{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_52124/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_52124","id":"gutenberg_52124","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52124","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy"],"text":"THE JOYFUL WISDOM\n\n(\"LA GAYA SCIENZA\")\n\nBY\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\n\nTRANSLATED BY\n\nTHOMAS COMMON\n\nWITH POETRY RENDERED BY\n\nPAUL V. COHN\n\nAND\n\nMAUDE D. PETRE\n\n\n    _I stay to mine own house confined,_\n    _Nor graft my wits on alien stock_\n    _And mock at every master mind_\n    _That never at itself could mock._\n\n\nThe Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche\n\nThe First Complete and Authorised English Translation\n\nEdited by Dr Oscar Levy\n\nVolume Ten\n\nT.N. FOULIS\n\n13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET\n\nEDINBURGH: AND LONDON\n\n1910\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    EDITORIAL NOTE\n    PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION\n    JEST, RUSE, AND REVENGE: A PRELUDE IN RHYME\n    BOOK FIRST\n    BOOK SECOND\n    BOOK THIRD\n    BOOK FOURTH: SANCTUS JANUARIUS\n    BOOK FIFTH: WE FEARLESS ONES\n    APPENDIX: SONGS OF PRINCE FREE-AS-A-BIRD\n\n\n\n\nEDITORIAL NOTE\n\n\n\"The Joyful Wisdom,\" written in 1882, just before \"Zarathustra,\"\nis rightly judged to be one of Nietzsche's best books. Here the\nessentially grave and masculine face of the poet-philosopher is seen\nto light up and suddenly break into a delightful smile. The warmth\nand kindness that beam from his features will astonish those hasty\npsychologists who have never divined that behind the destroyer is\nthe creator, and behind the blasphemer the lover of life. In the\nretrospective valuation of his work which appears in \"Ecce Homo\" the\nauthor himself observes with truth that the fourth book, \"Sanctus\nJanuarius,\" deserves especial attention: \"The whole book is a gift from\nthe Saint, and the introductory verses express my gratitude for the\nmost wonderful month of January that I have ever spent.\" Book fifth \"We\nFearless Ones,\" the Appendix \"Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird,\" and the\nPreface, were added to the second edition in 1887.\n\nThe translation of Nietzsche's poetry has proved to be a more\nembarrassing problem than that of his prose. Not only has there been\na difficulty in finding adequate translators--a difficulty overcome,\nit is hoped, by the choice of Miss Petre and Mr Cohn,--but it cannot\nbe denied that even in the original the poems are of unequal merit. By\nthe side of such masterpieces as \"To the Mistral\" are several verses of\ncomparatively little value. The Editor, however, did not feel justified\nin making a selection, as it was intended that the edition should be\ncomplete. The heading, \"Jest, Ruse and Revenge,\" of the \"Prelude in\nRhyme\" is borrowed from Goethe.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.\n\n\n\n1.\n\n\nPerhaps more than one preface would be necessary for this book; and\nafter all it might still be doubtful whether any one could be brought\nnearer to the _experiences_ in it by means of prefaces, without having\nhimself experienced something similar. It seems to be written in the\nlanguage of the thawing-wind: there is wantonness, restlessness,\ncontradiction and April-weather in it; so that one is as constantly\nreminded of the proximity of winter as of the _victory_ over it:\nthe victory which is coming, which must come, which has perhaps\nalready come.... Gratitude continually flows forth, as if the most\nunexpected thing had happened, the gratitude of a convalescent--for\n_convalescence_ was this most unexpected thing. \"Joyful Wisdom\": that\nimplies the Saturnalia of a spirit which has patiently withstood a\nlong, frightful pressure--patiently, strenuously, impassionately,\nwithout submitting, but without hope--and which is now suddenly\no'erpowered with hope, the hope of health, the _intoxication_ of\nconvalescence. What wonder that much that is unreasonable and foolish\nthereby comes to light: much wanton tenderness expended even on\nproblems which have a prickly hide, and are not therefore fit to be\nfondled and allured. The whole book is really nothing but a revel\nafter long privation and impotence: the frolicking of returning\nenergy, of newly awakened belief in a to-morrow and after-to-morrow;\nof sudden sentience and prescience of a future, of near adventures,\nof seas open once more, and aims once more permitted and believed in.\nAnd what was now all behind me! This track of desert, exhaustion,\nunbelief, and frigidity in the midst of youth, this advent of grey\nhairs at the wrong time, this tyranny of pain, surpassed, however, by\nthe tyranny of pride which repudiated the _consequences_ of pain--and\nconsequences are comforts,--this radical isolation, as defence against\nthe contempt of mankind become morbidly clairvoyant, this restriction\nupon principle to all that is bitter, sharp, and painful in knowledge,\nas prescribed by the _disgust_ which had gradually resulted from\nimprudent spiritual diet and pampering--it is called Romanticism,--oh,\nwho could realise all those feelings of mine! He, however, who could do\nso would certainly forgive me everything, and more than a little folly,\nboisterousness and \"Joyful Wisdom\"--for example, the handful of songs\nwhich are given along with the book on this occasion,--songs in which a\npoet makes merry over all poets in a way not easily pardoned.--Alas, it\nis not only on the poets and their fine \"lyrical sentiments\" that this\nreconvalescent must vent his malignity: who knows what kind of victim\nhe seeks, what kind of monster of material for parody will allure him\nere long? _Incipit trag\u0153dia,_ it is said at the conclusion of this\nseriously frivolous book; let people be on their guard! Something\nor other extraordinarily bad and wicked announces itself: _incipit\nparodia,_ there is no doubt....\n\n\n\n2.\n\n\n--But let us leave Herr Nietzsche; what does it matter to people\nthat Herr Nietzsche has got well again?... A psychologist knows few\nquestions so attractive as those concerning the relations of health\nto philosophy, and in the case when he himself falls sick, he carries\nwith him all his scientific curiosity into his sickness. For, granting\nthat one is a person, one has necessarily also the philosophy of\none's personality; there is, however, an important distinction here.\nWith the one it is his defects which philosophise, with the other\nit is his riches and powers. The former _requires_ his philosophy,\nwhether it be as support, sedative, or medicine, as salvation,\nelevation, or self-alienation; with the latter it is merely a fine\nluxury, at best the voluptuousness of a triumphant gratitude, which\nmust inscribe itself ultimately in cosmic capitals on the heaven of\nideas. In the other more usual case, however, when states of distress\noccupy themselves with philosophy (as is the case with all sickly\nthinkers--and perhaps the sickly thinkers preponderate in the history\nof philosophy), what will happen to the thought itself which is brought\nunder the _pressure_ of sickness? This is the important question for\npsychologists: and here experiment is possible. We philosophers do\njust like a traveller who resolves to awake at a given hour, and then\nquietly yields himself to sleep: we surrender ourselves temporarily,\nbody and soul, to the sickness, supposing we become ill--we shut, as it\nwere, our eyes on ourselves. And as the traveller knows that something\n_does not_ sleep, that something counts the hours and will awake him,\nwe also know that the critical moment will find us awake--that then\nsomething will spring forward and surprise the spirit _in the very\nact,_ I mean in weakness, or reversion, or submission, or obduracy, or\nobscurity, or whatever the morbid conditions are called, which in times\nof good health have the _pride_ of the spirit opposed to them (for it\nis as in the old rhyme: \"The spirit proud, peacock and horse are the\nthree proudest things of earthly source\"). After such self-questioning\nand self-testing, one learns to look with a sharper eye at all that\nhas hitherto been philosophised; one divines better than before the\narbitrary by-ways, side-streets, resting-places, and _sunny_ places of\nthought, to which suffering thinkers, precisely as sufferers, are led\nand misled: one knows now in what direction the sickly _body_ and its\nrequirements unconsciously press, push, and allure the spirit--towards\nthe sun, stillness, gentleness, patience, medicine, refreshment in any\nsense whatever. Every philosophy which puts peace higher than war,\nevery ethic with a negative grasp of the idea of happiness, every\nmetaphysic and physic that knows a _finale,_ an ultimate condition of\nany kind whatever, every predominating, \u00e6sthetic or religious longing\nfor an aside, a beyond, an outside, an above--all these permit one\nto ask whether sickness has not been the motive which inspired the\nphilosopher. The unconscious disguising of physiological requirements\nunder the cloak of the objective, the ideal, the purely spiritual,\nis carried on to an alarming extent,--and I have often enough asked\nmyself, whether on the whole philosophy hitherto has not generally\nbeen merely, an interpretation of the body, and a _misunderstanding\nof the body._ Behind the loftiest estimates of value by which the\nhistory of thought has hitherto been governed, misunderstandings of\nthe bodily constitution, either of individuals, classes, or entire\nraces are concealed. One may always primarily consider these audacious\nfreaks of metaphysic, and especially its answers to the question of the\n_worth_ of existence, as symptoms of certain bodily constitutions; and\nif, on the whole, when scientifically determined, not a particle of\nsignificance attaches to such affirmations and denials of the world,\nthey nevertheless furnish the historian and psychologist with hints\nso much the more valuable (as we have said) as symptoms of the bodily\nconstitution, its good or bad condition, its fullness, powerfulness,\nand sovereignty in history; or else of its obstructions, exhaustions,\nand impoverishments, its premonition of the end, its will to the end. I\nstill expect that a philosophical _physician,_ in the exceptional sense\nof the word--one who applies himself to the problem of the collective\nhealth of peoples, periods, races, and mankind generally--will some\nday have the courage to follow out my suspicion to its ultimate\nconclusions, and to venture on the judgment that in all philosophising\nit has not hitherto been a question of \"truth\" at all, but of\nsomething else,--namely, of health, futurity, growth, power, life....\n\n\n\n3.\n\n\nIt will be surmised that I should not like to take leave ungratefully\nof that period of severe sickness, the advantage of which is not\neven yet exhausted in me: for I am sufficiently conscious of what I\nhave in advance of the spiritually robust generally, in my changeful\nstate of health. A philosopher who has made the tour of many states\nof health, and always makes it anew, has also gone through just as\nmany philosophies: he really _cannot_ do otherwise than transform\nhis condition on every occasion into the most ingenious posture and\nposition,--this art of transfiguration _is_ just philosophy. We\nphilosophers are not at liberty to separate soul and body, as the\npeople separate them; and we are still less at liberty to separate\nsoul and spirit. We are not thinking frogs, we are not objectifying\nand registering apparatuses with cold entrails,--our thoughts must\nbe continually born to us out of our pain, and we must, motherlike,\nshare with them all that we have in us of blood, heart, ardour, joy,\npassion, pang, conscience, fate and fatality. Life--that means for\nus to transform constantly into light and flame all that we are, and\nalso all that we meet with; we _cannot_ possibly do otherwise. And\nas regards sickness, should we not be almost tempted to ask whether\nwe could in general dispense with it? It is great pain only which is\nthe ultimate emancipator of the spirit; for it is the teacher of the\n_strong suspicion_ which makes an X out of every U[1], a true, correct\nX, _i.e.,_ the ante-penultimate letter.... It is great pain only, the\nlong slow pain which takes time, by which we are burned as it were with\ngreen wood, that compels us philosophers to descend into our ultimate\ndepths, and divest ourselves of all trust, all good-nature, veiling,\ngentleness, and averageness, wherein we have perhaps formerly installed\nour humanity. I doubt whether such pain \"improves\" us; but I know that\nit _deepens_ us. Be it that we learn to confront it with our pride, our\nscorn, our strength of will, doing like the Indian who, however sorely\ntortured, revenges himself on his tormentor with his bitter tongue; be\nit that we withdraw from the pain into the oriental nothingness--it\nis called Nirvana,--into mute, benumbed, deaf self-surrender,\nself-forgetfulness, and self-effacement: one emerges from such long,\ndangerous exercises in self-mastery as another being, with several\nadditional notes of interrogation, and above all, with the _will_ to\nquestion more than ever, more profoundly, more strictly, more sternly,\nmore wickedly, more quietly than has ever been questioned hitherto.