthinking--that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided\nwithin myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether\nthat which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In\nshort, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the\npresent moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to\ndetermine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with\nfurther 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for\nme.\"--In place of the \"immediate certainty\" in which the people may\nbelieve in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of\nmetaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions\nof the intellect, to wit: \"Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'?\nWhy do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak\nof an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego'\nas cause of thought?\" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical\nquestions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like\nthe person who says, \"I think, and know that this, at least, is\ntrue, actual, and certain\"--will encounter a smile and two notes of\ninterrogation in a philosopher nowadays. \"Sir,\" the philosopher will\nperhaps give him to understand, \"it is improbable that you are not\nmistaken, but why should it be the truth?\"\n\n17. With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire\nof emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by\nthese credulous minds--namely, that a thought comes when \"it\" wishes,\nand not when \"I\" wish; so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts of the\ncase to say that the subject \"I\" is the condition of the predicate\n\"think.\" ONE thinks; but that this \"one\" is precisely the famous old\n\"ego,\" is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and\nassuredly not an \"immediate certainty.\" After all, one has even gone too\nfar with this \"one thinks\"--even the \"one\" contains an INTERPRETATION of\nthe process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here\naccording to the usual grammatical formula--\"To think is an activity;\nevery activity requires an agency that is active; consequently\"... It\nwas pretty much on the same lines that the older atomism sought, besides\nthe operating \"power,\" the material particle wherein it resides and out\nof which it operates--the atom. More rigorous minds, however, learnt at\nlast to get along without this \"earth-residuum,\" and perhaps some day we\nshall accustom ourselves, even from the logician's point of view, to\nget along without the little \"one\" (to which the worthy old \"ego\" has\nrefined itself).\n\n18. It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is\nrefutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle\nminds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the \"free will\"\nowes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing\nwho feels himself strong enough to refute it.\n\n19. Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will as though it were\nthe best-known thing in the world; indeed, Schopenhauer has given us\nto understand that the will alone is really known to us, absolutely and\ncompletely known, without deduction or addition. But it again and\nagain seems to me that in this case Schopenhauer also only did what\nphilosophers are in the habit of doing--he seems to have adopted a\nPOPULAR PREJUDICE and exaggerated it. Willing seems to me to be above\nall something COMPLICATED, something that is a unity only in name--and\nit is precisely in a name that popular prejudice lurks, which has got\nthe mastery over the inadequate precautions of philosophers in all ages.\nSo let us for once be more cautious, let us be \"unphilosophical\": let\nus say that in all willing there is firstly a plurality of sensations,\nnamely, the sensation of the condition \"AWAY FROM WHICH we go,\" the\nsensation of the condition \"TOWARDS WHICH we go,\" the sensation of this\n\"FROM\" and \"TOWARDS\" itself, and then besides, an accompanying muscular\nsensation, which, even without our putting in motion \"arms and legs,\"\ncommences its action by force of habit, directly we \"will\" anything.\nTherefore, just as sensations (and indeed many kinds of sensations) are\nto be recognized as ingredients of the will, so, in the second place,\nthinking is also to be recognized; in every act of the will there is\na ruling thought;--and let us not imagine it possible to sever this\nthought from the \"willing,\" as if the will would then remain over!\nIn the third place, the will is not only a complex of sensation and\nthinking, but it is above all an EMOTION, and in fact the emotion of the\ncommand. That which is termed \"freedom of the will\" is essentially the\nemotion of supremacy in respect to him who must obey: \"I am free, 'he'\nmust obey\"--this consciousness is inherent in every will; and equally\nso the straining of the attention, the straight look which fixes itself\nexclusively on one thing, the unconditional judgment that \"this and\nnothing else is necessary now,\" the inward certainty that obedience\nwill be rendered--and whatever else pertains to the position of the\ncommander. A man who WILLS commands something within himself which\nrenders obedience, or which he believes renders obedience. But now let\nus notice what is the strangest thing about the will,--this affair so\nextremely complex, for which the people have only one name. Inasmuch as\nin the given circumstances we are at the same time the commanding AND\nthe obeying parties, and as the obeying party we know the sensations of\nconstraint, impulsion, pressure, resistance, and motion, which usually\ncommence immediately after the act of will; inasmuch as, on the other\nhand, we are accustomed to disregard this duality, and to deceive\nourselves about it by means of the synthetic term \"I\": a whole series\nof erroneous conclusions, and consequently of false judgments about the\nwill itself, has become attached to the act of willing--to such a degree\nthat he who wills believes firmly that willing SUFFICES for action.\nSince in the majority of cases there has only been exercise of will\nwhen the effect of the command--consequently obedience, and therefore\naction--was to be EXPECTED, the APPEARANCE has translated itself into\nthe sentiment, as if there were a NECESSITY OF EFFECT; in a word, he who\nwills believes with a fair amount of certainty that will and action are\nsomehow one; he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing,\nto the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation\nof power which accompanies all success. \"Freedom of Will\"--that is the\nexpression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising\nvolition, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with\nthe executor of the order--who, as such, enjoys also the triumph over\nobstacles, but thinks within himself that it was really his own will\nthat overcame them. In this way the person exercising volition adds the\nfeelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful\n\"underwills\" or under-souls--indeed, our body is but a social structure\ncomposed of many souls--to his feelings of delight as commander. L'EFFET\nC'EST MOI. what happens here is what happens in every well-constructed\nand happy commonwealth, namely, that the governing class identifies\nitself with the successes of the commonwealth. In all willing it is\nabsolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as\nalready said, of a social structure composed of many \"souls\", on which\naccount a philosopher should claim the right to include willing-as-such\nwithin the sphere of morals--regarded as the doctrine of the relations\nof supremacy under which the phenomenon of \"life\" manifests itself.\n\n20. That the separate philosophical ideas are not anything optional or\nautonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with\neach other, that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear\nin the history of thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to\na system as the collective members of the fauna of a Continent--is\nbetrayed in the end by the circumstance: how unfailingly the most\ndiverse philosophers always fill in again a definite fundamental scheme\nof POSSIBLE philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolve\nonce more in the same orbit, however independent of each other they\nmay feel themselves with their critical or systematic wills, something\nwithin them leads them, something impels them in definite order the\none after the other--to wit, the innate methodology and relationship\nof their ideas. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than a\nre-recognizing, a remembering, a return and a home-coming to a far-off,\nancient common-household of the soul, out of which those ideas formerly\ngrew: philosophizing is so far a kind of atavism of the highest order.\nThe wonderful family resemblance of all Indian, Greek, and German\nphilosophizing is easily enough explained. In fact, where there is\naffinity of language, owing to the common philosophy of grammar--I mean\nowing to the unconscious domination and guidance of similar grammatical\nfunctions--it cannot but be that everything is prepared at the outset\nfor a similar development and succession of philosophical systems,\njust as the way seems barred against certain other possibilities of\nworld-interpretation. It is highly probable that philosophers within the\ndomain of the Ural-Altaic languages (where the conception of the subject\nis least developed) look otherwise \"into the world,\" and will be\nfound on paths of thought different from those of the Indo-Germans and\nMussulmans, the spell of certain grammatical functions is ultimately\nalso the spell of PHYSIOLOGICAL valuations and racial conditions.--So\nmuch by way of rejecting Locke's superficiality with regard to the\norigin of ideas.\n\n21. The CAUSA SUI is the best self-contradiction that has yet been\nconceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness; but the\nextravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and\nfrightfully with this very folly. The desire for \"freedom of will\"\nin the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway,\nunfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear\nthe entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and\nto absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom,\ninvolves nothing less than to be precisely this CAUSA SUI, and, with\nmore than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the\nhair, out of the slough of nothingness. If any one should find out in\nthis manner the crass stupidity of the celebrated conception of \"free\nwill\" and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry\nhis \"enlightenment\" a step further, and also put out of his head the\ncontrary of this monstrous conception of \"free will\": I mean \"non-free\nwill,\" which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One\nshould not wrongly MATERIALISE \"cause\" and \"effect,\" as the natural\nphilosophers do (and whoever like them naturalize in thinking at\npresent), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes\nthe cause press and push until it \"effects\" its end; one should use\n\"cause\" and \"effect\" only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that is to say, as\nconventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual\nunderstanding,--NOT for explanation. In \"being-in-itself\" there is\nnothing of \"casual-connection,\" of \"necessity,\" or of \"psychological\nnon-freedom\"; there the effect does NOT follow the cause, there \"law\"\ndoes not obtain. It is WE alone who have devised cause, sequence,\nreciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive,\nand purpose; and when we interpret and intermix this symbol-world,\nas \"being-in-itself,\" with things, we act once more as we have always\nacted--MYTHOLOGICALLY. The \"non-free will\" is mythology; in real life\nit is only a question of STRONG and WEAK wills.--It is almost always\na symptom of what is lacking in himself, when a thinker, in every\n\"causal-connection\" and \"psychological necessity,\" manifests something\nof compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness, oppression, and non-freedom;\nit is suspicious to have such feelings--the person betrays himself. And\nin general, if I have observed correctly, the \"non-freedom of the will\"\nis regarded as a problem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but\nalways in a profoundly PERSONAL manner: some will not give up their\n\"responsibility,\" their belief in THEMSELVES, the personal right to\nTHEIR merits, at any price (the vain races belong to this class); others\non the contrary, do not wish to be answerable for anything, or blamed\nfor anything, and owing to an inward self-contempt, seek to GET OUT OF\nTHE BUSINESS, no matter how. The latter, when they write books, are\nin the habit at present of taking the side of criminals; a sort of\nsocialistic sympathy is their favourite disguise. And as a matter of\nfact, the fatalism of the weak-willed embellishes itself surprisingly\nwhen it can pose as \"la religion de la souffrance humaine\"; that is ITS\n\"good taste.\"\n\n22. Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist who cannot desist from\nthe mischief of putting his finger on bad modes of interpretation, but\n\"Nature's conformity to law,\" of which you physicists talk so proudly,\nas though--why, it exists only owing to your interpretation and bad\n\"philology.\" It is no matter of fact, no \"text,\" but rather just a\nnaively humanitarian adjustment and perversion of meaning, with which\nyou make abundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the modern\nsoul! \"Everywhere equality before the law--Nature is not different in\nthat respect, nor better than we\": a fine instance of secret motive,\nin which the vulgar antagonism to everything privileged and\nautocratic--likewise a second and more refined atheism--is once more\ndisguised. \"Ni dieu, ni maitre\"--that, also, is what you want; and\ntherefore \"Cheers for natural law!\"--is it not so? But, as has been\nsaid, that is interpretation, not text; and somebody might come along,\nwho, with opposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could read\nout of the same \"Nature,\" and with regard to the same phenomena, just\nthe tyrannically inconsiderate and relentless enforcement of the claims\nof power--an interpreter who should so place the unexceptionalness and\nunconditionalness of all \"Will to Power\" before your eyes, that almost\nevery word, and the word \"tyranny\" itself, would eventually seem\nunsuitable, or like a weakening and softening metaphor--as being too\nhuman; and who should, nevertheless, end by asserting the same about\nthis world as you do, namely, that it has a \"necessary\" and \"calculable\"\ncourse, NOT, however, because laws obtain in it, but because they are\nabsolutely LACKING, and every power effects its ultimate consequences\nevery moment. Granted that this also is only interpretation--and you\nwill be eager enough to make this objection?--well, so much the better.\n\n23. All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and\ntimidities, it has not dared to launch out into the depths. In so far\nas it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been written,\nevidence of that which has hitherto been kept silent, it seems as if\nnobody had yet harboured the notion of psychology as the Morphology\nand DEVELOPMENT-DOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it.\nThe power of moral prejudices has penetrated deeply into the most\nintellectual world, the world apparently most indifferent and\nunprejudiced, and has obviously operated in an injurious, obstructive,\nblinding, and distorting manner. A proper physio-psychology has to\ncontend with unconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator,\nit has \"the heart\" against it even a doctrine of the reciprocal\nconditionalness of the \"good\" and the \"bad\" impulses, causes (as\nrefined immorality) distress and aversion in a still strong and manly\nconscience--still more so, a doctrine of the derivation of all good\nimpulses from bad ones. If, however, a person should regard even\nthe emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness\nas life-conditioning emotions, as factors which must be present,\nfundamentally and essentially, in the general economy of life (which\nmust, therefore, be further developed if life is to be further\ndeveloped), he will suffer from such a view of things as from\nsea-sickness. And yet this hypothesis is far from being the strangest\nand most painful in this immense and almost new domain of dangerous\nknowledge, and there are in fact a hundred good reasons why every one\nshould keep away from it who CAN do so! On the other hand, if one has\nonce drifted hither with one's bark, well! very good! now let us set our\nteeth firmly! let us open our eyes and keep our hand fast on the helm!\nWe sail away right OVER morality, we crush out, we destroy perhaps the\nremains of our own morality by daring to make our voyage thither--but\nwhat do WE matter. Never yet did a PROFOUNDER world of insight reveal\nitself to daring travelers and adventurers, and the psychologist who\nthus \"makes a sacrifice\"--it is not the sacrifizio dell' intelletto,\non the contrary!--will at least be entitled to demand in return that\npsychology shall once more be recognized as the queen of the sciences,\nfor whose service and equipment the other sciences exist. For psychology\nis once more the path to the fundamental problems.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. THE FREE SPIRIT\n\n\n24. O sancta simplicitas! In what strange simplification and\nfalsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has\ngot eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around\nus clear and free and easy and simple! how we have been able to give\nour senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a godlike\ndesire for wanton pranks and wrong inferences!--how from the beginning,\nwe have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost\ninconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness,\nand gaiety--in order to enjoy life! And only on this solidified,\ngranite-like foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself\nhitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful\nwill, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as\nits opposite, but--as its refinement! It is to be hoped, indeed, that\nLANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and that\nit will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees\nand many refinements of gradation; it is equally to be hoped that the\nincarnated Tartuffery of morals, which now belongs to our unconquerable\n\"flesh and blood,\" will turn the words round in the mouths of us\ndiscerning ones. Here and there we understand it, and laugh at the way\nin which precisely the best knowledge seeks most to retain us in this\nSIMPLIFIED, thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, and suitably\nfalsified world: at the way in which, whether it will or not, it loves\nerror, because, as living itself, it loves life!\n\n25. After such a cheerful commencement, a serious word would fain be\nheard; it appeals to the most serious minds. Take care, ye philosophers\nand friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering \"for the\ntruth's sake\"! even in your own defense! It spoils all the innocence\nand fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against\nobjections and red rags; it stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes, when\nin the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even\nworse consequences of enmity, ye have at last to play your last card\nas protectors of truth upon earth--as though \"the Truth\" were such an\ninnocent and incompetent creature as to require protectors! and you of\nall people, ye knights of the sorrowful countenance, Messrs Loafers and\nCobweb-spinners of the spirit! Finally, ye know sufficiently well that\nit cannot be of any consequence if YE just carry your point; ye know\nthat hitherto no philosopher has carried his point, and that there might\nbe a more laudable truthfulness in every little interrogative mark\nwhich you place after your special words and favourite doctrines (and\noccasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemn pantomime and\ntrumping games before accusers and law-courts! Rather go out of the way!\nFlee into concealment! And have your masks and your ruses, that ye may\nbe mistaken for what you are, or somewhat feared! And pray, don't forget\nthe garden, the garden with golden trellis-work! And have people around\nyou who are as a garden--or as music on the waters at eventide, when\nalready the day becomes a memory. Choose the GOOD solitude, the free,\nwanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you the right still to\nremain good in any sense whatsoever! How poisonous, how crafty, how bad,\ndoes every long war make one, which cannot be waged openly by means\nof force! How PERSONAL does a long fear make one, a long watching\nof enemies, of possible enemies! These pariahs of society, these\nlong-pursued, badly-persecuted ones--also the compulsory recluses, the\nSpinozas or Giordano Brunos--always become in the end, even under the\nmost intellectual masquerade, and perhaps without being themselves aware\nof it, refined vengeance-seekers and poison-Brewers (just lay bare\nthe foundation of Spinoza's ethics and theology!), not to speak of\nthe stupidity of moral indignation, which is the unfailing sign in a\nphilosopher that the sense of philosophical humour has left him. The\nmartyrdom of the philosopher, his \"sacrifice for the sake of truth,\"\nforces into the light whatever of the agitator and actor lurks in him;\nand if one has hitherto contemplated him only with artistic curiosity,\nwith regard to many a philosopher it is easy to understand the dangerous\ndesire to see him also in his deterioration (deteriorated into a\n\"martyr,\" into a stage-and-tribune-bawler). Only, that it is necessary\nwith such a desire to be clear WHAT spectacle one will see in any\ncase--merely a satyric play, merely an epilogue farce, merely the\ncontinued proof that the long, real tragedy IS AT AN END, supposing that\nevery philosophy has been a long tragedy in its origin.\n\n26. Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy,\nwhere he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority--where he may\nforget \"men who are the rule,\" as their exception;--exclusive only of\nthe case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger\ninstinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in\nintercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green\nand grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy,\ngloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes;\nsupposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden\nand disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains,\nas I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then\ncertain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as\nsuch, he would one day have to say to himself: \"The devil take my good\ntaste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception--than\nmyself, the exception!\" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would\ngo \"inside.\" The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man--and\nconsequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad\nintercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's\nequals):--that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every\nphilosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing\npart. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge\nshould be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and\nlighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize\nthe animal, the commonplace and \"the rule\" in themselves, and at the\nsame time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them\ntalk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES--sometimes they\nwallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only\nform in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the\nhigher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and\ncongratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before\nhim, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where\nenchantment mixes with the disgust--namely, where by a freak of nature,\ngenius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the\ncase of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also\nfilthiest man of his century--he was far profounder than Voltaire, and\nconsequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently,\nas has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a\nfine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means\nrare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever\nanyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man\nas a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one\nsees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity\nas the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one\nspeaks \"badly\"--and not even \"ill\"--of man, then ought the lover of\nknowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general,\nto have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the\nindignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with\nhis own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society),\nmay indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and\nself-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary,\nmore indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR\nas the indignant man.\n\n27. It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and\nlives gangasrotogati [Footnote: Like the river Ganges: presto.] among\nthose only who think and live otherwise--namely, kurmagati [Footnote:\nLike the tortoise: lento.], or at best \"froglike,\" mandeikagati\n[Footnote: Like the frog: staccato.] (I do everything to be \"difficultly\nunderstood\" myself!)--and one should be heartily grateful for the\ngood will to some refinement of interpretation. As regards \"the good\nfriends,\" however, who are always too easy-going, and think that as\nfriends they have a right to ease, one does well at the very first to\ngrant them a play-ground and romping-place for misunderstanding--one can\nthus laugh still; or get rid of them altogether, these good friends--and\nlaugh then also!\n\n28. What is most difficult to render from one language into another\nis the TEMPO of its style, which has its basis in the character of the\nrace, or to speak more physiologically, in the average TEMPO of the\nassimilation of its nutriment. There are honestly meant translations,\nwhich, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almost falsifications of the\noriginal, merely because its lively and merry TEMPO (which overleaps and\nobviates all dangers in word and expression) could not also be\nrendered. A German is almost incapacitated for PRESTO in his language;\nconsequently also, as may be reasonably inferred, for many of the most\ndelightful and daring NUANCES of free, free-spirited thought. And just\nas the buffoon and satyr are foreign to him in body and conscience,\nso Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything\nponderous, viscous, and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying\nspecies of style, are developed in profuse variety among Germans--pardon\nme for stating the fact that even Goethe's prose, in its mixture of\nstiffness and elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the \"good\nold time\" to which it belongs, and as an expression of German taste at a\ntime when there was still a \"German taste,\" which was a rococo-taste\nin moribus et artibus. Lessing is an exception, owing to his histrionic\nnature, which understood much, and was versed in many things; he who was\nnot the translator of Bayle to no purpose, who took refuge willingly in\nthe shadow of Diderot and Voltaire, and still more willingly among the\nRoman comedy-writers--Lessing loved also free-spiritism in the TEMPO,\nand flight out of Germany. But how could the German language, even\nin the prose of Lessing, imitate the TEMPO of Machiavelli, who in his\n\"Principe\" makes us breathe the dry, fine air of Florence, and cannot\nhelp presenting the most serious events in a boisterous allegrissimo,\nperhaps not without a malicious artistic sense of the contrast he\nventures to present--long, heavy, difficult, dangerous thoughts, and\na TEMPO of the gallop, and of the best, wantonest humour? Finally, who\nwould venture on a German translation of Petronius, who, more than any\ngreat musician hitherto, was a master of PRESTO in invention, ideas, and\nwords? What matter in the end about the swamps of the sick, evil world,\nor of the \"ancient world,\" when like him, one has the feet of a wind,\nthe rush, the breath, the emancipating scorn of a wind, which makes\neverything healthy, by making everything RUN! And with regard to\nAristophanes--that transfiguring, complementary genius, for whose\nsake one PARDONS all Hellenism for having existed, provided one has\nunderstood in its full profundity ALL that there requires pardon and\ntransfiguration; there is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on\nPLATO'S secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit\nfait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no\n\"Bible,\" nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic--but a book of\nAristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life--a Greek life which\nhe repudiated--without an Aristophanes!\n\n29. It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a\nprivilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best\nright, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably\nnot only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a\nlabyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself\nalready brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see\nhow and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal\nby some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it\nis so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor\nsympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go\nback again to the sympathy of men!\n\n30. Our deepest insights must--and should--appear as follies, and under\ncertain circumstances as crimes, when they come unauthorizedly to\nthe ears of those who are not disposed and predestined for them. The\nexoteric and the esoteric, as they were formerly distinguished by\nphilosophers--among the Indians, as among the Greeks, Persians, and\nMussulmans, in short, wherever people believed in gradations of rank and\nNOT in equality and equal rights--are not so much in contradistinction\nto one another in respect to the exoteric class, standing without, and\nviewing, estimating, measuring, and judging from the outside, and not\nfrom the inside; the more essential distinction is that the class in\nquestion views things from below upwards--while the esoteric class views\nthings FROM ABOVE DOWNWARDS. There are heights of the soul from which\ntragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; and if all the\nwoe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether\nthe sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and\nthus to a doubling of the woe?... That which serves the higher class of\nmen for nourishment or refreshment, must be almost poison to an entirely\ndifferent and lower order of human beings. The virtues of the common\nman would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a philosopher; it might be\npossible for a highly developed man, supposing him to degenerate and go\nto ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone, for the sake of which he\nwould have to be honoured as a saint in the lower world into which he\nhad sunk. There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and\nthe health according as the inferior soul and the lower vitality, or the\nhigher and more powerful, make use of them. In the former case they are\ndangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter case they are\nherald-calls which summon the bravest to THEIR bravery. Books for the\ngeneral reader are always ill-smelling books, the odour of paltry people\nclings to them. Where the populace eat and drink, and even where they\nreverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go into churches if\none wishes to breathe PURE air.\n\n31. In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art\nof NUANCE, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do\nhard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay.\nEverything is so arranged that the worst of all tastes, THE TASTE FOR\nTHE UNCONDITIONAL, is cruelly befooled and abused, until a man learns\nto introduce a little art into his sentiments, and prefers to try\nconclusions with the artificial, as do the real artists of life. The\nangry and reverent spirit peculiar to youth appears to allow itself no\npeace, until it has suitably falsified men and things, to be able\nto vent its passion upon them: youth in itself even, is something\nfalsifying and deceptive. Later on, when the young soul, tortured by\ncontinual disillusions, finally turns suspiciously against itself--still\nardent and savage even in its suspicion and remorse of conscience: how\nit upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how it revenges\nitself for its long self-blinding, as though it had been a voluntary\nblindness! In this transition one punishes oneself by distrust of one's\nsentiments; one tortures one's enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the\ngood conscience to be a danger, as if it were the self-concealment and\nlassitude of a more refined uprightness; and above all, one espouses\nupon principle the cause AGAINST \"youth.\"--A decade later, and one\ncomprehends that all this was also still--youth!\n\n32. Throughout the longest period of human history--one calls it the\nprehistoric period--the value or non-value of an action was inferred\nfrom its CONSEQUENCES; the action in itself was not taken into\nconsideration, any more than its origin; but pretty much as in China at\npresent, where the distinction or disgrace of a child redounds to\nits parents, the retro-operating power of success or failure was what\ninduced men to think well or ill of an action. Let us call this period\nthe PRE-MORAL period of mankind; the imperative, \"Know thyself!\" was\nthen still unknown.--In the last ten thousand years, on the other hand,\non certain large portions of the earth, one has gradually got so far,\nthat one no longer lets the consequences of an action, but its origin,\ndecide with regard to its worth: a great achievement as a whole, an\nimportant refinement of vision and of criterion, the unconscious effect\nof the supremacy of aristocratic values and of the belief in \"origin,\"\nthe mark of a period which may be designated in the narrower sense as\nthe MORAL one: the first attempt at self-knowledge is thereby\nmade. Instead of the consequences, the origin--what an inversion\nof perspective! And assuredly an inversion effected only after long\nstruggle and wavering! To be sure, an ominous new superstition, a\npeculiar narrowness of interpretation, attained supremacy precisely\nthereby: the origin of an action was interpreted in the most definite\nsense possible, as origin out of an INTENTION; people were agreed in the\nbelief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention.\nThe intention as the sole origin and antecedent history of an action:\nunder the influence of this prejudice moral praise and blame have been\nbestowed, and men have judged and even philosophized almost up to the\npresent day.--Is it not possible, however, that the necessity may now\nhave arisen of again making up our minds with regard to the reversing\nand fundamental shifting of values, owing to a new self-consciousness\nand acuteness in man--is it not possible that we may be standing on\nthe threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished\nnegatively as ULTRA-MORAL: nowadays when, at least among us immoralists,\nthe suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely\nin that which is NOT INTENTIONAL, and that all its intentionalness, all\nthat is seen, sensible, or \"sensed\" in it, belongs to its surface or\nskin--which, like every skin, betrays something, but CONCEALS still\nmore? In short, we believe that the intention is only a sign or symptom,\nwhich first requires an explanation--a sign, moreover, which has too\nmany interpretations, and consequently hardly any meaning in itself\nalone: that morality, in the sense in which it has been understood\nhitherto, as intention-morality, has been a prejudice, perhaps a\nprematureness or preliminariness, probably something of the same rank\nas astrology and alchemy, but in any case something which must be\nsurmounted. The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the\nself-mounting of morality--let that be the name for the long-secret\nlabour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright,\nand also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones\nof the soul.\n\n33. It cannot be helped: the sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for\none's neighbour, and all self-renunciation-morality, must be mercilessly\ncalled to account, and brought to judgment; just as the aesthetics\nof \"disinterested contemplation,\" under which the emasculation of art\nnowadays seeks insidiously enough to create itself a good conscience.\nThere is far too much witchery and sugar in the sentiments \"for others\"\nand \"NOT for myself,\" for one not needing to be doubly distrustful here,\nand for one asking promptly: \"Are they not perhaps--DECEPTIONS?\"--That\nthey PLEASE--him who has them, and him who enjoys their fruit, and also\nthe mere spectator--that is still no argument in their FAVOUR, but just\ncalls for caution. Let us therefore be cautious!\n\n34. At whatever standpoint of philosophy one may place oneself nowadays,\nseen from every position, the ERRONEOUSNESS of the world in which we\nthink we live is the surest and most certain thing our eyes can light\nupon: we find proof after proof thereof, which would fain allure us into\nsurmises concerning a deceptive principle in the \"nature of things.\"\nHe, however, who makes thinking itself, and consequently \"the spirit,\"\nresponsible for the falseness of the world--an honourable exit, which\nevery conscious or unconscious advocatus dei avails himself of--he\nwho regards this world, including space, time, form, and movement, as\nfalsely DEDUCED, would have at least good reason in the end to become\ndistrustful also of all thinking; has it not hitherto been playing upon\nus the worst of scurvy tricks? and what guarantee would it give that\nit would not continue to do what it has always been doing? In all\nseriousness, the innocence of thinkers has something touching and\nrespect-inspiring in it, which even nowadays permits them to wait upon\nconsciousness with the request that it will give them HONEST answers:\nfor example, whether it be \"real\" or not, and why it keeps the outer\nworld so resolutely at a distance, and other questions of the same\ndescription. The belief in \"immediate certainties\" is a MORAL NAIVETE\nwhich does honour to us philosophers; but--we have now to cease being\n\"MERELY moral\" men! Apart from morality, such belief is a folly which\ndoes little honour to us! If in middle-class life an ever-ready distrust\nis regarded as the sign of a \"bad character,\" and consequently as an\nimprudence, here among us, beyond the middle-class world and its Yeas\nand Nays, what should prevent our being imprudent and saying: the\nphilosopher has at length a RIGHT to \"bad character,\" as the being who\nhas hitherto been most befooled on earth--he is now under OBLIGATION\nto distrustfulness, to the wickedest squinting out of every abyss of\nsuspicion.--Forgive me the joke of this gloomy grimace and turn of\nexpression; for I myself have long ago learned to think and estimate\ndifferently with regard to deceiving and being deceived, and I keep at\nleast a couple of pokes in the ribs ready for the blind rage with which\nphilosophers struggle against being deceived. Why NOT? It is nothing\nmore than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than semblance; it\nis, in fact, the worst proved supposition in the world. So much must be\nconceded: there could have been no life at all except upon the basis\nof perspective estimates and semblances; and if, with the virtuous\nenthusiasm and stupidity of many philosophers, one wished to do away\naltogether with the \"seeming world\"--well, granted that YOU could do\nthat,--at least nothing of your \"truth\" would thereby remain! Indeed,\nwhat is it that forces us in general to the supposition that there is an\nessential opposition of \"true\" and \"false\"? Is it not enough to suppose\ndegrees of seemingness, and as it were lighter and darker shades and\ntones of semblance--different valeurs, as the painters say? Why might\nnot the world WHICH CONCERNS US--be a fiction? And to any one who\nsuggested: \"But to a fiction belongs an originator?\"--might it not be\nbluntly replied: WHY? May not this \"belong\" also belong to the fiction?\nIs it not at length permitted to be a little ironical towards the\nsubject, just as towards the predicate and object? Might not the\nphilosopher elevate himself above faith in grammar? All respect\nto governesses, but is it not time that philosophy should renounce\ngoverness-faith?\n\n35. O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in\n\"the truth,\" and in the SEARCH for the truth; and if man goes about it\ntoo humanely--\"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien\"--I wager he\nfinds nothing!\n\n36. Supposing that nothing else is \"given\" as real but our world of\ndesires and passions, that we cannot sink or rise to any other \"reality\"\nbut just that of our impulses--for thinking is only a relation of these\nimpulses to one another:--are we not permitted to make the attempt and\nto ask the question whether this which is \"given\" does not SUFFICE, by\nmeans of our counterparts, for the understanding even of the so-called\nmechanical (or \"material\") world? I do not mean as an illusion, a\n\"semblance,\" a \"representation\" (in the Berkeleyan and Schopenhauerian\nsense), but as possessing the same degree of reality as our emotions\nthemselves--as a more primitive form of the world of emotions, in\nwhich everything still lies locked in a mighty unity, which afterwards\nbranches off and develops itself in organic processes (naturally also,\nrefines and debilitates)--as a kind of instinctive life in which all\norganic functions, including self-regulation, assimilation, nutrition,\nsecretion, and change of matter, are still synthetically united with\none another--as a PRIMARY FORM of life?--In the end, it is not only\npermitted to make this attempt, it is commanded by the conscience of\nLOGICAL METHOD. Not to assume several kinds of causality, so long as\nthe attempt to get along with a single one has not been pushed to its\nfurthest extent (to absurdity, if I may be allowed to say so): that is\na morality of method which one may not repudiate nowadays--it follows\n\"from its definition,\" as mathematicians say. The question is ultimately\nwhether we really recognize the will as OPERATING, whether we believe in\nthe causality of the will; if we do so--and fundamentally our belief IN\nTHIS is just our belief in causality itself--we MUST make the attempt\nto posit hypothetically the causality of the will as the only causality.\n\"Will\" can naturally only operate on \"will\"--and not on \"matter\" (not\non \"nerves,\" for instance): in short, the hypothesis must be\nhazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever \"effects\"\nare recognized--and whether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a power\noperates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect of will.