\nConfidence in life is gone: life itself has become a _problem._--Let\nit not be imagined that one has necessarily become a hypochondriac\nthereby! Even love of life is still possible--only one loves\ndifferently. It is the love of a woman of whom one is doubtful.... The\ncharm, however, of all that is problematic, the delight in the X, is\ntoo great in those more spiritual and more spiritualised men, not to\nspread itself again and again like a clear glow over all the trouble of\nthe problematic, over all the danger of uncertainty, and even over the\njealousy of the lover. We know a new happiness....\n\n\n\n4.\n\n\nFinally (that the most essential may not remain unsaid), one comes\nback out of such abysses, out of such severe sickness, and out of\nthe sickness of strong suspicion--_new-born,_ with the skin cast;\nmore sensitive, more wicked, with a finer taste for joy, with a more\ndelicate tongue for all good things, with a merrier disposition, with\na second and more dangerous innocence in joy; more childish at the\nsame time, and a hundred times more refined than ever before. Oh, how\nrepugnant to us now is pleasure, coarse, dull, drab pleasure, as the\npleasure-seekers, our \"cultured\" classes, our rich and ruling classes,\nusually understand it! How malignantly we now listen to the great\nholiday-hubbub with which \"cultured people\" and city-men at present\nallow themselves to be forced to \"spiritual enjoyment\" by art, books,\nand music, with the help of spirituous liquors! How the theatrical\ncry of passion now pains our ear, how strange to our taste has all\nthe romantic riot and sensuous bustle which the cultured populace\nlove become (together with their aspirations after the exalted, the\nelevated, and the intricate)! No, if we convalescents need an art\nat all, it is _another_ art--a mocking, light, volatile, divinely\nserene, divinely ingenious art, which blazes up like a clear flame,\ninto a cloudless heaven! Above all, an art for artists, only for\nartists! We at last know better what is first of all necessary _for\nit--_namely, cheerfulness, _every_ kind of cheerfulness, my friends!\nalso as artists:--I should like to prove it. We now know something\ntoo well, we men of knowledge: oh, how well we are now learning to\nforget and _not_ know, as artists! And as to our future, we are not\nlikely to be found again in the tracks of those Egyptian youths who at\nnight make the temples unsafe, embrace statues, and would fain unveil,\nuncover, and put in clear light, everything which for good reasons\nis kept concealed[2]. No, we have got disgusted with this bad taste,\nthis will to truth, to \"truth at all costs,\" this youthful madness\nin the love of truth: we are now too experienced, too serious, too\njoyful, too singed, too profound for that.... We no longer believe that\ntruth remains truth when the veil is withdrawn from it: we have lived\nlong enough to believe this. At present we regard it as a matter of\npropriety not to be anxious either to see everything naked, or to be\npresent at everything, or to understand and \"know\" everything. \"Is it\ntrue that the good God is everywhere present?\" asked a little girl of\nher mother: \"I think that is indecent\":--a hint to philosophers! One\nshould have more reverence for the _shame-facedness_ with which nature\nhas concealed herself behind enigmas and motley uncertainties. Perhaps\ntruth is a woman who has reasons for not showing her reasons? Perhaps\nher name is Baubo, to speak in Greek?... Oh, those Greeks! They knew\nhow _to live:_ for that purpose it is necessary to keep bravely to\nthe surface, the fold and the skin; to worship appearance, to believe\nin forms, tones, and words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! Those\nGreeks were superficial--_from profundity!_ And are we not coming\nback precisely to this point, we dare-devils of the spirit, who have\nscaled the highest and most dangerous peak of contemporary thought, and\nhave looked around us from it, have _looked down_ from it? Are we not\nprecisely in this respect--Greeks? Worshippers of forms, of tones, and\nof words? And precisely on that account--artists?\n\nRUTA, near GENOA\n_Autumn,_ 1886.\n\n\n[1] This means literally to put the numeral X instead of the numeral\nV (formerly U); hence it means to double a number unfairly, to\nexaggerate, humbug, cheat.--TR.\n\n[2] An allusion to Schiller's poem: \"The Veiled Image of Sais.\"--TR.\n\n\n\n\nJEST, RUSE AND REVENGE.\n\n\nA PRELUDE IN RHYME.\n\n\n    1.\n\n    _Invitation._\n\n    Venture, comrades, I implore you,\n    On the fare I set before you,\n      You will like it more to-morrow,\n        Better still the following day:\n    If yet more you're then requiring,\n    Old success I'll find inspiring,\n      And fresh courage thence will borrow\n        Novel dainties to display.\n\n\n    2.\n\n    _My Good Luck._\n\n    Weary of Seeking had I grown,\n      So taught myself the way to Find:\n    Back by the storm I once was blown,\n      But follow now, where drives the wind.\n\n\n    3.\n\n    _Undismayed._\n\n    Where you're standing, dig, dig out:\n      Down below's the Well:\n    Let them that walk in darkness shout:\n      \"Down below--there's Hell!\"\n\n\n    4.\n\n    _Dialogue._\n\n    _A._ Was I ill? and is it ended?\n    Pray, by what physician tended?\n    I recall no pain endured!\n\n    _B._ Now I know your trouble's ended:\n    He that can forget, is cured.\n\n\n    5.\n\n    _To the Virtuous._\n\n    Let our virtues be easy and nimble-footed in\n    motion,\n      Like unto Homer's verse ought they to come _and\n    to go_.\n\n\n    6.\n\n    _Worldly Wisdom._\n\n    Stay not on level plain,\n      Climb not the mount too high.\n    But half-way up remain--\n      The world you'll best descry!\n\n\n    7.\n\n    _Vademecum--Vadetecum._\n\n    Attracted by my style and talk\n    You'd follow, in my footsteps walk?\n    Follow yourself unswervingly,\n    So--careful!--shall you follow me.\n\n\n    8.\n\n    _The Third Sloughing_\n\n    My skin bursts, breaks for fresh rebirth,\n      And new desires come thronging:\n    Much I've devoured, yet for more earth\n      The serpent in me's longing.\n    'Twixt stone and grass I crawl once more,\n      Hungry, by crooked ways,\n    To eat the food I ate before,\n      Earth-fare all serpents praise!\n\n\n    9.\n\n    _My Roses._\n\n    My luck's good--I'd make yours fairer,\n    (Good luck ever needs a sharer),\n    Will you stop and pluck my roses?\n\n    Oft mid rocks and thorns you'll linger,\n    Hide and stoop, suck bleeding finger--\n    Will you stop and pluck my roses?\n\n    For my good luck's a trifle vicious,\n    Fond of teasing, tricks malicious--\n    Will you stop and pluck my roses?\n\n\n    10.\n\n    _The Scorner._\n\n    Many drops I waste and spill,\n    So my scornful mood you curse:\n    Who to brim his cup doth fill,\n    Many drops _must_ waste and spill--\n    Yet he thinks the wine no worse.\n\n\n    11.\n\n    _The Proverb Speaks._\n\n    Harsh and gentle, fine and mean,\n    Quite rare and common, dirty and clean,\n    The fools' and the sages' go-between:\n    All this I will be, this have been,\n    Dove and serpent and swine, I ween!\n\n\n    12.\n\n    _To a Lover of Light._\n\n    That eye and sense be not fordone\n    E'en in the shade pursue the sun!\n\n\n    13.\n\n    _For Dancers._\n\n    Smoothest ice,\n    A paradise\n    To him who is a dancer nice.\n\n\n    14.\n\n    _The Brave Man._\n\n    A feud that knows not flaw nor break,\n    Rather then patched-up friendship, take.\n\n\n    15.\n\n    _Rust._\n\n    Rust's needed: keenness will not satisfy!\n    \"He is too young!\" the rabble loves to cry.\n\n\n    16.\n\n    _Excelsior._\n\n    \"How shall I reach the top?\" No time\n    For thus reflecting! Start to climb!\n\n\n    17.\n\n    _The Man of Power Speaks._\n    Ask never! Cease that whining, pray!\n    Take without asking, take alway!\n\n\n    18.\n\n    _Narrow Souls._\n\n    Narrow souls hate I like the devil,\n    Souls wherein grows nor good nor evil.\n\n\n    19.\n\n    _Accidentally a Seducer_[1]\n\n    He shot an empty word\n      Into the empty blue;\n    But on the way it met\n      A woman whom it slew.\n\n\n    20.\n\n    _For Consideration._\n\n    A twofold pain is easier far to bear\n    Than one: so now to suffer wilt thou dare?\n\n\n    21.\n\n    _Against Pride._\n\n    Brother, to puff thyself up ne'er be quick:\n    For burst thou shalt be by a tiny prick!\n\n\n    22.\n\n    _Man and Woman._\n\n    \"The woman seize, who to thy heart appeals!\"\n    Man's motto: woman seizes not, but steals.\n\n\n    23.\n\n    _Interpretation._\n\n    If I explain my wisdom, surely\n    'Tis but entangled more securely,\n      I can't expound myself aright:\n    But he that's boldly up and doing,\n    His own unaided course pursuing,\n      Upon my image casts more light!\n\n\n    24.\n\n    _A Cure for Pessimism._\n\n    Those old capricious fancies, friend!\n      You say your palate naught can please,\n      I hear you bluster, spit and wheeze,\n    My love, my patience soon will end!\n    Pluck up your courage, follow me--\n      Here's a fat toad! Now then, don't blink,\n      Swallow it whole, nor pause to think!\n    From your dyspepsia you'll be free!\n\n\n    25.\n\n    _A Request._\n\n    Many men's minds I know full well,\n    Yet what mine own is, cannot tell.\n    I cannot see--my eye's too near--\n    And falsely to myself appear.\n    'Twould be to me a benefit\n    Far from myself if I could sit,\n    Less distant than my enemy,\n    And yet my nearest friend's too nigh--\n    'Twixt him and me, just in the middle!\n    What do I ask for? Guess my riddle.\n\n\n    26.\n\n    _My Cruelty._\n\n    I must ascend an hundred stairs,\n    I must ascend: the herd declares\n    I'm cruel: \"Are we made of stone?\"\n    I must ascend an hundred stairs:\n    All men the part of stair disown.\n\n\n    27.\n\n    _The Wanderer._\n\n    \"No longer path! Abyss and silence chilling!\"\n    Thy fault! To leave the path thou wast too willing!\n    Now comes the test! Keep cool--eyes bright and clear!\n    Thou'rt lost for sure, if thou permittest--fear.\n\n\n    28.\n\n    _Encouragement for Beginners._\n\n    See the infant, helpless creeping--\n      Swine around it grunt swine-talk--\n    Weeping always, naught but weeping,\n      Will it ever learn to walk?\n    Never fear! Just wait, I swear it\n      Soon to dance will be inclined,\n    And this babe, when two legs bear it,\n      Standing on its head you'll find.\n\n\n    29.\n\n    _Planet Egoism._\n\n    Did I not turn, a rolling cask,\n    Ever about myself, I ask,\n    How could I without burning run\n    Close on the track of the hot sun?\n\n\n    30.\n\n    _The Neighbour._\n\n    Too nigh, my friend my joy doth mar,\n    I'd have him high above and far,\n    Or how can he become my star?\n\n\n    31.\n\n    _The Disguised Saint._\n\n    Lest we for thy bliss should slay thee,\n    In devil's wiles thou dost array thee,\n      Devil's wit and devil's dress.\n    But in vain! Thy looks betray thee\n      And proclaim thy holiness.\n\n\n    32.\n\n    _The Slave._\n\n    _A._ He stands and listens: whence his pain?\n              What smote his ears? Some far refrain?\n              Why is his heart with anguish torn?\n\n    _B._ Like all that fetters once have worn,\n              He always hears the clinking--chain!\n\n\n    33.\n\n    _The Lone One._\n\n    I hate to follow and I hate to lead.\n    Obedience? no! and ruling? no, indeed!\n      Wouldst fearful be in others' sight?\n      Then e'en _thyself_ thou must affright:\n    The people but the Terror's guidance heed.\n    I hate to guide myself, I hate the fray.\n    Like the wild beasts I'll wander far afield.\n      In Error's pleasing toils I'll roam\n      Awhile, then lure myself back home,\n    Back home, and--to my self-seduction yield.\n\n\n    34.\n\n    _Seneca et hoc Genus omne._\n\n    They write and write (quite maddening me)\n    Their \"sapient\" twaddle airy,\n    As if 'twere _primum scribere,_\n    _Deinde philosophari._\n\n\n    35.\n\n    _Ice._\n\n    Yes! I manufacture ice:\n    Ice may help you to digest:\n    If you _had_ much to digest,\n    How you would enjoy my ice!\n\n\n    36.\n\n    _Youthful Writings._\n\n    My wisdom's A and final O\n    Was then the sound that smote mine ear.\n    Yet now it rings no longer so,\n    My youth's eternal Ah! and Oh!\n    Is now the only sound I hear.[2]\n\n\n    37.\n\n    _Foresight._\n\n    In yonder region travelling, take good care!\n    An hast thou wit, then be thou doubly ware!\n    They'll smile and lure thee; then thy limbs they'll tear:\n    Fanatics' country this where wits are rare!\n\n\n    38.\n\n    _The Pious One Speaks._\n\n    God loves us, _for_ he made us, sent us here!--\n    \"Man hath made God!\" ye subtle ones reply.\n    His handiwork he must hold dear,\n    And _what he made_ shall he deny?\n    There sounds the devil's halting hoof, I fear.\n\n\n    39.\n\n    _In Summer._\n\n    In sweat of face, so runs the screed,\n      We e'er must eat our bread,\n    Yet wise physicians if we heed\n      \"Eat naught in sweat,\" 'tis said.\n    The dog-star's blinking: what's his need?\n      What tells his blazing sign?\n    In sweat of face (so runs _his_ screed)\n      We're meant to drink our wine!\n\n\n    40.\n\n    _Without Envy._\n\n    His look betrays no envy: and ye laud him?\n    He cares not, asks not if your throng applaud him!\n    He has the eagle's eye for distance far,\n    He sees you not, he sees but star on star!\n\n\n    41.\n\n    _Heraclitism._\n\n    Brethren, war's the origin\n      Of happiness on earth:\n    Powder-smoke and battle-din\n      Witness friendship's birth!\n    Friendship means three things, you know,--\n      Kinship in luckless plight,\n    Equality before the foe\n      Freedom--in death's sight!\n\n\n    42.\n\n    _Maxim of the Over-refined._\n\n    \"Rather on your toes stand high\n      Than crawl upon all fours,\n    Rather through the keyhole spy\n      Than through the open doors!\"\n\n\n    43.\n\n    _Exhortation._\n\n    Renown you're quite resolved to earn?\n      My thought about it\n    Is this: you need not fame, must learn\n      To do without it!\n\n\n    44.\n\n    _Thorough._\n\n    I an inquirer? No, that's not my calling\n    Only _I weigh a lot_--I'm such a lump!--\n    And through the waters I keep falling, falling,\n    Till on the ocean's deepest bed I bump.\n\n\n    45.\n\n    _The Immortals._\n    \"To-day is meet for me, I come to-day,\"\n    Such is the speech of men foredoomed to stay.\n      \"Thou art too soon,\" they cry, \"thou art too late,\"\n    What care the Immortals what the rabble say?\n\n\n    46.\n\n    _Verdicts of the Weary._\n\n    The weary shun the glaring sun, afraid,\n    And only care for trees to gain the shade.\n\n\n    47.\n\n    _Descent._\n\n    \"He sinks, he falls,\" your scornful looks portend:\n    The truth is, to your level he'll descend.\n      His Too Much Joy is turned to weariness,\n    His Too Much Light will in your darkness end.\n\n\n    48.\n\n    _Nature Silenced_[3]\n    Around my neck, on chain of hair,\n    The timepiece hangs--a sign of care.\n    For me the starry course is o'er,\n    No sun and shadow as before,\n    No cockcrow summons at the door,\n    For nature tells the time no more!\n    Too many clocks her voice have drowned,\n    And droning law has dulled her sound.\n\n\n    49.\n\n    _The Sage Speaks._\n\n    Strange to the crowd, yet useful to the crowd,\n    I still pursue my path, now sun, now cloud,\n    But always pass above the crowd!\n\n\n    50.\n\n    _He lost his Head...._\n\n    She now has wit--how did it come her way?\n    A man through her his reason lost, they say.\n    His head, though wise ere to this pastime lent,\n    Straight to the devil--no, to woman went!\n\n\n    51.\n\n    _A Pious Wish._\n\n    \"Oh, might all keys be lost! 'Twere better so\n    And in all keyholes might the pick-lock go!\"\n    Who thus reflects ye may as--picklock know.\n\n\n    52.\n\n    _Foot Writing._\n\n    I write not with the hand alone,\n      My foot would write, my foot that capers,\n    Firm, free and bold, it's marching on\n      Now through the fields, now through the papers.\n\n\n    53.\n\n    \"_Human, All-too-Human._\" ...\n\n    Shy, gloomy, when your looks are backward thrust,\n    Trusting the future where yourself you trust,\n    Are you an eagle, mid the nobler fowl,\n    Or are you like Minerva's darling owl?\n\n\n    54.\n\n    _To my Reader._\n\n    Good teeth and a digestion good\n    I wish you--these you need, be sure!\n    And, certes, if my book you've stood,\n    Me with good humour you'll endure.\n\n\n    55.\n\n    _The Realistic Painter._\n\n    \"To nature true, complete!\" so he begins.\n    Who complete Nature to his canvas _wins?_\n    Her tiniest fragment's endless, no constraint\n    Can know: he paints just what his _fancy_ pins:\n    What does his fancy pin? What he _can_ paint!\n\n\n    56.\n\n    _Poets' Vanity._\n\n    Glue, only glue to me dispense,\n      The wood I'll find myself, don't fear!\n    To give four senseless verses sense--\n      That's an achievement I revere!\n\n\n    57.\n\n    _Taste in Choosing._\n\n    If to choose my niche precise\n    Freedom I could win from fate,\n    I'd be in midst of Paradise--\n    Or, sooner still--before the gate!\n\n\n    58.\n\n    _The Crooked Nose._\n\n    Wide blow your nostrils, and across\n    The land your nose holds haughty sway:\n    So you, unhorned rhinoceros,\n    Proud mannikin, fall forward aye!\n    The one trait with the other goes:\n    A straight pride and a crooked nose.\n\n\n    59.\n\n    _The Pen is Scratching...._\n\n    The pen is scratching: hang the pen!\n      To scratching I'm condemned to sink!\n    I grasp the inkstand fiercely then\n      And write in floods of flowing ink.\n    How broad, how full the stream's career!\n      What luck my labours doth requite!\n    'Tis true, the writing's none too clear--\n      What then? Who reads the stuff I write?\n\n\n    60.\n\n    _Loftier Spirits._\n\n    This man's climbing up--let us praise him--\n    But that other we love\n    From aloft doth eternally move,\n    So above even praise let us raise him,\n    He _comes_ from above!\n\n\n    61.\n\n    _The Sceptic Speaks._\n\n    Your life is half-way o'er;\n    The clock-hand moves; your soul is thrilled with fear,\n    It roamed to distant shore\n    And sought and found not, yet you--linger here!\n\n    Your life is half-way o'er;\n    That hour by hour was pain and error sheer:\n    _Why stay?_ What seek you more?\n    \"That's what I'm seeking--reasons why I'm here!\"\n\n\n    62.\n\n    _Ecce Homo._\n\n    Yes, I know where I'm related,\n    Like the flame, unquenched, unsated,\n      I consume myself and glow:\n    All's turned to light I lay my hand on,\n    All to coal that I abandon,\n      Yes, I am a flame, I know!\n\n\n    63.\n\n    _Star Morality_[4]\n\n    Foredoomed to spaces vast and far,\n    What matters darkness to the star?\n\n    Roll calmly on, let time go by,\n    Let sorrows pass thee--nations die!\n\n    Compassion would but dim the light\n    That distant worlds will gladly sight.\n\n    To thee one law--be pure and bright!\n\n\n\n[1] Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.\n\n[2] A and O, suggestive of Ah! and Oh! refer of course to Alpha and\nOmega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.--TR.\n\n[3] Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.\n\n[4] Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK FIRST\n\n\n1.\n\n_The Teachers of the Object of Existence.--_Whether I look with a\ngood or an evil eye upon men, I find them always at one problem, each\nand all of them: to do that which conduces to the conservation of the\nhuman species. And certainly not out of any sentiment of love for\nthis species, but simply because nothing in them is older, stronger,\nmore inexorable and more unconquerable than that instinct,--because\nit is precisely _the essence_ of our race and herd. Although we are\naccustomed readily enough, with our usual short-sightedness, to\nseparate our neighbours precisely into useful and hurtful, into good\nand evil men, yet when we make a general calculation, and reflect\nlonger on the whole question, we become distrustful of this defining\nand separating, and finally leave it alone. Even the most hurtful man\nis still perhaps, in respect to the conservation of the race, the\nmost useful of all; for he conserves in himself, or by his effect on\nothers, impulses without which mankind might long ago have languished\nor decayed. Hatred, delight in mischief, rapacity and ambition, and\nwhatever else is called evil--belong to the marvellous economy of the\nconservation of the race; to be sure a costly, lavish, and on the\nwhole very foolish economy:--which has, however, hitherto preserved our\nrace, _as is demonstrated to us._ I no longer know, my dear fellow-man\nand neighbour, if thou _canst_ at all live to the disadvantage of the\nrace, and therefore, \"unreasonably\" and \"badly\"; that which could\nhave injured the race has perhaps died out many millenniums ago, and\nnow belongs to the things which are no longer possible even to God.\nIndulge thy best or thy worst desires, and above all, go to wreck!--in\neither case thou art still probably the furtherer and benefactor of\nmankind in some way or other, and in that respect thou mayest have thy\npanegyrists--and similarly thy mockers! But thou wilt never find him\nwho would be quite qualified to mock at thee, the individual, at thy\nbest, who could bring home to thy conscience its limitless, buzzing\nand croaking wretchedness so as to be in accord with truth! To laugh\nat oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh _out of the\nveriest truth,_--to do this, the best have not hitherto had enough\nof the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too little\ngenius! There is perhaps still a future even for laughter! When the\nmaxim, \"The race is all, the individual is nothing,\"--has incorporated\nitself in humanity, and when access stands open to every one at all\ntimes to this ultimate emancipation and irresponsibility.--Perhaps\nthen laughter will have united with wisdom, perhaps then there will\nbe only \"joyful wisdom.\" Meanwhile, however, it is quite otherwise,\nmeanwhile the comedy of existence has not yet \"become conscious\" of\nitself, meanwhile it is still the period of tragedy, the period of\nmorals and religions. What does the ever new appearing of founders of\nmorals and religions, of instigators of struggles for moral valuations,\nof teachers of remorse of conscience and religious war, imply? What\ndo these heroes on this stage imply? For they have hitherto been the\nheroes of it, and all else, though solely visible for the time being,\nand too close to one, has served only as preparation for these heroes,\nwhether as machinery and coulisse, or in the r\u00f4le of confidants and\nvalets. (The poets, for example, have always been the valets of some\nmorality or other.)--It is obvious of itself that these tragedians\nalso work in the interest of the _race,_ though they may believe that\nthey work in the interest of God, and as emissaries of God. They also\nfurther the life of the species, _in that they further the belief in\nlife._ \"It is worthwhile to live\"--each of them calls out,--\"there is\nsomething of importance in this life; life has something behind it and\nunder it; take care!\" That impulse, which rules equally in the noblest\nand the ignoblest, the impulse to the conservation of the species,\nbreaks forth from time to time as reason and passion of spirit; it\nhas then a brilliant train of motives about it, and tries with all\nits power to make us forget that fundamentally it is just impulse,\ninstinct, folly and baselessness. Life _should_ beloved, _for_...!