\nGranted, finally, that we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive\nlife as the development and ramification of one fundamental form of\nwill--namely, the Will to Power, as my thesis puts it; granted that all\norganic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power, and that\nthe solution of the problem of generation and nutrition--it is one\nproblem--could also be found therein: one would thus have acquired the\nright to define ALL active force unequivocally as WILL TO POWER. The\nworld seen from within, the world defined and designated according to\nits \"intelligible character\"--it would simply be \"Will to Power,\" and\nnothing else.\n\n37. \"What? Does not that mean in popular language: God is disproved, but\nnot the devil?\"--On the contrary! On the contrary, my friends! And who\nthe devil also compels you to speak popularly!\n\n38. As happened finally in all the enlightenment of modern times with\nthe French Revolution (that terrible farce, quite superfluous when\njudged close at hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary\nspectators of all Europe have interpreted from a distance their own\nindignation and enthusiasm so long and passionately, UNTIL THE TEXT HAS\nDISAPPEARED UNDER THE INTERPRETATION), so a noble posterity might once\nmore misunderstand the whole of the past, and perhaps only thereby make\nITS aspect endurable.--Or rather, has not this already happened? Have\nnot we ourselves been--that \"noble posterity\"? And, in so far as we now\ncomprehend this, is it not--thereby already past?\n\n39. Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as true merely because\nit makes people happy or virtuous--excepting, perhaps, the amiable\n\"Idealists,\" who are enthusiastic about the good, true, and beautiful,\nand let all kinds of motley, coarse, and good-natured desirabilities\nswim about promiscuously in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no\narguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of\nthoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as\nlittle counter-arguments. A thing could be TRUE, although it were in\nthe highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental\nconstitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full\nknowledge of it--so that the strength of a mind might be measured by\nthe amount of \"truth\" it could endure--or to speak more plainly, by the\nextent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped,\nand falsified. But there is no doubt that for the discovery of certain\nPORTIONS of truth the wicked and unfortunate are more favourably\nsituated and have a greater likelihood of success; not to speak of the\nwicked who are happy--a species about whom moralists are silent. Perhaps\nseverity and craft are more favourable conditions for the development of\nstrong, independent spirits and philosophers than the gentle, refined,\nyielding good-nature, and habit of taking things easily, which are\nprized, and rightly prized in a learned man. Presupposing always,\nto begin with, that the term \"philosopher\" be not confined to the\nphilosopher who writes books, or even introduces HIS philosophy into\nbooks!--Stendhal furnishes a last feature of the portrait of the\nfree-spirited philosopher, which for the sake of German taste I will\nnot omit to underline--for it is OPPOSED to German taste. \"Pour etre\nbon philosophe,\" says this last great psychologist, \"il faut etre sec,\nclair, sans illusion. Un banquier, qui a fait fortune, a une partie du\ncaractere requis pour faire des decouvertes en philosophie, c'est-a-dire\npour voir clair dans ce qui est.\"\n\n40. Everything that is profound loves the mask: the profoundest things\nhave a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the CONTRARY only\nbe the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? A question\nworth asking!--it would be strange if some mystic has not already\nventured on the same kind of thing. There are proceedings of such a\ndelicate nature that it is well to overwhelm them with coarseness\nand make them unrecognizable; there are actions of love and of an\nextravagant magnanimity after which nothing can be wiser than to take\na stick and thrash the witness soundly: one thereby obscures his\nrecollection. Many a one is able to obscure and abuse his own memory, in\norder at least to have vengeance on this sole party in the secret:\nshame is inventive. They are not the worst things of which one is\nmost ashamed: there is not only deceit behind a mask--there is so much\ngoodness in craft. I could imagine that a man with something costly and\nfragile to conceal, would roll through life clumsily and rotundly like\nan old, green, heavily-hooped wine-cask: the refinement of his shame\nrequiring it to be so. A man who has depths in his shame meets his\ndestiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach,\nand with regard to the existence of which his nearest and most intimate\nfriends may be ignorant; his mortal danger conceals itself from their\neyes, and equally so his regained security. Such a hidden nature,\nwhich instinctively employs speech for silence and concealment, and is\ninexhaustible in evasion of communication, DESIRES and insists that a\nmask of himself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of his\nfriends; and supposing he does not desire it, his eyes will some day be\nopened to the fact that there is nevertheless a mask of him there--and\nthat it is well to be so. Every profound spirit needs a mask; nay, more,\naround every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to\nthe constantly false, that is to say, SUPERFICIAL interpretation\nof every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he\nmanifests.\n\n41. One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined\nfor independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not\navoid one's tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous\ngame one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves\nand before no other judge. Not to cleave to any person, be it even the\ndearest--every person is a prison and also a recess. Not to cleave to\na fatherland, be it even the most suffering and necessitous--it is even\nless difficult to detach one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not\nto cleave to a sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiar\ntorture and helplessness chance has given us an insight. Not to cleave\nto a science, though it tempt one with the most valuable discoveries,\napparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own\nliberation, to the voluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, which\nalways flies further aloft in order always to see more under it--the\ndanger of the flier. Not to cleave to our own virtues, nor become as\na whole a victim to any of our specialties, to our \"hospitality\" for\ninstance, which is the danger of dangers for highly developed\nand wealthy souls, who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with\nthemselves, and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes\na vice. One must know how TO CONSERVE ONESELF--the best test of\nindependence.\n\n42. A new order of philosophers is appearing; I shall venture to baptize\nthem by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far\nas they allow themselves to be understood--for it is their nature to\nWISH to remain something of a puzzle--these philosophers of the\nfuture might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as\n\"tempters.\" This name itself is after all only an attempt, or, if it be\npreferred, a temptation.\n\n43. Will they be new friends of \"truth,\" these coming philosophers? Very\nprobably, for all philosophers hitherto have loved their truths. But\nassuredly they will not be dogmatists. It must be contrary to their\npride, and also contrary to their taste, that their truth should still\nbe truth for every one--that which has hitherto been the secret wish\nand ultimate purpose of all dogmatic efforts. \"My opinion is MY opinion:\nanother person has not easily a right to it\"--such a philosopher of the\nfuture will say, perhaps. One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to\nagree with many people. \"Good\" is no longer good when one's neighbour\ntakes it into his mouth. And how could there be a \"common good\"! The\nexpression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of\nsmall value. In the end things must be as they are and have always\nbeen--the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the\nprofound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up\nshortly, everything rare for the rare.\n\n\n44. Need I say expressly after all this that they will be free, VERY\nfree spirits, these philosophers of the future--as certainly also they\nwill not be merely free spirits, but something more, higher, greater,\nand fundamentally different, which does not wish to be misunderstood and\nmistaken? But while I say this, I feel under OBLIGATION almost as much\nto them as to ourselves (we free spirits who are their heralds and\nforerunners), to sweep away from ourselves altogether a stupid old\nprejudice and misunderstanding, which, like a fog, has too long made the\nconception of \"free spirit\" obscure. In every country of Europe, and the\nsame in America, there is at present something which makes an abuse of\nthis name a very narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits,\nwho desire almost the opposite of what our intentions and instincts\nprompt--not to mention that in respect to the NEW philosophers who are\nappearing, they must still more be closed windows and bolted doors.\nBriefly and regrettably, they belong to the LEVELLERS, these wrongly\nnamed \"free spirits\"--as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of\nthe democratic taste and its \"modern ideas\" all of them men without\nsolitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom\nneither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied, only, they\nare not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their\ninnate partiality for seeing the cause of almost ALL human misery and\nfailure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed--a notion\nwhich happily inverts the truth entirely! What they would fain attain\nwith all their strength, is the universal, green-meadow happiness of the\nherd, together with security, safety, comfort, and alleviation of life\nfor every one, their two most frequently chanted songs and doctrines\nare called \"Equality of Rights\" and \"Sympathy with All Sufferers\"--and\nsuffering itself is looked upon by them as something which must be\nDONE AWAY WITH. We opposite ones, however, who have opened our eye and\nconscience to the question how and where the plant \"man\" has hitherto\ngrown most vigorously, believe that this has always taken place under\nthe opposite conditions, that for this end the dangerousness of his\nsituation had to be increased enormously, his inventive faculty and\ndissembling power (his \"spirit\") had to develop into subtlety and daring\nunder long oppression and compulsion, and his Will to Life had to be\nincreased to the unconditioned Will to Power--we believe that severity,\nviolence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy,\nstoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind,--that everything\nwicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves\nas well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite--we do\nnot even say enough when we only say THIS MUCH, and in any case we\nfind ourselves here, both with our speech and our silence, at the OTHER\nextreme of all modern ideology and gregarious desirability, as their\nantipodes perhaps? What wonder that we \"free spirits\" are not exactly\nthe most communicative spirits? that we do not wish to betray in every\nrespect WHAT a spirit can free itself from, and WHERE perhaps it will\nthen be driven? And as to the import of the dangerous formula, \"Beyond\nGood and Evil,\" with which we at least avoid confusion, we ARE something\nelse than \"libres-penseurs,\" \"liben pensatori\" \"free-thinkers,\"\nand whatever these honest advocates of \"modern ideas\" like to call\nthemselves. Having been at home, or at least guests, in many realms of\nthe spirit, having escaped again and again from the gloomy, agreeable\nnooks in which preferences and prejudices, youth, origin, the accident\nof men and books, or even the weariness of travel seemed to confine us,\nfull of malice against the seductions of dependency which he concealed\nin honours, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses, grateful even\nfor distress and the vicissitudes of illness, because they always free\nus from some rule, and its \"prejudice,\" grateful to the God, devil,\nsheep, and worm in us, inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the\npoint of cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with\nteeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business\nthat requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure,\nowing to an excess of \"free will\", with anterior and posterior souls,\ninto the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with\nforegrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden\nones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble\nheirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till\nnight, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed drawers, economical\nin learning and forgetting, inventive in scheming, sometimes proud of\ntables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night-owls of\nwork even in full day, yea, if necessary, even scarecrows--and it is\nnecessary nowadays, that is to say, inasmuch as we are the born, sworn,\njealous friends of SOLITUDE, of our own profoundest midnight and midday\nsolitude--such kind of men are we, we free spirits! And perhaps ye are\nalso something of the same kind, ye coming ones? ye NEW philosophers?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. THE RELIGIOUS MOOD\n\n\n45. The human soul and its limits, the range of man's inner experiences\nhitherto attained, the heights, depths, and distances of these\nexperiences, the entire history of the soul UP TO THE PRESENT TIME,\nand its still unexhausted possibilities: this is the preordained\nhunting-domain for a born psychologist and lover of a \"big hunt\". But\nhow often must he say despairingly to himself: \"A single individual!\nalas, only a single individual! and this great forest, this virgin\nforest!\" So he would like to have some hundreds of hunting assistants,\nand fine trained hounds, that he could send into the history of the\nhuman soul, to drive HIS game together. In vain: again and again he\nexperiences, profoundly and bitterly, how difficult it is to find\nassistants and dogs for all the things that directly excite his\ncuriosity. The evil of sending scholars into new and dangerous\nhunting-domains, where courage, sagacity, and subtlety in every sense\nare required, is that they are no longer serviceable just when the \"BIG\nhunt,\" and also the great danger commences,--it is precisely then that\nthey lose their keen eye and nose. In order, for instance, to divine and\ndetermine what sort of history the problem of KNOWLEDGE AND CONSCIENCE\nhas hitherto had in the souls of homines religiosi, a person would\nperhaps himself have to possess as profound, as bruised, as immense an\nexperience as the intellectual conscience of Pascal; and then he would\nstill require that wide-spread heaven of clear, wicked spirituality,\nwhich, from above, would be able to oversee, arrange, and effectively\nformulize this mass of dangerous and painful experiences.--But who\ncould do me this service! And who would have time to wait for such\nservants!--they evidently appear too rarely, they are so improbable at\nall times! Eventually one must do everything ONESELF in order to know\nsomething; which means that one has MUCH to do!--But a curiosity like\nmine is once for all the most agreeable of vices--pardon me! I mean to\nsay that the love of truth has its reward in heaven, and already upon\nearth.\n\n46. Faith, such as early Christianity desired, and not infrequently\nachieved in the midst of a skeptical and southernly free-spirited world,\nwhich had centuries of struggle between philosophical schools behind\nit and in it, counting besides the education in tolerance which\nthe Imperium Romanum gave--this faith is NOT that sincere, austere\nslave-faith by which perhaps a Luther or a Cromwell, or some other\nnorthern barbarian of the spirit remained attached to his God and\nChristianity, it is much rather the faith of Pascal, which resembles in\na terrible manner a continuous suicide of reason--a tough, long-lived,\nworm-like reason, which is not to be slain at once and with a single\nblow. The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice\nof all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at\nthe same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. There is\ncruelty and religious Phoenicianism in this faith, which is adapted to a\ntender, many-sided, and very fastidious conscience, it takes for granted\nthat the subjection of the spirit is indescribably PAINFUL, that all the\npast and all the habits of such a spirit resist the absurdissimum, in\nthe form of which \"faith\" comes to it. Modern men, with their obtuseness\nas regards all Christian nomenclature, have no longer the sense for the\nterribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by\nthe paradox of the formula, \"God on the Cross\". Hitherto there had never\nand nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so\ndreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula: it promised a\ntransvaluation of all ancient values--It was the Orient, the PROFOUND\nOrient, it was the Oriental slave who thus took revenge on Rome and its\nnoble, light-minded toleration, on the Roman \"Catholicism\" of non-faith,\nand it was always not the faith, but the freedom from the faith, the\nhalf-stoical and smiling indifference to the seriousness of the faith,\nwhich made the slaves indignant at their masters and revolt against\nthem. \"Enlightenment\" causes revolt, for the slave desires the\nunconditioned, he understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals,\nhe loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point\nof pain, to the point of sickness--his many HIDDEN sufferings make\nhim revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The\nskepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of\naristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the\nlast great slave-insurrection which began with the French Revolution.\n\n47. Wherever the religious neurosis has appeared on the earth so far,\nwe find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen:\nsolitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence--but without its being possible\nto determine with certainty which is cause and which is effect, or IF\nany relation at all of cause and effect exists there. This latter doubt\nis justified by the fact that one of the most regular symptoms among\nsavage as well as among civilized peoples is the most sudden and\nexcessive sensuality, which then with equal suddenness transforms into\npenitential paroxysms, world-renunciation, and will-renunciation, both\nsymptoms perhaps explainable as disguised epilepsy? But nowhere is it\nMORE obligatory to put aside explanations around no other type has there\ngrown such a mass of absurdity and superstition, no other type seems to\nhave been more interesting to men and even to philosophers--perhaps it\nis time to become just a little indifferent here, to learn caution, or,\nbetter still, to look AWAY, TO GO AWAY--Yet in the background of the\nmost recent philosophy, that of Schopenhauer, we find almost as the\nproblem in itself, this terrible note of interrogation of the religious\ncrisis and awakening. How is the negation of will POSSIBLE? how is the\nsaint possible?--that seems to have been the very question with which\nSchopenhauer made a start and became a philosopher. And thus it was a\ngenuine Schopenhauerian consequence, that his most convinced adherent\n(perhaps also his last, as far as Germany is concerned), namely, Richard\nWagner, should bring his own life-work to an end just here, and should\nfinally put that terrible and eternal type upon the stage as Kundry,\ntype vecu, and as it loved and lived, at the very time that the\nmad-doctors in almost all European countries had an opportunity to study\nthe type close at hand, wherever the religious neurosis--or as I call\nit, \"the religious mood\"--made its latest epidemical outbreak and\ndisplay as the \"Salvation Army\"--If it be a question, however, as to\nwhat has been so extremely interesting to men of all sorts in all ages,\nand even to philosophers, in the whole phenomenon of the saint, it\nis undoubtedly the appearance of the miraculous therein--namely, the\nimmediate SUCCESSION OF OPPOSITES, of states of the soul regarded as\nmorally antithetical: it was believed here to be self-evident that\na \"bad man\" was all at once turned into a \"saint,\" a good man. The\nhitherto existing psychology was wrecked at this point, is it not\npossible it may have happened principally because psychology had placed\nitself under the dominion of morals, because it BELIEVED in oppositions\nof moral values, and saw, read, and INTERPRETED these oppositions\ninto the text and facts of the case? What? \"Miracle\" only an error of\ninterpretation? A lack of philology?\n\n48. It seems that the Latin races are far more deeply attached to their\nCatholicism than we Northerners are to Christianity generally, and\nthat consequently unbelief in Catholic countries means something quite\ndifferent from what it does among Protestants--namely, a sort of revolt\nagainst the spirit of the race, while with us it is rather a return to\nthe spirit (or non-spirit) of the race.\n\nWe Northerners undoubtedly derive our origin from barbarous races, even\nas regards our talents for religion--we have POOR talents for it. One\nmay make an exception in the case of the Celts, who have theretofore\nfurnished also the best soil for Christian infection in the North: the\nChristian ideal blossomed forth in France as much as ever the pale sun\nof the north would allow it. How strangely pious for our taste are still\nthese later French skeptics, whenever there is any Celtic blood in their\norigin! How Catholic, how un-German does Auguste Comte's Sociology\nseem to us, with the Roman logic of its instincts! How Jesuitical, that\namiable and shrewd cicerone of Port Royal, Sainte-Beuve, in spite of all\nhis hostility to Jesuits! And even Ernest Renan: how inaccessible to\nus Northerners does the language of such a Renan appear, in whom\nevery instant the merest touch of religious thrill throws his refined\nvoluptuous and comfortably couching soul off its balance! Let us repeat\nafter him these fine sentences--and what wickedness and haughtiness is\nimmediately aroused by way of answer in our probably less beautiful but\nharder souls, that is to say, in our more German souls!--\"DISONS DONC\nHARDIMENT QUE LA RELIGION EST UN PRODUIT DE L'HOMME NORMAL, QUE L'HOMME\nEST LE PLUS DANS LE VRAI QUANT IL EST LE PLUS RELIGIEUX ET LE PLUS\nASSURE D'UNE DESTINEE INFINIE.... C'EST QUAND IL EST BON QU'IL VEUT QUE\nLA VIRTU CORRESPONDE A UN ORDER ETERNAL, C'EST QUAND IL CONTEMPLE LES\nCHOSES D'UNE MANIERE DESINTERESSEE QU'IL TROUVE LA MORT REVOLTANTE ET\nABSURDE. COMMENT NE PAS SUPPOSER QUE C'EST DANS CES MOMENTS-LA, QUE\nL'HOMME VOIT LE MIEUX?\"... These sentences are so extremely ANTIPODAL\nto my ears and habits of thought, that in my first impulse of rage\non finding them, I wrote on the margin, \"LA NIAISERIE RELIGIEUSE PAR\nEXCELLENCE!\"--until in my later rage I even took a fancy to them, these\nsentences with their truth absolutely inverted! It is so nice and such a\ndistinction to have one's own antipodes!\n\n49. That which is so astonishing in the religious life of the ancient\nGreeks is the irrestrainable stream of GRATITUDE which it pours\nforth--it is a very superior kind of man who takes SUCH an attitude\ntowards nature and life.--Later on, when the populace got the upper hand\nin Greece, FEAR became rampant also in religion; and Christianity was\npreparing itself.\n\n50. The passion for God: there are churlish, honest-hearted, and\nimportunate kinds of it, like that of Luther--the whole of Protestantism\nlacks the southern DELICATEZZA. There is an Oriental exaltation of the\nmind in it, like that of an undeservedly favoured or elevated slave, as\nin the case of St. Augustine, for instance, who lacks in an offensive\nmanner, all nobility in bearing and desires. There is a feminine\ntenderness and sensuality in it, which modestly and unconsciously longs\nfor a UNIO MYSTICA ET PHYSICA, as in the case of Madame de Guyon. In\nmany cases it appears, curiously enough, as the disguise of a girl's\nor youth's puberty; here and there even as the hysteria of an old maid,\nalso as her last ambition. The Church has frequently canonized the woman\nin such a case.\n\n51. The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before\nthe saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation and utter voluntary\nprivation--why did they thus bow? They divined in him--and as it were\nbehind the questionableness of his frail and wretched appearance--the\nsuperior force which wished to test itself by such a subjugation; the\nstrength of will, in which they recognized their own strength and\nlove of power, and knew how to honour it: they honoured something\nin themselves when they honoured the saint. In addition to this, the\ncontemplation of the saint suggested to them a suspicion: such an\nenormity of self-negation and anti-naturalness will not have been\ncoveted for nothing--they have said, inquiringly. There is perhaps a\nreason for it, some very great danger, about which the ascetic might\nwish to be more accurately informed through his secret interlocutors and\nvisitors? In a word, the mighty ones of the world learned to have a new\nfear before him, they divined a new power, a strange, still unconquered\nenemy:--it was the \"Will to Power\" which obliged them to halt before the\nsaint. They had to question him.\n\n52. In the Jewish \"Old Testament,\" the book of divine justice, there are\nmen, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian\nliterature has nothing to compare with it. One stands with fear and\nreverence before those stupendous remains of what man was formerly, and\none has sad thoughts about old Asia and its little out-pushed peninsula\nEurope, which would like, by all means, to figure before Asia as the\n\"Progress of Mankind.\" To be sure, he who is himself only a slender,\ntame house-animal, and knows only the wants of a house-animal (like\nour cultured people of today, including the Christians of \"cultured\"\nChristianity), need neither be amazed nor even sad amid those ruins--the\ntaste for the Old Testament is a touchstone with respect to \"great\" and\n\"small\": perhaps he will find that the New Testament, the book of grace,\nstill appeals more to his heart (there is much of the odour of the\ngenuine, tender, stupid beadsman and petty soul in it). To have bound\nup this New Testament (a kind of ROCOCO of taste in every respect) along\nwith the Old Testament into one book, as the \"Bible,\" as \"The Book in\nItself,\" is perhaps the greatest audacity and \"sin against the Spirit\"\nwhich literary Europe has upon its conscience.\n\n53. Why Atheism nowadays? \"The father\" in God is thoroughly refuted;\nequally so \"the judge,\" \"the rewarder.\" Also his \"free will\": he does\nnot hear--and even if he did, he would not know how to help. The worst\nis that he seems incapable of communicating himself clearly; is he\nuncertain?--This is what I have made out (by questioning and listening\nat a variety of conversations) to be the cause of the decline of\nEuropean theism; it appears to me that though the religious instinct is\nin vigorous growth,--it rejects the theistic satisfaction with profound\ndistrust.\n\n54. What does all modern philosophy mainly do? Since Descartes--and\nindeed more in defiance of him than on the basis of his procedure--an\nATTENTAT has been made on the part of all philosophers on the old\nconception of the soul, under the guise of a criticism of the subject\nand predicate conception--that is to say, an ATTENTAT on the\nfundamental presupposition of Christian doctrine. Modern philosophy,\nas epistemological skepticism, is secretly or openly ANTI-CHRISTIAN,\nalthough (for keener ears, be it said) by no means anti-religious.\nFormerly, in effect, one believed in \"the soul\" as one believed in\ngrammar and the grammatical subject: one said, \"I\" is the condition,\n\"think\" is the predicate and is conditioned--to think is an activity for\nwhich one MUST suppose a subject as cause. The attempt was then made,\nwith marvelous tenacity and subtlety, to see if one could not get out\nof this net,--to see if the opposite was not perhaps true: \"think\" the\ncondition, and \"I\" the conditioned; \"I,\" therefore, only a synthesis\nwhich has been MADE by thinking itself. KANT really wished to prove\nthat, starting from the subject, the subject could not be proved--nor\nthe object either: the possibility of an APPARENT EXISTENCE of the\nsubject, and therefore of \"the soul,\" may not always have been strange\nto him,--the thought which once had an immense power on earth as the\nVedanta philosophy.\n\n55. There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, with many rounds; but\nthree of these are the most important. Once on a time men sacrificed\nhuman beings to their God, and perhaps just those they loved the\nbest--to this category belong the firstling sacrifices of all primitive\nreligions, and also the sacrifice of the Emperor Tiberius in the\nMithra-Grotto on the Island of Capri, that most terrible of all Roman\nanachronisms. Then, during the moral epoch of mankind, they sacrificed\nto their God the strongest instincts they possessed, their \"nature\";\nTHIS festal joy shines in the cruel glances of ascetics and\n\"anti-natural\" fanatics. Finally, what still remained to be sacrificed?\nWas it not necessary in the end for men to sacrifice everything\ncomforting, holy, healing, all hope, all faith in hidden harmonies, in\nfuture blessedness and justice? Was it not necessary to sacrifice God\nhimself, and out of cruelty to themselves to worship stone, stupidity,\ngravity, fate, nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingness--this\nparadoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the\nrising generation; we all know something thereof already.\n\n56. Whoever, like myself, prompted by some enigmatical desire, has long\nendeavoured to go to the bottom of the question of pessimism and free it\nfrom the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and stupidity in which\nit has finally presented itself to this century, namely, in the form of\nSchopenhauer's philosophy; whoever, with an Asiatic and super-Asiatic\neye, has actually looked inside, and into the most world-renouncing of\nall possible modes of thought--beyond good and evil, and no longer\nlike Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the dominion and delusion of\nmorality,--whoever has done this, has perhaps just thereby, without\nreally desiring it, opened his eyes to behold the opposite ideal: the\nideal of the most world-approving, exuberant, and vivacious man, who has\nnot only learnt to compromise and arrange with that which was and\nis, but wishes to have it again AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity,\ninsatiably calling out da capo, not only to himself, but to the whole\npiece and play; and not only the play, but actually to him who requires\nthe play--and makes it necessary; because he always requires\nhimself anew--and makes himself necessary.--What? And this would not\nbe--circulus vitiosus deus?\n\n57. The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the\nstrength of his intellectual vision and insight: his world becomes\nprofounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into\nview. Perhaps everything on which the intellectual eye has exercised\nits acuteness and profundity has just been an occasion for its exercise,\nsomething of a game, something for children and childish minds. Perhaps\nthe most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and\nsuffering, the conceptions \"God\" and \"sin,\" will one day seem to us of\nno more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to\nan old man;--and perhaps another plaything and another pain will then\nbe necessary once more for \"the old man\"--always childish enough, an\neternal child!\n\n58. Has it been observed to what extent outward idleness, or\nsemi-idleness, is necessary to a real religious life (alike for its\nfavourite microscopic labour of self-examination, and for its soft\nplacidity called \"prayer,\" the state of perpetual readiness for the\n\"coming of God\"), I mean the idleness with a good conscience, the\nidleness of olden times and of blood, to which the aristocratic\nsentiment that work is DISHONOURING--that it vulgarizes body and\nsoul--is not quite unfamiliar? And that consequently the modern, noisy,\ntime-engrossing, conceited, foolishly proud laboriousness educates\nand prepares for \"unbelief\" more than anything else? Among these, for\ninstance, who are at present living apart from religion in Germany, I\nfind \"free-thinkers\" of diversified species and origin, but above all\na majority of those in whom laboriousness from generation to generation\nhas dissolved the religious instincts; so that they no longer know what\npurpose religions serve, and only note their existence in the world\nwith a kind of dull astonishment. They feel themselves already fully\noccupied, these good people, be it by their business or by their\npleasures, not to mention the \"Fatherland,\" and the newspapers, and\ntheir \"family duties\"; it seems that they have no time whatever left\nfor religion; and above all, it is not obvious to them whether it is a\nquestion of a new business or a new pleasure--for it is impossible, they\nsay to themselves, that people should go to church merely to spoil\ntheir tempers. They are by no means enemies of religious customs;\nshould certain circumstances, State affairs perhaps, require their\nparticipation in such customs, they do what is required, as so many\nthings are done--with a patient and unassuming seriousness, and without\nmuch curiosity or discomfort;--they live too much apart and outside\nto feel even the necessity for a FOR or AGAINST in such matters. Among\nthose indifferent persons may be reckoned nowadays the majority of\nGerman Protestants of the middle classes, especially in the great\nlaborious centres of trade and commerce; also the majority of laborious\nscholars, and the entire University personnel (with the exception of\nthe theologians, whose existence and possibility there always gives\npsychologists new and more subtle puzzles to solve). On the part of\npious, or merely church-going people, there is seldom any idea of HOW\nMUCH good-will, one might say arbitrary will, is now necessary for a\nGerman scholar to take the problem of religion seriously; his whole\nprofession (and as I have said, his whole workmanlike laboriousness, to\nwhich he is compelled by his modern conscience) inclines him to a\nlofty and almost charitable serenity as regards religion, with which is\noccasionally mingled a slight disdain for the \"uncleanliness\" of spirit\nwhich he takes for granted wherever any one still professes to belong\nto the Church. It is only with the help of history (NOT through his own\npersonal experience, therefore) that the scholar succeeds in bringing\nhimself to a respectful seriousness, and to a certain timid deference\nin presence of religions; but even when his sentiments have reached the\nstage of gratitude towards them, he has not personally advanced one\nstep nearer to that which still maintains itself as Church or as piety;\nperhaps even the contrary. The practical indifference to religious\nmatters in the midst of which he has been born and brought up, usually\nsublimates itself in his case into circumspection and cleanliness, which\nshuns contact with religious men and things; and it may be just the\ndepth of his tolerance and humanity which prompts him to avoid the\ndelicate trouble which tolerance itself brings with it.--Every age has\nits own divine type of naivete, for the discovery of which other ages\nmay envy it: and how much naivete--adorable, childlike, and boundlessly\nfoolish naivete is involved in this belief of the scholar in\nhis superiority, in the good conscience of his tolerance, in the\nunsuspecting, simple certainty with which his instinct treats the\nreligious man as a lower and less valuable type, beyond, before, and\nABOVE which he himself has developed--he, the little arrogant dwarf\nand mob-man, the sedulously alert, head-and-hand drudge of \"ideas,\" of\n\"modern ideas\"!\n\n59. Whoever has seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what\nwisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their\npreservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and\nfalse. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated adoration\nof \"pure forms\" in philosophers as well as in artists: it is not to be\ndoubted that whoever has NEED of the cult of the superficial to that\nextent, has at one time or another made an unlucky dive BENEATH it.\nPerhaps there is even an order of rank with respect to those burnt\nchildren, the born artists who find the enjoyment of life only in trying\nto FALSIFY its image (as if taking wearisome revenge on it), one might\nguess to what degree life has disgusted them, by the extent to which\nthey wish to see its image falsified, attenuated, ultrified, and\ndeified,--one might reckon the homines religiosi among the artists, as\ntheir HIGHEST rank. It is the profound, suspicious fear of an incurable\npessimism which compels whole centuries to fasten their teeth into a\nreligious interpretation of existence: the fear of the instinct which\ndivines that truth might be attained TOO soon, before man has become\nstrong enough, hard enough, artist enough.... Piety, the \"Life in God,\"\nregarded in this light, would appear as the most elaborate and\nultimate product of the FEAR of truth, as artist-adoration\nand artist-intoxication in presence of the most logical of all\nfalsifications, as the will to the inversion of truth, to untruth at\nany price. Perhaps there has hitherto been no more effective means of\nbeautifying man than piety, by means of it man can become so artful, so\nsuperficial, so iridescent, and so good, that his appearance no longer\noffends.\n\n60. To love mankind FOR GOD'S SAKE--this has so far been the noblest and\nremotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. That love to mankind,\nwithout any redeeming intention in the background, is only an ADDITIONAL\nfolly and brutishness, that the inclination to this love has first to\nget its proportion, its delicacy, its gram of salt and sprinkling\nof ambergris from a higher inclination--whoever first perceived\nand \"experienced\" this, however his tongue may have stammered as it\nattempted to express such a delicate matter, let him for all time be\nholy and respected, as the man who has so far flown highest and gone\nastray in the finest fashion!\n\n61. The philosopher, as WE free spirits understand him--as the man of\nthe greatest responsibility, who has the conscience for the general\ndevelopment of mankind,--will use religion for his disciplining and\neducating work, just as he will use the contemporary political\nand economic conditions. The selecting and disciplining\ninfluence--destructive, as well as creative and fashioning--which can be\nexercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to the\nsort of people placed under its spell and protection. For those who are\nstrong and independent, destined and trained to command, in whom the\njudgment and skill of a ruling race is incorporated, religion is\nan additional means for overcoming resistance in the exercise of\nauthority--as a bond which binds rulers and subjects in common,\nbetraying and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter,\ntheir inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. And in the\ncase of the unique natures of noble origin, if by virtue of superior\nspirituality they should incline to a more retired and contemplative\nlife, reserving to themselves only the more refined forms of government\n(over chosen disciples or members of an order), religion itself may\nbe used as a means for obtaining peace from the noise and trouble of\nmanaging GROSSER affairs, and for securing immunity from the UNAVOIDABLE\nfilth of all political agitation. The Brahmins, for instance, understood\nthis fact. With the help of a religious organization, they secured to\nthemselves the power of nominating kings for the people, while their\nsentiments prompted them to keep apart and outside, as men with a higher\nand super-regal mission. At the same time religion gives inducement and\nopportunity to some of the subjects to qualify themselves for future\nruling and commanding the slowly ascending ranks and classes, in which,\nthrough fortunate marriage customs, volitional power and delight in\nself-control are on the increase. To them religion offers sufficient\nincentives and temptations to aspire to higher intellectuality, and to\nexperience the sentiments of authoritative self-control, of silence, and\nof solitude. Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of\neducating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary\nbaseness and work itself upwards to future supremacy. And finally, to\nordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and\ngeneral utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives\ninvaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart,\nennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy,\nwith something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of\njustification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all\nthe semi-animal poverty of their souls. Religion, together with the\nreligious significance of life, sheds sunshine over such perpetually\nharassed men, and makes even their own aspect endurable to them, it\noperates upon them as the Epicurean philosophy usually operates upon\nsufferers of a higher order, in a refreshing and refining manner,\nalmost TURNING suffering TO ACCOUNT, and in the end even hallowing and\nvindicating it. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity\nand Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate\nthemselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby\nto retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it\ndifficult enough to live--this very difficulty being necessary.