\nMan _should_ benefit himself and his neighbour, _for_...! And whatever\nall these _shoulds_ and _fors_ imply, and may imply in future! In\norder that that which necessarily and always happens of itself and\nwithout design, may henceforth appear to be done by design, and may\nappeal to men as reason and ultimate command,--for that purpose the\nethiculturist comes forward as the teacher of design in existence; for\nthat purpose he devises a second and different existence, and by means\nof this new mechanism he lifts the old common existence off its old\ncommon hinges. No! he does not at all want us to _laugh_ at existence,\nnor even at ourselves--nor at himself; to him an individual is always\nan individual, something first and last and immense, to him there are\nno species, no sums, no noughts. However foolish and fanatical his\ninventions and valuations may be, however much he may misunderstand the\ncourse of nature and deny its conditions--and all systems of ethics\nhitherto have been foolish and anti-natural to such a degree that\nmankind would have been ruined by any one of them had it got the upper\nhand,--at any rate, every time that \"the hero\" came upon the stage\nsomething new was attained: the frightful counterpart of laughter,\nthe profound convulsion of many individuals at the thought, \"Yes, it\nis worth while to live! yes, I am worthy to live!\"--life, and thou,\nand I, and all of us together became for a while _interesting_ to\nourselves once more.--It is not to be denied that hitherto laughter and\nreason and nature have _in the long run_ got the upper hand of all the\ngreat teachers of design: in the end the short tragedy always passed\nover once more into the eternal comedy of existence; and the \"waves\nof innumerable laughters\"--to use the expression of \u00c6schylus--must\nalso in the end beat over the greatest of these tragedies. But with\nall this corrective laughter, human nature has on the whole been\nchanged by the ever new appearance of those teachers of the design of\nexistence,--human nature has now an additional requirement, the very\nrequirement of the ever new appearance of such teachers and doctrines\nof \"design.\" Man has gradually become a visionary animal, who has to\nfulfil one more condition of existence than the other animals: man\n_must_ from time to time believe that he knows _why_ he exists; his\nspecies cannot flourish without periodically confiding in life! Without\nthe belief in _reason in life!_ And always from time to time will\nthe human race decree anew that \"there is something which really may\nnot be laughed at.\" And the most clairvoyant philanthropist will add\nthat \"not only laughing and joyful wisdom, but also the tragic with\nall its sublime irrationality, counts among the means and necessities\nfor the conservation of the race!\"--And consequently! Consequently!\nConsequently! Do you understand me, oh my brothers? Do you understand\nthis new law of ebb and flow? We also shall have our time!\n\n\n2.\n\n_The Intellectual Conscience._--I have always the same experience over\nagain, and always make a new effort against it; for although it is\nevident to me I do not want to believe it: _in the greater number of\nmen the intellectual conscience is lacking;_ indeed, it would often\nseem to me that in demanding such a thing, one is as solitary in the\nlargest cities as in the desert. Everyone looks at you with strange\neyes and continues to make use of his scales, calling this good and\nthat bad; and no one blushes for shame when you remark that these\nweights are not the full amount,--there is also no indignation against\nyou; perhaps they laugh at your doubt. I mean to say that _the greater\nnumber of people_ do not find it contemptible to believe this or that,\nand live according to it, _without_ having been previously aware of\nthe ultimate and surest reasons for and against it, and without even\ngiving themselves any trouble about such reasons afterwards,--the most\nSifted men and the noblest women still belong to this \"greater number.\"\nBut what is kind-heartedness, refinement and genius to me, if he who\nhas these virtues harbours indolent sentiments in belief and judgment,\nif _the longing for certainty_ does not rule in him, as his innermost\ndesire and profoundest need--as that which separates higher from lower\nmen! In certain pious people I have found a hatred of reason, and\nhave been favourably disposed to them for it: their bad intellectual\nconscience at least still betrayed itself in this manner! But to stand\nin the midst of this _rerum concordia discors_ and all the marvellous\nuncertainty and ambiguity of existence, _and not to question,_ not\nto tremble with desire and delight in questioning, not even to hate\nthe questioner--perhaps even to make merry over him to the extent of\nweariness--that is what I regard as _contemptible,_ and it is this\nsentiment which I first of all search for in every one--some folly or\nother always persuades me anew that every man has this sentiment, as\nman. This is my special kind of unrighteousness.\n\n\n3.\n\n_Noble and Ignoble._--To ignoble natures all noble, magnanimous\nsentiments appear inexpedient, and on that account first and foremost,\nas incredible: they blink with their eyes when they hear of such\nmatters, and seem inclined to say,\" there will, no doubt, be some\nadvantage therefrom, one cannot see through all walls;\"--they are\njealous of the noble person, as if he sought advantage by back-stair\nmethods. When they are all too plainly convinced of the absence of\nselfish intentions and emoluments, the noble person is regarded by\nthem as a kind of fool: they despise him in his gladness, and laugh\nat the lustre of his eye. \"How can a person rejoice at being at a\ndisadvantage, how can a person with open eyes want to meet with\ndisadvantage! It must be a disease of the reason with which the noble\naffection is associated\";--so they think, and they look depreciatingly\nthereon; just as they depreciate the joy which the lunatic derives\nfrom his fixed idea. The ignoble nature is distinguished by the fact\nthat it keeps its advantage steadily in view, and that this thought\nof the end and advantage is even stronger than its strongest impulse:\nnot to be tempted to inexpedient activities by its impulses--that is\nits wisdom and inspiration. In comparison with the ignoble nature the\nhigher nature is _more irrational:_--for the noble, magnanimous, and\nself-sacrificing person succumbs in fact to his impulses, and in his\nbest moments his reason _lapses_ altogether. An animal, which at the\nrisk of life protects its young, or in the pairing season follows the\nfemale where it meets with death, does not think of the risk and the\ndeath; its reason pauses likewise, because its delight in its young, or\nin the female, and the fear of being deprived of this delight, dominate\nit exclusively; it becomes stupider than at other times, like the noble\nand magnanimous person. He possesses feelings of pleasure and pain of\nsuch intensity that the intellect must either be silent before them, or\nyield itself to their service: his heart then goes into his head, and\none henceforth speaks of \"passions.\" (Here and there to be sure, the\nantithesis to this, and as it were the \"reverse of passion,\" presents\nitself; for example in Fontenelle, to whom some one once laid the hand\non the heart with the words, \"What you have there, my dearest friend,\nis brain also.\") It is the unreason, or perverse reason of passion,\nwhich the ignoble man despises in the noble individual, especially\nwhen it concentrates upon objects whose value appears to him to be\naltogether fantastic and arbitrary. He is offended at him who succumbs\nto the passion of the belly, but he understands the allurement which\nhere plays the tyrant; but he does not understand, for example, how\na person out of love of knowledge can stake his health and honour on\nthe game. The taste of the higher nature devotes itself to exceptional\nmatters, to things which usually do not affect people, and seem to have\nno sweetness; the higher nature has a singular standard of value. Yet\nit is mostly of the belief that it has _not_ a singular standard of\nvalue in its idiosyncrasies of taste; it rather sets up its values\nand non-values as the generally valid values and non-values, and thus\nbecomes incomprehensible and impracticable. It is very rarely that a\nhigher nature has so much reason over and above as to understand and\ndeal with everyday men as such; for the most part it believes in its\npassion as if it were the concealed passion of every one, and precisely\nin this belief it is full of ardour and eloquence. If then such\nexceptional men do not perceive themselves as exceptions, how can they\never understand the ignoble natures and estimate average men fairly!\nThus it is that they also speak of the folly, inexpediency and fantasy\nof mankind, full of astonishment at the madness of the world, and that\nit will not recognise the \"one thing needful for it.\"--This is the\neternal unrighteousness of noble natures.\n\n\n4.\n\n_That which Preserves the Species.--_The strongest and most evil\nspirits have hitherto advanced mankind the most: they always rekindled\nthe sleeping passions--all orderly arranged society lulls the\npassions to sleep; they always reawakened the sense of comparison, of\ncontradiction, of delight in the new, the adventurous, the untried;\nthey compelled men to set opinion against opinion, ideal plan against\nideal plan. By means of arms, by upsetting boundary-stones, by\nviolations of piety most of all: but also by new religions and morals!\nThe same kind of \"wickedness\" is in every teacher and preacher of the\n_new--_which makes a conqueror infamous, although it expresses itself\nmore refinedly, and does not immediately set the muscles in motion (and\njust on that account does not make so infamous!) The new, however, is\nunder all circumstances the _evil,_ as that which wants to conquer,\nwhich tries to upset the old boundary-stones and the old piety; only\nthe old is the good! The good men of every age are those who go to the\nroots of the old thoughts and bear fruit with them, the agriculturists\nof the spirit. But every soil becomes finally exhausted, and the\nploughshare of evil must always come once more.--There is at present\na fundamentally erroneous theory of morals which is much celebrated,\nespecially in England: according to it the judgments \"good\" and \"evil\"\nare the accumulation of the experiences of that which is \"expedient\"\nand \"inexpedient\"; according to this theory, that which is called\ngood is conservative of the species, what is called evil, however, is\ndetrimental to it. But in reality the evil impulses are just in as high\na degree expedient, indispensable, and conservative of the species as\nthe good:--only, their function is different.\n\n\n5.\n\n_Unconditional Duties._--All men who feel that they need the strongest\nwords and intonations, the most eloquent gestures and attitudes, in\norder to operate _at all_--revolutionary politicians, socialists,\npreachers of repentance with or without Christianity, with all\nof whom there must be no mere half-success,--all these speak of\n\"duties,\" and indeed, always of duties, which have the character\nof being unconditional--without such they would have no right to\ntheir excessive pathos: they know that right well! They grasp,\ntherefore, at philosophies of morality which preach some kind of\ncategorical imperative, or they assimilate a good lump of religion,\nas, for example, Mazzini did. Because they want to be trusted\nunconditionally, it is first of all necessary for them to trust\nthemselves unconditionally, on the basis of some ultimate, undebatable\ncommand, sublime in itself, as the ministers and instruments of which,\nthey would fain feel and announce themselves. Here we have the most\nnatural, and for the most part, very influential opponents of moral\nenlightenment and scepticism: but they are rare. On the other hand,\nthere is always a very numerous class of those opponents wherever\ninterest teaches subjection, while repute and honour seem to forbid\nit. He who feels himself dishonoured at the thought of being the\n_instrument_ of a prince, or of a party and sect, or even of wealthy\npower (for example, as the descendant of a proud, ancient family),\nbut wishes just to be this instrument, or must be so before himself\nand before the public--such a person has need of pathetic principles\nwhich can at all times be appealed to:--principles of an unconditional\n_ought,_ to which a person can subject himself without shame, and can\nshow himself subjected. All more refined servility holds fast to the\ncategorical imperative, and is the mortal enemy of those who want to\ntake away the unconditional character of duty: propriety demands this\nfrom them, and not only propriety.\n\n\n6.\n\n_Loss of Dignity.--_Meditation has lost all its dignity of form; the\nceremonial and solemn bearing of the meditative person have been made a\nmockery, and one would no longer endure a wise man of the old style. We\nthink too hastily and on the way and while walking and in the midst of\nbusiness of all kinds, even when we think on the most serious matters;\nwe require little preparation, even little quiet:--it is as if each\nof us carried about an unceasingly revolving machine in his head,\nwhich still works, even under the most unfavourable circumstances.\nFormerly it was perceived in a person that on some occasion he wanted\nto think--it was perhaps the exception!--that he now wanted to become\nwiser and collected his mind on a thought: he put on a long face for\nit, as for a prayer, and arrested his step-nay, stood still for hours\non the street when the thought \"came\"--on one or on two legs. It was\nthus \"worthy of the affair\"!\n\n\n7.\n\n_Something for the Laborious.--_He who at present wants to make moral\nquestions a subject of study has an immense field of labour before him.\nAll kinds of passions must be thought about singly, and followed singly\nthroughout periods, peoples, great and insignificant individuals;\nall their rationality, all their valuations and elucidations of\nthings, ought to come to light! Hitherto all that has given colour\nto existence has lacked a history: where would one find a history of\nlove, of avance, of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty? Even\na comparative history of law, as also of punishment, has hitherto\nbeen completely lacking. Have the different divisions of the day, the\nconsequences of a regular appointment of the times for labour, feast,\nand repose, ever been made the object of investigation? Do we know the\nmoral effects of the alimentary substances? Is there a philosophy of\nnutrition? (The ever-recurring outcry for and against vegetarianism\nproves that as yet there is no such philosophy!) Have the experiences\nwith regard to communal living, for example, in monasteries, been\ncollected? Has the dialectic of marriage and friendship been set\nforth? The customs of the learned, of trades-people, of artists, and\nof mechanics--have they already found their thinkers? There is so much\nto think of thereon! All that up till now has been considered as the\n\"conditions of existence,\" of human beings, and all reason, passion\nand superstition in this consideration--have they been investigated to\nthe end? The observation alone of the different degrees of development\nwhich the human impulses have attained, and could yet attain, according\nto the different moral climates, would furnish too much work for the\nmost laborious; whole generations, and regular co-operating generations\nof the learned, would be needed in order to exhaust the points of view\nand the material here furnished. The same is true of the determining\nof the reasons for the differences of the moral climates (\"_on what\naccount_ does this sun of a fundamental moral judgment and standard of\nhighest value shine here--and that sun there?\"). And there is again\na new labour which points out the erroneousness of all these reasons,\nand determines the entire essence of the moral judgments hitherto made.\nSupposing all these labours to be accomplished, the most critical of\nall questions would then come into the foreground: whether science is\nin a position to _furnish_ goals for human action, after it has proved\nthat it can take them away and annihilate them--and then would be the\ntime for a process of experimenting, in which every kind of heroism\ncould satisfy itself, an experimenting for centuries, which would\nput into the shade all the great labours and sacrifices of previous\nhistory. Science has not hitherto built its Cyclopic structures; for\nthat also the time will come.\n\n\n8.\n\n_Unconscious Virtues.--_All qualities in a man of which he is\nconscious--and especially when he presumes that they are visible and\nevident to his environment also--are subject to quite other laws\nof development than those qualities which are unknown to him, or\nimperfectly known, which by their subtlety can also conceal themselves\nfrom the subtlest observer, and hide as it were behind nothing--as in\nthe case of the delicate sculptures on the scales of reptiles (it would\nbe an error to suppose them an adornment or a defence--for one sees\nthem only with the microscope; consequently, with an eye artificially\nstrengthened to an extent of vision which similar animals, to which\nthey might perhaps have meant adornment or defence, do not possess!).\nOur visible moral qualities, and especially our moral qualities\n_believed to be_ visible, follow their own course,--and our invisible\nqualities of similar name, which in relation to others neither serve\nfor adornment nor defence, _also follow their own course:_ quite\na different course probably, and with lines and refinements, and\nsculptures, which might perhaps give pleasure to a God with a divine\nmicroscope. We have, for example, our diligence, our ambition, our\nacuteness: all the world knows about them,--and besides, we have\nprobably once more _our_ diligence, _our_ ambition, _our_ acuteness;\nbut for these--our reptile scales--the microscope has not yet been\ninvented!--And here the adherents of instinctive morality will say,\n\"Bravo! He at least regards unconscious virtues as possible--that\nsuffices us!\"--Oh, ye unexacting creatures!\n\n\n9.\n\n_Our Eruptions._--Numberless things which humanity acquired in its\nearlier stages, but so weakly and embryonically that it could not be\nnoticed that they were acquired, are thrust suddenly into light long\nafterwards, perhaps after the lapse of centuries: they have in the\ninterval become strong and mature. In some ages this or that talent,\nthis or that virtue seems to be entirely lacking, as it--is in some\nmen; but let us wait only for the grandchildren and grandchildren's\nchildren, if we have time to wait,--they bring the interior of their\ngrandfathers into the sun, that interior of which the grandfathers\nthemselves were unconscious. The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of\nhis father; the latter understands himself better since he has got his\nson. We have all hidden gardens and plantations in us; and by another\nsimile, we are all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of\neruption:--how near or how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not\neven the good God.\n\n\n10.\n\n_A Species of Atavism._--I like best to think of the rare men of an\nage as suddenly emerging after-shoots of past cultures, and of their\npersistent strength: like the atavism of a people and its civilisation\n--there is thus still something in them to _think of!_ They now seem\nstrange, rare, and extraordinary: and he who feels these forces in\nhimself has to foster them in face of a different, opposing world; he\nhas to defend them, honour them, and rear them to maturity: and he\neither becomes a great man thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person,\nif he does not altogether break down betimes. Formerly these rare\nqualities were usual, and were consequently regarded as common: they\ndid not distinguish people. Perhaps they were demanded and presupposed;\nit was impossible to become great with them, for indeed there was also\nno danger of becoming insane and solitary with them.--It is principally\nin the _old-established_ families and castes of a people that such\nafter-effects of old impulses present themselves, while there is no\nprobability of such atavism where races, habits, and valuations change\ntoo rapidly. For the _tempo_ of the evolutional forces in peoples\nimplies just as much as in music; for our case an _andante_ of\nevolution is absolutely necessary, as the _tempo_ of a passionate and\nslow spirit:--and the spirit of conserving families is certainly of\n_that_ sort.\n\n\n11.\n\n_Consciousness._--Consciousness is the last and latest development\nof the organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least\npowerful of these developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out\nof consciousness, which, \"in spite of fate,\" as Homer says, cause an\nanimal or a man to break down earlier than might be necessary. If the\nconserving bond of the instincts were not very much more powerful,\nit would not generally serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and\ndreaming with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity, in short,\njust by consciousness, mankind would necessarily have broken down:\nor rather, without the former there would long ago have been nothing\nmore of the latter! Before a function is fully formed and matured, it\nis a danger to the organism: all the better if it be then thoroughly\ntyrannised over! Consciousness is thus thoroughly tyrannised over--and\nnot least by the pride in it! It is thought that here is _the\nquintessence_ of man; that which is enduring, eternal, ultimate, and\nmost original in him! Consciousness is regarded as a fixed, given\nmagnitude! Its growth and intermittences are denied! It is accepted\nas the \"unity of the organism\"!--This ludicrous overvaluation and\nmisconception of consciousness has as its result the great utility\nthat a too rapid maturing of it has thereby been _hindered._ Because\nmen believed that they already possessed consciousness, they gave\nthemselves very little trouble to acquire it--and even now it is not\notherwise! It is still an entirely new _problem_ just dawning on the\nhuman eye, and hardly yet plainly recognisable: _to embody knowledge\nin ourselves_ and make it instinctive,--a problem which is only seen\nby those who have grasped the fact that hitherto our _errors_ alone\nhave been embodied in us, and that all our consciousness is relative to\nerrors!\n\n\n12.\n\n_The Goal of Science.--_What? The ultimate goal of science is to create\nthe most pleasure possible to man, and the least possible pain? But\nwhat if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who\n_wants_ the greatest possible amount of the one _must_ also have the\ngreatest possible amount of the other,--that he who wants to experience\nthe \"heavenly high jubilation,\"[1] must also be ready to be \"sorrowful\nunto death\"?[2] And it is so, perhaps! The Stoics at least believed it\nwas so, and they were consistent when they wished to have the least\npossible pleasure, in order to have the least possible pain from life.\n(When one uses the expression: \"The virtuous man is the happiest,\" it\nis as much the sign-board of the school for the masses, as a casuistic\nsubtlety for the subtle.) At present also ye have still the choice:\neither the _least possible pain,_ in short painlessness--and after\nall, socialists and politicians of all parties could not honourably\npromise more to their people,--or the _greatest possible amount of\npain,_ as the price of the growth of a fullness of refined delights and\nenjoyments rarely tasted hitherto! If ye decide for the former, if ye\ntherefore want to depress and minimise man's capacity for pain, well,\nye must also depress and minimise his _capacity for enjoyment._ In\nfact, one can further the one as well as the other goal _by science!_\nPerhaps science is as yet best known by its capacity for depriving man\nof enjoyment, and making him colder, more statuesque, and more Stoical.\nBut it might also turn out to be the _great pain-bringer!_--And then,\nperhaps, its counteracting force would be discovered simultaneously,\nits immense capacity for making new sidereal worlds of enjoyment beam\nforth!\n\n\n[1] Allusions to the song of Clara in Goethe's \"Egmont.\"--TR.\n\n\n13.\n\n_The Theory of the Sense of Power._--We exercise our power over others\nby doing them good or by doing them ill--that is all we care for!\n_Doing ill_ to those on whom we have to make our power felt; for pain\nis a far more sensitive means for that purpose than pleasure:--pain\nalways asks concerning the cause, while pleasure is inclined to keep\nwithin itself and not look backward. _Doing good_ and being kind\nto those who are in any way already dependent on us (that is, who\nare accustomed to think of us as their _raison d'\u00eatre);_ we want to\nincrease their power, because we thus increase our own; or we want\nto show them the advantage there is in being in our power,--they\nthus become more contented with their position, and more hostile\nto the enemies of _our_ power and readier to contend with to If we\nmake sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the\nultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause,\nas martyrs for the sake of our church, it is a sacrifice to _our_\nlonging for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power.