\n\n62. To be sure--to make also the bad counter-reckoning against such\nreligions, and to bring to light their secret dangers--the cost is\nalways excessive and terrible when religions do NOT operate as an\neducational and disciplinary medium in the hands of the philosopher, but\nrule voluntarily and PARAMOUNTLY, when they wish to be the final end,\nand not a means along with other means. Among men, as among all other\nanimals, there is a surplus of defective, diseased, degenerating,\ninfirm, and necessarily suffering individuals; the successful cases,\namong men also, are always the exception; and in view of the fact that\nman is THE ANIMAL NOT YET PROPERLY ADAPTED TO HIS ENVIRONMENT, the rare\nexception. But worse still. The higher the type a man represents, the\ngreater is the improbability that he will SUCCEED; the accidental, the\nlaw of irrationality in the general constitution of mankind, manifests\nitself most terribly in its destructive effect on the higher orders of\nmen, the conditions of whose lives are delicate, diverse, and difficult\nto determine. What, then, is the attitude of the two greatest religions\nabove-mentioned to the SURPLUS of failures in life? They endeavour\nto preserve and keep alive whatever can be preserved; in fact, as the\nreligions FOR SUFFERERS, they take the part of these upon principle;\nthey are always in favour of those who suffer from life as from a\ndisease, and they would fain treat every other experience of life as\nfalse and impossible. However highly we may esteem this indulgent and\npreservative care (inasmuch as in applying to others, it has applied,\nand applies also to the highest and usually the most suffering type of\nman), the hitherto PARAMOUNT religions--to give a general appreciation\nof them--are among the principal causes which have kept the type of\n\"man\" upon a lower level--they have preserved too much THAT WHICH SHOULD\nHAVE PERISHED. One has to thank them for invaluable services; and who is\nsufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the contemplation\nof all that the \"spiritual men\" of Christianity have done for Europe\nhitherto! But when they had given comfort to the sufferers, courage to\nthe oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the helpless,\nand when they had allured from society into convents and spiritual\npenitentiaries the broken-hearted and distracted: what else had they\nto do in order to work systematically in that fashion, and with a good\nconscience, for the preservation of all the sick and suffering, which\nmeans, in deed and in truth, to work for the DETERIORATION OF THE\nEUROPEAN RACE? To REVERSE all estimates of value--THAT is what they\nhad to do! And to shatter the strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast\nsuspicion on the delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous,\nmanly, conquering, and imperious--all instincts which are natural to the\nhighest and most successful type of \"man\"--into uncertainty, distress\nof conscience, and self-destruction; forsooth, to invert all love of the\nearthly and of supremacy over the earth, into hatred of the earth and\nearthly things--THAT is the task the Church imposed on itself, and\nwas obliged to impose, until, according to its standard of value,\n\"unworldliness,\" \"unsensuousness,\" and \"higher man\" fused into one\nsentiment. If one could observe the strangely painful, equally coarse\nand refined comedy of European Christianity with the derisive and\nimpartial eye of an Epicurean god, I should think one would never cease\nmarvelling and laughing; does it not actually seem that some single will\nhas ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME\nABORTION of man? He, however, who, with opposite requirements (no longer\nEpicurean) and with some divine hammer in his hand, could approach this\nalmost voluntary degeneration and stunting of mankind, as exemplified in\nthe European Christian (Pascal, for instance), would he not have to\ncry aloud with rage, pity, and horror: \"Oh, you bunglers, presumptuous\npitiful bunglers, what have you done! Was that a work for your hands?\nHow you have hacked and botched my finest stone! What have you presumed\nto do!\"--I should say that Christianity has hitherto been the most\nportentous of presumptions. Men, not great enough, nor hard enough,\nto be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning MAN; men,\nnot sufficiently strong and far-sighted to ALLOW, with sublime\nself-constraint, the obvious law of the thousandfold failures and\nperishings to prevail; men, not sufficiently noble to see the radically\ndifferent grades of rank and intervals of rank that separate man from\nman:--SUCH men, with their \"equality before God,\" have hitherto swayed\nthe destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species\nhas been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly,\nmediocre, the European of the present day.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES\n\n\n63. He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously--and even\nhimself--only in relation to his pupils.\n\n64. \"Knowledge for its own sake\"--that is the last snare laid by\nmorality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more.\n\n65. The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has\nto be overcome on the way to it.\n\n65A. We are most dishonourable towards our God: he is not PERMITTED to\nsin.\n\n66. The tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded, robbed,\ndeceived, and exploited might be the diffidence of a God among men.\n\n67. Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense\nof all others. Love to God also!\n\n68. \"I did that,\" says my memory. \"I could not have done that,\" says my\npride, and remains inexorable. Eventually--the memory yields.\n\n69. One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand\nthat--kills with leniency.\n\n70. If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which\nalways recurs.\n\n71. THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER.--So long as thou feelest the stars as an\n\"above thee,\" thou lackest the eye of the discerning one.\n\n72. It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that\nmakes great men.\n\n73. He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it.\n\n73A. Many a peacock hides his tail from every eye--and calls it his\npride.\n\n74. A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things\nbesides: gratitude and purity.\n\n75. The degree and nature of a man's sensuality extends to the highest\naltitudes of his spirit.\n\n76. Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself.\n\n77. With his principles a man seeks either to dominate, or justify,\nor honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits: two men with the same\nprinciples probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith.\n\n78. He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself thereby, as a\ndespiser.\n\n79. A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love,\nbetrays its sediment: its dregs come up.\n\n80. A thing that is explained ceases to concern us--What did the God\nmean who gave the advice, \"Know thyself!\" Did it perhaps imply \"Cease to\nbe concerned about thyself! become objective!\"--And Socrates?--And the\n\"scientific man\"?\n\n81. It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you\nshould so salt your truth that it will no longer--quench thirst?\n\n82. \"Sympathy for all\"--would be harshness and tyranny for THEE, my good\nneighbour.\n\n83. INSTINCT--When the house is on fire one forgets even the\ndinner--Yes, but one recovers it from among the ashes.\n\n84. Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she--forgets how to charm.\n\n85. The same emotions are in man and woman, but in different TEMPO, on\nthat account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other.\n\n86. In the background of all their personal vanity, women themselves\nhave still their impersonal scorn--for \"woman\".\n\n87. FETTERED HEART, FREE SPIRIT--When one firmly fetters one's heart\nand keeps it prisoner, one can allow one's spirit many liberties: I said\nthis once before But people do not believe it when I say so, unless they\nknow it already.\n\n88. One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become\nembarrassed.\n\n89. Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences\nthem is not something dreadful also.\n\n90. Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their\nsurface, precisely by that which makes others heavy--by hatred and love.\n\n91. So cold, so icy, that one burns one's finger at the touch of him!\nEvery hand that lays hold of him shrinks back!--And for that very reason\nmany think him red-hot.\n\n92. Who has not, at one time or another--sacrificed himself for the sake\nof his good name?\n\n93. In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely on that\naccount a great deal too much contempt of men.\n\n94. The maturity of man--that means, to have reacquired the seriousness\nthat one had as a child at play.\n\n95. To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end\nof which one is ashamed also of one's morality.\n\n96. One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa--blessing\nit rather than in love with it.\n\n97. What? A great man? I always see merely the play-actor of his own\nideal.\n\n98. When one trains one's conscience, it kisses one while it bites.\n\n99. THE DISAPPOINTED ONE SPEAKS--\"I listened for the echo and I heard\nonly praise.\"\n\n100. We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are, we thus\nrelax ourselves away from our fellows.\n\n101. A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the\nanimalization of God.\n\n102. Discovering reciprocal love should really disenchant the lover with\nregard to the beloved. \"What! She is modest enough to love even you? Or\nstupid enough? Or--or---\"\n\n103. THE DANGER IN HAPPINESS.--\"Everything now turns out best for me, I\nnow love every fate:--who would like to be my fate?\"\n\n104. Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love,\nprevents the Christians of today--burning us.\n\n105. The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the \"piety\")\nof the free spirit (the \"pious man of knowledge\") than the impia fraus.\nHence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church,\ncharacteristic of the type \"free spirit\"--as ITS non-freedom.\n\n106. By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves.\n\n107. A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been\ntaken, to shut the ear even to the best counter-arguments. Occasionally,\ntherefore, a will to stupidity.\n\n108. There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral\ninterpretation of phenomena.\n\n109. The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates\nand maligns it.\n\n110. The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the\nbeautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer.\n\n111. Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been\nwounded.\n\n112. To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to\nbelief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against\nthem.\n\n113. \"You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be\nembarrassed before him.\"\n\n114. The immense expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness\nin this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset.\n\n115. Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman's play is\nmediocre.\n\n116. The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage\nto rebaptize our badness as the best in us.\n\n117. The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of\nanother, or of several other, emotions.\n\n118. There is an innocence of admiration: it is possessed by him to whom\nit has not yet occurred that he himself may be admired some day.\n\n119. Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning\nourselves--\"justifying\" ourselves.\n\n120. Sensuality often forces the growth of love too much, so that its\nroot remains weak, and is easily torn up.\n\n121. It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn\nauthor--and that he did not learn it better.\n\n122. To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness\nof heart--and the very opposite of vanity of spirit.\n\n123. Even concubinage has been corrupted--by marriage.\n\n124. He who exults at the stake, does not triumph over pain, but because\nof the fact that he does not feel pain where he expected it. A parable.\n\n125. When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily\nto his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.\n\n126. A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great\nmen.--Yes, and then to get round them.\n\n127. In the eyes of all true women science is hostile to the sense of\nshame. They feel as if one wished to peep under their skin with it--or\nworse still! under their dress and finery.\n\n128. The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you\nallure the senses to it.\n\n129. The devil has the most extensive perspectives for God; on that\naccount he keeps so far away from him:--the devil, in effect, as the\noldest friend of knowledge.\n\n130. What a person IS begins to betray itself when his talent\ndecreases,--when he ceases to show what he CAN do. Talent is also an\nadornment; an adornment is also a concealment.\n\n131. The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that\nin reality they honour and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to\nexpress it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable: but\nin fact woman is ESSENTIALLY unpeaceable, like the cat, however well she\nmay have assumed the peaceable demeanour.\n\n132. One is punished best for one's virtues.\n\n133. He who cannot find the way to HIS ideal, lives more frivolously and\nshamelessly than the man without an ideal.\n\n134. From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience,\nall evidence of truth.\n\n135. Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man; a considerable\npart of it is rather an essential condition of being good.\n\n136. The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the other seeks some\none whom he can assist: a good conversation thus originates.\n\n137. In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes\nof opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds\na mediocre man; and often, even in a mediocre artist, one finds a very\nremarkable man.\n\n138. We do the same when awake as when dreaming: we only invent and\nimagine him with whom we have intercourse--and forget it immediately.\n\n139. In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man.\n\n140. ADVICE AS A RIDDLE.--\"If the band is not to break, bite it\nfirst--secure to make!\"\n\n141. The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself\nfor a God.\n\n142. The chastest utterance I ever heard: \"Dans le veritable amour c'est\nl'ame qui enveloppe le corps.\"\n\n143. Our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is\nmost difficult to us.--Concerning the origin of many systems of morals.\n\n144. When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally\nsomething wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a\ncertain virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is \"the barren\nanimal.\"\n\n145. Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would\nnot have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the\nSECONDARY role.\n\n146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby\nbecome a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will\nalso gaze into thee.\n\n147. From old Florentine novels--moreover, from life: Buona femmina e\nmala femmina vuol bastone.--Sacchetti, Nov. 86.\n\n148. To seduce their neighbour to a favourable opinion, and afterwards\nto believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbour--who can do\nthis conjuring trick so well as women?\n\n149. That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of\nwhat was formerly considered good--the atavism of an old ideal.\n\n150. Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the\ndemigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything\nbecomes--what? perhaps a \"world\"?\n\n151. It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also have your\npermission to possess it;--eh, my friends?\n\n152. \"Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise\":\nso say the most ancient and the most modern serpents.\n\n153. What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.\n\n154. Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of\nhealth; everything absolute belongs to pathology.\n\n155. The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness.\n\n156. Insanity in individuals is something rare--but in groups, parties,\nnations, and epochs it is the rule.\n\n157. The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one\ngets successfully through many a bad night.\n\n158. Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our\nstrongest impulse--the tyrant in us.\n\n159. One MUST repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us\ngood or ill?\n\n160. One no longer loves one's knowledge sufficiently after one has\ncommunicated it.\n\n161. Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them.\n\n162. \"Our fellow-creature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour's\nneighbour\":--so thinks every nation.\n\n163. Love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a lover--his\nrare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his\nnormal character.\n\n164. Jesus said to his Jews: \"The law was for servants;--love God as I\nlove him, as his Son! What have we Sons of God to do with morals!\"\n\n165. IN SIGHT OF EVERY PARTY.--A shepherd has always need of a\nbell-wether--or he has himself to be a wether occasionally.\n\n166. One may indeed lie with the mouth; but with the accompanying\ngrimace one nevertheless tells the truth.\n\n167. To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame--and something\nprecious.\n\n168. Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it,\ncertainly, but degenerated to Vice.\n\n169. To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing\noneself.\n\n170. In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.\n\n171. Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like\ntender hands on a Cyclops.\n\n172. One occasionally embraces some one or other, out of love to mankind\n(because one cannot embrace all); but this is what one must never\nconfess to the individual.\n\n173. One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one\nesteems equal or superior.\n\n174. Ye Utilitarians--ye, too, love the UTILE only as a VEHICLE for\nyour inclinations,--ye, too, really find the noise of its wheels\ninsupportable!\n\n175. One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.\n\n176. The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is\ncounter to our vanity.\n\n177. With regard to what \"truthfulness\" is, perhaps nobody has ever been\nsufficiently truthful.\n\n178. One does not believe in the follies of clever men: what a\nforfeiture of the rights of man!\n\n179. The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very\nindifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile \"reformed.\"\n\n180. There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a\ncause.\n\n181. It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed.\n\n182. The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be\nreturned.\n\n183. \"I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can\nno longer believe in you.\"\n\n184. There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of\nwickedness.\n\n185. \"I dislike him.\"--Why?--\"I am not a match for him.\"--Did any one\never answer so?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS\n\n\n186. The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as subtle,\nbelated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the \"Science of Morals\"\nbelonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and coarse-fingered:--an\ninteresting contrast, which sometimes becomes incarnate and obvious\nin the very person of a moralist. Indeed, the expression, \"Science\nof Morals\" is, in respect to what is designated thereby, far too\npresumptuous and counter to GOOD taste,--which is always a foretaste of\nmore modest expressions. One ought to avow with the utmost fairness WHAT\nis still necessary here for a long time, WHAT is alone proper for the\npresent: namely, the collection of material, the comprehensive survey\nand classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of worth,\nand distinctions of worth, which live, grow, propagate, and perish--and\nperhaps attempts to give a clear idea of the recurring and more common\nforms of these living crystallizations--as preparation for a THEORY OF\nTYPES of morality. To be sure, people have not hitherto been so modest.\nAll the philosophers, with a pedantic and ridiculous seriousness,\ndemanded of themselves something very much higher, more pretentious, and\nceremonious, when they concerned themselves with morality as a science:\nthey wanted to GIVE A BASIC to morality--and every philosopher hitherto\nhas believed that he has given it a basis; morality itself, however, has\nbeen regarded as something \"given.\" How far from their awkward pride\nwas the seemingly insignificant problem--left in dust and decay--of a\ndescription of forms of morality, notwithstanding that the finest hands\nand senses could hardly be fine enough for it! It was precisely owing to\nmoral philosophers' knowing the moral facts imperfectly, in an arbitrary\nepitome, or an accidental abridgement--perhaps as the morality of\ntheir environment, their position, their church, their Zeitgeist, their\nclimate and zone--it was precisely because they were badly instructed\nwith regard to nations, eras, and past ages, and were by no means eager\nto know about these matters, that they did not even come in sight of the\nreal problems of morals--problems which only disclose themselves by\na comparison of MANY kinds of morality. In every \"Science of Morals\"\nhitherto, strange as it may sound, the problem of morality itself\nhas been OMITTED: there has been no suspicion that there was anything\nproblematic there! That which philosophers called \"giving a basis to\nmorality,\" and endeavoured to realize, has, when seen in a right light,\nproved merely a learned form of good FAITH in prevailing morality, a new\nmeans of its EXPRESSION, consequently just a matter-of-fact within the\nsphere of a definite morality, yea, in its ultimate motive, a sort of\ndenial that it is LAWFUL for this morality to be called in question--and\nin any case the reverse of the testing, analyzing, doubting, and\nvivisecting of this very faith. Hear, for instance, with what\ninnocence--almost worthy of honour--Schopenhauer represents his own\ntask, and draw your conclusions concerning the scientificness of a\n\"Science\" whose latest master still talks in the strain of children and\nold wives: \"The principle,\" he says (page 136 of the Grundprobleme der\nEthik), [Footnote: Pages 54-55 of Schopenhauer's Basis of Morality,\ntranslated by Arthur B. Bullock, M.A. (1903).] \"the axiom about the\npurport of which all moralists are PRACTICALLY agreed: neminem laede,\nimmo omnes quantum potes juva--is REALLY the proposition which all moral\nteachers strive to establish, ... the REAL basis of ethics which\nhas been sought, like the philosopher's stone, for centuries.\"--The\ndifficulty of establishing the proposition referred to may indeed be\ngreat--it is well known that Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his\nefforts; and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and\nsentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is Will\nto Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist,\nACTUALLY--played the flute... daily after dinner: one may read about\nthe matter in his biography. A question by the way: a pessimist, a\nrepudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES A HALT at morality--who\nassents to morality, and plays the flute to laede-neminem morals, what?\nIs that really--a pessimist?\n\n187. Apart from the value of such assertions as \"there is a categorical\nimperative in us,\" one can always ask: What does such an assertion\nindicate about him who makes it? There are systems of morals which are\nmeant to justify their author in the eyes of other people; other systems\nof morals are meant to tranquilize him, and make him self-satisfied;\nwith other systems he wants to crucify and humble himself, with others\nhe wishes to take revenge, with others to conceal himself, with others\nto glorify himself and gave superiority and distinction,--this system of\nmorals helps its author to forget, that system makes him, or something\nof him, forgotten, many a moralist would like to exercise power and\ncreative arbitrariness over mankind, many another, perhaps, Kant\nespecially, gives us to understand by his morals that \"what is estimable\nin me, is that I know how to obey--and with you it SHALL not be\notherwise than with me!\" In short, systems of morals are only a\nSIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS.\n\n188. In contrast to laisser-aller, every system of morals is a sort of\ntyranny against \"nature\" and also against \"reason\", that is, however, no\nobjection, unless one should again decree by some system of morals, that\nall kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful What is\nessential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a\nlong constraint. In order to understand Stoicism, or Port Royal,\nor Puritanism, one should remember the constraint under which every\nlanguage has attained to strength and freedom--the metrical constraint,\nthe tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. How much trouble have the poets and\norators of every nation given themselves!--not excepting some of\nthe prose writers of today, in whose ear dwells an inexorable\nconscientiousness--\"for the sake of a folly,\" as utilitarian bunglers\nsay, and thereby deem themselves wise--\"from submission to arbitrary\nlaws,\" as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves \"free,\" even\nfree-spirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything\nof the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly\ncertainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself,\nor in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in\nconduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary\nlaw, and in all seriousness, it is not at all improbable that precisely\nthis is \"nature\" and \"natural\"--and not laisser-aller! Every artist\nknows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his\n\"most natural\" condition, the free arranging, locating, disposing,\nand constructing in the moments of \"inspiration\"--and how strictly and\ndelicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which, by their very rigidness\nand precision, defy all formulation by means of ideas (even the most\nstable idea has, in comparison therewith, something floating, manifold,\nand ambiguous in it). The essential thing \"in heaven and in earth\" is,\napparently (to repeat it once more), that there should be long OBEDIENCE\nin the same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in\nthe long run, something which has made life worth living; for instance,\nvirtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality--anything whatever\nthat is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine. The long bondage of\nthe spirit, the distrustful constraint in the communicability of\nideas, the discipline which the thinker imposed on himself to think\nin accordance with the rules of a church or a court, or conformable\nto Aristotelian premises, the persistent spiritual will to interpret\neverything that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every\noccurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian God:--all this\nviolence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and unreasonableness,\nhas proved itself the disciplinary means whereby the European spirit has\nattained its strength, its remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility;\ngranted also that much irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be\nstifled, suffocated, and spoilt in the process (for here, as everywhere,\n\"nature\" shows herself as she is, in all her extravagant and INDIFFERENT\nmagnificence, which is shocking, but nevertheless noble). That\nfor centuries European thinkers only thought in order to prove\nsomething--nowadays, on the contrary, we are suspicious of every thinker\nwho \"wishes to prove something\"--that it was always settled beforehand\nwhat WAS TO BE the result of their strictest thinking, as it was perhaps\nin the Asiatic astrology of former times, or as it is still at the\npresent day in the innocent, Christian-moral explanation of immediate\npersonal events \"for the glory of God,\" or \"for the good of the\nsoul\":--this tyranny, this arbitrariness, this severe and magnificent\nstupidity, has EDUCATED the spirit; slavery, both in the coarser and\nthe finer sense, is apparently an indispensable means even of spiritual\neducation and discipline. One may look at every system of morals in this\nlight: it is \"nature\" therein which teaches to hate the laisser-aller,\nthe too great freedom, and implants the need for limited horizons, for\nimmediate duties--it teaches the NARROWING OF PERSPECTIVES, and thus, in\na certain sense, that stupidity is a condition of life and development.\n\"Thou must obey some one, and for a long time; OTHERWISE thou wilt come\nto grief, and lose all respect for thyself\"--this seems to me to be the\nmoral imperative of nature, which is certainly neither \"categorical,\"\nas old Kant wished (consequently the \"otherwise\"), nor does it address\nitself to the individual (what does nature care for the individual!),\nbut to nations, races, ages, and ranks; above all, however, to the\nanimal \"man\" generally, to MANKIND.\n\n189. Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle: it was a\nmaster stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and begloom Sunday to such\nan extent that the Englishman unconsciously hankers for his week--and\nwork-day again:--as a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated\nFAST, such as is also frequently found in the ancient world (although,\nas is appropriate in southern nations, not precisely with respect\nto work). Many kinds of fasts are necessary; and wherever powerful\ninfluences and habits prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary\ndays are appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn to\nhunger anew. Viewed from a higher standpoint, whole generations and\nepochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism,\nseem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during\nwhich an impulse learns to humble and submit itself--at the same time\nalso to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself; certain philosophical sects likewise\nadmit of a similar interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst\nof Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with\nAphrodisiacal odours).--Here also is a hint for the explanation of the\nparadox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period of European\nhistory, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments,\nthat the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amour-passion).\n\n190. There is something in the morality of Plato which does not really\nbelong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy, one might\nsay, in spite of him: namely, Socratism, for which he himself was\ntoo noble. \"No one desires to injure himself, hence all evil is done\nunwittingly. The evil man inflicts injury on himself; he would not do\nso, however, if he knew that evil is evil. The evil man, therefore, is\nonly evil through error; if one free him from error one will necessarily\nmake him--good.\"--This mode of reasoning savours of the POPULACE, who\nperceive only the unpleasant consequences of evil-doing, and practically\njudge that \"it is STUPID to do wrong\"; while they accept \"good\" as\nidentical with \"useful and pleasant,\" without further thought. As\nregards every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it\nhas the same origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err.--Plato\ndid all he could to interpret something refined and noble into the\ntenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret himself into them--he,\nthe most daring of all interpreters, who lifted the entire Socrates out\nof the street, as a popular theme and song, to exhibit him in endless\nand impossible modifications--namely, in all his own disguises and\nmultiplicities. In jest, and in Homeric language as well, what is the\nPlatonic Socrates, if not--[Greek words inserted here.]\n\n191. The old theological problem of \"Faith\" and \"Knowledge,\" or more\nplainly, of instinct and reason--the question whether, in respect to the\nvaluation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality,\nwhich wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to\na \"Why,\" that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility--it\nis always the old moral problem that first appeared in the person of\nSocrates, and had divided men's minds long before Christianity. Socrates\nhimself, following, of course, the taste of his talent--that of a\nsurpassing dialectician--took first the side of reason; and, in fact,\nwhat did he do all his life but laugh at the awkward incapacity of the\nnoble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could\nnever give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions?\nIn the end, however, though silently and secretly, he laughed also\nat himself: with his finer conscience and introspection, he found\nin himself the same difficulty and incapacity. \"But why\"--he said\nto himself--\"should one on that account separate oneself from the\ninstincts! One must set them right, and the reason ALSO--one must follow\nthe instincts, but at the same time persuade the reason to support them\nwith good arguments.\" This was the real FALSENESS of that great and\nmysterious ironist; he brought his conscience up to the point that he\nwas satisfied with a kind of self-outwitting: in fact, he perceived\nthe irrationality in the moral judgment.--Plato, more innocent in such\nmatters, and without the craftiness of the plebeian, wished to prove to\nhimself, at the expenditure of all his strength--the greatest strength\na philosopher had ever expended--that reason and instinct lead\nspontaneously to one goal, to the good, to \"God\"; and since Plato, all\ntheologians and philosophers have followed the same path--which means\nthat in matters of morality, instinct (or as Christians call it,\n\"Faith,\" or as I call it, \"the herd\") has hitherto triumphed. Unless\none should make an exception in the case of Descartes, the father of\nrationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who\nrecognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a tool, and\nDescartes was superficial.\n\n192. Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in\nits development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest\nprocesses of all \"knowledge and cognizance\": there, as here, the\npremature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to \"belief,\"\nand the lack of distrust and patience are first developed--our senses\nlearn late, and never learn completely, to be subtle, reliable, and\ncautious organs of knowledge. Our eyes find it easier on a given\noccasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon\nthe divergence and novelty of an impression: the latter requires more\nforce, more \"morality.\" It is difficult and painful for the ear to\nlisten to anything new; we hear strange music badly. When we hear\nanother language spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds\ninto words with which we are more familiar and conversant--it was thus,\nfor example, that the Germans modified the spoken word ARCUBALISTA into\nARMBRUST (cross-bow). Our senses are also hostile and averse to the\nnew; and generally, even in the \"simplest\" processes of sensation, the\nemotions DOMINATE--such as fear, love, hatred, and the passive emotion\nof indolence.--As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words\n(not to speak of syllables) of a page--he rather takes about five out\nof every twenty words at random, and \"guesses\" the probably appropriate\nsense to them--just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely\nin respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so\nmuch easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the\nmost remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we fabricate the\ngreater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate\nany event, EXCEPT as \"inventors\" thereof. All this goes to prove\nthat from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have\nbeen--ACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it more politely and\nhypocritically, in short, more pleasantly--one is much more of an artist\nthan one is aware of.--In an animated conversation, I often see the face\nof the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined\nbefore me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to\nbe evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the\nSTRENGTH of my visual faculty--the delicacy of the play of the muscles\nand of the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me.\nProbably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all.\n\n193. Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: but also contrariwise. What we\nexperience in dreams, provided we experience it often, pertains at\nlast just as much to the general belongings of our soul as anything\n\"actually\" experienced; by virtue thereof we are richer or poorer, we\nhave a requirement more or less, and finally, in broad daylight, and\neven in the brightest moments of our waking life, we are ruled to some\nextent by the nature of our dreams. Supposing that someone has often\nflown in his dreams, and that at last, as soon as he dreams, he is\nconscious of the power and art of flying as his privilege and his\npeculiarly enviable happiness; such a person, who believes that on the\nslightest impulse, he can actualize all sorts of curves and angles, who\nknows the sensation of a certain divine levity, an \"upwards\"\nwithout effort or constraint, a \"downwards\" without descending\nor lowering--without TROUBLE!--how could the man with such\ndream-experiences and dream-habits fail to find \"happiness\" differently\ncoloured and defined, even in his waking hours! How could he fail--to\nlong DIFFERENTLY for happiness? \"Flight,\" such as is described by poets,\nmust, when compared with his own \"flying,\" be far too earthly, muscular,\nviolent, far too \"troublesome\" for him.\n\n194. The difference among men does not manifest itself only in the\ndifference of their lists of desirable things--in their regarding\ndifferent good things as worth striving for, and being disagreed as to\nthe greater or less value, the order of rank, of the commonly recognized\ndesirable things:--it manifests itself much more in what they regard as\nactually HAVING and POSSESSING a desirable thing. As regards a woman,\nfor instance, the control over her body and her sexual gratification\nserves as an amply sufficient sign of ownership and possession to the\nmore modest man; another with a more suspicious and ambitious thirst for\npossession, sees the \"questionableness,\" the mere apparentness of such\nownership, and wishes to have finer tests in order to know especially\nwhether the woman not only gives herself to him, but also gives up for\nhis sake what she has or would like to have--only THEN does he look upon\nher as \"possessed.\" A third, however, has not even here got to the limit\nof his distrust and his desire for possession: he asks himself whether\nthe woman, when she gives up everything for him, does not perhaps do\nso for a phantom of him; he wishes first to be thoroughly, indeed,\nprofoundly well known; in order to be loved at all he ventures to let\nhimself be found out. Only then does he feel the beloved one fully in\nhis possession, when she no longer deceives herself about him, when\nshe loves him just as much for the sake of his devilry and concealed\ninsatiability, as for his goodness, patience, and spirituality. One\nman would like to possess a nation, and he finds all the higher arts of\nCagliostro and Catalina suitable for his purpose. Another, with a more\nrefined thirst for possession, says to himself: \"One may not deceive\nwhere one desires to possess\"--he is irritated and impatient at the idea\nthat a mask of him should rule in the hearts of the people: \"I must,\ntherefore, MAKE myself known, and first of all learn to know myself!\"\nAmong helpful and charitable people, one almost always finds the awkward\ncraftiness which first gets up suitably him who has to be helped, as\nthough, for instance, he should \"merit\" help, seek just THEIR help, and\nwould show himself deeply grateful, attached, and subservient to them\nfor all help. With these conceits, they take control of the needy as a\nproperty, just as in general they are charitable and helpful out of a\ndesire for property. One finds them jealous when they are crossed or\nforestalled in their charity. Parents involuntarily make something like\nthemselves out of their children--they call that \"education\"; no mother\ndoubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is\nthereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN\nideas and notions of worth. Indeed, in former times fathers deemed it\nright to use their discretion concerning the life or death of the newly\nborn (as among the ancient Germans). And like the father, so also do the\nteacher, the class, the priest, and the prince still see in every new\nindividual an unobjectionable opportunity for a new possession. The\nconsequence is...\n\n195. The Jews--a people \"born for slavery,\" as Tacitus and the whole\nancient world say of them; \"the chosen people among the nations,\" as\nthey themselves say and believe--the Jews performed the miracle of the\ninversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new\nand dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused\ninto one the expressions \"rich,\" \"godless,\" \"wicked,\" \"violent,\"\n\"sensual,\" and for the first time coined the word \"world\" as a term of\nreproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included\nthe use of the word \"poor\" as synonymous with \"saint\" and \"friend\") the\nsignificance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with THEM that\nthe SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences.\n\n196. It is to be INFERRED that there are countless dark bodies near the\nsun--such as we shall never see. Among ourselves, this is an allegory;\nand the psychologist of morals reads the whole star-writing merely as an\nallegorical and symbolic language in which much may be unexpressed.\n\n197. The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Caesar Borgia)\nare fundamentally misunderstood, \"nature\" is misunderstood, so long as\none seeks a \"morbidness\" in the constitution of these healthiest of\nall tropical monsters and growths, or even an innate \"hell\" in them--as\nalmost all moralists have done hitherto. Does it not seem that there is\na hatred of the virgin forest and of the tropics among moralists? And\nthat the \"tropical man\" must be discredited at all costs, whether\nas disease and deterioration of mankind, or as his own hell and\nself-torture? And why? In favour of the \"temperate zones\"? In favour\nof the temperate men? The \"moral\"? The mediocre?--This for the chapter:\n\"Morals as Timidity.\"\n\n198. All the systems of morals which address themselves with a view to\ntheir \"happiness,\" as it is called--what else are they but suggestions\nfor behaviour adapted to the degree of DANGER from themselves in which\nthe individuals live; recipes for their passions, their good and bad\npropensities, insofar as such have the Will to Power and would like\nto play the master; small and great expediencies and elaborations,\npermeated with the musty odour of old family medicines and old-wife\nwisdom; all of them grotesque and absurd in their form--because\nthey address themselves to \"all,\" because they generalize where\ngeneralization is not authorized; all of them speaking unconditionally,\nand taking themselves unconditionally; all of them flavoured not merely\nwith one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, and sometimes even\nseductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to smell dangerously,\nespecially of \"the other world.