\nHe who under these circumstances feels that he \"is in possession of\ntruth\" how many possessions does he not let go, in order to preserve\nthis feeling! What does he not throw overboard, in order to keep\nhimself \"up,\"--that is to say, _above_ the others who lack the truth.\nCertainly the condition we are in when we do ill is seldom so pleasant,\nso purely pleasant as that in which we practise kindness,--it is an\nindication that we still lack power, or it betrays ill-humour at this\ndefect in us; it brings with it new dangers and uncertainties as to\nthe power we already possess, and clouds our horizon by the prospect\nof revenge, scorn, punishment and failure. Perhaps only tee most\nsusceptible to the sense of power and eager for it, will prefer to\nimpress the seal of power on the resisting individual.--those to whom\nthe sight of the already subjugated person as the object of benevolence\nis a burden and a tedium. It is a question how a person is accustomed\nto _season_ his life; it is a matter of taste whether a person would\nrather have the slow or the sudden to safe or the dangerous and daring\nincrease of power,--he seeks this or that seasoning always according\nto his temperament. An easy booty is something contemptible to proud\nnatures; they have an agreeable sensation only at the sight of men of\nunbroken spirit who could be enemies to them, and similarly, also, at\nthe sight of all not easily accessible possession; they are often hard\ntoward the sufferer, for he is not worthy of their effort or their\npride,--but they show themselves so much the more courteous towards\ntheir _equals,_ with whom strife and struggle would in any case be full\nof honour, _if_ at any time an occasion for it should present itself.\nIt is under the agreeable feelings of _this_ perspective that the\nmembers of the knightly caste have habituated themselves to exquisite\ncourtesy toward one another.--Pity is the most pleasant feeling in\nthose who have not much pride, and have no prospect of great conquests:\nthe easy booty--and that is what every sufferer is--is for them an\nenchanting thing. Pity is said to be the virtue of the gay lady.\n\n\n14.\n\n_What is called Love._--The lust of property, and love: what different\nassociations each of these ideas evoke!--and yet it might be the same\nimpulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint\nof those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained\nsomething of repose,--who are now apprehensive for the safety of their\n\"possession\"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of\nthe unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as \"good.\" Our\nlove of our neighbour,--is it not a striving after new _property?_\nAnd similarly our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the\nstriving after novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old and\nsecurely possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the finest\nlandscape in which we live for three months is no longer certain of our\nlove, and any kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness: the\npossession for the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our\npleasure in ourselves seeks to maintain itself by always transforming\nsomething new _into ourselves,_--that is just possessing. To become\nsatiated with a possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves.\n(One can also suffer from excess,--even the desire to cast away, to\nshare out, may assume the honourable name of \"love.\") When we see any\none suffering, we willingly utilise the opportunity then afforded\nto take possession of him; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for\nexample, does this; he also calls the desire for new possession\nawakened in him, by the name of \"love,\" and has enjoyment in it, as\nin a new acquisition suggesting itself to him. The love of the sexes,\nhowever, betrays itself most plainly as the striving after possession:\nthe lover wants the unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed\nfor by him; he wants just as absolute power over her soul as over her\nbody; he wants to be loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other\nsoul as what is highest and most to be desired. When one considers\nthat this means precisely to _exclude_ all the world from a precious\npossession, a happiness, and an enjoyment; when one considers that\nthe lover has in view the impoverishment and privation of all other\nrivals, and would like to become the dragon of his golden hoard, as\nthe most inconsiderate and selfish of all \"conquerors\" and exploiters;\nwhen one considers finally that to the lover himself, the whole world\nbesides appears indifferent, colourless, and worthless, and that he\nis ready to make every sacrifice, disturb every arrangement, and put\nevery other interest behind his own,--one is verily surprised that\nthis ferocious lust of property and injustice of sexual love should\nhave been glorified and deified to such an extent at all times; yea,\nthat out of this love the conception of love as the antithesis of\negoism should have been derived, when it is perhaps precisely the most\nunqualified expression of egoism. Here, evidently, the non-possessors\nand desirers have determined the usage of language,--there were, of\ncourse, always too many of them. Those who have been favoured with much\npossession and satiety, have, to be sure, dropped a word now and then\nabout the \"raging demon,\" as, for instance, the most lovable and most\nbeloved of all the Athenians--Sophocles; but Eros always laughed at\nsuch revilers,--they were always his greatest favourites.--There is, of\ncourse, here and there on this terrestrial sphere a kind of sequel to\nlove, in which that covetous longing of two persons for one another has\nyielded to a new desire and covetousness, to a _common,_ higher thirst\nfor a superior ideal standing above them: but who knows this love? Who\nhas experienced it? Its right name is _friendship._\n\n\n15.\n\n_Out of the Distance._--This mountain makes the whole district which\nit dominates charming in every way, and full of significance. After\nwe have said this to ourselves for the hundredth time, we are so\nirrationally and so gratefully disposed towards it, as the giver\nof this charm, that we fancy it must itself be the most charming\nthing in the district--and so we climb it, and are undeceived. All\nof a sudden, both it and the landscape around us and under us, are\nas it were disenchanted; we had forgotten that many a greatness,\nlike many a goodness, wants only to be seen at a certain distance,\nand entirely from below, not from above,--it is thus only that _it\noperates._ Perhaps you know men in your neighbourhood who can only\nlook at themselves from a certain distance to find themselves at all\nendurable, or attractive and enlivening; they are to be dissuaded from\nself-knowledge.\n\n\n16.\n\n_Across the Plank.--_One must be able to dissimulate in intercourse\nwith persons who are ashamed of their feelings; they take a sudden\naversion to anyone who surprises them in a state of tenderness, or of\nenthusiastic and high-running feeling, as if he had seen their secrets.\nIf one wants to be kind to them in such moments one should make them\nlaugh, or say some kind of cold, playful wickedness:--their feeling\nthereby congeals, and they are again self-possessed. But I give the\nmoral before the story.--We were once on a time so near one another\nin the course of our lives, that nothing more seemed to hinder our\nfriendship and fraternity, and there was merely a small plank between\nus. While you were just about to step on it, I asked you: \"Do you want\nto come across the plank to me?\" But then you did not want to come\nany longer; and when I again entreated, you were silent. Since then\nmountains and torrents, and whatever separates and alienates, have\ninterposed between us, and even if we wanted to come to one another,\nwe could no longer do so! When, however, you now remember that small\nplank, you have no longer words,--but merely sobs and amazement.\n\n\n17.\n\n_Motivation of Poverty._--We cannot, to be sure, by any artifice make a\nrich and richly-flowing virtue out of a poor one, but we can gracefully\nenough reinterpret its poverty into necessity, so that its aspect no\nlonger gives pain to us, and we cease making reproachful faces at fate\non account of it. It is thus that the wise gardener does who puts the\ntiny streamlet of his garden into the arms of a fountain-nymph, and\nthus motivates the poverty:--and who would not like him need the nymphs!\n\n\n18.\n\n_Ancient Pride._--The ancient savour of nobility is lacking in us,\nbecause the ancient slave is lacking in our sentiment. A Greek of noble\ndescent found such immense intermediate stages, and such a distance\nbetwixt his elevation and that ultimate baseness, that he could hardly\neven see the slave plainly: even Plato no longer saw him entirely.\nIt is otherwise with us, accustomed as we are to the _doctrine_ of\nthe equality of men, although not to the equality itself. A being who\nhas not the free disposal of himself and has not got leisure,--that\nis not regarded by us as anything contemptible; there is perhaps too\nmuch of this kind of slavishness in each of us, in accordance with the\nconditions of our social order and activity, which are fundamentally\ndifferent from those of the ancients.--The Greek philosopher went\nthrough life with the secret feeling that there were many more slaves\nthan people supposed--that is to say, that every one was a slave who\nwas not a philosopher. His pride was puffed up when he considered that\neven the mightiest of the earth were thus to be looked upon as slaves.\nThis pride is also unfamiliar to us, and impossible; the word \"slave\"\nhas not its full force for us even in simile.\n\n\n19.\n\n_Evil._--Test the life of the best and most productive men and nations,\nand ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly heavenward\ncan dispense with bad weather and tempests: whether disfavour and\nopposition from without, whether every kind of hatred, jealousy,\nstubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong\nto the _favouring_ circumstances without which a great growth even in\nvirtue is hardly possible? The poison by which the weaker nature is\ndestroyed is strengthening to the strong individual--and he does not\ncall it poison.\n\n\n20.\n\n_Dignity of Folly._--Several millenniums further on in the path of the\nlast century!--and in everything that man does the highest prudence\nwill be exhibited: but just thereby prudence will have lost all its\ndignity. It will then, sure enough, be necessary to be prudent, but it\nwill also be so usual and common, that a more fastidious taste will\nfeel this necessity as _vulgarity._ And just as a tyranny of truth\nand science would be in a position to raise the value of falsehood,\na tyranny of prudence could force into prominence a new species of\nnobleness. To be noble--that might then mean, perhaps, to be capable of\nfollies.\n\n\n21.\n\n_To the Teachers of Unselfishness._--The virtues of a man are called\n_good,_ not in respect to the results they have for himself, but in\nrespect to the results which we expect therefrom for ourselves and\nfor society:--we have all along had very little unselfishness, very\nlittle \"non-egoism\" in our praise of the virtues! For otherwise it\ncould not but have been seen that the virtues (such as diligence,\nobedience, chastity, piety, justice) are mostly _injurious_ to\ntheir possessors, as impulses which rule in them too vehemently and\nardently, and do not want to be kept in co-ordination with the other\nimpulses by the reason. If you have a virtue, an actual, perfect\nvirtue (and not merely a kind of impulse towards virtue!)--you are\nits _victim!_ But your neighbour praises your virtue precisely on that\naccount! One praises the diligent man though he injures his sight, or\nthe originality and freshness of his spirit, by his diligence; the\nyouth is honoured and regretted who has \"worn himself out by work,\"\nbecause one passes the judgment that \"for society as a whole the loss\nof the best individual is only a small sacrifice! A pity that this\nsacrifice should be necessary! A much greater pity it is true, if the\nindividual should think differently and regard his preservation and\ndevelopment as more important than his work in the service of society!