\" That is all of little value when\nestimated intellectually, and is far from being \"science,\" much less\n\"wisdom\"; but, repeated once more, and three times repeated, it is\nexpediency, expediency, expediency, mixed with stupidity, stupidity,\nstupidity--whether it be the indifference and statuesque coldness\ntowards the heated folly of the emotions, which the Stoics advised and\nfostered; or the no-more-laughing and no-more-weeping of Spinoza, the\ndestruction of the emotions by their analysis and vivisection, which he\nrecommended so naively; or the lowering of the emotions to an innocent\nmean at which they may be satisfied, the Aristotelianism of morals;\nor even morality as the enjoyment of the emotions in a voluntary\nattenuation and spiritualization by the symbolism of art, perhaps as\nmusic, or as love of God, and of mankind for God's sake--for in religion\nthe passions are once more enfranchised, provided that...; or, finally,\neven the complaisant and wanton surrender to the emotions, as has\nbeen taught by Hafis and Goethe, the bold letting-go of the reins, the\nspiritual and corporeal licentia morum in the exceptional cases of\nwise old codgers and drunkards, with whom it \"no longer has much\ndanger.\"--This also for the chapter: \"Morals as Timidity.\"\n\n199. Inasmuch as in all ages, as long as mankind has existed, there have\nalso been human herds (family alliances, communities, tribes, peoples,\nstates, churches), and always a great number who obey in proportion\nto the small number who command--in view, therefore, of the fact that\nobedience has been most practiced and fostered among mankind hitherto,\none may reasonably suppose that, generally speaking, the need thereof is\nnow innate in every one, as a kind of FORMAL CONSCIENCE which gives\nthe command \"Thou shalt unconditionally do something, unconditionally\nrefrain from something\", in short, \"Thou shalt\". This need tries to\nsatisfy itself and to fill its form with a content, according to its\nstrength, impatience, and eagerness, it at once seizes as an omnivorous\nappetite with little selection, and accepts whatever is shouted into\nits ear by all sorts of commanders--parents, teachers, laws, class\nprejudices, or public opinion. The extraordinary limitation of human\ndevelopment, the hesitation, protractedness, frequent retrogression, and\nturning thereof, is attributable to the fact that the herd-instinct of\nobedience is transmitted best, and at the cost of the art of command. If\none imagine this instinct increasing to its greatest extent, commanders\nand independent individuals will finally be lacking altogether, or they\nwill suffer inwardly from a bad conscience, and will have to impose\na deception on themselves in the first place in order to be able to\ncommand just as if they also were only obeying. This condition of things\nactually exists in Europe at present--I call it the moral hypocrisy of\nthe commanding class. They know no other way of protecting themselves\nfrom their bad conscience than by playing the role of executors of older\nand higher orders (of predecessors, of the constitution, of justice, of\nthe law, or of God himself), or they even justify themselves by maxims\nfrom the current opinions of the herd, as \"first servants of their\npeople,\" or \"instruments of the public weal\". On the other hand, the\ngregarious European man nowadays assumes an air as if he were the only\nkind of man that is allowable, he glorifies his qualities, such as\npublic spirit, kindness, deference, industry, temperance, modesty,\nindulgence, sympathy, by virtue of which he is gentle, endurable, and\nuseful to the herd, as the peculiarly human virtues. In cases, however,\nwhere it is believed that the leader and bell-wether cannot be dispensed\nwith, attempt after attempt is made nowadays to replace commanders\nby the summing together of clever gregarious men all representative\nconstitutions, for example, are of this origin. In spite of all, what a\nblessing, what a deliverance from a weight becoming unendurable, is the\nappearance of an absolute ruler for these gregarious Europeans--of this\nfact the effect of the appearance of Napoleon was the last great proof\nthe history of the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of\nthe higher happiness to which the entire century has attained in its\nworthiest individuals and periods.\n\n200. The man of an age of dissolution which mixes the races with\none another, who has the inheritance of a diversified descent in his\nbody--that is to say, contrary, and often not only contrary, instincts\nand standards of value, which struggle with one another and are seldom\nat peace--such a man of late culture and broken lights, will, on an\naverage, be a weak man. His fundamental desire is that the war which is\nIN HIM should come to an end; happiness appears to him in the character\nof a soothing medicine and mode of thought (for instance, Epicurean\nor Christian); it is above all things the happiness of repose, of\nundisturbedness, of repletion, of final unity--it is the \"Sabbath of\nSabbaths,\" to use the expression of the holy rhetorician, St. Augustine,\nwho was himself such a man.--Should, however, the contrariety and\nconflict in such natures operate as an ADDITIONAL incentive and stimulus\nto life--and if, on the other hand, in addition to their powerful and\nirreconcilable instincts, they have also inherited and indoctrinated\ninto them a proper mastery and subtlety for carrying on the conflict\nwith themselves (that is to say, the faculty of self-control and\nself-deception), there then arise those marvelously incomprehensible and\ninexplicable beings, those enigmatical men, predestined for conquering\nand circumventing others, the finest examples of which are Alcibiades\nand Caesar (with whom I should like to associate the FIRST of Europeans\naccording to my taste, the Hohenstaufen, Frederick the Second), and\namong artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear precisely in the\nsame periods when that weaker type, with its longing for repose, comes\nto the front; the two types are complementary to each other, and spring\nfrom the same causes.\n\n201. As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only\ngregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is only\nkept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively in\nwhat seems dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can be\nno \"morality of love to one's neighbour.\" Granted even that there is\nalready a little constant exercise of consideration, sympathy, fairness,\ngentleness, and mutual assistance, granted that even in this condition\nof society all those instincts are already active which are latterly\ndistinguished by honourable names as \"virtues,\" and eventually almost\ncoincide with the conception \"morality\": in that period they do not\nas yet belong to the domain of moral valuations--they are still\nULTRA-MORAL. A sympathetic action, for instance, is neither called good\nnor bad, moral nor immoral, in the best period of the Romans; and should\nit be praised, a sort of resentful disdain is compatible with this\npraise, even at the best, directly the sympathetic action is compared\nwith one which contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES\nPUBLICA. After all, \"love to our neighbour\" is always a secondary\nmatter, partly conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to\nour FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR. After the fabric of society seems on the\nwhole established and secured against external dangers, it is this\nfear of our neighbour which again creates new perspectives of moral\nvaluation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such as the love of\nenterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness, astuteness, rapacity, and\nlove of power, which up till then had not only to be honoured from the\npoint of view of general utility--under other names, of course, than\nthose here given--but had to be fostered and cultivated (because they\nwere perpetually required in the common danger against the common\nenemies), are now felt in their dangerousness to be doubly strong--when\nthe outlets for them are lacking--and are gradually branded as immoral\nand given over to calumny. The contrary instincts and inclinations now\nattain to moral honour, the gregarious instinct gradually draws its\nconclusions. How much or how little dangerousness to the community or\nto equality is contained in an opinion, a condition, an emotion, a\ndisposition, or an endowment--that is now the moral perspective, here\nagain fear is the mother of morals. It is by the loftiest and strongest\ninstincts, when they break out passionately and carry the individual\nfar above and beyond the average, and the low level of the gregarious\nconscience, that the self-reliance of the community is destroyed, its\nbelief in itself, its backbone, as it were, breaks, consequently these\nvery instincts will be most branded and defamed. The lofty independent\nspirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent reason, are\nfelt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above the\nherd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called\nEVIL, the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing\ndisposition, the MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and\nhonour. Finally, under very peaceful circumstances, there is always\nless opportunity and necessity for training the feelings to severity\nand rigour, and now every form of severity, even in justice, begins\nto disturb the conscience, a lofty and rigorous nobleness and\nself-responsibility almost offends, and awakens distrust, \"the lamb,\"\nand still more \"the sheep,\" wins respect. There is a point of diseased\nmellowness and effeminacy in the history of society, at which society\nitself takes the part of him who injures it, the part of the CRIMINAL,\nand does so, in fact, seriously and honestly. To punish, appears to it\nto be somehow unfair--it is certain that the idea of \"punishment\" and\n\"the obligation to punish\" are then painful and alarming to people. \"Is\nit not sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS? Why should we\nstill punish? Punishment itself is terrible!\"--with these questions\ngregarious morality, the morality of fear, draws its ultimate\nconclusion. If one could at all do away with danger, the cause of fear,\none would have done away with this morality at the same time, it\nwould no longer be necessary, it WOULD NOT CONSIDER ITSELF any longer\nnecessary!--Whoever examines the conscience of the present-day European,\nwill always elicit the same imperative from its thousand moral folds\nand hidden recesses, the imperative of the timidity of the herd \"we wish\nthat some time or other there may be NOTHING MORE TO FEAR!\" Some time\nor other--the will and the way THERETO is nowadays called \"progress\" all\nover Europe.\n\n202. Let us at once say again what we have already said a hundred\ntimes, for people's ears nowadays are unwilling to hear such truths--OUR\ntruths. We know well enough how offensive it sounds when any one\nplainly, and without metaphor, counts man among the animals, but it will\nbe accounted to us almost a CRIME, that it is precisely in respect to\nmen of \"modern ideas\" that we have constantly applied the terms \"herd,\"\n\"herd-instincts,\" and such like expressions. What avail is it? We cannot\ndo otherwise, for it is precisely here that our new insight is. We\nhave found that in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become\nunanimous, including likewise the countries where European influence\nprevails in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates thought he\ndid not know, and what the famous serpent of old once promised to\nteach--they \"know\" today what is good and evil. It must then sound hard\nand be distasteful to the ear, when we always insist that that which\nhere thinks it knows, that which here glorifies itself with praise\nand blame, and calls itself good, is the instinct of the herding human\nanimal, the instinct which has come and is ever coming more and more\nto the front, to preponderance and supremacy over other instincts,\naccording to the increasing physiological approximation and resemblance\nof which it is the symptom. MORALITY IN EUROPE AT PRESENT IS\nHERDING-ANIMAL MORALITY, and therefore, as we understand the matter,\nonly one kind of human morality, beside which, before which, and after\nwhich many other moralities, and above all HIGHER moralities, are or\nshould be possible. Against such a \"possibility,\" against such a \"should\nbe,\" however, this morality defends itself with all its strength, it\nsays obstinately and inexorably \"I am morality itself and nothing else\nis morality!\" Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured\nand flattered the sublimest desires of the herding-animal, things have\nreached such a point that we always find a more visible expression of\nthis morality even in political and social arrangements: the DEMOCRATIC\nmovement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. That its TEMPO,\nhowever, is much too slow and sleepy for the more impatient ones, for\nthose who are sick and distracted by the herding-instinct, is indicated\nby the increasingly furious howling, and always less disguised\nteeth-gnashing of the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the\nhighways of European culture. Apparently in opposition to the peacefully\nindustrious democrats and Revolution-ideologues, and still more so\nto the awkward philosophasters and fraternity-visionaries who call\nthemselves Socialists and want a \"free society,\" those are really at one\nwith them all in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every form\nof society other than that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the extent even of\nrepudiating the notions \"master\" and \"servant\"--ni dieu ni maitre, says\na socialist formula); at one in their tenacious opposition to every\nspecial claim, every special right and privilege (this means ultimately\nopposition to EVERY right, for when all are equal, no one needs \"rights\"\nany longer); at one in their distrust of punitive justice (as though it\nwere a violation of the weak, unfair to the NECESSARY consequences of\nall former society); but equally at one in their religion of sympathy,\nin their compassion for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to the\nvery animals, up even to \"God\"--the extravagance of \"sympathy for\nGod\" belongs to a democratic age); altogether at one in the cry and\nimpatience of their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering\ngenerally, in their almost feminine incapacity for witnessing it or\nALLOWING it; at one in their involuntary beglooming and heart-softening,\nunder the spell of which Europe seems to be threatened with a new\nBuddhism; at one in their belief in the morality of MUTUAL sympathy, as\nthough it were morality in itself, the climax, the ATTAINED climax of\nmankind, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of the present,\nthe great discharge from all the obligations of the past; altogether at\none in their belief in the community as the DELIVERER, in the herd, and\ntherefore in \"themselves.\"\n\n203. We, who hold a different belief--we, who regard the democratic\nmovement, not only as a degenerating form of political organization, but\nas equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type of man, as involving his\nmediocrising and depreciation: where have WE to fix our hopes? In\nNEW PHILOSOPHERS--there is no other alternative: in minds strong and\noriginal enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue\nand invert \"eternal valuations\"; in forerunners, in men of the future,\nwho in the present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which\nwill compel millenniums to take NEW paths. To teach man the future\nof humanity as his WILL, as depending on human will, and to make\npreparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in\nrearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful\nrule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of\n\"history\" (the folly of the \"greatest number\" is only its last\nform)--for that purpose a new type of philosopher and commander will\nsome time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that\nhas existed in the way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might\nlook pale and dwarfed. The image of such leaders hovers before OUR\neyes:--is it lawful for me to say it aloud, ye free spirits? The\nconditions which one would partly have to create and partly utilize for\ntheir genesis; the presumptive methods and tests by virtue of which\na soul should grow up to such an elevation and power as to feel a\nCONSTRAINT to these tasks; a transvaluation of values, under the new\npressure and hammer of which a conscience should be steeled and a heart\ntransformed into brass, so as to bear the weight of such responsibility;\nand on the other hand the necessity for such leaders, the dreadful\ndanger that they might be lacking, or miscarry and degenerate:--these\nare OUR real anxieties and glooms, ye know it well, ye free spirits!\nthese are the heavy distant thoughts and storms which sweep across the\nheaven of OUR life. There are few pains so grievous as to have seen,\ndivined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and\ndeteriorated; but he who has the rare eye for the universal danger\nof \"man\" himself DETERIORATING, he who like us has recognized the\nextraordinary fortuitousness which has hitherto played its game in\nrespect to the future of mankind--a game in which neither the hand, nor\neven a \"finger of God\" has participated!--he who divines the fate that\nis hidden under the idiotic unwariness and blind confidence of\n\"modern ideas,\" and still more under the whole of Christo-European\nmorality--suffers from an anguish with which no other is to be compared.\nHe sees at a glance all that could still BE MADE OUT OF MAN through\na favourable accumulation and augmentation of human powers and\narrangements; he knows with all the knowledge of his conviction how\nunexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities, and how often\nin the past the type man has stood in presence of mysterious decisions\nand new paths:--he knows still better from his painfulest recollections\non what wretched obstacles promising developments of the highest rank\nhave hitherto usually gone to pieces, broken down, sunk, and become\ncontemptible. The UNIVERSAL DEGENERACY OF MANKIND to the level of\nthe \"man of the future\"--as idealized by the socialistic fools and\nshallow-pates--this degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely\ngregarious animal (or as they call it, to a man of \"free society\"),\nthis brutalizing of man into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is\nundoubtedly POSSIBLE! He who has thought out this possibility to its\nultimate conclusion knows ANOTHER loathing unknown to the rest of\nmankind--and perhaps also a new MISSION!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. WE SCHOLARS\n\n\n204. At the risk that moralizing may also reveal itself here as that\nwhich it has always been--namely, resolutely MONTRER SES PLAIES,\naccording to Balzac--I would venture to protest against an improper and\ninjurious alteration of rank, which quite unnoticed, and as if with the\nbest conscience, threatens nowadays to establish itself in the relations\nof science and philosophy. I mean to say that one must have the right\nout of one's own EXPERIENCE--experience, as it seems to me, always\nimplies unfortunate experience?--to treat of such an important question\nof rank, so as not to speak of colour like the blind, or AGAINST science\nlike women and artists (\"Ah! this dreadful science!\" sigh their instinct\nand their shame, \"it always FINDS THINGS OUT!\"). The declaration of\nindependence of the scientific man, his emancipation from philosophy,\nis one of the subtler after-effects of democratic organization and\ndisorganization: the self-glorification and self-conceitedness of\nthe learned man is now everywhere in full bloom, and in its best\nspringtime--which does not mean to imply that in this case self-praise\nsmells sweet. Here also the instinct of the populace cries, \"Freedom\nfrom all masters!\" and after science has, with the happiest results,\nresisted theology, whose \"hand-maid\" it had been too long, it now\nproposes in its wantonness and indiscretion to lay down laws for\nphilosophy, and in its turn to play the \"master\"--what am I saying!\nto play the PHILOSOPHER on its own account. My memory--the memory of\na scientific man, if you please!--teems with the naivetes of insolence\nwhich I have heard about philosophy and philosophers from young\nnaturalists and old physicians (not to mention the most cultured and\nmost conceited of all learned men, the philologists and schoolmasters,\nwho are both the one and the other by profession). On one occasion it\nwas the specialist and the Jack Horner who instinctively stood on the\ndefensive against all synthetic tasks and capabilities; at another time\nit was the industrious worker who had got a scent of OTIUM and refined\nluxuriousness in the internal economy of the philosopher, and felt\nhimself aggrieved and belittled thereby. On another occasion it was the\ncolour-blindness of the utilitarian, who sees nothing in philosophy but\na series of REFUTED systems, and an extravagant expenditure which \"does\nnobody any good\". At another time the fear of disguised mysticism and of\nthe boundary-adjustment of knowledge became conspicuous, at another\ntime the disregard of individual philosophers, which had involuntarily\nextended to disregard of philosophy generally. In fine, I found most\nfrequently, behind the proud disdain of philosophy in young scholars,\nthe evil after-effect of some particular philosopher, to whom on the\nwhole obedience had been foresworn, without, however, the spell of his\nscornful estimates of other philosophers having been got rid of--the\nresult being a general ill-will to all philosophy. (Such seems to\nme, for instance, the after-effect of Schopenhauer on the most modern\nGermany: by his unintelligent rage against Hegel, he has succeeded in\nsevering the whole of the last generation of Germans from its connection\nwith German culture, which culture, all things considered, has been\nan elevation and a divining refinement of the HISTORICAL SENSE, but\nprecisely at this point Schopenhauer himself was poor, irreceptive,\nand un-German to the extent of ingeniousness.) On the whole, speaking\ngenerally, it may just have been the humanness, all-too-humanness of the\nmodern philosophers themselves, in short, their contemptibleness, which\nhas injured most radically the reverence for philosophy and opened the\ndoors to the instinct of the populace. Let it but be acknowledged to\nwhat an extent our modern world diverges from the whole style of the\nworld of Heraclitus, Plato, Empedocles, and whatever else all the royal\nand magnificent anchorites of the spirit were called, and with what\njustice an honest man of science MAY feel himself of a better family and\norigin, in view of such representatives of philosophy, who, owing to\nthe fashion of the present day, are just as much aloft as they are down\nbelow--in Germany, for instance, the two lions of Berlin, the anarchist\nEugen Duhring and the amalgamist Eduard von Hartmann. It is especially\nthe sight of those hotch-potch philosophers, who call themselves\n\"realists,\" or \"positivists,\" which is calculated to implant a\ndangerous distrust in the soul of a young and ambitious scholar those\nphilosophers, at the best, are themselves but scholars and specialists,\nthat is very evident! All of them are persons who have been vanquished\nand BROUGHT BACK AGAIN under the dominion of science, who at one time\nor another claimed more from themselves, without having a right to the\n\"more\" and its responsibility--and who now, creditably, rancorously, and\nvindictively, represent in word and deed, DISBELIEF in the master-task\nand supremacy of philosophy After all, how could it be otherwise?\nScience flourishes nowadays and has the good conscience clearly visible\non its countenance, while that to which the entire modern philosophy has\ngradually sunk, the remnant of philosophy of the present day, excites\ndistrust and displeasure, if not scorn and pity Philosophy reduced to\na \"theory of knowledge,\" no more in fact than a diffident science of\nepochs and doctrine of forbearance a philosophy that never even\ngets beyond the threshold, and rigorously DENIES itself the right\nto enter--that is philosophy in its last throes, an end, an agony,\nsomething that awakens pity. How could such a philosophy--RULE!\n\n205. The dangers that beset the evolution of the philosopher are, in\nfact, so manifold nowadays, that one might doubt whether this fruit\ncould still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of the\nsciences have increased enormously, and therewith also the probability\nthat the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner, or will attach\nhimself somewhere and \"specialize\" so that he will no longer attain to\nhis elevation, that is to say, to his superspection, his circumspection,\nand his DESPECTION. Or he gets aloft too late, when the best of his\nmaturity and strength is past, or when he is impaired, coarsened, and\ndeteriorated, so that his view, his general estimate of things, is no\nlonger of much importance. It is perhaps just the refinement of his\nintellectual conscience that makes him hesitate and linger on the\nway, he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a\nmilleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost\nhis self-respect no longer commands, no longer LEADS, unless he should\naspire to become a great play-actor, a philosophical Cagliostro and\nspiritual rat-catcher--in short, a misleader. This is in the last\ninstance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of\nconscience. To double once more the philosopher's difficulties, there is\nalso the fact that he demands from himself a verdict, a Yea or Nay, not\nconcerning science, but concerning life and the worth of life--he learns\nunwillingly to believe that it is his right and even his duty to obtain\nthis verdict, and he has to seek his way to the right and the belief\nonly through the most extensive (perhaps disturbing and destroying)\nexperiences, often hesitating, doubting, and dumbfounded. In fact, the\nphilosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either\nwith the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously\nelevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated\nman; and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives\n\"wisely,\" or \"as a philosopher,\" it hardly means anything more than\n\"prudently and apart.\" Wisdom: that seems to the populace to be a kind\nof flight, a means and artifice for withdrawing successfully from a\nbad game; but the GENUINE philosopher--does it not seem so to US,\nmy friends?--lives \"unphilosophically\" and \"unwisely,\" above all,\nIMPRUDENTLY, and feels the obligation and burden of a hundred attempts\nand temptations of life--he risks HIMSELF constantly, he plays THIS bad\ngame.\n\n206. In relation to the genius, that is to say, a being who either\nENGENDERS or PRODUCES--both words understood in their fullest sense--the\nman of learning, the scientific average man, has always something of\nthe old maid about him; for, like her, he is not conversant with the two\nprincipal functions of man. To both, of course, to the scholar and\nto the old maid, one concedes respectability, as if by way of\nindemnification--in these cases one emphasizes the respectability--and\nyet, in the compulsion of this concession, one has the same admixture\nof vexation. Let us examine more closely: what is the scientific man?\nFirstly, a commonplace type of man, with commonplace virtues: that is\nto say, a non-ruling, non-authoritative, and non-self-sufficient type\nof man; he possesses industry, patient adaptableness to rank and file,\nequability and moderation in capacity and requirement; he has the\ninstinct for people like himself, and for that which they require--for\ninstance: the portion of independence and green meadow without which\nthere is no rest from labour, the claim to honour and consideration\n(which first and foremost presupposes recognition and recognisability),\nthe sunshine of a good name, the perpetual ratification of his value and\nusefulness, with which the inward DISTRUST which lies at the bottom of\nthe heart of all dependent men and gregarious animals, has again and\nagain to be overcome. The learned man, as is appropriate, has also\nmaladies and faults of an ignoble kind: he is full of petty envy, and\nhas a lynx-eye for the weak points in those natures to whose elevations\nhe cannot attain. He is confiding, yet only as one who lets himself go,\nbut does not FLOW; and precisely before the man of the great current he\nstands all the colder and more reserved--his eye is then like a smooth\nand irresponsive lake, which is no longer moved by rapture or sympathy.\nThe worst and most dangerous thing of which a scholar is capable results\nfrom the instinct of mediocrity of his type, from the Jesuitism of\nmediocrity, which labours instinctively for the destruction of\nthe exceptional man, and endeavours to break--or still better, to\nrelax--every bent bow To relax, of course, with consideration, and\nnaturally with an indulgent hand--to RELAX with confiding sympathy\nthat is the real art of Jesuitism, which has always understood how to\nintroduce itself as the religion of sympathy.\n\n207. However gratefully one may welcome the OBJECTIVE spirit--and\nwho has not been sick to death of all subjectivity and its confounded\nIPSISIMOSITY!--in the end, however, one must learn caution even with\nregard to one's gratitude, and put a stop to the exaggeration with\nwhich the unselfing and depersonalizing of the spirit has recently been\ncelebrated, as if it were the goal in itself, as if it were salvation\nand glorification--as is especially accustomed to happen in the\npessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the\nhighest honours to \"disinterested knowledge\" The objective man, who no\nlonger curses and scolds like the pessimist, the IDEAL man of learning\nin whom the scientific instinct blossoms forth fully after a thousand\ncomplete and partial failures, is assuredly one of the most costly\ninstruments that exist, but his place is in the hand of one who is more\npowerful He is only an instrument, we may say, he is a MIRROR--he is no\n\"purpose in himself\" The objective man is in truth a mirror accustomed\nto prostration before everything that wants to be known, with such\ndesires only as knowing or \"reflecting\" implies--he waits until\nsomething comes, and then expands himself sensitively, so that even the\nlight footsteps and gliding-past of spiritual beings may not be lost on\nhis surface and film Whatever \"personality\" he still possesses seems to\nhim accidental, arbitrary, or still oftener, disturbing, so much has he\ncome to regard himself as the passage and reflection of outside forms\nand events He calls up the recollection of \"himself\" with an effort,\nand not infrequently wrongly, he readily confounds himself with other\npersons, he makes mistakes with regard to his own needs, and here only\nis he unrefined and negligent Perhaps he is troubled about the health,\nor the pettiness and confined atmosphere of wife and friend, or the lack\nof companions and society--indeed, he sets himself to reflect on his\nsuffering, but in vain! His thoughts already rove away to the MORE\nGENERAL case, and tomorrow he knows as little as he knew yesterday how\nto help himself He does not now take himself seriously and devote time\nto himself he is serene, NOT from lack of trouble, but from lack\nof capacity for grasping and dealing with HIS trouble The habitual\ncomplaisance with respect to all objects and experiences, the radiant\nand impartial hospitality with which he receives everything that\ncomes his way, his habit of inconsiderate good-nature, of dangerous\nindifference as to Yea and Nay: alas! there are enough of cases in which\nhe has to atone for these virtues of his!--and as man generally, he\nbecomes far too easily the CAPUT MORTUUM of such virtues. Should one\nwish love or hatred from him--I mean love and hatred as God, woman, and\nanimal understand them--he will do what he can, and furnish what he can.\nBut one must not be surprised if it should not be much--if he should\nshow himself just at this point to be false, fragile, questionable, and\ndeteriorated. His love is constrained, his hatred is artificial, and\nrather UN TOUR DE FORCE, a slight ostentation and exaggeration. He is\nonly genuine so far as he can be objective; only in his serene totality\nis he still \"nature\" and \"natural.\" His mirroring and eternally\nself-polishing soul no longer knows how to affirm, no longer how to\ndeny; he does not command; neither does he destroy. \"JE NE MEPRISE\nPRESQUE RIEN\"--he says, with Leibniz: let us not overlook nor undervalue\nthe PRESQUE! Neither is he a model man; he does not go in advance of any\none, nor after, either; he places himself generally too far off to have\nany reason for espousing the cause of either good or evil. If he has\nbeen so long confounded with the PHILOSOPHER, with the Caesarian trainer\nand dictator of civilization, he has had far too much honour, and what\nis more essential in him has been overlooked--he is an instrument,\nsomething of a slave, though certainly the sublimest sort of slave, but\nnothing in himself--PRESQUE RIEN! The objective man is an instrument,\na costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and\nmirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected; but he\nis no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the\nREST of existence justifies itself, no termination--and still less a\ncommencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful,\nself-centred, that wants to be master; but rather only a soft, inflated,\ndelicate, movable potter's-form, that must wait for some kind of content\nand frame to \"shape\" itself thereto--for the most part a man without\nframe and content, a \"selfless\" man. Consequently, also, nothing for\nwomen, IN PARENTHESI.\n\n208. When a philosopher nowadays makes known that he is not a skeptic--I\nhope that has been gathered from the foregoing description of the\nobjective spirit?--people all hear it impatiently; they regard him on\nthat account with some apprehension, they would like to ask so many,\nmany questions... indeed among timid hearers, of whom there are now so\nmany, he is henceforth said to be dangerous. With his repudiation of\nskepticism, it seems to them as if they heard some evil-threatening\nsound in the distance, as if a new kind of explosive were being tried\nsomewhere, a dynamite of the spirit, perhaps a newly discovered Russian\nNIHILINE, a pessimism BONAE VOLUNTATIS, that not only denies, means\ndenial, but--dreadful thought! PRACTISES denial. Against this kind of\n\"good-will\"--a will to the veritable, actual negation of life--there is,\nas is generally acknowledged nowadays, no better soporific and sedative\nthan skepticism, the mild, pleasing, lulling poppy of skepticism;\nand Hamlet himself is now prescribed by the doctors of the day as an\nantidote to the \"spirit,\" and its underground noises. \"Are not our ears\nalready full of bad sounds?\" say the skeptics, as lovers of repose, and\nalmost as a kind of safety police; \"this subterranean Nay is terrible!\nBe still, ye pessimistic moles!\" The skeptic, in effect, that delicate\ncreature, is far too easily frightened; his conscience is schooled so\nas to start at every Nay, and even at that sharp, decided Yea, and feels\nsomething like a bite thereby. Yea! and Nay!--they seem to him opposed\nto morality; he loves, on the contrary, to make a festival to his virtue\nby a noble aloofness, while perhaps he says with Montaigne: \"What do I\nknow?\" Or with Socrates: \"I know that I know nothing.\" Or: \"Here I do\nnot trust myself, no door is open to me.\" Or: \"Even if the door were\nopen, why should I enter immediately?\" Or: \"What is the use of any hasty\nhypotheses? It might quite well be in good taste to make no hypotheses\nat all. Are you absolutely obliged to straighten at once what is\ncrooked? to stuff every hole with some kind of oakum? Is there not time\nenough for that? Has not the time leisure? Oh, ye demons, can ye not\nat all WAIT? The uncertain also has its charms, the Sphinx, too, is a\nCirce, and Circe, too, was a philosopher.\"--Thus does a skeptic console\nhimself; and in truth he needs some consolation. For skepticism is\nthe most spiritual expression of a certain many-sided physiological\ntemperament, which in ordinary language is called nervous debility and\nsickliness; it arises whenever races or classes which have been long\nseparated, decisively and suddenly blend with one another. In the new\ngeneration, which has inherited as it were different standards and\nvaluations in its blood, everything is disquiet, derangement, doubt, and\ntentativeness; the best powers operate restrictively, the very virtues\nprevent each other growing and becoming strong, equilibrium, ballast,\nand perpendicular stability are lacking in body and soul. That, however,\nwhich is most diseased and degenerated in such nondescripts is the\nWILL; they are no longer familiar with independence of decision, or\nthe courageous feeling of pleasure in willing--they are doubtful of the\n\"freedom of the will\" even in their dreams Our present-day Europe,\nthe scene of a senseless, precipitate attempt at a radical blending of\nclasses, and CONSEQUENTLY of races, is therefore skeptical in all its\nheights and depths, sometimes exhibiting the mobile skepticism which\nsprings impatiently and wantonly from branch to branch, sometimes with\ngloomy aspect, like a cloud over-charged with interrogative signs--and\noften sick unto death of its will! Paralysis of will, where do we not\nfind this cripple sitting nowadays! And yet how bedecked oftentimes' How\nseductively ornamented! There are the finest gala dresses and disguises\nfor this disease, and that, for instance, most of what places itself\nnowadays in the show-cases as \"objectiveness,\" \"the scientific spirit,\"\n\"L'ART POUR L'ART,\" and \"pure voluntary knowledge,\" is only decked-out\nskepticism and paralysis of will--I am ready to answer for this\ndiagnosis of the European disease--The disease of the will is diffused\nunequally over Europe, it is worst and most varied where civilization\nhas longest prevailed, it decreases according as \"the barbarian\"\nstill--or again--asserts his claims under the loose drapery of Western\nculture It is therefore in the France of today, as can be readily\ndisclosed and comprehended, that the will is most infirm, and France,\nwhich has always had a masterly aptitude for converting even the\nportentous crises of its spirit into something charming and seductive,\nnow manifests emphatically its intellectual ascendancy over Europe,\nby being the school and exhibition of all the charms of skepticism The\npower to will and to persist, moreover, in a resolution, is already\nsomewhat stronger in Germany, and again in the North of Germany it\nis stronger than in Central Germany, it is considerably stronger in\nEngland, Spain, and Corsica, associated with phlegm in the former and\nwith hard skulls in the latter--not to mention Italy, which is too young\nyet to know what it wants, and must first show whether it can exercise\nwill, but it is strongest and most surprising of all in that immense\nmiddle empire where Europe as it were flows back to Asia--namely, in\nRussia There the power to will has been long stored up and accumulated,\nthere the will--uncertain whether to be negative or affirmative--waits\nthreateningly to be discharged (to borrow their pet phrase from our\nphysicists) Perhaps not only Indian wars and complications in Asia would\nbe necessary to free Europe from its greatest danger, but also internal\nsubversion, the shattering of the empire into small states, and above\nall the introduction of parliamentary imbecility, together with the\nobligation of every one to read his newspaper at breakfast I do not\nsay this as one who desires it, in my heart I should rather prefer the\ncontrary--I mean such an increase in the threatening attitude of\nRussia, that Europe would have to make up its mind to become equally\nthreatening--namely, TO ACQUIRE ONE WILL, by means of a new caste to\nrule over the Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that\ncan set its aims thousands of years ahead; so that the long spun-out\ncomedy of its petty-statism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic\nmany-willed-ness, might finally be brought to a close. The time for\npetty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the\ndominion of the world--the COMPULSION to great politics.\n\n209. As to how far the new warlike age on which we Europeans have\nevidently entered may perhaps favour the growth of another and stronger\nkind of skepticism, I should like to express myself preliminarily\nmerely by a parable, which the lovers of German history will already\nunderstand. That unscrupulous enthusiast for big, handsome grenadiers\n(who, as King of Prussia, brought into being a military and skeptical\ngenius--and therewith, in reality, the new and now triumphantly emerged\ntype of German), the problematic, crazy father of Frederick the Great,\nhad on one point the very knack and lucky grasp of the genius: he knew\nwhat was then lacking in Germany, the want of which was a hundred times\nmore alarming and serious than any lack of culture and social form--his\nill-will to the young Frederick resulted from the anxiety of a profound\ninstinct. MEN WERE LACKING; and he suspected, to his bitterest regret,\nthat his own son was not man enough. There, however, he deceived\nhimself; but who would not have deceived himself in his place? He saw\nhis son lapsed to atheism, to the ESPRIT, to the pleasant frivolity of\nclever Frenchmen--he saw in the background the great bloodsucker, the\nspider skepticism; he suspected the incurable wretchedness of a heart no\nlonger hard enough either for evil or good, and of a broken will that no\nlonger commands, is no longer ABLE to command. Meanwhile, however,\nthere grew up in his son that new kind of harder and more dangerous\nskepticism--who knows TO WHAT EXTENT it was encouraged just by\nhis father's hatred and the icy melancholy of a will condemned to\nsolitude?--the skepticism of daring manliness, which is closely related\nto the genius for war and conquest, and made its first entrance into\nGermany in the person of the great Frederick. This skepticism despises\nand nevertheless grasps; it undermines and takes possession; it does\nnot believe, but it does not thereby lose itself; it gives the spirit a\ndangerous liberty, but it keeps strict guard over the heart. It is the\nGERMAN form of skepticism, which, as a continued Fredericianism, risen\nto the highest spirituality, has kept Europe for a considerable time\nunder the dominion of the German spirit and its critical and historical\ndistrust Owing to the insuperably strong and tough masculine character\nof the great German philologists and historical critics (who,\nrightly estimated, were also all of them artists of destruction\nand dissolution), a NEW conception of the German spirit gradually\nestablished itself--in spite of all Romanticism in music and\nphilosophy--in which the leaning towards masculine skepticism was\ndecidedly prominent whether, for instance, as fearlessness of gaze, as\ncourage and sternness of the dissecting hand, or as resolute will to\ndangerous voyages of discovery, to spiritualized North Pole expeditions\nunder barren and dangerous skies. There may be good grounds for it when\nwarm-blooded and superficial humanitarians cross themselves before this\nspirit, CET ESPRIT FATALISTE, IRONIQUE, MEPHISTOPHELIQUE, as Michelet\ncalls it, not without a shudder. But if one would realize how\ncharacteristic is this fear of the \"man\" in the German spirit which\nawakened Europe out of its \"dogmatic slumber,\" let us call to mind the\nformer conception which had to be overcome by this new one--and that\nit is not so very long ago that a masculinized woman could dare, with\nunbridled presumption, to recommend the Germans to the interest of\nEurope as gentle, good-hearted, weak-willed, and poetical fools.\nFinally, let us only understand profoundly enough Napoleon's\nastonishment when he saw Goethe it reveals what had been regarded for\ncenturies as the \"German spirit\" \"VOILA UN HOMME!\"--that was as much as\nto say \"But this is a MAN! And I only expected to see a German!\"\n\n210. Supposing, then, that in the picture of the philosophers of the\nfuture, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps\nbe skeptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only be\ndesignated thereby--and not they themselves. With equal right they might\ncall themselves critics, and assuredly they will be men of experiments.\nBy the name with which I ventured to baptize them, I have already\nexpressly emphasized their attempting and their love of attempting is\nthis because, as critics in body and soul, they will love to make use\nof experiments in a new, and perhaps wider and more dangerous sense? In\ntheir passion for knowledge, will they have to go further in daring and\npainful attempts than the sensitive and pampered taste of a democratic\ncentury can approve of?--There is no doubt these coming ones will be\nleast able to dispense with the serious and not unscrupulous qualities\nwhich distinguish the critic from the skeptic I mean the certainty as to\nstandards of worth, the conscious employment of a unity of method,\nthe wary courage, the standing-alone, and the capacity for\nself-responsibility, indeed, they will avow among themselves a DELIGHT\nin denial and dissection, and a certain considerate cruelty, which knows\nhow to handle the knife surely and deftly, even when the heart bleeds\nThey will be STERNER (and perhaps not always towards themselves only)\nthan humane people may desire, they will not deal with the \"truth\" in\norder that it may \"please\" them, or \"elevate\" and \"inspire\" them--they\nwill rather have little faith in \"TRUTH\" bringing with it such revels\nfor the feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one\nsays in their presence \"That thought elevates me, why should it not be\ntrue?\" or \"That work enchants me, why should it not be beautiful?\" or\n\"That artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?\" Perhaps they\nwill not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus\nrapturous, idealistic, feminine, and hermaphroditic, and if any one\ncould look into their inmost hearts, he would not easily find therein\nthe intention to reconcile \"Christian sentiments\" with \"antique taste,\"\nor even with \"modern parliamentarism\" (the kind of reconciliation\nnecessarily found even among philosophers in our very uncertain and\nconsequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every\nhabit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters,\nwill not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of\nthe future, they may even make a display thereof as their special\nadornment--nevertheless they will not want to be called critics on that\naccount. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to\nhave it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that \"philosophy itself is\ncriticism and critical science--and nothing else whatever!\" Though this\nestimate of philosophy may enjoy the approval of all the Positivists of\nFrance and Germany (and possibly it even flattered the heart and taste\nof KANT: let us call to mind the titles of his principal works), our new\nphilosophers will say, notwithstanding, that critics are instruments of\nthe philosopher, and just on that account, as instruments, they are\nfar from being philosophers themselves! Even the great Chinaman of\nKonigsberg was only a great critic.\n\n211. I insist upon it that people finally cease confounding\nphilosophical workers, and in general scientific men, with\nphilosophers--that precisely here one should strictly give \"each his\nown,\" and not give those far too much, these far too little. It may\nbe necessary for the education of the real philosopher that he himself\nshould have once stood upon all those steps upon which his servants,\nthe scientific workers of philosophy, remain standing, and MUST remain\nstanding he himself must perhaps have been critic, and dogmatist,\nand historian, and besides, poet, and collector, and traveler, and\nriddle-reader, and moralist, and seer, and \"free spirit,\" and almost\neverything, in order to traverse the whole range of human values\nand estimations, and that he may BE ABLE with a variety of eyes and\nconsciences to look from a height to any distance, from a depth up\nto any height, from a nook into any expanse. But all these are only\npreliminary conditions for his task; this task itself demands something\nelse--it requires him TO CREATE VALUES. The philosophical workers, after\nthe excellent pattern of Kant and Hegel, have to fix and formalize some\ngreat existing body of valuations--that is to say, former DETERMINATIONS\nOF VALUE, creations of value, which have become prevalent, and are for\na time called \"truths\"--whether in the domain of the LOGICAL, the\nPOLITICAL (moral), or the ARTISTIC. It is for these investigators to\nmake whatever has happened and been esteemed hitherto, conspicuous,\nconceivable, intelligible, and manageable, to shorten everything long,\neven \"time\" itself, and to SUBJUGATE the entire past: an immense and\nwonderful task, in the carrying out of which all refined pride, all\ntenacious will, can surely find satisfaction. THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS,\nHOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: \"Thus SHALL it be!\"\nThey determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby\nset aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all\nsubjugators of the past--they grasp at the future with a creative\nhand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an\ninstrument, and a hammer. Their \"knowing\" is CREATING, their creating\nis a law-giving, their will to truth is--WILL TO POWER.--Are there at\npresent such philosophers? Have there ever been such philosophers? MUST\nthere not be such philosophers some day? ...\n\n212. It is always more obvious to me that the philosopher, as a man\nINDISPENSABLE for the morrow and the day after the morrow, has ever\nfound himself, and HAS BEEN OBLIGED to find himself, in contradiction\nto the day in which he lives; his enemy has always been the ideal of his\nday. Hitherto all those extraordinary furtherers of humanity whom one\ncalls philosophers--who rarely regarded themselves as lovers of wisdom,\nbut rather as disagreeable fools and dangerous interrogators--have found\ntheir mission, their hard, involuntary, imperative mission (in the end,\nhowever, the greatness of their mission), in being the bad conscience of\ntheir age. In putting the vivisector's knife to the breast of the very\nVIRTUES OF THEIR AGE, they have betrayed their own secret; it has been\nfor the sake of a NEW greatness of man, a new untrodden path to\nhis aggrandizement. They have always disclosed how much hypocrisy,\nindolence, self-indulgence, and self-neglect, how much falsehood was\nconcealed under the most venerated types of contemporary morality, how\nmuch virtue was OUTLIVED, they have always said \"We must remove hence to\nwhere YOU are least at home\" In the face of a world of \"modern ideas,\"\nwhich would like to confine every one in a corner, in a \"specialty,\" a\nphilosopher, if there could be philosophers nowadays, would be compelled\nto place the greatness of man, the conception of \"greatness,\" precisely\nin his comprehensiveness and multifariousness, in his all-roundness, he\nwould even determine worth and rank according to the amount and variety\nof that which a man could bear and take upon himself, according to the\nEXTENT to which a man could stretch his responsibility Nowadays the\ntaste and virtue of the age weaken and attenuate the will, nothing is\nso adapted to the spirit of the age as weakness of will consequently, in\nthe ideal of the philosopher, strength of will, sternness, and capacity\nfor prolonged resolution, must specially be included in the conception\nof \"greatness\", with as good a right as the opposite doctrine, with its\nideal of a silly, renouncing, humble, selfless humanity, was suited to\nan opposite age--such as the sixteenth century, which suffered from its\naccumulated energy of will, and from the wildest torrents and floods\nof selfishness In the time of Socrates, among men only of worn-out\ninstincts, old conservative Athenians who let themselves go--\"for the\nsake of happiness,\" as they said, for the sake of pleasure, as their\nconduct indicated--and who had continually on their lips the old pompous\nwords to which they had long forfeited the right by the life they led,\nIRONY was perhaps necessary for greatness of soul, the wicked Socratic\nassurance of the old physician and plebeian, who cut ruthlessly into his\nown flesh, as into the flesh and heart of the \"noble,\" with a look that\nsaid plainly enough \"Do not dissemble before me! here--we are equal!\"\nAt present, on the contrary, when throughout Europe the herding-animal\nalone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when \"equality of\nright\" can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong--I mean to\nsay into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged,\nagainst the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher\nresponsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness--at present\nit belongs to the conception of \"greatness\" to be noble, to wish to be\napart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to live\nby personal initiative, and the philosopher will betray something of his\nown ideal when he asserts \"He shall be the greatest who can be the most\nsolitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good\nand evil, the master of his virtues, and of super-abundance of will;\nprecisely this shall be called GREATNESS: as diversified as can be\nentire, as ample as can be full.\" And to ask once more the question: Is\ngreatness POSSIBLE--nowadays?\n\n213. It is difficult to learn what a philosopher is, because it cannot\nbe taught: one must \"know\" it by experience--or one should have the\npride NOT to know it. The fact that at present people all talk of things\nof which they CANNOT have any experience, is true more especially\nand unfortunately as concerns the philosopher and philosophical\nmatters:--the very few know them, are permitted to know them, and\nall popular ideas about them are false. Thus, for instance, the truly\nphilosophical combination of a bold, exuberant spirituality which runs\nat presto pace, and a dialectic rigour and necessity which makes no\nfalse step, is unknown to most thinkers and scholars from their own\nexperience, and therefore, should any one speak of it in their\npresence, it is incredible to them. They conceive of every necessity as\ntroublesome, as a painful compulsory obedience and state of constraint;\nthinking itself is regarded by them as something slow and hesitating,\nalmost as a trouble, and often enough as \"worthy of the SWEAT of the\nnoble\"--but not at all as something easy and divine, closely related\nto dancing and exuberance! \"To think\" and to take a matter \"seriously,\"\n\"arduously\"--that is one and the same thing to them; such only has been\ntheir \"experience.\"--Artists have here perhaps a finer intuition; they\nwho know only too well that precisely when they no longer do anything\n\"arbitrarily,\" and everything of necessity, their feeling of freedom,\nof subtlety, of power, of creatively fixing, disposing, and shaping,\nreaches its climax--in short, that necessity and \"freedom of will\" are\nthen the same thing with them. There is, in fine, a gradation of rank\nin psychical states, to which the gradation of rank in the problems\ncorresponds; and the highest problems repel ruthlessly every one who\nventures too near them, without being predestined for their solution\nby the loftiness and power of his spirituality. Of what use is it for\nnimble, everyday intellects, or clumsy, honest mechanics and empiricists\nto press, in their plebeian ambition, close to such problems, and as\nit were into this \"holy of holies\"--as so often happens nowadays! But\ncoarse feet must never tread upon such carpets: this is provided for in\nthe primary law of things; the doors remain closed to those intruders,\nthough they may dash and break their heads thereon. People have always\nto be born to a high station, or, more definitely, they have to be BRED\nfor it: a person has only a right to philosophy--taking the word in\nits higher significance--in virtue of his descent; the ancestors, the\n\"blood,\" decide here also. Many generations must have prepared the way\nfor the coming of the philosopher; each of his virtues must have been\nseparately acquired, nurtured, transmitted, and embodied; not only the\nbold, easy, delicate course and current of his thoughts, but above all\nthe readiness for great responsibilities, the majesty of ruling glance\nand contemning look, the feeling of separation from the multitude with\ntheir duties and virtues, the kindly patronage and defense of whatever\nis misunderstood and calumniated, be it God or devil, the delight and\npractice of supreme justice, the art of commanding, the amplitude of\nwill, the lingering eye which rarely admires, rarely looks up, rarely\nloves....\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. OUR VIRTUES\n\n\n214. OUR Virtues?--It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues,\nalthough naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues on\naccount of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at a little\ndistance from us. We Europeans of the day after tomorrow, we firstlings\nof the twentieth century--with all our dangerous curiosity, our\nmultifariousness and art of disguising, our mellow and seemingly\nsweetened cruelty in sense and spirit--we shall presumably, IF we must\nhave virtues, have those only which have come to agreement with our most\nsecret and heartfelt inclinations, with our most ardent requirements:\nwell, then, let us look for them in our labyrinths!--where, as we know,\nso many things lose themselves, so many things get quite lost! And is\nthere anything finer than to SEARCH for one's own virtues? Is it not\nalmost to BELIEVE in one's own virtues? But this \"believing in one's\nown virtues\"--is it not practically the same as what was formerly called\none's \"good conscience,\" that long, respectable pigtail of an idea,\nwhich our grandfathers used to hang behind their heads, and often enough\nalso behind their understandings? It seems, therefore, that however\nlittle we may imagine ourselves to be old-fashioned and grandfatherly\nrespectable in other respects, in one thing we are nevertheless the\nworthy grandchildren of our grandfathers, we last Europeans with good\nconsciences: we also still wear their pigtail.--Ah! if you only knew how\nsoon, so very soon--it will be different!\n\n215. As in the stellar firmament there are sometimes two suns which\ndetermine the path of one planet, and in certain cases suns of different\ncolours shine around a single planet, now with red light, now with\ngreen, and then simultaneously illumine and flood it with motley\ncolours: so we modern men, owing to the complicated mechanism of our\n\"firmament,\" are determined by DIFFERENT moralities; our actions shine\nalternately in different colours, and are seldom unequivocal--and there\nare often cases, also, in which our actions are MOTLEY-COLOURED.\n\n216. To love one's enemies? I think that has been well learnt: it takes\nplace thousands of times at present on a large and small scale; indeed,\nat times the higher and sublimer thing takes place:--we learn to DESPISE\nwhen we love, and precisely when we love best; all of it, however,\nunconsciously, without noise, without ostentation, with the shame and\nsecrecy of goodness, which forbids the utterance of the pompous word\nand the formula of virtue. Morality as attitude--is opposed to our taste\nnowadays. This is ALSO an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers\nthat religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste,\nincluding the enmity and Voltairean bitterness against religion (and all\nthat formerly belonged to freethinker-pantomime). It is the music in our\nconscience, the dance in our spirit, to which Puritan litanies, moral\nsermons, and goody-goodness won't chime.\n\n217. Let us be careful in dealing with those who attach great importance\nto being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discernment!\nThey never forgive us if they have once made a mistake BEFORE us\n(or even with REGARD to us)--they inevitably become our instinctive\ncalumniators and detractors, even when they still remain our\n\"friends.\"--Blessed are the forgetful: for they \"get the better\" even of\ntheir blunders.\n\n218. The psychologists of France--and where else are there still\npsychologists nowadays?--have never yet exhausted their bitter and\nmanifold enjoyment of the betise bourgeoise, just as though... in\nshort, they betray something thereby. Flaubert, for instance, the honest\ncitizen of Rouen, neither saw, heard, nor tasted anything else in the\nend; it was his mode of self-torment and refined cruelty. As this is\ngrowing wearisome, I would now recommend for a change something else\nfor a pleasure--namely, the unconscious astuteness with which good, fat,\nhonest mediocrity always behaves towards loftier spirits and the tasks\nthey have to perform, the subtle, barbed, Jesuitical astuteness, which\nis a thousand times subtler than the taste and understanding of the\nmiddle-class in its best moments--subtler even than the understanding of\nits victims:--a repeated proof that \"instinct\" is the most intelligent\nof all kinds of intelligence which have hitherto been discovered. In\nshort, you psychologists, study the philosophy of the \"rule\" in its\nstruggle with the \"exception\": there you have a spectacle fit for Gods\nand godlike malignity! Or, in plainer words, practise vivisection on\n\"good people,\" on the \"homo bonae voluntatis,\" ON YOURSELVES!\n\n219. The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite\nrevenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so, it is\nalso a kind of indemnity for their being badly endowed by nature,\nand finally, it is an opportunity for acquiring spirit and BECOMING\nsubtle--malice spiritualises. They are glad in their inmost heart that\nthere is a standard according to which those who are over-endowed with\nintellectual goods and privileges, are equal to them, they contend for\nthe \"equality of all before God,\" and almost NEED the belief in God for\nthis purpose. It is among them that the most powerful antagonists of\natheism are found. If any one were to say to them \"A lofty spirituality\nis beyond all comparison with the honesty and respectability of a merely\nmoral man\"--it would make them furious, I shall take care not to say\nso. I would rather flatter them with my theory that lofty spirituality\nitself exists only as the ultimate product of moral qualities, that it\nis a synthesis of all qualities attributed to the \"merely moral\" man,\nafter they have been acquired singly through long training and practice,\nperhaps during a whole series of generations, that lofty spirituality\nis precisely the spiritualising of justice, and the beneficent severity\nwhich knows that it is authorized to maintain GRADATIONS OF RANK in the\nworld, even among things--and not only among men.\n\n220. Now that the praise of the \"disinterested person\" is so popular\none must--probably not without some danger--get an idea of WHAT people\nactually take an interest in, and what are the things generally which\nfundamentally and profoundly concern ordinary men--including the\ncultured, even the learned, and perhaps philosophers also, if\nappearances do not deceive. The fact thereby becomes obvious that the\ngreater part of what interests and charms higher natures, and more\nrefined and fastidious tastes, seems absolutely \"uninteresting\" to\nthe average man--if, notwithstanding, he perceive devotion to these\ninterests, he calls it desinteresse, and wonders how it is possible to\nact \"disinterestedly.\" There have been philosophers who could give this\npopular astonishment a seductive and mystical, other-worldly expression\n(perhaps because they did not know the higher nature by experience?),\ninstead of stating the naked and candidly reasonable truth that\n\"disinterested\" action is very interesting and \"interested\" action,\nprovided that... \"And love?\"--What! Even an action for love's sake\nshall be \"unegoistic\"? But you fools--! \"And the praise of the\nself-sacrificer?\"--But whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that\nhe wanted and obtained something for it--perhaps something from himself\nfor something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have\nmore there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself \"more.\"\nBut this is a realm of questions and answers in which a more fastidious\nspirit does not like to stay: for here truth has to stifle her yawns so\nmuch when she is obliged to answer. And after all, truth is a woman; one\nmust not use force with her.\n\n221. \"It sometimes happens,\" said a moralistic pedant and\ntrifle-retailer, \"that I honour and respect an unselfish man: not,\nhowever, because he is unselfish, but because I think he has a right to\nbe useful to another man at his own expense. In short, the question\nis always who HE is, and who THE OTHER is. For instance, in a person\ncreated and destined for command, self-denial and modest retirement,\ninstead of being virtues, would be the waste of virtues: so it seems\nto me. Every system of unegoistic morality which takes itself\nunconditionally and appeals to every one, not only sins against good\ntaste, but is also an incentive to sins of omission, an ADDITIONAL\nseduction under the mask of philanthropy--and precisely a seduction and\ninjury to the higher, rarer, and more privileged types of men. Moral\nsystems must be compelled first of all to bow before the GRADATIONS OF\nRANK; their presumption must be driven home to their conscience--until\nthey thoroughly understand at last that it is IMMORAL to say that 'what\nis right for one is proper for another.'\"--So said my moralistic pedant\nand bonhomme. Did he perhaps deserve to be laughed at when he thus\nexhorted systems of morals to practise morality? But one should not be\ntoo much in the right if one wishes to have the laughers on ONE'S OWN\nside; a grain of wrong pertains even to good taste.\n\n222. Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays--and,\nif I gather rightly, no other religion is any longer preached--let the\npsychologist have his ears open through all the vanity, through all the\nnoise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he will\nhear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of SELF-CONTEMPT. It belongs\nto the overshadowing and uglifying of Europe, which has been on\nthe increase for a century (the first symptoms of which are already\nspecified documentarily in a thoughtful letter of Galiani to Madame\nd'Epinay)--IF IT IS NOT REALLY THE CAUSE THEREOF! The man of\n\"modern ideas,\" the conceited ape, is excessively dissatisfied with\nhimself--this is perfectly certain. He suffers, and his vanity wants him\nonly \"to suffer with his fellows.\"\n\n223. The hybrid European--a tolerably ugly plebeian, taken all in\nall--absolutely requires a costume: he needs history as a storeroom\nof costumes. To be sure, he notices that none of the costumes fit him\nproperly--he changes and changes. Let us look at the nineteenth century\nwith respect to these hasty preferences and changes in its masquerades\nof style, and also with respect to its moments of desperation on account\nof \"nothing suiting\" us. It is in vain to get ourselves up as romantic,\nor classical, or Christian, or Florentine, or barocco, or \"national,\"\nin moribus et artibus: it does not \"clothe us\"! But the \"spirit,\"\nespecially the \"historical spirit,\" profits even by this desperation:\nonce and again a new sample of the past or of the foreign is tested,\nput on, taken off, packed up, and above all studied--we are the first\nstudious age in puncto of \"costumes,\" I mean as concerns morals,\narticles of belief, artistic tastes, and religions; we are prepared as\nno other age has ever been for a carnival in the grand style, for the\nmost spiritual festival--laughter and arrogance, for the transcendental\nheight of supreme folly and Aristophanic ridicule of the world. Perhaps\nwe are still discovering the domain of our invention just here, the\ndomain where even we can still be original, probably as parodists of\nthe world's history and as God's Merry-Andrews,--perhaps, though nothing\nelse of the present have a future, our laughter itself may have a\nfuture!\n\n224. The historical sense (or the capacity for divining quickly\nthe order of rank of the valuations according to which a people, a\ncommunity, or an individual has lived, the \"divining instinct\" for the\nrelationships of these valuations, for the relation of the authority\nof the valuations to the authority of the operating forces),--this\nhistorical sense, which we Europeans claim as our specialty, has come\nto us in the train of the enchanting and mad semi-barbarity into which\nEurope has been plunged by the democratic mingling of classes and\nraces--it is only the nineteenth century that has recognized this\nfaculty as its sixth sense. Owing to this mingling, the past of every\nform and mode of life, and of cultures which were formerly closely\ncontiguous and superimposed on one another, flows forth into us \"modern\nsouls\"; our instincts now run back in all directions, we ourselves are\na kind of chaos: in the end, as we have said, the spirit perceives its\nadvantage therein. By means of our semi-barbarity in body and in desire,\nwe have secret access everywhere, such as a noble age never had; we have\naccess above all to the labyrinth of imperfect civilizations, and to\nevery form of semi-barbarity that has at any time existed on earth; and\nin so far as the most considerable part of human civilization hitherto\nhas just been semi-barbarity, the \"historical sense\" implies almost the\nsense and instinct for everything, the taste and tongue for everything:\nwhereby it immediately proves itself to be an IGNOBLE sense. For\ninstance, we enjoy Homer once more: it is perhaps our happiest\nacquisition that we know how to appreciate Homer, whom men of\ndistinguished culture (as the French of the seventeenth century, like\nSaint-Evremond, who reproached him for his ESPRIT VASTE, and even\nVoltaire, the last echo of the century) cannot and could not so easily\nappropriate--whom they scarcely permitted themselves to enjoy. The very\ndecided Yea and Nay of their palate, their promptly ready disgust, their\nhesitating reluctance with regard to everything strange, their horror of\nthe bad taste even of lively curiosity, and in general the averseness of\nevery distinguished and self-sufficing culture to avow a new desire,\na dissatisfaction with its own condition, or an admiration of what is\nstrange: all this determines and disposes them unfavourably even towards\nthe best things of the world which are not their property or could not\nbecome their prey--and no faculty is more unintelligible to such men\nthan just this historical sense, with its truckling, plebeian\ncuriosity. The case is not different with Shakespeare, that marvelous\nSpanish-Moorish-Saxon synthesis of taste, over whom an ancient Athenian\nof the circle of AEschylus would have half-killed himself with laughter\nor irritation: but we--accept precisely this wild motleyness, this\nmedley of the most delicate, the most coarse, and the most artificial,\nwith a secret confidence and cordiality; we enjoy it as a refinement\nof art reserved expressly for us, and allow ourselves to be as little\ndisturbed by the repulsive fumes and the proximity of the English\npopulace in which Shakespeare's art and taste lives, as perhaps on\nthe Chiaja of Naples, where, with all our senses awake, we go our way,\nenchanted and voluntarily, in spite of the drain-odour of the lower\nquarters of the town. That as men of the \"historical sense\" we have\nour virtues, is not to be disputed:--we are unpretentious, unselfish,\nmodest, brave, habituated to self-control and self-renunciation, very\ngrateful, very patient, very complaisant--but with all this we are\nperhaps not very \"tasteful.\" Let us finally confess it, that what is\nmost difficult for us men of the \"historical sense\" to grasp, feel,\ntaste, and love, what finds us fundamentally prejudiced and almost\nhostile, is precisely the perfection and ultimate maturity in every\nculture and art, the essentially noble in works and men, their moment\nof smooth sea and halcyon self-sufficiency, the goldenness and coldness\nwhich all things show that have perfected themselves. Perhaps our great\nvirtue of the historical sense is in necessary contrast to GOOD taste,\nat least to the very bad taste; and we can only evoke in ourselves\nimperfectly, hesitatingly, and with compulsion the small, short, and\nhappy godsends and glorifications of human life as they shine here and\nthere: those moments and marvelous experiences when a great power has\nvoluntarily come to a halt before the boundless and infinite,--when a\nsuper-abundance of refined delight has been enjoyed by a sudden checking\nand petrifying, by standing firmly and planting oneself fixedly on still\ntrembling ground. PROPORTIONATENESS is strange to us, let us confess it\nto ourselves; our itching is really the itching for the infinite, the\nimmeasurable. Like the rider on his forward panting horse, we let the\nreins fall before the infinite, we modern men, we semi-barbarians--and\nare only in OUR highest bliss when we--ARE IN MOST DANGER.\n\n225. Whether it be hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, or eudaemonism,\nall those modes of thinking which measure the worth of things according\nto PLEASURE and PAIN, that is, according to accompanying circumstances\nand secondary considerations, are plausible modes of thought and\nnaivetes, which every one conscious of CREATIVE powers and an artist's\nconscience will look down upon with scorn, though not without sympathy.\nSympathy for you!--to be sure, that is not sympathy as you understand\nit: it is not sympathy for social \"distress,\" for \"society\" with its\nsick and misfortuned, for the hereditarily vicious and defective who lie\non the ground around us; still less is it sympathy for the grumbling,\nvexed, revolutionary slave-classes who strive after power--they call it\n\"freedom.\" OUR sympathy is a loftier and further-sighted sympathy:--we\nsee how MAN dwarfs himself, how YOU dwarf him! and there are moments\nwhen we view YOUR sympathy with an indescribable anguish, when we resist\nit,--when we regard your seriousness as more dangerous than any kind\nof levity. You want, if possible--and there is not a more foolish \"if\npossible\"--TO DO AWAY WITH SUFFERING; and we?--it really seems that WE\nwould rather have it increased and made worse than it has ever been!\nWell-being, as you understand it--is certainly not a goal; it seems\nto us an END; a condition which at once renders man ludicrous and\ncontemptible--and makes his destruction DESIRABLE! The discipline\nof suffering, of GREAT suffering--know ye not that it is only THIS\ndiscipline that has produced all the elevations of humanity hitherto?\nThe tension of soul in misfortune which communicates to it its energy,\nits shuddering in view of rack and ruin, its inventiveness and bravery\nin undergoing, enduring, interpreting, and exploiting misfortune, and\nwhatever depth, mystery, disguise, spirit, artifice, or greatness has\nbeen bestowed upon the soul--has it not been bestowed through suffering,\nthrough the discipline of great suffering? In man CREATURE and CREATOR\nare united: in man there is not only matter, shred, excess, clay, mire,\nfolly, chaos; but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness\nof the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh day--do\nye understand this contrast? And that YOUR sympathy for the \"creature\nin man\" applies to that which has to be fashioned, bruised, forged,\nstretched, roasted, annealed, refined--to that which must necessarily\nSUFFER, and IS MEANT to suffer? And our sympathy--do ye not understand\nwhat our REVERSE sympathy applies to, when it resists your sympathy as\nthe worst of all pampering and enervation?--So it is sympathy AGAINST\nsympathy!--But to repeat it once more, there are higher problems than\nthe problems of pleasure and pain and sympathy; and all systems of\nphilosophy which deal only with these are naivetes.\n\n226. WE IMMORALISTS.--This world with which WE are concerned, in which\nwe have to fear and love, this almost invisible, inaudible world of\ndelicate command and delicate obedience, a world of \"almost\" in every\nrespect, captious, insidious, sharp, and tender--yes, it is well\nprotected from clumsy spectators and familiar curiosity! We are\nwoven into a strong net and garment of duties, and CANNOT disengage\nourselves--precisely here, we are \"men of duty,\" even we! Occasionally,\nit is true, we dance in our \"chains\" and betwixt our \"swords\"; it\nis none the less true that more often we gnash our teeth under the\ncircumstances, and are impatient at the secret hardship of our lot. But\ndo what we will, fools and appearances say of us: \"These are men WITHOUT\nduty,\"--we have always fools and appearances against us!\n\n227. Honesty, granting that it is the virtue of which we cannot rid\nourselves, we free spirits--well, we will labour at it with all our\nperversity and love, and not tire of \"perfecting\" ourselves in OUR\nvirtue, which alone remains: may its glance some day overspread like\na gilded, blue, mocking twilight this aging civilization with its dull\ngloomy seriousness! And if, nevertheless, our honesty should one day\ngrow weary, and sigh, and stretch its limbs, and find us too hard, and\nwould fain have it pleasanter, easier, and gentler, like an agreeable\nvice, let us remain HARD, we latest Stoics, and let us send to its\nhelp whatever devilry we have in us:--our disgust at the clumsy\nand undefined, our \"NITIMUR IN VETITUM,\" our love of adventure,\nour sharpened and fastidious curiosity, our most subtle, disguised,\nintellectual Will to Power and universal conquest, which rambles and\nroves avidiously around all the realms of the future--let us go with all\nour \"devils\" to the help of our \"God\"! It is probable that people will\nmisunderstand and mistake us on that account: what does it matter! They\nwill say: \"Their 'honesty'--that is their devilry, and nothing else!\"\nWhat does it matter! And even if they were right--have not all Gods\nhitherto been such sanctified, re-baptized devils? And after all, what\ndo we know of ourselves? And what the spirit that leads us wants TO BE\nCALLED? (It is a question of names.) And how many spirits we harbour?\nOur honesty, we free spirits--let us be careful lest it become our\nvanity, our ornament and ostentation, our limitation, our stupidity!\nEvery virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; \"stupid\nto the point of sanctity,\" they say in Russia,--let us be careful lest\nout of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores! Is not life\na hundred times too short for us--to bore ourselves? One would have to\nbelieve in eternal life in order to...\n\n228. I hope to be forgiven for discovering that all moral philosophy\nhitherto has been tedious and has belonged to the soporific\nappliances--and that \"virtue,\" in my opinion, has been MORE injured\nby the TEDIOUSNESS of its advocates than by anything else; at the same\ntime, however, I would not wish to overlook their general usefulness. It\nis desirable that as few people as possible should reflect upon morals,\nand consequently it is very desirable that morals should not some day\nbecome interesting! But let us not be afraid! Things still remain today\nas they have always been: I see no one in Europe who has (or DISCLOSES)\nan idea of the fact that philosophizing concerning morals might be\nconducted in a dangerous, captious, and ensnaring manner--that CALAMITY\nmight be involved therein. Observe, for example, the indefatigable,\ninevitable English utilitarians: how ponderously and respectably they\nstalk on, stalk along (a Homeric metaphor expresses it better) in the\nfootsteps of Bentham, just as he had already stalked in the footsteps of\nthe respectable Helvetius! (no, he was not a dangerous man, Helvetius,\nCE SENATEUR POCOCURANTE, to use an expression of Galiani). No new\nthought, nothing of the nature of a finer turning or better expression\nof an old thought, not even a proper history of what has been previously\nthought on the subject: an IMPOSSIBLE literature, taking it all in all,\nunless one knows how to leaven it with some mischief. In effect, the\nold English vice called CANT, which is MORAL TARTUFFISM, has insinuated\nitself also into these moralists (whom one must certainly read with an\neye to their motives if one MUST read them), concealed this time under\nthe new form of the scientific spirit; moreover, there is not absent\nfrom them a secret struggle with the pangs of conscience, from which a\nrace of former Puritans must naturally suffer, in all their scientific\ntinkering with morals. (Is not a moralist the opposite of a Puritan?\nThat is to say, as a thinker who regards morality as questionable,\nas worthy of interrogation, in short, as a problem? Is moralizing\nnot-immoral?) In the end, they all want English morality to be\nrecognized as authoritative, inasmuch as mankind, or the \"general\nutility,\" or \"the happiness of the greatest number,\"--no! the happiness\nof ENGLAND, will be best served thereby. They would like, by all means,\nto convince themselves that the striving after English happiness, I\nmean after COMFORT and FASHION (and in the highest instance, a seat in\nParliament), is at the same time the true path of virtue; in fact, that\nin so far as there has been virtue in the world hitherto, it has\njust consisted in such striving. Not one of those ponderous,\nconscience-stricken herding-animals (who undertake to advocate the\ncause of egoism as conducive to the general welfare) wants to have\nany knowledge or inkling of the facts that the \"general welfare\" is\nno ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all grasped, but is only a\nnostrum,--that what is fair to one MAY NOT at all be fair to another,\nthat the requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to\nhigher men, in short, that there is a DISTINCTION OF RANK between man\nand man, and consequently between morality and morality. They are an\nunassuming and fundamentally mediocre species of men, these utilitarian\nEnglishmen, and, as already remarked, in so far as they are tedious, one\ncannot think highly enough of their utility. One ought even to ENCOURAGE\nthem, as has been partially attempted in the following rhymes:--\n\n    Hail, ye worthies, barrow-wheeling,\n    \"Longer--better,\" aye revealing,\n\n    Stiffer aye in head and knee;\n    Unenraptured, never jesting,\n    Mediocre everlasting,\n\n    SANS GENIE ET SANS ESPRIT!\n\n\n229. In these later ages, which may be proud of their humanity, there\nstill remains so much fear, so much SUPERSTITION of the fear, of the\n\"cruel wild beast,\" the mastering of which constitutes the very pride of\nthese humaner ages--that even obvious truths, as if by the agreement\nof centuries, have long remained unuttered, because they have the\nappearance of helping the finally slain wild beast back to life again.\nI perhaps risk something when I allow such a truth to escape; let\nothers capture it again and give it so much \"milk of pious sentiment\"\n[FOOTNOTE: An expression from Schiller's William Tell, Act IV, Scene\n3.] to drink, that it will lie down quiet and forgotten, in its old\ncorner.--One ought to learn anew about cruelty, and open one's eyes;\none ought at last to learn impatience, in order that such immodest\ngross errors--as, for instance, have been fostered by ancient and\nmodern philosophers with regard to tragedy--may no longer wander about\nvirtuously and boldly. Almost everything that we call \"higher culture\"\nis based upon the spiritualising and intensifying of CRUELTY--this is\nmy thesis; the \"wild beast\" has not been slain at all, it lives, it\nflourishes, it has only been--transfigured. That which constitutes the\npainful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that which operates agreeably in\nso-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime,\nup to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its\nsweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty. What the\nRoman enjoys in the arena, the Christian in the ecstasies of the cross,\nthe Spaniard at the sight of the faggot and stake, or of the bull-fight,\nthe present-day Japanese who presses his way to the tragedy, the workman\nof the Parisian suburbs who has a homesickness for bloody revolutions,\nthe Wagnerienne who, with unhinged will, \"undergoes\" the performance of\n\"Tristan and Isolde\"--what all these enjoy, and strive with mysterious\nardour to drink in, is the philtre of the great Circe \"cruelty.\" Here,\nto be sure, we must put aside entirely the blundering psychology of\nformer times, which could only teach with regard to cruelty that\nit originated at the sight of the suffering of OTHERS: there is an\nabundant, super-abundant enjoyment even in one's own suffering, in\ncausing one's own suffering--and wherever man has allowed himself to be\npersuaded to self-denial in the RELIGIOUS sense, or to self-mutilation,\nas among the Phoenicians and ascetics, or in general, to\ndesensualisation, decarnalisation, and contrition, to Puritanical\nrepentance-spasms, to vivisection of conscience and to Pascal-like\nSACRIFIZIA DELL' INTELLETO, he is secretly allured and impelled\nforwards by his cruelty, by the dangerous thrill of cruelty TOWARDS\nHIMSELF.--Finally, let us consider that even the seeker of knowledge\noperates as an artist and glorifier of cruelty, in that he compels his\nspirit to perceive AGAINST its own inclination, and often enough against\nthe wishes of his heart:--he forces it to say Nay, where he would like\nto affirm, love, and adore; indeed, every instance of taking a thing\nprofoundly and fundamentally, is a violation, an intentional injuring\nof the fundamental will of the spirit, which instinctively aims at\nappearance and superficiality,--even in every desire for knowledge there\nis a drop of cruelty.\n\n230. Perhaps what I have said here about a \"fundamental will of the\nspirit\" may not be understood without further details; I may be allowed\na word of explanation.--That imperious something which is popularly\ncalled \"the spirit,\" wishes to be master internally and externally,\nand to feel itself master; it has the will of a multiplicity for a\nsimplicity, a binding, taming, imperious, and essentially ruling will.\nIts requirements and capacities here, are the same as those assigned by\nphysiologists to everything that lives, grows, and multiplies. The power\nof the spirit to appropriate foreign elements reveals itself in a strong\ntendency to assimilate the new to the old, to simplify the manifold,\nto overlook or repudiate the absolutely contradictory; just as it\narbitrarily re-underlines, makes prominent, and falsifies for itself\ncertain traits and lines in the foreign elements, in every portion of\nthe \"outside world.