\"\nAnd so one regrets this youth, not on his own account, but because\na devoted _instrument,_ regardless of self--a so-called \"good man,\"\nhas been lost to society by his death. Perhaps one further considers\nthe question, whether it would not have been more advantageous for\nthe interests of society if he had laboured with less disregard of\nhimself, and had preserved himself longer-indeed one readily admits\nan advantage therefrom but one esteems the other advantage, namely,\nthat a _sacrifice_ has been made, and that the disposition of the\nsacrificial animal has once more been _obviously_ endorsed--as higher\nand more enduring. It is accordingly, on the one part, the instrumental\ncharacter in the virtues which is praised when the virtues are praised,\nand on the other part the blind, ruling impulse in every virtue which\nrefuse to let itself be kept within bounds by the general advantage\nto the individual; in short, what is praised is the unreason in the\nvirtues, in consequence of which the individual allows himself to be\ntransformed into a function of the whole. The praise of the virtues is\nthe praise of something which is privately injurious to the individual;\nit is praise of impulses which deprive man of his noblest self-love,\nand the power to take the best care of himself. To be sure, for the\nteaching and embodying of virtuous habits a series of effects of virtue\nare displayed, which make it appear that virtue and private advantage\nare closely related,--and there is in fact such a relationship!\nBlindly furious diligence, for example, the typical virtue of an\ninstrument, is represented as the way to riches and honour, and as\nthe most beneficial antidote to tedium and passion: but people are\nsilent concerning its danger, its greatest dangerousness. Education\nproceeds in this manner throughout: it endeavours, by a series of\nenticements and advantages, to determine the individual to a certain\nmode of thinking and acting, which, when it has become habit, impulse\nand passion, rules in him and over him, _in opposition to his ultimate\nadvantage,_ but \"for the general good.\" How often do I see that blindly\nfurious diligence does indeed create riches and honours, but at the\nsame time deprives the organs of the refinement by virtue of which\nalone an enjoyment of riches and honours is possible; so that really\nthe main expedient for combating tedium and passion, simultaneously\nblunts the senses and makes the spirit refractory towards new stimuli!\n(The busiest of all ages--our age--does not know how to make anything\nout of its great diligence and wealth, except always more and more\nwealth, and more and more diligence; there is even more genius needed\nfor laying out wealth than for acquiring it!--Well, we shall have\nour \"grandchildren\"!) If the education succeeds, every virtue of the\nindividual is a public utility, and a private disadvantage in respect\nto the highest private end,--probably some psycho-\u00e6sthetic stunting, or\neven premature dissolution. One should consider successively from the\nsame standpoint the virtues of obedience, chastity, piety, and justice.\nThe praise of the unselfish, self-sacrificing, virtuous person--he,\nconsequently, who does not expend his whole energy and reason for\n_his own_ conservation, development, elevation, furtherance and\naugmentation of power, but lives as regards himself unassumingly and\nthoughtlessly, perhaps even indifferently or ironically--this praise\nhas in any case not originated out of the spirit of unselfishness! The\n\"neighbour\" praises unselfishness because _he profits by it!_ If the\nneighbour were \"unselfishly\" disposed himself, he would reject that\ndestruction of power, that injury for _his_ advantage, he would thwart\nsuch inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his\nunselfishness just by _not giving it a good name!_ The fundamental\ncontradiction in that morality which at present stands in high honour\nis here indicated: the _motives_ to such a morality are in antithesis\nto its _principle!_ That with which this morality wishes to prove\nitself, refutes it out of its criterion of what is moral! The maxim,\n\"Thou shalt renounce thyself and offer thyself as a sacrifice,\" in\norder not to be inconsistent with its own morality, could only be\ndecreed by a being who himself renounced his own advantage thereby, and\nwho perhaps in the required self-sacrifice of individuals brought about\nhis own dissolution. As soon; however, as the neighbour (or society)\nrecommended altruism _on account of its utility,_ the precisely\nantithetical proposition, \"Thou shalt seek thy advantage even at the\nexpense of everybody else,\" was brought into use: accordingly, \"thou\nshalt,\" and \"thou shalt not,\" are preached in one breath!\n\n\n22.\n\n_L'Ordre du jour pour le Roi.--_The day commences: let us begin to\narrange for this day the business and f\u00eates of our most gracious lord,\nwho at present is still pleased to repose. His Majesty has bad weather\nto-day: we shall be careful not to call it bad; we shall not speak\nof the weather,--but we shall go through to-day's business somewhat\nmore ceremoniously and make the f\u00eates somewhat more festive than would\notherwise be necessary. His Majesty may perhaps even be sick: we shall\ngive the last good news of the evening at breakfast, the arrival of M.\nMontaigne, who knows how to joke so pleasantly about his sickness,--he\nsuffers from stone. We shall receive several persons (persons!--what\nwould that old inflated frog, who will be among them, say, if he heard\nthis word! \"I am no person,\" he would say, \"but always the thing\nitself\")--and the reception will last longer than is pleasant to\nanybody; a sufficient reason for telling about the poet who wrote over\nhis door, \"He who enters here will do me an honour; he who does not--a\nfavour.\"--That is, forsooth, saying a discourteous thing in a courteous\nmanner! And perhaps this poet is quite justified on his part in being\ndiscourteous; they say that his rhymes are better than the rhymester.\nWell, let him still make many of them, and withdraw himself as much\nas possible from the world: and that is doubtless the significance of\nhis well-bred rudeness! A prince, on the other hand, is always of more\nvalue than his \"verse,\" even when--but what are we about? We gossip,'\nand the whole court believes that we have already been at work and\nracked our brains: there is no light to be seen earlier than that which\nburns in our window.--Hark! Was that not the bell? The devil! The day\nand the dance commence, and we do not know our rounds! We must then\nimprovise,--all the world improvises its day. To-day, let us for once\ndo like all the world!--And therewith vanished my wonderful morning\ndream, probably owing to the violent strokes of the tower-clock, which\njust then announced the fifth hour with all the importance which is\npeculiar to it. It seems to me that on this occasion the God of dreams\nwanted to make merry over my habits,--it is my habit to commence the\nday by arranging it properly, to make it endurable _for myself_ and it\nis possible that I may often have done this too formally, and too much\nlike a prince.\n\n\n23.\n\n_The Characteristics of Corruption._--Let us observe the following\ncharacteristics in that condition of society from time to time\nnecessary, which is designated by the word \"corruption.\" Immediately\nupon the appearance of corruption anywhere, a motley _superstition_\ngets the upper hand, and the hitherto universal belief of a people\nbecomes colourless and impotent in comparison with it; for superstition\nis free-thinking of the second rank,--he who gives himself over\nto it selects certain forms and formul\u00e6 which appeal, to him, and\npermits himself a right of choice. The superstitious man is always\nmuch more of a \"person,\" in comparison with the religious man, and a\nsuperstitious society will be one in which there are many individuals,\nand a delight in individuality. Seen from this standpoint superstition\nalways appears as a _progress_ in comparison with belief, and as a\nsign that the intellect becomes more independent and claims to have\nits rights. Those who reverence the old religion and the religious\ndisposition then complain of corruption,--they have hitherto also\ndetermined the usage of language, and have given a bad repute to\nsuperstition, even among the freest spirits. Let us learn that it is a\nsymptom of _enlightenment._--Secondly, a society in which corruption\ntakes a hold is blamed for _effeminacy:_ for the appreciation of war,\nand the delight in war, perceptibly diminish in such a society, and\nthe conveniences of life are now just as eagerly sought after as were\nmilitary and gymnastic honours formerly. But one is accustomed to\noverlook the fact that the old national energy and national passion,\nwhich acquired a magnificent splendour in war and in the tourney, has\nnow transferred itself into innumerable private passions, and has\nmerely become less visible; indeed in periods of \"corruption\" the\nquantity and quality of the expended energy of a people is probably\ngreater than ever, and the individual spends it lavishly, to such an\nextent as could not be done formerly--he was not then rich enough to do\nso! And thus it is precisely in times of \"effeminacy\" that tragedy runs\nat large in and out of doors, it is then that ardent love and ardent\nhatred are born, and the flame of knowledge flashes heavenward in full\nblaze.--Thirdly, as if in amends for the reproach of superstition\nand effeminacy, it is customary to say of such periods of corruption\nthat they are milder, and that cruelty has then greatly diminished in\ncomparison with the older, more credulous, and stronger period. But to\nthis praise I am just as little able to assent as to that reproach: I\nonly grant so much--namely, that cruelty now becomes more refined, and\nits older forms are henceforth counter to the taste; but the wounding\nand torturing by word and look reaches its highest development in times\nof corruption,--it is now only that _wickedness_ is created, and the\ndelight in wickedness. The men of the period of corruption are witty\nand calumnious; they know that there are yet other ways of murdering\nthan by the dagger and the ambush--they know also that all that is\n_well said_ is believed in.--Fourthly, it is when \"morals decay\" that\nthose beings whom one calls tyrants first make their appearance; they\nare the forerunners of the _individual,_ and as it were early matured\n_firstlings._ Yet a little while, and this fruit of fruits hangs ripe\nand yellow on the tree of a people,--and only for the sake of such\nfruit did this tree exist! When the decay has reached its worst, and\nlikewise the conflict of all sorts of tyrants, there always arises the\nC\u00e6sar, the final tyrant, who puts an end to the exhausted struggle for\nsovereignty, by making the exhaustedness work for him. In his time\nthe individual is usually most mature, and consequently the \"culture\"\nis highest and most fruitful, but not on his account nor through him:\nalthough the men of highest culture love to flatter their C\u00e6sar by\npretending that they are _his_ creation. The truth, however, is that\nthey need quietness externally, because they have disquietude and\nlabour internally. In these times bribery and treason are at their\nheight: for the love of the _ego,_ then first discovered, is much more\npowerful than the love of the old, used-up, hackneyed \"father-land\";\nand the need to be secure in one way or other against the frightful\nfluctuations of fortune, opens even the nobler hands, as soon as a\nricher and more powerful person shows himself ready to put gold into\nthem. There is then so little certainty with regard to the future;\npeople live only for the day: a psychical condition which enables every\ndeceiver to play an easy game,--people of course only let themselves\nbe misled and bribed \"for the present,\" and reserve for themselves\nfuturity and virtue. The individuals, as is well known, the men who\nonly live for themselves, provide for the moment more than do their\nopposites, the gregarious men, because they consider themselves just\nas incalculable as the future; and similarly they attach themselves\nwillingly--to despots, because they believe themselves capable of\nactivities and expedients, which can neither reckon on being understood\nby the multitude, nor on finding favour with them--but the tyrant\nor the C\u00e6sar understands the rights of the individual even in his\nexcesses, and has an interest in speaking on behalf of a bolder private\nmorality, and even in giving his hand to it For he thinks of himself,\nand wishes people to think of him what Napoleon once uttered in his\nclassical style--\"I have the right to answer by an eternal 'thus I am'\nto everything about which complaint is brought against me. I am apart\nfrom all the world, I accept conditions from nobody. I wish people\nalso to submit to my fancies, and to take it quite as a simple matter,\nif I should indulge in this or that diversion.