\" Its object thereby is the incorporation of new\n\"experiences,\" the assortment of new things in the old arrangements--in\nshort, growth; or more properly, the FEELING of growth, the feeling of\nincreased power--is its object. This same will has at its service an\napparently opposed impulse of the spirit, a suddenly adopted preference\nof ignorance, of arbitrary shutting out, a closing of windows, an inner\ndenial of this or that, a prohibition to approach, a sort of defensive\nattitude against much that is knowable, a contentment with obscurity,\nwith the shutting-in horizon, an acceptance and approval of ignorance:\nas that which is all necessary according to the degree of its\nappropriating power, its \"digestive power,\" to speak figuratively (and\nin fact \"the spirit\" resembles a stomach more than anything else). Here\nalso belong an occasional propensity of the spirit to let itself be\ndeceived (perhaps with a waggish suspicion that it is NOT so and so,\nbut is only allowed to pass as such), a delight in uncertainty and\nambiguity, an exulting enjoyment of arbitrary, out-of-the-way narrowness\nand mystery, of the too-near, of the foreground, of the magnified,\nthe diminished, the misshapen, the beautified--an enjoyment of the\narbitrariness of all these manifestations of power. Finally, in this\nconnection, there is the not unscrupulous readiness of the spirit to\ndeceive other spirits and dissemble before them--the constant pressing\nand straining of a creating, shaping, changeable power: the spirit\nenjoys therein its craftiness and its variety of disguises, it enjoys\nalso its feeling of security therein--it is precisely by its Protean\narts that it is best protected and concealed!--COUNTER TO this\npropensity for appearance, for simplification, for a disguise, for a\ncloak, in short, for an outside--for every outside is a cloak--there\noperates the sublime tendency of the man of knowledge, which takes, and\nINSISTS on taking things profoundly, variously, and thoroughly; as a\nkind of cruelty of the intellectual conscience and taste, which every\ncourageous thinker will acknowledge in himself, provided, as it ought\nto be, that he has sharpened and hardened his eye sufficiently long for\nintrospection, and is accustomed to severe discipline and even severe\nwords. He will say: \"There is something cruel in the tendency of my\nspirit\": let the virtuous and amiable try to convince him that it is not\nso! In fact, it would sound nicer, if, instead of our cruelty, perhaps\nour \"extravagant honesty\" were talked about, whispered about, and\nglorified--we free, VERY free spirits--and some day perhaps SUCH will\nactually be our--posthumous glory! Meanwhile--for there is plenty of\ntime until then--we should be least inclined to deck ourselves out in\nsuch florid and fringed moral verbiage; our whole former work has\njust made us sick of this taste and its sprightly exuberance. They are\nbeautiful, glistening, jingling, festive words: honesty, love of truth,\nlove of wisdom, sacrifice for knowledge, heroism of the truthful--there\nis something in them that makes one's heart swell with pride. But we\nanchorites and marmots have long ago persuaded ourselves in all the\nsecrecy of an anchorite's conscience, that this worthy parade of\nverbiage also belongs to the old false adornment, frippery, and\ngold-dust of unconscious human vanity, and that even under such\nflattering colour and repainting, the terrible original text HOMO NATURA\nmust again be recognized. In effect, to translate man back again into\nnature; to master the many vain and visionary interpretations and\nsubordinate meanings which have hitherto been scratched and daubed over\nthe eternal original text, HOMO NATURA; to bring it about that man shall\nhenceforth stand before man as he now, hardened by the discipline\nof science, stands before the OTHER forms of nature, with fearless\nOedipus-eyes, and stopped Ulysses-ears, deaf to the enticements of old\nmetaphysical bird-catchers, who have piped to him far too long: \"Thou\nart more! thou art higher! thou hast a different origin!\"--this may be\na strange and foolish task, but that it is a TASK, who can deny! Why did\nwe choose it, this foolish task? Or, to put the question differently:\n\"Why knowledge at all?\" Every one will ask us about this. And thus\npressed, we, who have asked ourselves the question a hundred times, have\nnot found and cannot find any better answer....\n\n231. Learning alters us, it does what all nourishment does that does not\nmerely \"conserve\"--as the physiologist knows. But at the bottom of our\nsouls, quite \"down below,\" there is certainly something unteachable,\na granite of spiritual fate, of predetermined decision and answer to\npredetermined, chosen questions. In each cardinal problem there speaks\nan unchangeable \"I am this\"; a thinker cannot learn anew about man and\nwoman, for instance, but can only learn fully--he can only follow to the\nend what is \"fixed\" about them in himself. Occasionally we find certain\nsolutions of problems which make strong beliefs for us; perhaps they\nare henceforth called \"convictions.\" Later on--one sees in them only\nfootsteps to self-knowledge, guide-posts to the problem which we\nourselves ARE--or more correctly to the great stupidity which we embody,\nour spiritual fate, the UNTEACHABLE in us, quite \"down below.\"--In view\nof this liberal compliment which I have just paid myself, permission\nwill perhaps be more readily allowed me to utter some truths about\n\"woman as she is,\" provided that it is known at the outset how literally\nthey are merely--MY truths.\n\n232. Woman wishes to be independent, and therefore she begins to\nenlighten men about \"woman as she is\"--THIS is one of the worst\ndevelopments of the general UGLIFYING of Europe. For what must these\nclumsy attempts of feminine scientificality and self-exposure bring\nto light! Woman has so much cause for shame; in woman there is so\nmuch pedantry, superficiality, schoolmasterliness, petty presumption,\nunbridledness, and indiscretion concealed--study only woman's behaviour\ntowards children!--which has really been best restrained and dominated\nhitherto by the FEAR of man. Alas, if ever the \"eternally tedious in\nwoman\"--she has plenty of it!--is allowed to venture forth! if she\nbegins radically and on principle to unlearn her wisdom and art-of\ncharming, of playing, of frightening away sorrow, of alleviating and\ntaking easily; if she forgets her delicate aptitude for agreeable\ndesires! Female voices are already raised, which, by Saint Aristophanes!\nmake one afraid:--with medical explicitness it is stated in a\nthreatening manner what woman first and last REQUIRES from man. Is\nit not in the very worst taste that woman thus sets herself up to be\nscientific? Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair,\nmen's gift--we remained therewith \"among ourselves\"; and in the end,\nin view of all that women write about \"woman,\" we may well have\nconsiderable doubt as to whether woman really DESIRES enlightenment\nabout herself--and CAN desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a new\nORNAMENT for herself--I believe ornamentation belongs to the eternally\nfeminine?--why, then, she wishes to make herself feared: perhaps she\nthereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not want truth--what\ndoes woman care for truth? From the very first, nothing is more foreign,\nmore repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth--her great art is\nfalsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. Let us confess\nit, we men: we honour and love this very art and this very instinct in\nwoman: we who have the hard task, and for our recreation gladly seek the\ncompany of beings under whose hands, glances, and delicate follies, our\nseriousness, our gravity, and profundity appear almost like follies to\nus. Finally, I ask the question: Did a woman herself ever acknowledge\nprofundity in a woman's mind, or justice in a woman's heart? And is it\nnot true that on the whole \"woman\" has hitherto been most despised by\nwoman herself, and not at all by us?--We men desire that woman should\nnot continue to compromise herself by enlightening us; just as it was\nman's care and the consideration for woman, when the church decreed:\nmulier taceat in ecclesia. It was to the benefit of woman when Napoleon\ngave the too eloquent Madame de Stael to understand: mulier taceat in\npoliticis!--and in my opinion, he is a true friend of woman who calls\nout to women today: mulier taceat de mulierel.\n\n233. It betrays corruption of the instincts--apart from the fact that\nit betrays bad taste--when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de\nStael, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby\nin favour of \"woman as she is.\" Among men, these are the three comical\nwomen as they are--nothing more!--and just the best involuntary\ncounter-arguments against feminine emancipation and autonomy.\n\n234. Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible\nthoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of\nthe house is managed! Woman does not understand what food means, and she\ninsists on being cook! If woman had been a thinking creature, she should\ncertainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most\nimportant physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession\nof the healing art! Through bad female cooks--through the entire lack\nof reason in the kitchen--the development of mankind has been longest\nretarded and most interfered with: even today matters are very little\nbetter. A word to High School girls.\n\n235. There are turns and casts of fancy, there are sentences, little\nhandfuls of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society suddenly\ncrystallises itself. Among these is the incidental remark of Madame de\nLambert to her son: \"MON AMI, NE VOUS PERMETTEZ JAMAIS QUE DES FOLIES,\nQUI VOUS FERONT GRAND PLAISIR\"--the motherliest and wisest remark, by\nthe way, that was ever addressed to a son.\n\n236. I have no doubt that every noble woman will oppose what Dante and\nGoethe believed about woman--the former when he sang, \"ELLA GUARDAVA\nSUSO, ED IO IN LEI,\" and the latter when he interpreted it, \"the\neternally feminine draws us ALOFT\"; for THIS is just what she believes\nof the eternally masculine.\n\n237.\n\nSEVEN APOPHTHEGMS FOR WOMEN\n\nHow the longest ennui flees, When a man comes to our knees!\n\nAge, alas! and science staid, Furnish even weak virtue aid.\n\nSombre garb and silence meet: Dress for every dame--discreet.\n\nWhom I thank when in my bliss? God!--and my good tailoress!\n\nYoung, a flower-decked cavern home; Old, a dragon thence doth roam.\n\nNoble title, leg that's fine, Man as well: Oh, were HE mine!\n\nSpeech in brief and sense in mass--Slippery for the jenny-ass!\n\n237A. Woman has hitherto been treated by men like birds, which, losing\ntheir way, have come down among them from an elevation: as something\ndelicate, fragile, wild, strange, sweet, and animating--but as something\nalso which must be cooped up to prevent it flying away.\n\n238. To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of \"man and woman,\" to\ndeny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally\nhostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal\ntraining, equal claims and obligations: that is a TYPICAL sign of\nshallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at\nthis dangerous spot--shallow in instinct!--may generally be regarded as\nsuspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered; he will probably prove\ntoo \"short\" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well as\npresent, and will be unable to descend into ANY of the depths. On the\nother hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and\nhas also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and\nharshness, and easily confounded with them, can only think of woman as\nORIENTALS do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable\nproperty, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her\nmission therein--he must take his stand in this matter upon the immense\nrationality of Asia, upon the superiority of the instinct of Asia, as\nthe Greeks did formerly; those best heirs and scholars of Asia--who,\nas is well known, with their INCREASING culture and amplitude of power,\nfrom Homer to the time of Pericles, became gradually STRICTER towards\nwoman, in short, more Oriental. HOW necessary, HOW logical, even HOW\nhumanely desirable this was, let us consider for ourselves!\n\n239. The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so\nmuch respect by men as at present--this belongs to the tendency and\nfundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to\nold age--what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of\nthis respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute\nof respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling; rivalry for rights,\nindeed actual strife itself, would be preferred: in a word, woman is\nlosing modesty. And let us immediately add that she is also losing\ntaste. She is unlearning to FEAR man: but the woman who \"unlearns to\nfear\" sacrifices her most womanly instincts. That woman should venture\nforward when the fear-inspiring quality in man--or more definitely,\nthe MAN in man--is no longer either desired or fully developed, is\nreasonable enough and also intelligible enough; what is more difficult\nto understand is that precisely thereby--woman deteriorates. This is\nwhat is happening nowadays: let us not deceive ourselves about it!\nWherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military\nand aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal\nindependence of a clerk: \"woman as clerkess\" is inscribed on the portal\nof the modern society which is in course of formation. While she\nthus appropriates new rights, aspires to be \"master,\" and inscribes\n\"progress\" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realises\nitself with terrible obviousness: WOMAN RETROGRADES. Since the French\nRevolution the influence of woman in Europe has DECLINED in proportion\nas she has increased her rights and claims; and the \"emancipation of\nwoman,\" insofar as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and\nnot only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a remarkable\nsymptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly\ninstincts. There is STUPIDITY in this movement, an almost masculine\nstupidity, of which a well-reared woman--who is always a sensible\nwoman--might be heartily ashamed. To lose the intuition as to the ground\nupon which she can most surely achieve victory; to neglect exercise in\nthe use of her proper weapons; to let-herself-go before man, perhaps\neven \"to the book,\" where formerly she kept herself in control and in\nrefined, artful humility; to neutralize with her virtuous audacity man's\nfaith in a VEILED, fundamentally different ideal in woman, something\neternally, necessarily feminine; to emphatically and loquaciously\ndissuade man from the idea that woman must be preserved, cared for,\nprotected, and indulged, like some delicate, strangely wild, and\noften pleasant domestic animal; the clumsy and indignant collection of\neverything of the nature of servitude and bondage which the position of\nwoman in the hitherto existing order of society has entailed and still\nentails (as though slavery were a counter-argument, and not rather a\ncondition of every higher culture, of every elevation of culture):--what\ndoes all this betoken, if not a disintegration of womanly instincts,\na defeminising? Certainly, there are enough of idiotic friends and\ncorrupters of woman among the learned asses of the masculine sex, who\nadvise woman to defeminize herself in this manner, and to imitate\nall the stupidities from which \"man\" in Europe, European \"manliness,\"\nsuffers,--who would like to lower woman to \"general culture,\" indeed\neven to newspaper reading and meddling with politics. Here and there\nthey wish even to make women into free spirits and literary workers: as\nthough a woman without piety would not be something perfectly obnoxious\nor ludicrous to a profound and godless man;--almost everywhere her\nnerves are being ruined by the most morbid and dangerous kind of music\n(our latest German music), and she is daily being made more hysterical\nand more incapable of fulfilling her first and last function, that of\nbearing robust children. They wish to \"cultivate\" her in general still\nmore, and intend, as they say, to make the \"weaker sex\" STRONG by\nculture: as if history did not teach in the most emphatic manner that\nthe \"cultivating\" of mankind and his weakening--that is to say, the\nweakening, dissipating, and languishing of his FORCE OF WILL--have\nalways kept pace with one another, and that the most powerful and\ninfluential women in the world (and lastly, the mother of Napoleon)\nhad just to thank their force of will--and not their schoolmasters--for\ntheir power and ascendancy over men. That which inspires respect\nin woman, and often enough fear also, is her NATURE, which is more\n\"natural\" than that of man, her genuine, carnivora-like, cunning\nflexibility, her tiger-claws beneath the glove, her NAIVETE in egoism,\nher untrainableness and innate wildness, the incomprehensibleness,\nextent, and deviation of her desires and virtues. That which, in spite\nof fear, excites one's sympathy for the dangerous and beautiful cat,\n\"woman,\" is that she seems more afflicted, more vulnerable, more\nnecessitous of love, and more condemned to disillusionment than any\nother creature. Fear and sympathy it is with these feelings that man has\nhitherto stood in the presence of woman, always with one foot already in\ntragedy, which rends while it delights--What? And all that is now to\nbe at an end? And the DISENCHANTMENT of woman is in progress? The\ntediousness of woman is slowly evolving? Oh Europe! Europe! We know\nthe horned animal which was always most attractive to thee, from which\ndanger is ever again threatening thee! Thy old fable might once more\nbecome \"history\"--an immense stupidity might once again overmaster\nthee and carry thee away! And no God concealed beneath it--no! only an\n\"idea,\" a \"modern idea\"!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES\n\n\n240. I HEARD, once again for the first time, Richard Wagner's overture\nto the Mastersinger: it is a piece of magnificent, gorgeous, heavy,\nlatter-day art, which has the pride to presuppose two centuries of music\nas still living, in order that it may be understood:--it is an honour\nto Germans that such a pride did not miscalculate! What flavours\nand forces, what seasons and climes do we not find mingled in it! It\nimpresses us at one time as ancient, at another time as foreign, bitter,\nand too modern, it is as arbitrary as it is pompously traditional, it\nis not infrequently roguish, still oftener rough and coarse--it has fire\nand courage, and at the same time the loose, dun-coloured skin of fruits\nwhich ripen too late. It flows broad and full: and suddenly there is a\nmoment of inexplicable hesitation, like a gap that opens between cause\nand effect, an oppression that makes us dream, almost a nightmare; but\nalready it broadens and widens anew, the old stream of delight--the most\nmanifold delight,--of old and new happiness; including ESPECIALLY\nthe joy of the artist in himself, which he refuses to conceal, his\nastonished, happy cognizance of his mastery of the expedients here\nemployed, the new, newly acquired, imperfectly tested expedients of art\nwhich he apparently betrays to us. All in all, however, no beauty, no\nSouth, nothing of the delicate southern clearness of the sky, nothing\nof grace, no dance, hardly a will to logic; a certain clumsiness even,\nwhich is also emphasized, as though the artist wished to say to us: \"It\nis part of my intention\"; a cumbersome drapery, something arbitrarily\nbarbaric and ceremonious, a flirring of learned and venerable conceits\nand witticisms; something German in the best and worst sense of\nthe word, something in the German style, manifold, formless, and\ninexhaustible; a certain German potency and super-plenitude of\nsoul, which is not afraid to hide itself under the RAFFINEMENTS of\ndecadence--which, perhaps, feels itself most at ease there; a real,\ngenuine token of the German soul, which is at the same time young and\naged, too ripe and yet still too rich in futurity. This kind of music\nexpresses best what I think of the Germans: they belong to the day\nbefore yesterday and the day after tomorrow--THEY HAVE AS YET NO TODAY.\n\n241. We \"good Europeans,\" we also have hours when we allow ourselves a\nwarm-hearted patriotism, a plunge and relapse into old loves and narrow\nviews--I have just given an example of it--hours of national excitement,\nof patriotic anguish, and all other sorts of old-fashioned floods of\nsentiment. Duller spirits may perhaps only get done with what confines\nits operations in us to hours and plays itself out in hours--in a\nconsiderable time: some in half a year, others in half a lifetime,\naccording to the speed and strength with which they digest and \"change\ntheir material.\" Indeed, I could think of sluggish, hesitating races,\nwhich even in our rapidly moving Europe, would require half a century\nere they could surmount such atavistic attacks of patriotism and\nsoil-attachment, and return once more to reason, that is to say, to\n\"good Europeanism.\" And while digressing on this possibility, I\nhappen to become an ear-witness of a conversation between two old\npatriots--they were evidently both hard of hearing and consequently\nspoke all the louder. \"HE has as much, and knows as much, philosophy as\na peasant or a corps-student,\" said the one--\"he is still innocent. But\nwhat does that matter nowadays! It is the age of the masses: they lie on\ntheir belly before everything that is massive. And so also in politicis.\nA statesman who rears up for them a new Tower of Babel, some monstrosity\nof empire and power, they call 'great'--what does it matter that we more\nprudent and conservative ones do not meanwhile give up the old belief\nthat it is only the great thought that gives greatness to an action or\naffair. Supposing a statesman were to bring his people into the position\nof being obliged henceforth to practise 'high politics,' for which they\nwere by nature badly endowed and prepared, so that they would have\nto sacrifice their old and reliable virtues, out of love to a new and\ndoubtful mediocrity;--supposing a statesman were to condemn his people\ngenerally to 'practise politics,' when they have hitherto had something\nbetter to do and think about, and when in the depths of their souls\nthey have been unable to free themselves from a prudent loathing of\nthe restlessness, emptiness, and noisy wranglings of the essentially\npolitics-practising nations;--supposing such a statesman were to\nstimulate the slumbering passions and avidities of his people, were to\nmake a stigma out of their former diffidence and delight in aloofness,\nan offence out of their exoticism and hidden permanency, were to\ndepreciate their most radical proclivities, subvert their consciences,\nmake their minds narrow, and their tastes 'national'--what! a statesman\nwho should do all this, which his people would have to do penance for\nthroughout their whole future, if they had a future, such a statesman\nwould be GREAT, would he?\"--\"Undoubtedly!\" replied the other old patriot\nvehemently, \"otherwise he COULD NOT have done it! It was mad perhaps to\nwish such a thing! But perhaps everything great has been just as mad\nat its commencement!\"--\"Misuse of words!\" cried his interlocutor,\ncontradictorily--\"strong! strong! Strong and mad! NOT great!\"--The old\nmen had obviously become heated as they thus shouted their \"truths\" in\neach other's faces, but I, in my happiness and apartness, considered how\nsoon a stronger one may become master of the strong, and also that\nthere is a compensation for the intellectual superficialising of a\nnation--namely, in the deepening of another.\n\n242. Whether we call it \"civilization,\" or \"humanising,\" or \"progress,\"\nwhich now distinguishes the European, whether we call it simply, without\npraise or blame, by the political formula the DEMOCRATIC movement in\nEurope--behind all the moral and political foregrounds pointed to by\nsuch formulas, an immense PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESS goes on, which is ever\nextending the process of the assimilation of Europeans, their\nincreasing detachment from the conditions under which, climatically and\nhereditarily, united races originate, their increasing independence of\nevery definite milieu, that for centuries would fain inscribe itself\nwith equal demands on soul and body,--that is to say, the slow emergence\nof an essentially SUPER-NATIONAL and nomadic species of man, who\npossesses, physiologically speaking, a maximum of the art and power\nof adaptation as his typical distinction. This process of the EVOLVING\nEUROPEAN, which can be retarded in its TEMPO by great relapses, but\nwill perhaps just gain and grow thereby in vehemence and depth--the\nstill-raging storm and stress of \"national sentiment\" pertains to it,\nand also the anarchism which is appearing at present--this process\nwill probably arrive at results on which its naive propagators and\npanegyrists, the apostles of \"modern ideas,\" would least care to reckon.\nThe same new conditions under which on an average a levelling and\nmediocrising of man will take place--a useful, industrious, variously\nserviceable, and clever gregarious man--are in the highest degree\nsuitable to give rise to exceptional men of the most dangerous and\nattractive qualities. For, while the capacity for adaptation, which is\nevery day trying changing conditions, and begins a new work with every\ngeneration, almost with every decade, makes the POWERFULNESS of the type\nimpossible; while the collective impression of such future Europeans\nwill probably be that of numerous, talkative, weak-willed, and very\nhandy workmen who REQUIRE a master, a commander, as they require their\ndaily bread; while, therefore, the democratising of Europe will tend to\nthe production of a type prepared for SLAVERY in the most subtle\nsense of the term: the STRONG man will necessarily in individual and\nexceptional cases, become stronger and richer than he has perhaps ever\nbeen before--owing to the unprejudicedness of his schooling, owing to\nthe immense variety of practice, art, and disguise. I meant to say\nthat the democratising of Europe is at the same time an involuntary\narrangement for the rearing of TYRANTS--taking the word in all its\nmeanings, even in its most spiritual sense.\n\n243. I hear with pleasure that our sun is moving rapidly towards the\nconstellation Hercules: and I hope that the men on this earth will do\nlike the sun. And we foremost, we good Europeans!\n\n244. There was a time when it was customary to call Germans \"deep\"\nby way of distinction; but now that the most successful type of new\nGermanism is covetous of quite other honours, and perhaps misses\n\"smartness\" in all that has depth, it is almost opportune and patriotic\nto doubt whether we did not formerly deceive ourselves with that\ncommendation: in short, whether German depth is not at bottom something\ndifferent and worse--and something from which, thank God, we are on the\npoint of successfully ridding ourselves. Let us try, then, to relearn\nwith regard to German depth; the only thing necessary for the purpose is\na little vivisection of the German soul.--The German soul is above all\nmanifold, varied in its source, aggregated and super-imposed, rather\nthan actually built: this is owing to its origin. A German who would\nembolden himself to assert: \"Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast,\" would\nmake a bad guess at the truth, or, more correctly, he would come far\nshort of the truth about the number of souls. As a people made up of\nthe most extraordinary mixing and mingling of races, perhaps even with a\npreponderance of the pre-Aryan element as the \"people of the centre\" in\nevery sense of the term, the Germans are more intangible, more ample,\nmore contradictory, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising,\nand even more terrifying than other peoples are to themselves:--they\nescape DEFINITION, and are thereby alone the despair of the French. It\nIS characteristic of the Germans that the question: \"What is German?\"\nnever dies out among them. Kotzebue certainly knew his Germans well\nenough: \"We are known,\" they cried jubilantly to him--but Sand also\nthought he knew them. Jean Paul knew what he was doing when he declared\nhimself incensed at Fichte's lying but patriotic flatteries and\nexaggerations,--but it is probable that Goethe thought differently about\nGermans from Jean Paul, even though he acknowledged him to be right with\nregard to Fichte. It is a question what Goethe really thought about the\nGermans?--But about many things around him he never spoke explicitly,\nand all his life he knew how to keep an astute silence--probably he\nhad good reason for it. It is certain that it was not the \"Wars of\nIndependence\" that made him look up more joyfully, any more than it was\nthe French Revolution,--the event on account of which he RECONSTRUCTED\nhis \"Faust,\" and indeed the whole problem of \"man,\" was the appearance\nof Napoleon. There are words of Goethe in which he condemns with\nimpatient severity, as from a foreign land, that which Germans take a\npride in, he once defined the famous German turn of mind as \"Indulgence\ntowards its own and others' weaknesses.\" Was he wrong? it is\ncharacteristic of Germans that one is seldom entirely wrong about them.\nThe German soul has passages and galleries in it, there are caves,\nhiding-places, and dungeons therein, its disorder has much of the charm\nof the mysterious, the German is well acquainted with the bypaths to\nchaos. And as everything loves its symbol, so the German loves the\nclouds and all that is obscure, evolving, crepuscular, damp, and\nshrouded, it seems to him that everything uncertain, undeveloped,\nself-displacing, and growing is \"deep\". The German himself does not\nEXIST, he is BECOMING, he is \"developing himself\". \"Development\" is\ntherefore the essentially German discovery and hit in the great domain\nof philosophical formulas,--a ruling idea, which, together with German\nbeer and German music, is labouring to Germanise all Europe. Foreigners\nare astonished and attracted by the riddles which the conflicting nature\nat the basis of the German soul propounds to them (riddles which\nHegel systematised and Richard Wagner has in the end set to music).\n\"Good-natured and spiteful\"--such a juxtaposition, preposterous in the\ncase of every other people, is unfortunately only too often justified\nin Germany one has only to live for a while among Swabians to know this!\nThe clumsiness of the German scholar and his social distastefulness\nagree alarmingly well with his physical rope-dancing and nimble\nboldness, of which all the Gods have learnt to be afraid. If any one\nwishes to see the \"German soul\" demonstrated ad oculos, let him\nonly look at German taste, at German arts and manners what boorish\nindifference to \"taste\"! How the noblest and the commonest stand there\nin juxtaposition! How disorderly and how rich is the whole constitution\nof this soul! The German DRAGS at his soul, he drags at everything he\nexperiences. He digests his events badly; he never gets \"done\"\nwith them; and German depth is often only a difficult, hesitating\n\"digestion.\" And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics like what\nis convenient, so the German loves \"frankness\" and \"honesty\"; it is\nso CONVENIENT to be frank and honest!--This confidingness, this\ncomplaisance, this showing-the-cards of German HONESTY, is probably the\nmost dangerous and most successful disguise which the German is up to\nnowadays: it is his proper Mephistophelean art; with this he can \"still\nachieve much\"! The German lets himself go, and thereby gazes with\nfaithful, blue, empty German eyes--and other countries immediately\nconfound him with his dressing-gown!--I meant to say that, let \"German\ndepth\" be what it will--among ourselves alone we perhaps take the\nliberty to laugh at it--we shall do well to continue henceforth to\nhonour its appearance and good name, and not barter away too cheaply our\nold reputation as a people of depth for Prussian \"smartness,\" and\nBerlin wit and sand. It is wise for a people to pose, and LET itself\nbe regarded, as profound, clumsy, good-natured, honest, and foolish: it\nmight even be--profound to do so! Finally, we should do honour to\nour name--we are not called the \"TIUSCHE VOLK\" (deceptive people) for\nnothing....\n\n245. The \"good old\" time is past, it sang itself out in Mozart--how\nhappy are WE that his ROCOCO still speaks to us, that his \"good\ncompany,\" his tender enthusiasm, his childish delight in the Chinese and\nits flourishes, his courtesy of heart, his longing for the elegant, the\namorous, the tripping, the tearful, and his belief in the South, can\nstill appeal to SOMETHING LEFT in us! Ah, some time or other it will be\nover with it!--but who can doubt that it will be over still sooner with\nthe intelligence and taste for Beethoven! For he was only the last echo\nof a break and transition in style, and NOT, like Mozart, the last echo\nof a great European taste which had existed for centuries. Beethoven\nis the intermediate event between an old mellow soul that is constantly\nbreaking down, and a future over-young soul that is always COMING;\nthere is spread over his music the twilight of eternal loss and eternal\nextravagant hope,--the same light in which Europe was bathed when it\ndreamed with Rousseau, when it danced round the Tree of Liberty of the\nRevolution, and finally almost fell down in adoration before Napoleon.\nBut how rapidly does THIS very sentiment now pale, how difficult\nnowadays is even the APPREHENSION of this sentiment, how strangely does\nthe language of Rousseau, Schiller, Shelley, and Byron sound to our ear,\nin whom COLLECTIVELY the same fate of Europe was able to SPEAK, which\nknew how to SING in Beethoven!--Whatever German music came afterwards,\nbelongs to Romanticism, that is to say, to a movement which,\nhistorically considered, was still shorter, more fleeting, and more\nsuperficial than that great interlude, the transition of Europe from\nRousseau to Napoleon, and to the rise of democracy. Weber--but what do\nWE care nowadays for \"Freischutz\" and \"Oberon\"! Or Marschner's \"Hans\nHeiling\" and \"Vampyre\"! Or even Wagner's \"Tannhauser\"! That is extinct,\nalthough not yet forgotten music. This whole music of Romanticism,\nbesides, was not noble enough, was not musical enough, to maintain its\nposition anywhere but in the theatre and before the masses; from the\nbeginning it was second-rate music, which was little thought of by\ngenuine musicians. It was different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon\nmaster, who, on account of his lighter, purer, happier soul, quickly\nacquired admiration, and was equally quickly forgotten: as the beautiful\nEPISODE of German music. But with regard to Robert Schumann, who took\nthings seriously, and has been taken seriously from the first--he\nwas the last that founded a school,--do we not now regard it as a\nsatisfaction, a relief, a deliverance, that this very Romanticism\nof Schumann's has been surmounted? Schumann, fleeing into the \"Saxon\nSwitzerland\" of his soul, with a half Werther-like, half Jean-Paul-like\nnature (assuredly not like Beethoven! assuredly not like Byron!)--his\nMANFRED music is a mistake and a misunderstanding to the extent of\ninjustice; Schumann, with his taste, which was fundamentally a PETTY\ntaste (that is to say, a dangerous propensity--doubly dangerous among\nGermans--for quiet lyricism and intoxication of the feelings), going\nconstantly apart, timidly withdrawing and retiring, a noble weakling who\nrevelled in nothing but anonymous joy and sorrow, from the beginning\na sort of girl and NOLI ME TANGERE--this Schumann was already merely a\nGERMAN event in music, and no longer a European event, as Beethoven had\nbeen, as in a still greater degree Mozart had been; with Schumann German\nmusic was threatened with its greatest danger, that of LOSING THE VOICE\nFOR THE SOUL OF EUROPE and sinking into a merely national affair.\n\n246. What a torture are books written in German to a reader who has a\nTHIRD ear! How indignantly he stands beside the slowly turning swamp\nof sounds without tune and rhythms without dance, which Germans call\na \"book\"! And even the German who READS books! How lazily, how\nreluctantly, how badly he reads! How many Germans know, and consider it\nobligatory to know, that there is ART in every good sentence--art which\nmust be divined, if the sentence is to be understood! If there is a\nmisunderstanding about its TEMPO, for instance, the sentence itself\nis misunderstood! That one must not be doubtful about the\nrhythm-determining syllables, that one should feel the breaking of the\ntoo-rigid symmetry as intentional and as a charm, that one should lend a\nfine and patient ear to every STACCATO and every RUBATO, that one should\ndivine the sense in the sequence of the vowels and diphthongs, and how\ndelicately and richly they can be tinted and retinted in the order of\ntheir arrangement--who among book-reading Germans is complaisant enough\nto recognize such duties and requirements, and to listen to so much art\nand intention in language? After all, one just \"has no ear for it\";\nand so the most marked contrasts of style are not heard, and the most\ndelicate artistry is as it were SQUANDERED on the deaf.--These were my\nthoughts when I noticed how clumsily and unintuitively two masters in\nthe art of prose-writing have been confounded: one, whose words drop\ndown hesitatingly and coldly, as from the roof of a damp cave--he counts\non their dull sound and echo; and another who manipulates his language\nlike a flexible sword, and from his arm down into his toes feels the\ndangerous bliss of the quivering, over-sharp blade, which wishes to\nbite, hiss, and cut.\n\n247. How little the German style has to do with harmony and with the\near, is shown by the fact that precisely our good musicians themselves\nwrite badly. The German does not read aloud, he does not read for the\near, but only with his eyes; he has put his ears away in the drawer for\nthe time. In antiquity when a man read--which was seldom enough--he read\nsomething to himself, and in a loud voice; they were surprised when\nany one read silently, and sought secretly the reason of it. In a\nloud voice: that is to say, with all the swellings, inflections, and\nvariations of key and changes of TEMPO, in which the ancient PUBLIC\nworld took delight. The laws of the written style were then the same\nas those of the spoken style; and these laws depended partly on the\nsurprising development and refined requirements of the ear and larynx;\npartly on the strength, endurance, and power of the ancient lungs. In\nthe ancient sense, a period is above all a physiological whole, inasmuch\nas it is comprised in one breath. Such periods as occur in Demosthenes\nand Cicero, swelling twice and sinking twice, and all in one breath,\nwere pleasures to the men of ANTIQUITY, who knew by their own schooling\nhow to appreciate the virtue therein, the rareness and the difficulty\nin the deliverance of such a period;--WE have really no right to the\nBIG period, we modern men, who are short of breath in every sense! Those\nancients, indeed, were all of them dilettanti in speaking, consequently\nconnoisseurs, consequently critics--they thus brought their orators to\nthe highest pitch; in the same manner as in the last century, when all\nItalian ladies and gentlemen knew how to sing, the virtuosoship of song\n(and with it also the art of melody) reached its elevation. In Germany,\nhowever (until quite recently when a kind of platform eloquence began\nshyly and awkwardly enough to flutter its young wings), there was\nproperly speaking only one kind of public and APPROXIMATELY artistical\ndiscourse--that delivered from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one\nin Germany who knew the weight of a syllable or a word, in what manner a\nsentence strikes, springs, rushes, flows, and comes to a close; he alone\nhad a conscience in his ears, often enough a bad conscience: for reasons\nare not lacking why proficiency in oratory should be especially seldom\nattained by a German, or almost always too late. The masterpiece of\nGerman prose is therefore with good reason the masterpiece of its\ngreatest preacher: the BIBLE has hitherto been the best German\nbook. Compared with Luther's Bible, almost everything else is merely\n\"literature\"--something which has not grown in Germany, and therefore\nhas not taken and does not take root in German hearts, as the Bible has\ndone.\n\n248. There are two kinds of geniuses: one which above all engenders and\nseeks to engender, and another which willingly lets itself be fructified\nand brings forth. And similarly, among the gifted nations, there are\nthose on whom the woman's problem of pregnancy has devolved, and the\nsecret task of forming, maturing, and perfecting--the Greeks, for\ninstance, were a nation of this kind, and so are the French; and others\nwhich have to fructify and become the cause of new modes of life--like\nthe Jews, the Romans, and, in all modesty be it asked: like the\nGermans?--nations tortured and enraptured by unknown fevers and\nirresistibly forced out of themselves, amorous and longing for\nforeign races (for such as \"let themselves be fructified\"), and withal\nimperious, like everything conscious of being full of generative force,\nand consequently empowered \"by the grace of God.\" These two kinds of\ngeniuses seek each other like man and woman; but they also misunderstand\neach other--like man and woman.\n\n249. Every nation has its own \"Tartuffery,\" and calls that its\nvirtue.--One does not know--cannot know, the best that is in one.\n\n250. What Europe owes to the Jews?--Many things, good and bad, and above\nall one thing of the nature both of the best and the worst: the grand\nstyle in morality, the fearfulness and majesty of infinite demands, of\ninfinite significations, the whole Romanticism and sublimity of moral\nquestionableness--and consequently just the most attractive, ensnaring,\nand exquisite element in those iridescences and allurements to life,\nin the aftersheen of which the sky of our European culture, its evening\nsky, now glows--perhaps glows out. For this, we artists among the\nspectators and philosophers, are--grateful to the Jews.\n\n251. It must be taken into the bargain, if various clouds and\ndisturbances--in short, slight attacks of stupidity--pass over the\nspirit of a people that suffers and WANTS to suffer from national\nnervous fever and political ambition: for instance, among present-day\nGermans there is alternately the anti-French folly, the anti-Semitic\nfolly, the anti-Polish folly, the Christian-romantic folly, the\nWagnerian folly, the Teutonic folly, the Prussian folly (just look at\nthose poor historians, the Sybels and Treitschkes, and their closely\nbandaged heads), and whatever else these little obscurations of the\nGerman spirit and conscience may be called. May it be forgiven me that\nI, too, when on a short daring sojourn on very infected ground, did not\nremain wholly exempt from the disease, but like every one else, began\nto entertain thoughts about matters which did not concern me--the first\nsymptom of political infection. About the Jews, for instance, listen\nto the following:--I have never yet met a German who was favourably\ninclined to the Jews; and however decided the repudiation of actual\nanti-Semitism may be on the part of all prudent and political men, this\nprudence and policy is not perhaps directed against the nature of the\nsentiment itself, but only against its dangerous excess, and especially\nagainst the distasteful and infamous expression of this excess of\nsentiment;--on this point we must not deceive ourselves. That Germany\nhas amply SUFFICIENT Jews, that the German stomach, the German blood,\nhas difficulty (and will long have difficulty) in disposing only of this\nquantity of \"Jew\"--as the Italian, the Frenchman, and the Englishman\nhave done by means of a stronger digestion:--that is the unmistakable\ndeclaration and language of a general instinct, to which one must listen\nand according to which one must act. \"Let no more Jews come in! And shut\nthe doors, especially towards the East (also towards Austria)!\"--thus\ncommands the instinct of a people whose nature is still feeble and\nuncertain, so that it could be easily wiped out, easily extinguished, by\na stronger race. The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest,\ntoughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how\nto succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under\nfavourable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like\nnowadays to label as vices--owing above all to a resolute faith which\ndoes not need to be ashamed before \"modern ideas\", they alter only,\nWHEN they do alter, in the same way that the Russian Empire makes\nits conquest--as an empire that has plenty of time and is not of\nyesterday--namely, according to the principle, \"as slowly as possible\"!\nA thinker who has the future of Europe at heart, will, in all his\nperspectives concerning the future, calculate upon the Jews, as he\nwill calculate upon the Russians, as above all the surest and likeliest\nfactors in the great play and battle of forces. That which is at present\ncalled a \"nation\" in Europe, and is really rather a RES FACTA than NATA\n(indeed, sometimes confusingly similar to a RES FICTA ET PICTA), is in\nevery case something evolving, young, easily displaced, and not yet\na race, much less such a race AERE PERENNUS, as the Jews are such\n\"nations\" should most carefully avoid all hot-headed rivalry and\nhostility! It is certain that the Jews, if they desired--or if they\nwere driven to it, as the anti-Semites seem to wish--COULD now have the\nascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe, that they are NOT\nworking and planning for that end is equally certain. Meanwhile, they\nrather wish and desire, even somewhat importunely, to be insorbed and\nabsorbed by Europe, they long to be finally settled, authorized, and\nrespected somewhere, and wish to put an end to the nomadic life, to the\n\"wandering Jew\",--and one should certainly take account of this impulse\nand tendency, and MAKE ADVANCES to it (it possibly betokens a mitigation\nof the Jewish instincts) for which purpose it would perhaps be useful\nand fair to banish the anti-Semitic bawlers out of the country. One\nshould make advances with all prudence, and with selection, pretty much\nas the English nobility do It stands to reason that the more powerful\nand strongly marked types of new Germanism could enter into relation\nwith the Jews with the least hesitation, for instance, the nobleman\nofficer from the Prussian border it would be interesting in many ways\nto see whether the genius for money and patience (and especially some\nintellect and intellectuality--sadly lacking in the place referred to)\ncould not in addition be annexed and trained to the hereditary art of\ncommanding and obeying--for both of which the country in question has\nnow a classic reputation But here it is expedient to break off my festal\ndiscourse and my sprightly Teutonomania for I have already reached my\nSERIOUS TOPIC, the \"European problem,\" as I understand it, the rearing\nof a new ruling caste for Europe.\n\n252. They are not a philosophical race--the English: Bacon represents an\nATTACK on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke,\nan abasement, and a depreciation of the idea of a \"philosopher\" for more\nthan a century. It was AGAINST Hume that Kant uprose and raised himself;\nit was Locke of whom Schelling RIGHTLY said, \"JE MEPRISE LOCKE\"; in the\nstruggle against the English mechanical stultification of the world,\nHegel and Schopenhauer (along with Goethe) were of one accord; the\ntwo hostile brother-geniuses in philosophy, who pushed in different\ndirections towards the opposite poles of German thought, and thereby\nwronged each other as only brothers will do.--What is lacking in\nEngland, and has always been lacking, that half-actor and rhetorician\nknew well enough, the absurd muddle-head, Carlyle, who sought to conceal\nunder passionate grimaces what he knew about himself: namely, what was\nLACKING in Carlyle--real POWER of intellect, real DEPTH of intellectual\nperception, in short, philosophy. It is characteristic of such an\nunphilosophical race to hold on firmly to Christianity--they NEED its\ndiscipline for \"moralizing\" and humanizing. The Englishman, more gloomy,\nsensual, headstrong, and brutal than the German--is for that very\nreason, as the baser of the two, also the most pious: he has all the\nMORE NEED of Christianity. To finer nostrils, this English Christianity\nitself has still a characteristic English taint of spleen and alcoholic\nexcess, for which, owing to good reasons, it is used as an antidote--the\nfiner poison to neutralize the coarser: a finer form of poisoning is\nin fact a step in advance with coarse-mannered people, a step towards\nspiritualization. The English coarseness and rustic demureness is still\nmost satisfactorily disguised by Christian pantomime, and by praying\nand psalm-singing (or, more correctly, it is thereby explained and\ndifferently expressed); and for the herd of drunkards and rakes who\nformerly learned moral grunting under the influence of Methodism (and\nmore recently as the \"Salvation Army\"), a penitential fit may really be\nthe relatively highest manifestation of \"humanity\" to which they can\nbe elevated: so much may reasonably be admitted. That, however, which\noffends even in the humanest Englishman is his lack of music, to speak\nfiguratively (and also literally): he has neither rhythm nor dance in\nthe movements of his soul and body; indeed, not even the desire for\nrhythm and dance, for \"music.\" Listen to him speaking; look at the most\nbeautiful Englishwoman WALKING--in no country on earth are there more\nbeautiful doves and swans; finally, listen to them singing! But I ask\ntoo much...\n\n253. There are truths which are best recognized by mediocre minds,\nbecause they are best adapted for them, there are truths which only\npossess charms and seductive power for mediocre spirits:--one is pushed\nto this probably unpleasant conclusion, now that the influence of\nrespectable but mediocre Englishmen--I may mention Darwin, John\nStuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer--begins to gain the ascendancy in the\nmiddle-class region of European taste. Indeed, who could doubt that it\nis a useful thing for SUCH minds to have the ascendancy for a time? It\nwould be an error to consider the highly developed and independently\nsoaring minds as specially qualified for determining and collecting many\nlittle common facts, and deducing conclusions from them; as exceptions,\nthey are rather from the first in no very favourable position towards\nthose who are \"the rules.\" After all, they have more to do than merely\nto perceive:--in effect, they have to BE something new, they have to\nSIGNIFY something new, they have to REPRESENT new values! The gulf\nbetween knowledge and capacity is perhaps greater, and also more\nmysterious, than one thinks: the capable man in the grand style, the\ncreator, will possibly have to be an ignorant person;--while on the\nother hand, for scientific discoveries like those of Darwin, a certain\nnarrowness, aridity, and industrious carefulness (in short, something\nEnglish) may not be unfavourable for arriving at them.--Finally, let\nit not be forgotten that the English, with their profound mediocrity,\nbrought about once before a general depression of European intelligence.\n\nWhat is called \"modern ideas,\" or \"the ideas of the eighteenth century,\"\nor \"French ideas\"--that, consequently, against which the GERMAN mind\nrose up with profound disgust--is of English origin, there is no doubt\nabout it. The French were only the apes and actors of these ideas, their\nbest soldiers, and likewise, alas! their first and profoundest VICTIMS;\nfor owing to the diabolical Anglomania of \"modern ideas,\" the AME\nFRANCAIS has in the end become so thin and emaciated, that at present\none recalls its sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its profound,\npassionate strength, its inventive excellency, almost with disbelief.\nOne must, however, maintain this verdict of historical justice in\na determined manner, and defend it against present prejudices and\nappearances: the European NOBLESSE--of sentiment, taste, and manners,\ntaking the word in every high sense--is the work and invention of\nFRANCE; the European ignobleness, the plebeianism of modern ideas--is\nENGLAND'S work and invention.\n\n254. Even at present France is still the seat of the most intellectual\nand refined culture of Europe, it is still the high school of taste; but\none must know how to find this \"France of taste.\" He who belongs to it\nkeeps himself well concealed:--they may be a small number in whom it\nlives and is embodied, besides perhaps being men who do not stand upon\nthe strongest legs, in part fatalists, hypochondriacs, invalids, in\npart persons over-indulged, over-refined, such as have the AMBITION to\nconceal themselves.\n\nThey have all something in common: they keep their ears closed in\npresence of the delirious folly and noisy spouting of the democratic\nBOURGEOIS. In fact, a besotted and brutalized France at present sprawls\nin the foreground--it recently celebrated a veritable orgy of bad taste,\nand at the same time of self-admiration, at the funeral of Victor Hugo.\nThere is also something else common to them: a predilection to resist\nintellectual Germanizing--and a still greater inability to do so!\nIn this France of intellect, which is also a France of pessimism,\nSchopenhauer has perhaps become more at home, and more indigenous than\nhe has ever been in Germany; not to speak of Heinrich Heine, who has\nlong ago been re-incarnated in the more refined and fastidious lyrists\nof Paris; or of Hegel, who at present, in the form of Taine--the FIRST\nof living historians--exercises an almost tyrannical influence. As\nregards Richard Wagner, however, the more French music learns to\nadapt itself to the actual needs of the AME MODERNE, the more will it\n\"Wagnerite\"; one can safely predict that beforehand,--it is already\ntaking place sufficiently! There are, however, three things which the\nFrench can still boast of with pride as their heritage and possession,\nand as indelible tokens of their ancient intellectual superiority\nin Europe, in spite of all voluntary or involuntary Germanizing and\nvulgarizing of taste. FIRSTLY, the capacity for artistic emotion, for\ndevotion to \"form,\" for which the expression, L'ART POUR L'ART, along\nwith numerous others, has been invented:--such capacity has not been\nlacking in France for three centuries; and owing to its reverence for\nthe \"small number,\" it has again and again made a sort of chamber\nmusic of literature possible, which is sought for in vain elsewhere\nin Europe.--The SECOND thing whereby the French can lay claim to\na superiority over Europe is their ancient, many-sided, MORALISTIC\nculture, owing to which one finds on an average, even in the petty\nROMANCIERS of the newspapers and chance BOULEVARDIERS DE PARIS, a\npsychological sensitiveness and curiosity, of which, for example, one\nhas no conception (to say nothing of the thing itself!) in Germany.\nThe Germans lack a couple of centuries of the moralistic work requisite\nthereto, which, as we have said, France has not grudged: those who call\nthe Germans \"naive\" on that account give them commendation for a defect.\n(As the opposite of the German inexperience and innocence IN VOLUPTATE\nPSYCHOLOGICA, which is not too remotely associated with the tediousness\nof German intercourse,--and as the most successful expression of\ngenuine French curiosity and inventive talent in this domain of delicate\nthrills, Henri Beyle may be noted; that remarkable anticipatory and\nforerunning man, who, with a Napoleonic TEMPO, traversed HIS Europe,\nin fact, several centuries of the European soul, as a surveyor and\ndiscoverer thereof:--it has required two generations to OVERTAKE him\none way or other, to divine long afterwards some of the riddles\nthat perplexed and enraptured him--this strange Epicurean and man of\ninterrogation, the last great psychologist of France).--There is yet\na THIRD claim to superiority: in the French character there is a\nsuccessful half-way synthesis of the North and South, which makes them\ncomprehend many things, and enjoins upon them other things, which an\nEnglishman can never comprehend. Their temperament, turned alternately\nto and from the South, in which from time to time the Provencal and\nLigurian blood froths over, preserves them from the dreadful, northern\ngrey-in-grey, from sunless conceptual-spectrism and from poverty of\nblood--our GERMAN infirmity of taste, for the excessive prevalence\nof which at the present moment, blood and iron, that is to say \"high\npolitics,\" has with great resolution been prescribed (according to\na dangerous healing art, which bids me wait and wait, but not yet\nhope).--There is also still in France a pre-understanding and\nready welcome for those rarer and rarely gratified men, who are too\ncomprehensive to find satisfaction in any kind of fatherlandism, and\nknow how to love the South when in the North and the North when in the\nSouth--the born Midlanders, the \"good Europeans.\" For them BIZET\nhas made music, this latest genius, who has seen a new beauty and\nseduction,--who has discovered a piece of the SOUTH IN MUSIC.\n\n255. I hold that many precautions should be taken against German music.\nSuppose a person loves the South as I love it--as a great school\nof recovery for the most spiritual and the most sensuous ills, as a\nboundless solar profusion and effulgence which o'erspreads a sovereign\nexistence believing in itself--well, such a person will learn to be\nsomewhat on his guard against German music, because, in injuring his\ntaste anew, it will also injure his health anew. Such a Southerner, a\nSoutherner not by origin but by BELIEF, if he should dream of the future\nof music, must also dream of it being freed from the influence of the\nNorth; and must have in his ears the prelude to a deeper, mightier, and\nperhaps more perverse and mysterious music, a super-German music, which\ndoes not fade, pale, and die away, as all German music does, at the\nsight of the blue, wanton sea and the Mediterranean clearness of sky--a\nsuper-European music, which holds its own even in presence of the brown\nsunsets of the desert, whose soul is akin to the palm-tree, and can be\nat home and can roam with big, beautiful, lonely beasts of prey... I\ncould imagine a music of which the rarest charm would be that it knew\nnothing more of good and evil; only that here and there perhaps some\nsailor's home-sickness, some golden shadows and tender weaknesses might\nsweep lightly over it; an art which, from the far distance, would see\nthe colours of a sinking and almost incomprehensible MORAL world fleeing\ntowards it, and would be hospitable enough and profound enough to\nreceive such belated fugitives.\n\n256. Owing to the morbid estrangement which the nationality-craze has\ninduced and still induces among the nations of Europe, owing also to the\nshort-sighted and hasty-handed politicians, who with the help of this\ncraze, are at present in power, and do not suspect to what extent the\ndisintegrating policy they pursue must necessarily be only an interlude\npolicy--owing to all this and much else that is altogether unmentionable\nat present, the most unmistakable signs that EUROPE WISHES TO BE ONE,\nare now overlooked, or arbitrarily and falsely misinterpreted. With all\nthe more profound and large-minded men of this century, the real general\ntendency of the mysterious labour of their souls was to prepare the way\nfor that new SYNTHESIS, and tentatively to anticipate the European of\nthe future; only in their simulations, or in their weaker moments, in\nold age perhaps, did they belong to the \"fatherlands\"--they only rested\nfrom themselves when they became \"patriots.\" I think of such men as\nNapoleon, Goethe, Beethoven, Stendhal, Heinrich Heine, Schopenhauer: it\nmust not be taken amiss if I also count Richard Wagner among them, about\nwhom one must not let oneself be deceived by his own misunderstandings\n(geniuses like him have seldom the right to understand themselves),\nstill less, of course, by the unseemly noise with which he is now\nresisted and opposed in France: the fact remains, nevertheless, that\nRichard Wagner and the LATER FRENCH ROMANTICISM of the forties, are\nmost closely and intimately related to one another. They are akin,\nfundamentally akin, in all the heights and depths of their requirements;\nit is Europe, the ONE Europe, whose soul presses urgently and longingly,\noutwards and upwards, in their multifarious and boisterous art--whither?\ninto a new light? towards a new sun? But who would attempt to express\naccurately what all these masters of new modes of speech could not\nexpress distinctly? It is certain that the same storm and stress\ntormented them, that they SOUGHT in the same manner, these last great\nseekers! All of them steeped in literature to their eyes and ears--the\nfirst artists of universal literary culture--for the most part even\nthemselves writers, poets, intermediaries and blenders of the arts and\nthe senses (Wagner, as musician is reckoned among painters, as poet\namong musicians, as artist generally among actors); all of them fanatics\nfor EXPRESSION \"at any cost\"--I specially mention Delacroix, the nearest\nrelated to Wagner; all of them great discoverers in the realm of the\nsublime, also of the loathsome and dreadful, still greater discoverers\nin effect, in display, in the art of the show-shop; all of them talented\nfar beyond their genius, out and out VIRTUOSI, with mysterious accesses\nto all that seduces, allures, constrains, and upsets; born enemies of\nlogic and of the straight line, hankering after the strange, the\nexotic, the monstrous, the crooked, and the self-contradictory; as men,\nTantaluses of the will, plebeian parvenus, who knew themselves to be\nincapable of a noble TEMPO or of a LENTO in life and action--think\nof Balzac, for instance,--unrestrained workers, almost destroying\nthemselves by work; antinomians and rebels in manners, ambitious and\ninsatiable, without equilibrium and enjoyment; all of them finally\nshattering and sinking down at the Christian cross (and with right\nand reason, for who of them would have been sufficiently profound and\nsufficiently original for an ANTI-CHRISTIAN philosophy?);--on the\nwhole, a boldly daring, splendidly overbearing, high-flying, and\naloft-up-dragging class of higher men, who had first to teach their\ncentury--and it is the century of the MASSES--the conception \"higher\nman.\"... Let the German friends of Richard Wagner advise together as to\nwhether there is anything purely German in the Wagnerian art, or whether\nits distinction does not consist precisely in coming from SUPER-GERMAN\nsources and impulses: in which connection it may not be underrated\nhow indispensable Paris was to the development of his type, which the\nstrength of his instincts made him long to visit at the most\ndecisive time--and how the whole style of his proceedings, of his\nself-apostolate, could only perfect itself in sight of the French\nsocialistic original. On a more subtle comparison it will perhaps be\nfound, to the honour of Richard Wagner's German nature, that he has\nacted in everything with more strength, daring, severity, and elevation\nthan a nineteenth-century Frenchman could have done--owing to the\ncircumstance that we Germans are as yet nearer to barbarism than the\nFrench;--perhaps even the most remarkable creation of Richard Wagner is\nnot only at present, but for ever inaccessible, incomprehensible, and\ninimitable to the whole latter-day Latin race: the figure of Siegfried,\nthat VERY FREE man, who is probably far too free, too hard, too\ncheerful, too healthy, too ANTI-CATHOLIC for the taste of old and mellow\ncivilized nations. He may even have been a sin against Romanticism, this\nanti-Latin Siegfried: well, Wagner atoned amply for this sin in his old\nsad days, when--anticipating a taste which has meanwhile passed into\npolitics--he began, with the religious vehemence peculiar to him, to\npreach, at least, THE WAY TO ROME, if not to walk therein.--That\nthese last words may not be misunderstood, I will call to my aid a few\npowerful rhymes, which will even betray to less delicate ears what I\nmean--what I mean COUNTER TO the \"last Wagner\" and his Parsifal music:--\n\n--Is this our mode?--From German heart came this vexed ululating? From\nGerman body, this self-lacerating? Is ours this priestly hand-dilation,\nThis incense-fuming exaltation? Is ours this faltering, falling,\nshambling, This quite uncertain ding-dong-dangling? This sly\nnun-ogling, Ave-hour-bell ringing, This wholly false enraptured\nheaven-o'erspringing?--Is this our mode?--Think well!--ye still wait for\nadmission--For what ye hear is ROME--ROME'S FAITH BY INTUITION!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. WHAT IS NOBLE?\n\n\n257. EVERY elevation of the type \"man,\" has hitherto been the work of an\naristocratic society and so it will always be--a society believing in\na long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human\nbeings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the PATHOS\nOF DISTANCE, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes,\nout of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on\nsubordinates and instruments, and out of their equally constant\npractice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a\ndistance--that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the\nlonging for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself,\nthe formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more\ncomprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type \"man,\"\nthe continued \"self-surmounting of man,\" to use a moral formula in\na supermoral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to\nany humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an\naristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for\nthe elevation of the type \"man\"): the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge\nunprejudicedly how every higher civilization hitherto has ORIGINATED!\nMen with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of\nthe word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of will\nand desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more\npeaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon\nold mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickering\nout in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement,\nthe noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their superiority did\nnot consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical\npower--they were more COMPLETE men (which at every point also implies\nthe same as \"more complete beasts\").\n\n258. Corruption--as the indication that anarchy threatens to break out\namong the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions, called\n\"life,\" is convulsed--is something radically different according to\nthe organization in which it manifests itself. When, for instance, an\naristocracy like that of France at the beginning of the Revolution,\nflung away its privileges with sublime disgust and sacrificed itself\nto an excess of its moral sentiments, it was corruption:--it was really\nonly the closing act of the corruption which had existed for centuries,\nby virtue of which that aristocracy had abdicated step by step its\nlordly prerogatives and lowered itself to a FUNCTION of royalty (in\nthe end even to its decoration and parade-dress). The essential thing,\nhowever, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard\nitself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but\nas the SIGNIFICANCE and highest justification thereof--that it should\ntherefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion\nof individuals, who, FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to\nimperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must\nbe precisely that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but\nonly as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class\nof beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and\nin general to a higher EXISTENCE: like those sun-seeking climbing plants\nin Java--they are called Sipo Matador,--which encircle an oak so\nlong and so often with their arms, until at last, high above it, but\nsupported by it, they can unfold their tops in the open light, and\nexhibit their happiness.\n\n259. To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation,\nand put one's will on a par with that of others: this may result in a\ncertain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary\nconditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals\nin amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one\norganization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle\nmore generally, and if possible even as the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF\nSOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really is--namely, a Will\nto the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one\nmust think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental\nweakness: life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest\nof the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of\npeculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest,\nexploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these words\non which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? Even the\norganization within which, as was previously supposed, the\nindividuals treat each other as equal--it takes place in every\nhealthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not a dying\norganization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals\nwithin it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the\nincarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground,\nattract to itself and acquire ascendancy--not owing to any morality or\nimmorality, but because it LIVES, and because life IS precisely Will to\nPower. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans\nmore unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave\neverywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of\nsociety in which \"the exploiting character\" is to be absent--that sounds\nto my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should\nrefrain from all organic functions. \"Exploitation\" does not belong to a\ndepraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to the nature of\nthe living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence\nof the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to\nLife--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is\nthe FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history let us be so far honest towards\nourselves!\n\n260. In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have\nhitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits\nrecurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until\nfinally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical\ndistinction was brought to light. There is MASTER-MORALITY and\nSLAVE-MORALITY,--I would at once add, however, that in all higher and\nmixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of\nthe two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and\nmutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close\njuxtaposition--even in the same man, within one soul. The distinctions\nof moral values have either originated in a ruling caste, pleasantly\nconscious of being different from the ruled--or among the ruled class,\nthe slaves and dependents of all sorts. In the first case, when it is\nthe rulers who determine the conception \"good,\" it is the exalted, proud\ndisposition which is regarded as the distinguishing feature, and that\nwhich determines the order of rank. The noble type of man separates\nfrom himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud\ndisposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be noted\nthat in this first kind of morality the antithesis \"good\" and \"bad\"\nmeans practically the same as \"noble\" and \"despicable\",--the antithesis\n\"good\" and \"EVIL\" is of a different origin. The cowardly, the timid, the\ninsignificant, and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised;\nmoreover, also, the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the\nself-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused,\nthe mendicant flatterers, and above all the liars:--it is a fundamental\nbelief of all aristocrats that the common people are untruthful. \"We\ntruthful ones\"--the nobility in ancient Greece called themselves. It is\nobvious that everywhere the designations of moral value were at first\napplied to MEN; and were only derivatively and at a later period applied\nto ACTIONS; it is a gross mistake, therefore, when historians of morals\nstart with questions like, \"Why have sympathetic actions been praised?\"\nThe noble type of man regards HIMSELF as a determiner of values; he\ndoes not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: \"What is\ninjurious to me is injurious in itself;\" he knows that it is he himself\nonly who confers honour on things; he is a CREATOR OF VALUES. He\nhonours whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality equals\nself-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude,\nof power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the\nconsciousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow:--the noble\nman also helps the unfortunate, but not--or scarcely--out of pity, but\nrather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power. The\nnoble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power\nover himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who\ntakes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has\nreverence for all that is severe and hard. \"Wotan placed a hard heart in\nmy breast,\" says an old Scandinavian Saga: it is thus rightly expressed\nfrom the soul of a proud Viking. Such a type of man is even proud of not\nbeing made for sympathy; the hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly:\n\"He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one.\" The noble\nand brave who think thus are the furthest removed from the morality\nwhich sees precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others,\nor in DESINTERESSEMENT, the characteristic of the moral; faith\nin oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards\n\"selflessness,\" belong as definitely to noble morality, as do a careless\nscorn and precaution in presence of sympathy and the \"warm heart.\"--It\nis the powerful who KNOW how to honour, it is their art, their domain\nfor invention. The profound reverence for age and for tradition--all law\nrests on this double reverence,--the belief and prejudice in favour of\nancestors and unfavourable to newcomers, is typical in the morality of\nthe powerful; and if, reversely, men of \"modern ideas\" believe almost\ninstinctively in \"progress\" and the \"future,\" and are more and more\nlacking in respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these \"ideas\" has\ncomplacently betrayed itself thereby. A morality of the ruling class,\nhowever, is more especially foreign and irritating to present-day taste\nin the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one's\nequals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all\nthat is foreign, just as seems good to one, or \"as the heart desires,\"\nand in any case \"beyond good and evil\": it is here that sympathy and\nsimilar sentiments can have a place. The ability and obligation to\nexercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge--both only within the\ncircle of equals,--artfulness in retaliation, RAFFINEMENT of the idea\nin friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the\nemotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance--in fact, in order to be\na good FRIEND): all these are typical characteristics of the noble\nmorality, which, as has been pointed out, is not the morality of \"modern\nideas,\" and is therefore at present difficult to realize, and also to\nunearth and disclose.--It is otherwise with the second type of morality,\nSLAVE-MORALITY. Supposing that the abused, the oppressed, the suffering,\nthe unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves should\nmoralize, what will be the common element in their moral estimates?\nProbably a pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of\nman will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together with\nhis situation. The slave has an unfavourable eye for the virtues of the\npowerful; he has a skepticism and distrust, a REFINEMENT of distrust of\neverything \"good\" that is there honoured--he would fain persuade himself\nthat the very happiness there is not genuine. On the other hand, THOSE\nqualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are\nbrought into prominence and flooded with light; it is here that\nsympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence,\nhumility, and friendliness attain to honour; for here these are the most\nuseful qualities, and almost the only means of supporting the burden of\nexistence. Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility.\nHere is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis \"good\" and\n\"evil\":--power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil,\na certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of\nbeing despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the \"evil\" man\narouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the \"good\"\nman who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is\nregarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when,\nin accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade\nof depreciation--it may be slight and well-intentioned--at last attaches\nitself to the \"good\" man of this morality; because, according to the\nservile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the SAFE\nman: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un\nbonhomme. Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendancy, language\nshows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words \"good\"\nand \"stupid.\"--A last fundamental difference: the desire for FREEDOM,\nthe instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty\nbelong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as artifice and\nenthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an\naristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.--Hence we can understand\nwithout further detail why love AS A PASSION--it is our European\nspecialty--must absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its\ninvention is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant,\ningenious men of the \"gai saber,\" to whom Europe owes so much, and\nalmost owes itself.\n\n261. Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult for\na noble man to understand: he will be tempted to deny it, where another\nkind of man thinks he sees it self-evidently. The problem for him is\nto represent to his mind beings who seek to arouse a good opinion of\nthemselves which they themselves do not possess--and consequently also\ndo not \"deserve,\"--and who yet BELIEVE in this good opinion\nafterwards. This seems to him on the one hand such bad taste and so\nself-disrespectful, and on the other hand so grotesquely unreasonable,\nthat he would like to consider vanity an exception, and is doubtful\nabout it in most cases when it is spoken of. He will say, for\ninstance: \"I may be mistaken about my value, and on the other hand\nmay nevertheless demand that my value should be acknowledged by others\nprecisely as I rate it:--that, however, is not vanity (but self-conceit,\nor, in most cases, that which is called 'humility,' and also\n'modesty').\" Or he will even say: \"For many reasons I can delight in\nthe good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honour them,\nand rejoice in all their joys, perhaps also because their good opinion\nendorses and strengthens my belief in my own good opinion, perhaps\nbecause the good opinion of others, even in cases where I do not share\nit, is useful to me, or gives promise of usefulness:--all this, however,\nis not vanity.\" The man of noble character must first bring it home\nforcibly to his mind, especially with the aid of history, that, from\ntime immemorial, in all social strata in any way dependent, the ordinary\nman WAS only that which he PASSED FOR:--not being at all accustomed to\nfix values, he did not assign even to himself any other value than that\nwhich his master assigned to him (it is the peculiar RIGHT OF MASTERS to\ncreate values). It may be looked upon as the result of an extraordinary\natavism, that the ordinary man, even at present, is still always WAITING\nfor an opinion about himself, and then instinctively submitting himself\nto it; yet by no means only to a \"good\" opinion, but also to a bad\nand unjust one (think, for instance, of the greater part of the\nself-appreciations and self-depreciations which believing women learn\nfrom their confessors, and which in general the believing Christian\nlearns from his Church). In fact, conformably to the slow rise of the\ndemocratic social order (and its cause, the blending of the blood\nof masters and slaves), the originally noble and rare impulse of\nthe masters to assign a value to themselves and to \"think well\" of\nthemselves, will now be more and more encouraged and extended; but\nit has at all times an older, ampler, and more radically ingrained\npropensity opposed to it--and in the phenomenon of \"vanity\" this older\npropensity overmasters the younger. The vain person rejoices over EVERY\ngood opinion which he hears about himself (quite apart from the point\nof view of its usefulness, and equally regardless of its truth or\nfalsehood), just as he suffers from every bad opinion: for he subjects\nhimself to both, he feels himself subjected to both, by that oldest\ninstinct of subjection which breaks forth in him.--It is \"the slave\"\nin the vain man's blood, the remains of the slave's craftiness--and how\nmuch of the \"slave\" is still left in woman, for instance!--which\nseeks to SEDUCE to good opinions of itself; it is the slave, too, who\nimmediately afterwards falls prostrate himself before these opinions, as\nthough he had not called them forth.--And to repeat it again: vanity is\nan atavism.\n\n262. A SPECIES originates, and a type becomes established and strong in\nthe long struggle with essentially constant UNFAVOURABLE conditions. On\nthe other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that species\nwhich receive super-abundant nourishment, and in general a surplus of\nprotection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way to develop\nvariations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in\nmonstrous vices). Now look at an aristocratic commonwealth, say\nan ancient Greek polis, or Venice, as a voluntary or involuntary\ncontrivance for the purpose of REARING human beings; there are there men\nbeside one another, thrown upon their own resources, who want to make\ntheir species prevail, chiefly because they MUST prevail, or else\nrun the terrible danger of being exterminated. The favour, the\nsuper-abundance, the protection are there lacking under which variations\nare fostered; the species needs itself as species, as something which,\nprecisely by virtue of its hardness, its uniformity, and simplicity of\nstructure, can in general prevail and make itself permanent in\nconstant struggle with its neighbours, or with rebellious or\nrebellion-threatening vassals. The most varied experience teaches it\nwhat are the qualities to which it principally owes the fact that\nit still exists, in spite of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been\nvictorious: these qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone\nit develops to maturity. It does so with severity, indeed it desires\nseverity; every aristocratic morality is intolerant in the education\nof youth, in the control of women, in the marriage customs, in the\nrelations of old and young, in the penal laws (which have an eye only\nfor the degenerating): it counts intolerance itself among the virtues,\nunder the name of \"justice.\" A type with few, but very marked features,\na species of severe, warlike, wisely silent, reserved, and reticent\nmen (and as such, with the most delicate sensibility for the charm and\nnuances of society) is thus established, unaffected by the vicissitudes\nof generations; the constant struggle with uniform UNFAVOURABLE\nconditions is, as already remarked, the cause of a type becoming\nstable and hard. Finally, however, a happy state of things results, the\nenormous tension is relaxed; there are perhaps no more enemies among the\nneighbouring peoples, and the means of life, even of the enjoyment\nof life, are present in superabundance. With one stroke the bond and\nconstraint of the old discipline severs: it is no longer regarded as\nnecessary, as a condition of existence--if it would continue, it can\nonly do so as a form of LUXURY, as an archaizing TASTE. Variations,\nwhether they be deviations (into the higher, finer, and rarer), or\ndeteriorations and monstrosities, appear suddenly on the scene in the\ngreatest exuberance and splendour; the individual dares to be individual\nand detach himself. At this turning-point of history there manifest\nthemselves, side by side, and often mixed and entangled together, a\nmagnificent, manifold, virgin-forest-like up-growth and up-striving, a\nkind of TROPICAL TEMPO in the rivalry of growth, and an extraordinary\ndecay and self-destruction, owing to the savagely opposing and seemingly\nexploding egoisms, which strive with one another \"for sun and light,\"\nand can no longer assign any limit, restraint, or forbearance for\nthemselves by means of the hitherto existing morality. It was this\nmorality itself which piled up the strength so enormously, which bent\nthe bow in so threatening a manner:--it is now \"out of date,\" it is\ngetting \"out of date.\" The dangerous and disquieting point has been\nreached when the greater, more manifold, more comprehensive life IS\nLIVED BEYOND the old morality; the \"individual\" stands out, and is\nobliged to have recourse to his own law-giving, his own arts and\nartifices for self-preservation, self-elevation, and self-deliverance.\nNothing but new \"Whys,\" nothing but new \"Hows,\" no common formulas any\nlonger, misunderstanding and disregard in league with each other, decay,\ndeterioration, and the loftiest desires frightfully entangled, the\ngenius of the race overflowing from all the cornucopias of good and bad,\na portentous simultaneousness of Spring and Autumn, full of new charms\nand mysteries peculiar to the fresh, still inexhausted, still unwearied\ncorruption. Danger is again present, the mother of morality, great\ndanger; this time shifted into the individual, into the neighbour and\nfriend, into the street, into their own child, into their own heart,\ninto all the most personal and secret recesses of their desires and\nvolitions. What will the moral philosophers who appear at this time have\nto preach? They discover, these sharp onlookers and loafers, that the\nend is quickly approaching, that everything around them decays and\nproduces decay, that nothing will endure until the day after tomorrow,\nexcept one species of man, the incurably MEDIOCRE. The mediocre alone\nhave a prospect of continuing and propagating themselves--they will\nbe the men of the future, the sole survivors; \"be like them! become\nmediocre!\" is now the only morality which has still a significance,\nwhich still obtains a hearing.--But it is difficult to preach this\nmorality of mediocrity! it can never avow what it is and what it\ndesires! it has to talk of moderation and dignity and duty and brotherly\nlove--it will have difficulty IN CONCEALING ITS IRONY!\n\n263. There is an INSTINCT FOR RANK, which more than anything else is\nalready the sign of a HIGH rank; there is a DELIGHT in the NUANCES\nof reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and habits. The\nrefinement, goodness, and loftiness of a soul are put to a perilous test\nwhen something passes by that is of the highest rank, but is not\nyet protected by the awe of authority from obtrusive touches and\nincivilities: something that goes its way like a living touchstone,\nundistinguished, undiscovered, and tentative, perhaps voluntarily veiled\nand disguised. He whose task and practice it is to investigate souls,\nwill avail himself of many varieties of this very art to determine the\nultimate value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which\nit belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE\nENGENDRE HAINE: the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like\ndirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed shrines, any\nbook bearing the marks of great destiny, is brought before it; while\non the other hand, there is an involuntary silence, a hesitation of the\neye, a cessation of all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul\nFEELS the nearness of what is worthiest of respect. The way in which, on\nthe whole, the reverence for the BIBLE has hitherto been maintained\nin Europe, is perhaps the best example of discipline and refinement of\nmanners which Europe owes to Christianity: books of such profoundness\nand supreme significance require for their protection an external\ntyranny of authority, in order to acquire the PERIOD of thousands of\nyears which is necessary to exhaust and unriddle them. Much has been\nachieved when the sentiment has been at last instilled into the masses\n(the shallow-pates and the boobies of every kind) that they are not\nallowed to touch everything, that there are holy experiences before\nwhich they must take off their shoes and keep away the unclean hand--it\nis almost their highest advance towards humanity. On the contrary, in\nthe so-called cultured classes, the believers in \"modern ideas,\" nothing\nis perhaps so repulsive as their lack of shame, the easy insolence of\neye and hand with which they touch, taste, and finger everything; and it\nis possible that even yet there is more RELATIVE nobility of taste, and\nmore tact for reverence among the people, among the lower classes of\nthe people, especially among peasants, than among the newspaper-reading\nDEMIMONDE of intellect, the cultured class.\n\n264. It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors have\npreferably and most constantly done: whether they were perhaps diligent\neconomizers attached to a desk and a cash-box, modest and citizen-like\nin their desires, modest also in their virtues; or whether they were\naccustomed to commanding from morning till night, fond of rude pleasures\nand probably of still ruder duties and responsibilities; or whether,\nfinally, at one time or another, they have sacrificed old privileges of\nbirth and possession, in order to live wholly for their faith--for their\n\"God,\"--as men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which blushes\nat every compromise. It is quite impossible for a man NOT to have\nthe qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his\nconstitution, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary. This is\nthe problem of race. Granted that one knows something of the parents,\nit is admissible to draw a conclusion about the child: any kind\nof offensive incontinence, any kind of sordid envy, or of clumsy\nself-vaunting--the three things which together have constituted the\ngenuine plebeian type in all times--such must pass over to the child, as\nsurely as bad blood; and with the help of the best education and culture\none will only succeed in DECEIVING with regard to such heredity.--And\nwhat else does education and culture try to do nowadays! In our very\ndemocratic, or rather, very plebeian age, \"education\" and \"culture\" MUST\nbe essentially the art of deceiving--deceiving with regard to origin,\nwith regard to the inherited plebeianism in body and soul. An educator\nwho nowadays preached truthfulness above everything else, and called out\nconstantly to his pupils: \"Be true! Be natural! Show yourselves as you\nare!\"--even such a virtuous and sincere ass would learn in a short time\nto have recourse to the FURCA of Horace, NATURAM EXPELLERE: with what\nresults? \"Plebeianism\" USQUE RECURRET. [FOOTNOTE: Horace's \"Epistles,\"\nI. x. 24.]\n\n265. At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that egoism\nbelongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief\nthat to a being such as \"we,\" other beings must naturally be in\nsubjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. The noble soul accepts the\nfact of his egoism without question, and also without consciousness of\nharshness, constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather as something\nthat may have its basis in the primary law of things:--if he sought a\ndesignation for it he would say: \"It is justice itself.\" He acknowledges\nunder certain circumstances, which made him hesitate at first, that\nthere are other equally privileged ones; as soon as he has settled this\nquestion of rank, he moves among those equals and equally privileged\nones with the same assurance, as regards modesty and delicate respect,\nwhich he enjoys in intercourse with himself--in accordance with an\ninnate heavenly mechanism which all the stars understand. It is an\nADDITIONAL instance of his egoism, this artfulness and self-limitation\nin intercourse with his equals--every star is a similar egoist; he\nhonours HIMSELF in them, and in the rights which he concedes to them, he\nhas no doubt that the exchange of honours and rights, as the ESSENCE of\nall intercourse, belongs also to the natural condition of things. The\nnoble soul gives as he takes, prompted by the passionate and sensitive\ninstinct of requital, which is at the root of his nature. The notion of\n\"favour\" has, INTER PARES, neither significance nor good repute; there\nmay be a sublime way of letting gifts as it were light upon one from\nabove, and of drinking them thirstily like dew-drops; but for those\narts and displays the noble soul has no aptitude. His egoism hinders him\nhere: in general, he looks \"aloft\" unwillingly--he looks either FORWARD,\nhorizontally and deliberately, or downwards--HE KNOWS THAT HE IS ON A\nHEIGHT.\n\n266. \"One can only truly esteem him who does not LOOK OUT FOR\nhimself.\"--Goethe to Rath Schlosser.\n\n267. The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their children:\n\"SIAO-SIN\" (\"MAKE THY HEART SMALL\"). This is the essentially fundamental\ntendency in latter-day civilizations. I have no doubt that an ancient\nGreek, also, would first of all remark the self-dwarfing in us Europeans\nof today--in this respect alone we should immediately be \"distasteful\"\nto him.\n\n268. What, after all, is ignobleness?--Words are vocal symbols for\nideas; ideas, however, are more or less definite mental symbols\nfor frequently returning and concurring sensations, for groups of\nsensations. It is not sufficient to use the same words in order to\nunderstand one another: we must also employ the same words for the same\nkind of internal experiences, we must in the end have experiences IN\nCOMMON. On this account the people of one nation understand one another\nbetter than those belonging to different nations, even when they use\nthe same language; or rather, when people have lived long together under\nsimilar conditions (of climate, soil, danger, requirement, toil) there\nORIGINATES therefrom an entity that \"understands itself\"--namely, a\nnation. In all souls a like number of frequently recurring experiences\nhave gained the upper hand over those occurring more rarely: about\nthese matters people understand one another rapidly and always more\nrapidly--the history of language is the history of a process of\nabbreviation; on the basis of this quick comprehension people always\nunite closer and closer. The greater the danger, the greater is the\nneed of agreeing quickly and readily about what is necessary; not to\nmisunderstand one another in danger--that is what cannot at all be\ndispensed with in intercourse. Also in all loves and friendships one has\nthe experience that nothing of the kind continues when the discovery\nhas been made that in using the same words, one of the two parties has\nfeelings, thoughts, intuitions, wishes, or fears different from those of\nthe other. (The fear of the \"eternal misunderstanding\": that is the good\ngenius which so often keeps persons of different sexes from too\nhasty attachments, to which sense and heart prompt them--and NOT some\nSchopenhauerian \"genius of the species\"!) Whichever groups of sensations\nwithin a soul awaken most readily, begin to speak, and give the word of\ncommand--these decide as to the general order of rank of its values, and\ndetermine ultimately its list of desirable things. A man's estimates of\nvalue betray something of the STRUCTURE of his soul, and wherein it\nsees its conditions of life, its intrinsic needs. Supposing now that\nnecessity has from all time drawn together only such men as could\nexpress similar requirements and similar experiences by similar symbols,\nit results on the whole that the easy COMMUNICABILITY of need,\nwhich implies ultimately the undergoing only of average and COMMON\nexperiences, must have been the most potent of all the forces which\nhave hitherto operated upon mankind. The more similar, the more ordinary\npeople, have always had and are still having the advantage; the more\nselect, more refined, more unique, and difficultly comprehensible, are\nliable to stand alone; they succumb to accidents in their isolation, and\nseldom propagate themselves. One must appeal to immense opposing forces,\nin order to thwart this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE,\nthe evolution of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the\ngregarious--to the IGNOBLE--!\n\n269. The more a psychologist--a born, an unavoidable psychologist\nand soul-diviner--turns his attention to the more select cases and\nindividuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by sympathy:\nhe NEEDS sternness and cheerfulness more than any other man. For\nthe corruption, the ruination of higher men, of the more unusually\nconstituted souls, is in fact, the rule: it is dreadful to have such a\nrule always before one's eyes. The manifold torment of the psychologist\nwho has discovered this ruination, who discovers once, and then\ndiscovers ALMOST repeatedly throughout all history, this universal\ninner \"desperateness\" of higher men, this eternal \"too late!\" in every\nsense--may perhaps one day be the cause of his turning with\nbitterness against his own lot, and of his making an attempt at\nself-destruction--of his \"going to ruin\" himself. One may perceive\nin almost every psychologist a tell-tale inclination for delightful\nintercourse with commonplace and well-ordered men; the fact is thereby\ndisclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort\nof flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and\nincisiveness--from what his \"business\"--has laid upon his conscience.\nThe fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is easily silenced by the\njudgment of others; he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour,\nadmire, love, and glorify, where he has PERCEIVED--or he even conceals\nhis silence by expressly assenting to some plausible opinion. Perhaps\nthe paradox of his situation becomes so dreadful that, precisely\nwhere he has learnt GREAT SYMPATHY, together with great CONTEMPT, the\nmultitude, the educated, and the visionaries, have on their part learnt\ngreat reverence--reverence for \"great men\" and marvelous animals, for\nthe sake of whom one blesses and honours the fatherland, the earth, the\ndignity of mankind, and one's own self, to whom one points the young,\nand in view of whom one educates them. And who knows but in all great\ninstances hitherto just the same happened: that the multitude worshipped\na God, and that the \"God\" was only a poor sacrificial animal! SUCCESS\nhas always been the greatest liar--and the \"work\" itself is a success;\nthe great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer, are disguised in\ntheir creations until they are unrecognizable; the \"work\" of the artist,\nof the philosopher, only invents him who has created it, is REPUTED\nto have created it; the \"great men,\" as they are reverenced, are poor\nlittle fictions composed afterwards; in the world of historical values\nspurious coinage PREVAILS. Those great poets, for example, such as\nByron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not venture to mention\nmuch greater names, but I have them in my mind), as they now appear, and\nwere perhaps obliged to be: men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous,\nand childish, light-minded and impulsive in their trust and distrust;\nwith souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed; often taking\nrevenge with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking\nforgetfulness in their soaring from a too true memory, often lost in\nthe mud and almost in love with it, until they become like the\nWill-o'-the-Wisps around the swamps, and PRETEND TO BE stars--the people\nthen call them idealists,--often struggling with protracted disgust,\nwith an ever-reappearing phantom of disbelief, which makes them cold,\nand obliges them to languish for GLORIA and devour \"faith as it is\"\nout of the hands of intoxicated adulators:--what a TORMENT these great\nartists are and the so-called higher men in general, to him who has once\nfound them out! It is thus conceivable that it is just from woman--who\nis clairvoyant in the world of suffering, and also unfortunately eager\nto help and save to an extent far beyond her powers--that THEY have\nlearnt so readily those outbreaks of boundless devoted SYMPATHY, which\nthe multitude, above all the reverent multitude, do not understand,\nand overwhelm with prying and self-gratifying interpretations. This\nsympathizing invariably deceives itself as to its power; woman would\nlike to believe that love can do EVERYTHING--it is the SUPERSTITION\npeculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor,\nhelpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love\nis--he finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!--It is possible that\nunder the holy fable and travesty of the life of Jesus there is hidden\none of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LOVE:\nthe martyrdom of the most innocent and most craving heart, that\nnever had enough of any human love, that DEMANDED love, that demanded\ninexorably and frantically to be loved and nothing else, with terrible\noutbursts against those who refused him their love; the story of a poor\nsoul insatiated and insatiable in love, that had to invent hell to send\nthither those who WOULD NOT love him--and that at last, enlightened\nabout human love, had to invent a God who is entire love, entire\nCAPACITY for love--who takes pity on human love, because it is so\npaltry, so ignorant! He who has such sentiments, he who has such\nKNOWLEDGE about love--SEEKS for death!--But why should one deal with\nsuch painful matters? Provided, of course, that one is not obliged to do\nso.\n\n270. The intellectual haughtiness and loathing of every man who has\nsuffered deeply--it almost determines the order of rank HOW deeply men\ncan suffer--the chilling certainty, with which he is thoroughly imbued\nand coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he KNOWS MORE than the\nshrewdest and wisest can ever know, that he has been familiar with,\nand \"at home\" in, many distant, dreadful worlds of which \"YOU know\nnothing\"!--this silent intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this\npride of the elect of knowledge, of the \"initiated,\" of the almost\nsacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from\ncontact with officious and sympathizing hands, and in general from all\nthat is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble:\nit separates.--One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism,\nalong with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes\nsuffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that\nis sorrowful and profound. They are \"gay men\" who make use of gaiety,\nbecause they are misunderstood on account of it--they WISH to be\nmisunderstood. There are \"scientific minds\" who make use of science,\nbecause it gives a gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to\nthe conclusion that a person is superficial--they WISH to mislead to a\nfalse conclusion. There are free insolent minds which would fain conceal\nand deny that they are broken, proud, incurable hearts (the cynicism of\nHamlet--the case of Galiani); and occasionally folly itself is the mask\nof an unfortunate OVER-ASSURED knowledge.--From which it follows that it\nis the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence \"for the mask,\"\nand not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place.\n\n271. That which separates two men most profoundly is a different sense\nand grade of purity. What does it matter about all their honesty and\nreciprocal usefulness, what does it matter about all their mutual\ngood-will: the fact still remains--they \"cannot smell each other!\" The\nhighest instinct for purity places him who is affected with it in the\nmost extraordinary and dangerous isolation, as a saint: for it is just\nholiness--the highest spiritualization of the instinct in question. Any\nkind of cognizance of an indescribable excess in the joy of the bath,\nany kind of ardour or thirst which perpetually impels the soul out\nof night into the morning, and out of gloom, out of \"affliction\" into\nclearness, brightness, depth, and refinement:--just as much as such a\ntendency DISTINGUISHES--it is a noble tendency--it also SEPARATES.--The\npity of the saint is pity for the FILTH of the human, all-too-human.\nAnd there are grades and heights where pity itself is regarded by him as\nimpurity, as filth.\n\n272. Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the\nrank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share\nour responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of\nthem, among our DUTIES.\n\n273. A man who strives after great things, looks upon every one whom\nhe encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and\nhindrance--or as a temporary resting-place. His peculiar lofty BOUNTY\nto his fellow-men is only possible when he attains his elevation and\ndominates. Impatience, and the consciousness of being always condemned\nto comedy up to that time--for even strife is a comedy, and conceals the\nend, as every means does--spoil all intercourse for him; this kind of\nman is acquainted with solitude, and what is most poisonous in it.\n\n274. THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.--Happy chances are necessary, and\nmany incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the\nsolution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or \"break forth,\"\nas one might say--at the right moment. On an average it DOES NOT happen;\nand in all corners of the earth there are waiting ones sitting who\nhardly know to what extent they are waiting, and still less that they\nwait in vain. Occasionally, too, the waking call comes too late--the\nchance which gives \"permission\" to take action--when their best youth,\nand strength for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many\na one, just as he \"sprang up,\" has found with horror that his limbs are\nbenumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! \"It is too late,\" he has\nsaid to himself--and has become self-distrustful and henceforth for ever\nuseless.--In the domain of genius, may not the \"Raphael without\nhands\" (taking the expression in its widest sense) perhaps not be the\nexception, but the rule?--Perhaps genius is by no means so rare: but\nrather the five hundred HANDS which it requires in order to tyrannize\nover the [GREEK INSERTED HERE], \"the right time\"--in order to take\nchance by the forelock!\n\n275. He who does not WISH to see the height of a man, looks all the\nmore sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground--and thereby\nbetrays himself.\n\n276. In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is\nbetter off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be\ngreater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in\nfact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its\nexistence.--In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost; not so\nin man.--\n\n277. It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished\nbuilding his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something\nwhich he OUGHT absolutely to have known before he--began to build. The\neternal, fatal \"Too late!\" The melancholia of everything COMPLETED--!\n\n278.--Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without scorn,\nwithout love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a plummet which has\nreturned to the light insatiated out of every depth--what did it seek\ndown there?--with a bosom that never sighs, with lips that conceal their\nloathing, with a hand which only slowly grasps: who art thou? what\nhast thou done? Rest thee here: this place has hospitality for every\none--refresh thyself! And whoever thou art, what is it that now pleases\nthee? What will serve to refresh thee? Only name it, whatever I have\nI offer thee! \"To refresh me? To refresh me? Oh, thou prying one,\nwhat sayest thou! But give me, I pray thee---\" What? what? Speak out!\n\"Another mask! A second mask!\"\n\n279. Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they\nhave a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and\nstrangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well that it will\nflee from them!\n\n280. \"Bad! Bad! What? Does he not--go back?\" Yes! But you misunderstand\nhim when you complain about it. He goes back like every one who is about\nto make a great spring.\n\n281.--\"Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they believe it\nof me: I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of myself and about\nmyself, only in very rare cases, only compulsorily, always without\ndelight in 'the subject,' ready to digress from 'myself,' and always\nwithout faith in the result, owing to an unconquerable distrust of the\nPOSSIBILITY of self-knowledge, which has led me so far as to feel a\nCONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO even in the idea of 'direct knowledge' which\ntheorists allow themselves:--this matter of fact is almost the most\ncertain thing I know about myself. There must be a sort of repugnance\nin me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself.--Is there perhaps\nsome enigma therein? Probably; but fortunately nothing for my own\nteeth.--Perhaps it betrays the species to which I belong?--but not to\nmyself, as is sufficiently agreeable to me.\"\n\n282.--\"But what has happened to you?\"--\"I do not know,\" he said,\nhesitatingly; \"perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table.\"--It\nsometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes\nsuddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves,\nand shocks everybody--and finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at\nhimself--whither? for what purpose? To famish apart? To suffocate with\nhis memories?--To him who has the desires of a lofty and dainty soul,\nand only seldom finds his table laid and his food prepared, the danger\nwill always be great--nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so.\nThrown into the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does\nnot like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger\nand thirst--or, should he nevertheless finally \"fall to,\" of sudden\nnausea.--We have probably all sat at tables to which we did not belong;\nand precisely the most spiritual of us, who are most difficult to\nnourish, know the dangerous DYSPEPSIA which originates from a sudden\ninsight and disillusionment about our food and our messmates--the\nAFTER-DINNER NAUSEA.\n\n283. If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the\nsame time a noble self-control, to praise only where one DOES NOT\nagree--otherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is contrary\nto good taste:--a self-control, to be sure, which offers excellent\nopportunity and provocation to constant MISUNDERSTANDING. To be able to\nallow oneself this veritable luxury of taste and morality, one must\nnot live among intellectual imbeciles, but rather among men whose\nmisunderstandings and mistakes amuse by their refinement--or one will\nhave to pay dearly for it!--\"He praises me, THEREFORE he acknowledges me\nto be right\"--this asinine method of inference spoils half of the life\nof us recluses, for it brings the asses into our neighbourhood and\nfriendship.\n\n284. To live in a vast and proud tranquility; always beyond... To have,\nor not to have, one's emotions, one's For and Against, according to\nchoice; to lower oneself to them for hours; to SEAT oneself on them as\nupon horses, and often as upon asses:--for one must know how to make\nuse of their stupidity as well as of their fire. To conserve one's\nthree hundred foregrounds; also one's black spectacles: for there are\ncircumstances when nobody must look into our eyes, still less into our\n\"motives.\" And to choose for company that roguish and cheerful vice,\npoliteness. And to remain master of one's four virtues, courage,\ninsight, sympathy, and solitude. For solitude is a virtue with us, as\na sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of\nman and man--\"in society\"--it must be unavoidably impure. All society\nmakes one somehow, somewhere, or sometime--\"commonplace.\"\n\n285. The greatest events and thoughts--the greatest thoughts, however,\nare the greatest events--are longest in being comprehended: the\ngenerations which are contemporary with them do not EXPERIENCE such\nevents--they live past them. Something happens there as in the realm of\nstars. The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man; and\nbefore it has arrived man DENIES--that there are stars there. \"How\nmany centuries does a mind require to be understood?\"--that is also a\nstandard, one also makes a gradation of rank and an etiquette therewith,\nsuch as is necessary for mind and for star.\n\n286. \"Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted.\" [FOOTNOTE: Goethe's\n\"Faust,\" Part II, Act V. The words of Dr. Marianus.]--But there is a\nreverse kind of man, who is also upon a height, and has also a free\nprospect--but looks DOWNWARDS.\n\n287. What is noble? What does the word \"noble\" still mean for us\nnowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he recognized\nunder this heavy overcast sky of the commencing plebeianism, by which\neverything is rendered opaque and leaden?--It is not his actions which\nestablish his claim--actions are always ambiguous, always inscrutable;\nneither is it his \"works.\" One finds nowadays among artists and scholars\nplenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for\nnobleness impels them; but this very NEED of nobleness is radically\ndifferent from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the\neloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works,\nbut the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines the order of\nrank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper\nmeaning--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about\nitself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and\nperhaps, also, is not to be lost.--THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR\nITSELF.--\n\n288. There are men who are unavoidably intellectual, let them turn\nand twist themselves as they will, and hold their hands before their\ntreacherous eyes--as though the hand were not a betrayer; it always\ncomes out at last that they have something which they hide--namely,\nintellect. One of the subtlest means of deceiving, at least as long as\npossible, and of successfully representing oneself to be stupider\nthan one really is--which in everyday life is often as desirable as\nan umbrella,--is called ENTHUSIASM, including what belongs to it, for\ninstance, virtue. For as Galiani said, who was obliged to know it: VERTU\nEST ENTHOUSIASME.\n\n289. In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of the echo\nof the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and timid vigilance\nof solitude; in his strongest words, even in his cry itself, there\nsounds a new and more dangerous kind of silence, of concealment. He who\nhas sat day and night, from year's end to year's end, alone with his\nsoul in familiar discord and discourse, he who has become a cave-bear,\nor a treasure-seeker, or a treasure-guardian and dragon in his cave--it\nmay be a labyrinth, but can also be a gold-mine--his ideas themselves\neventually acquire a twilight-colour of their own, and an odour, as much\nof the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative and repulsive,\nwhich blows chilly upon every passer-by. The recluse does not believe\nthat a philosopher--supposing that a philosopher has always in the first\nplace been a recluse--ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in\nbooks: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?--indeed,\nhe will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have \"ultimate and actual\"\nopinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must\nnecessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer\nworld beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every\n\"foundation.\" Every philosophy is a foreground philosophy--this is a\nrecluse's verdict: \"There is something arbitrary in the fact that the\nPHILOSOPHER came to a stand here, took a retrospect, and looked around;\nthat he HERE laid his spade aside and did not dig any deeper--there\nis also something suspicious in it.\" Every philosophy also CONCEALS a\nphilosophy; every opinion is also a LURKING-PLACE, every word is also a\nMASK.\n\n290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being\nmisunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former\nwounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: \"Ah, why would you\nalso have as hard a time of it as I have?\"\n\n291. Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny\nto the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his\nstrength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his\nsoul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of morality is a long, audacious\nfalsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of\nthe soul becomes possible. From this point of view there is perhaps much\nmore in the conception of \"art\" than is generally believed.\n\n292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees,\nhears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck\nby his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and\nbelow, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who\nis perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous\nman, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and\nsomething uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often\nruns away from himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity\nalways makes him \"come to himself\" again.\n\n293. A man who says: \"I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to\nguard and protect it from every one\"; a man who can conduct a case,\ncarry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman,\npunish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his\nsword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the\nanimals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a\nMASTER by nature--when such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has\nvalue! But of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of\nthose even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost the\nwhole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain,\nand also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing,\nwhich, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks\nto deck itself out as something superior--there is a regular cult of\nsuffering. The UNMANLINESS of that which is called \"sympathy\" by such\ngroups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that\nstrikes the eye.--One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest\nform of bad taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet,\n\"GAI SABER\" (\"gay science,\" in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as\na protection against it.\n\n294. THE OLYMPIAN VICE.--Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine\nEnglishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking\nminds--\"Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every\nthinking mind will strive to overcome\" (Hobbes),--I would even\nallow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their\nlaughing--up to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter. And supposing\nthat Gods also philosophize, which I am strongly inclined to believe,\nowing to many reasons--I have no doubt that they also know how to laugh\nthereby in an overman-like and new fashion--and at the expense of all\nserious things! Gods are fond of ridicule: it seems that they cannot\nrefrain from laughter even in holy matters.\n\n295. The genius of the heart, as that great mysterious one possesses\nit, the tempter-god and born rat-catcher of consciences, whose voice can\ndescend into the nether-world of every soul, who neither speaks a word\nnor casts a glance in which there may not be some motive or touch\nof allurement, to whose perfection it pertains that he knows how to\nappear,--not as he is, but in a guise which acts as an ADDITIONAL\nconstraint on his followers to press ever closer to him, to follow him\nmore cordially and thoroughly;--the genius of the heart, which imposes\nsilence and attention on everything loud and self-conceited, which\nsmoothes rough souls and makes them taste a new longing--to lie placid\nas a mirror, that the deep heavens may be reflected in them;--the genius\nof the heart, which teaches the clumsy and too hasty hand to hesitate,\nand to grasp more delicately; which scents the hidden and forgotten\ntreasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under thick dark\nice, and is a divining-rod for every grain of gold, long buried and\nimprisoned in mud and sand; the genius of the heart, from contact with\nwhich every one goes away richer; not favoured or surprised, not as\nthough gratified and oppressed by the good things of others; but richer\nin himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded by a\nthawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more\nbruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names, full of a new will\nand current, full of a new ill-will and counter-current... but what am I\ndoing, my friends? Of whom am I talking to you? Have I forgotten myself\nso far that I have not even told you his name? Unless it be that you\nhave already divined of your own accord who this questionable God\nand spirit is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it\nhappens to every one who from childhood onward has always been on his\nlegs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered on my path many\nstrange and dangerous spirits; above all, however, and again and again,\nthe one of whom I have just spoken: in fact, no less a personage than\nthe God DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and tempter, to whom, as you\nknow, I once offered in all secrecy and reverence my first-fruits--the\nlast, as it seems to me, who has offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I\nhave found no one who could understand what I was then doing. In\nthe meantime, however, I have learned much, far too much, about the\nphilosophy of this God, and, as I said, from mouth to mouth--I, the last\ndisciple and initiate of the God Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last\nbegin to give you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little taste of\nthis philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly: for it has to do\nwith much that is secret, new, strange, wonderful, and uncanny. The\nvery fact that Dionysus is a philosopher, and that therefore Gods also\nphilosophize, seems to me a novelty which is not unensnaring, and might\nperhaps arouse suspicion precisely among philosophers;--among you, my\nfriends, there is less to be said against it, except that it comes too\nlate and not at the right time; for, as it has been disclosed to me, you\nare loth nowadays to believe in God and gods. It may happen, too, that\nin the frankness of my story I must go further than is agreeable to the\nstrict usages of your ears? Certainly the God in question went further,\nvery much further, in such dialogues, and was always many paces ahead of\nme... Indeed, if it were allowed, I should have to give him, according\nto human usage, fine ceremonious tides of lustre and merit, I should\nhave to extol his courage as investigator and discoverer, his fearless\nhonesty, truthfulness, and love of wisdom. But such a God does not know\nwhat to do with all that respectable trumpery and pomp. \"Keep that,\" he\nwould say, \"for thyself and those like thee, and whoever else require\nit! I--have no reason to cover my nakedness!\" One suspects that this\nkind of divinity and philosopher perhaps lacks shame?--He once said:\n\"Under certain circumstances I love mankind\"--and referred thereby to\nAriadne, who was present; \"in my opinion man is an agreeable, brave,\ninventive animal, that has not his equal upon earth, he makes his way\neven through all labyrinths. I like man, and often think how I can\nstill further advance him, and make him stronger, more evil, and more\nprofound.\"--\"Stronger, more evil, and more profound?\" I asked in horror.\n\"Yes,\" he said again, \"stronger, more evil, and more profound; also more\nbeautiful\"--and thereby the tempter-god smiled with his halcyon smile,\nas though he had just paid some charming compliment. One here sees at\nonce that it is not only shame that this divinity lacks;--and in general\nthere are good grounds for supposing that in some things the Gods could\nall of them come to us men for instruction. We men are--more human.--\n\n296. Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not\nlong ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns\nand secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh--and now? You\nhave already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready\nto become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so\ntedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint,\nwe mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalisers of things which LEND\nthemselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only\nthat which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas,\nonly exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas,\nonly birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be\ncaptured with the hand--with OUR hand! We immortalize what cannot live\nand fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it\nis only for your AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for\nwhich alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated\nsoftenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds;--but\nnobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden\nsparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved--EVIL thoughts!\n\n\n\n\nFROM THE HEIGHTS\n\nBy F W Nietzsche\n\nTranslated by L. A. Magnus\n\n\n                       1.\n\n     MIDDAY of Life! Oh, season of delight!\n                      My summer's park!\n     Uneaseful joy to look, to lurk, to hark--\n     I peer for friends, am ready day and night,--\n     Where linger ye, my friends? The time is right!\n\n                       2.\n\n     Is not the glacier's grey today for you\n                         Rose-garlanded?\n     The brooklet seeks you, wind, cloud, with longing thread\n     And thrust themselves yet higher to the blue,\n     To spy for you from farthest eagle's view.\n\n                       3.\n\n     My table was spread out for you on high--\n                      Who dwelleth so\n     Star-near, so near the grisly pit below?--\n     My realm--what realm hath wider boundary?\n     My honey--who hath sipped its fragrancy?\n\n                       4.\n\n     Friends, ye are there! Woe me,--yet I am not\n                        He whom ye seek?\n     Ye stare and stop--better your wrath could speak!\n     I am not I? Hand, gait, face, changed? And what\n     I am, to you my friends, now am I not?\n\n                       5.\n\n     Am I an other? Strange am I to Me?\n                      Yet from Me sprung?\n     A wrestler, by himself too oft self-wrung?\n     Hindering too oft my own self's potency,\n     Wounded and hampered by self-victory?\n\n                       6.\n\n     I sought where-so the wind blows keenest. There\n                     I learned to dwell\n     Where no man dwells, on lonesome ice-lorn fell,\n     And unlearned Man and God and curse and prayer?\n     Became a ghost haunting the glaciers bare?\n\n                       7.\n\n     Ye, my old friends! Look! Ye turn pale, filled o'er\n                      With love and fear!\n     Go! Yet not in wrath. Ye could ne'er live here.\n     Here in the farthest realm of ice and scaur,\n     A huntsman must one be, like chamois soar.\n\n                       8.\n\n     An evil huntsman was I? See how taut\n                    My bow was bent!\n     Strongest was he by whom such bolt were sent--\n     Woe now! That arrow is with peril fraught,\n     Perilous as none.--Have yon safe home ye sought!\n\n                       9.\n\n     Ye go! Thou didst endure enough, oh, heart;--\n                     Strong was thy hope;\n     Unto new friends thy portals widely ope,\n     Let old ones be. Bid memory depart!\n     Wast thou young then, now--better young thou art!\n\n                       10.\n\n     What linked us once together, one hope's tie--\n                    (Who now doth con\n     Those lines, now fading, Love once wrote thereon?)--\n     Is like a parchment, which the hand is shy\n     To touch--like crackling leaves, all seared, all dry.\n\n                       11.\n\n     Oh! Friends no more! They are--what name for those?--\n                           Friends' phantom-flight\n     Knocking at my heart's window-pane at night,\n     Gazing on me, that speaks \"We were\" and goes,--\n     Oh, withered words, once fragrant as the rose!\n\n                       12.\n\n     Pinings of youth that might not understand!\n                       For which I pined,\n     Which I deemed changed with me, kin of my kind:\n     But they grew old, and thus were doomed and banned:\n     None but new kith are native of my land!\n\n                       13.\n\n     Midday of life! My second youth's delight!\n                       My summer's park!\n     Unrestful joy to long, to lurk, to hark!\n     I peer for friends!--am ready day and night,\n     For my new friends. Come! Come! The time is right!\n\n                       14.\n\n     This song is done,--the sweet sad cry of rue\n                       Sang out its end;\n     A wizard wrought it, he the timely friend,\n     The midday-friend,--no, do not ask me who;\n     At midday 'twas, when one became as two.\n\n                       15.\n\n     We keep our Feast of Feasts, sure of our bourne,\n                      Our aims self-same:\n     The Guest of Guests, friend Zarathustra, came!\n     The world now laughs, the grisly veil was torn,\n     And Light and Dark were one that wedding-morn.","title":"Beyond Good and Evil","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":62667}