\" Thus spoke Napoleon\nonce to his wife, when she had reasons for calling in question the\nfidelity of her husband. The times of corruption are the seasons when\nthe apples fall from the tree: I mean the individuals, the seed-bearers\nof the future, the pioneers of spiritual colonisation, and of a new\nconstruction of national and social unions. Corruption is only an\nabusive term for the _harvest time_ of a people.\n\n\n24.\n\n_Different Dissatisfactions.--_The feeble and as it were feminine\ndissatisfied people, have ingenuity for beautifying and deepening life;\nthe strong dissatisfied people--the masculine persons among them to\ncontinue the metaphor--have ingenuity for improving and safeguarding\nlife. The former show their weakness and feminine character by\nwillingly letting themselves be temporarily deceived, and perhaps\neven by putting up with a little ecstasy and enthusiasm on a time,\nbut on the whole they are never to be satisfied, and suffer from the\nincurability of their dissatisfaction; moreover they are the patrons\nof all those who manage to concoct opiate and narcotic comforts,\nand on that account are averse to those who value the physician\nhigher than the priest,--they thereby encourage the _continuance_\nof actual distress! If there had not been a surplus of dissatisfied\npersons of this kind in Europe since the time of the Middle Ages,\nthe remarkable capacity of Europeans for constant _transformation_\nwould perhaps not have originated at all; for the claims of the\nstrong dissatisfied persons are too gross, and really too modest to\nresist being finally quieted down. China is an instance of a country\nin which dissatisfaction on a grand scale and the capacity for\ntransformation have died out for many centuries; and the Socialists\nand state-idolaters of Europe could easily bring things to Chinese\nconditions and to a Chinese \"happiness,\" with their measures for the\namelioration and security of life, provided that they could first of\nall root out the sicklier, tenderer, more feminine dissatisfaction\nand Romanticism which are still very abundant among us. Europe is an\ninvalid who owes her best thanks to her incurability and the eternal\ntransformations of her sufferings; these constant new situations,\nthese equally constant new dangers, pains, and make-shifts, have at\nlast generated an intellectual sensitiveness which is almost equal to\ngenius, and is in any case the mother of all genius.\n\n\n25.\n\n_Not Pre-ordained to Knowledge._--There is a pur-blind humility not\nat all rare, and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once for\nall disqualified for being a disciple of knowledge. It is this in\nfact: the moment a man of this kind perceives anything striking, he\nturns as it were on his heel and says to himself: \"You have deceived\nyourself! Where have your wits been! This cannot be the truth!\"--and\nthen, instead of looking at it and listening to it with more attention,\nhe runs out of the way of the striking object as if intimidated,\nand seeks to get it out of his head as quickly as possible. For his\nfundamental rule runs thus: \"I want to see nothing that contradicts\nthe usual opinion concerning things! Am _I_ created for the purpose of\ndiscovering new truths? There are already too many of the old ones.\"\n\n\n26.\n\n_What is Living?_--Living--that is to continually eliminate from\nourselves what is about to die; Living--that is to be cruel and\ninexorable towards all that becomes weak and old in ourselves and\nnot only in ourselves. Living--that means, there fore to be without\npiety toward the dying, the wrenched and the old? To be continually a\nmurderer?--And yet old Moses said: \"Thou shalt not kill!\"\n\n\n27.\n\n_The Self-Renouncer._--What does the self-renouncer do? He strives\nafter a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher\nthan all men of affirmation--he _throws away many things_ that\nwould impede his flight, and several things among them that are not\nvalueless, that are not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his\ndesire for elevation. Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the\nvery thing which becomes visible in him: on that account one calls him\na self-renouncer, and as such he stands before us, enveloped in his\ncowl, and as the soul of a hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which\nhe makes upon us he is well content: he wants to keep concealed from us\nhis desire, his pride, his intention of flying _above_ us.--Yes! He is\nwiser than we thought, and so courteous towards us--this affirmer! For\nthat is what he is, like us, even in his self-renunciation.\n\n\n28.\n\n_Injuring with ones best Qualities._--Out strong points sometimes drive\nus so far forward that we cannot any longer endure our weaknesses,\nand we perish by them: we also perhaps see this result beforehand,\nbut nevertheless do not want it to be otherwise. We then become hard\ntowards that which would fain be spared in us, and our pitilessness is\nalso our greatness. Such an experience, which must in the end cost us\nour Hie, is a symbol of the collective effect of great men upon others\nand upon their epoch:--it is just with their best abilities, with\nthat which only _they_ can do, that they destroy much that is weak,\nuncertain, evolving, and _willing,_ and are thereby injurious. Indeed,\nthe case may happen in which, taken on the whole, they only do injury,\nbecause their best is accepted and drunk up as it were solely by those\nwho lose their understanding and their egoism by it, as by too strong a\nbeverage; they become so intoxicated that they go breaking their limbs\non all the wrong roads where their drunkenness drives them.\n\n\n29.\n\n_Adventitious Liars._--When people began to combat the unity of\nAristotle in France, and consequently also to defend it, there was\nonce more to be seen that which has been seen so often, but seen\nso unwillingly:--_people imposed false reasons on themselves_ on\naccount of which those laws ought to exist, merely for the sake of\nnot acknowledging to themselves that they had _accustomed_ themselves\nto the authority of those laws, and did not want any longer to have\nthings otherwise. And people do so in every prevailing morality and\nreligion, and have always done so: the reasons and intentions behind\nthe habit, are only added surreptitiously when people begin to combat\nthe habit, and _ask_ for reasons and intentions. It is here that the\ngreat dishonesty of the conservatives of all times hides:--they are\nadventitious liars.\n\n\n30.\n\n_The Comedy of Celebrated Men.--_Celebrated men who _need_ their fame,\nas, for instance, all politicians, no longer select their associates\nand friends without fore-thought: from the one they want a portion\nof the splendour and reflection of his virtues; from the other they\nwant the fear-inspiring power of certain dubious qualities in him, of\nwhich everybody is aware; from another they steal his reputation for\nidleness and basking in the sun, because it is advantageous for their\nown ends to be regarded temporarily as heedless and lazy:--it conceals\nthe fact that they lie in ambush; they now use the visionaries, now\nthe experts, now the brooders, now the pedants in their neighbourhood,\nas their actual selves for the time; but very soon they do not need\nthem any longer! And thus while their environment and outside die off\ncontinually, everything seems to crowd into this environment, and\nwants to become a \"character\" of it; they are like great cities in\nthis respect. Their repute is continually in process of mutation, like\ntheir character, for their changing methods require this change, and\nthey show and _exhibit_ sometimes this and sometimes that actual or\nfictitious quality on the stage; their friends and associates, as we\nhave said, belong to these stage properties. On the other hand, that\nwhich they aim at must remain so much the more steadfast, and burnished\nand resplendent in the distance,--and this also sometimes needs its\ncomedy and its stage-play.\n\n\n31.\n\n_Commerce and Nobility._--Buying and selling is now regarded as\nsomething ordinary, like the art of reading and writing; everyone is\nnow trained to it even when he is not a tradesman exercising himself\ndaily in the art; precisely as formerly in the period of uncivilised\nhumanity, everyone was a hunter and exercised himself day by day in the\nart of hunting. Hunting was then something common: but just as this\nfinally became a privilege of the powerful and noble, and thereby lost\nthe character of the commonplace and the ordinary--by ceasing to be\nnecessary and by becoming an affair of fancy and luxury,--so it might\nbecome the same some day with buying and selling. Conditions of society\nare imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in\nwhich the necessity for this art will become quite lost; perhaps it\nmay then happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of\nthe prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling\nas a _luxury of sentiment. _ It is then only that commerce would\nacquire nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves\njust as readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and\npolitics: while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then\nhave entirely altered. Already even politics ceases to be the business\nof a gentleman; and it is possible that one day it may be found to\nbe so vulgar as to be brought, like all party literature and daily\nliterature, under the rubric: \"Prostitution of the intellect.\"\n\n\n32.\n\n_Undesirable Disciples._--What shall I do with these two youths! called\nout a philosopher dejectedly, who \"corrupted\" youths, as Socrates had\nonce corrupted them,--they are unwelcome disciples to me. One of them\ncannot say \"Nay,\" and the other says \"Half and half\" to everything.\nProvided they grasped my doctrine, the former would _suffer_ too much,\nfor my mode of thinking requires a martial soul, willingness to cause\npain, delight in denying, and a hard skin,--he would succumb by open\nwounds and internal injuries. And the other will choose the mediocre in\neverything he represents, and thus make a mediocrity of the whole,--I\nshould like my enemy to have such a disciple.\n\n\n33.\n\n_Outside the Lecture-room._--\"In order to prove that man after all\nbelongs to the good-natured animals, I would remind you how credulous\nhe has been for so long a time. It is now only, quite late, and\nafter an immense self-conquest, that he has become a _distrustful_\nanimal,--yes! man is now more wicked than ever.\"--I do not understand\nthis; why should man now be more distrustful and more wicked?--\"Because\nnow he has science,--because he needs to have it!\"--\n\n\n34.\n\n_Historia abscondita._--Every great man has a power which operates\nbackward; all history is again placed on the scales on his\naccount, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their\nlurking-places--into _his_ sunlight. There is absolutely no knowing\nwhat history may be some day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in\nits essence! There is yet so much reinterpreting ability needed!\n\n\n35.\n\n_Heresy and Witchcraft._--To think otherwise than is customary--that is\nby no means so much the activity of a better intellect, as the activity\nof strong, wicked inclinations,--severing, isolating, refractory,\nmischief-loving, malicious inclinations. Heresy is the counterpart of\nwitchcraft, and is certainly just as little a merely harmless affair,\nor a thing worthy of honour in itself. Heretics and sorcerers are two\nkinds of bad men; they have it in common that they also feel themselves\nwicked; their unconquerable delight is to attack and injure whatever\nrules,--whether it be men or opinions. The Reformation, a kind of\nduplication of the spirit of the Middle Ages at a time when it had no\nlonger a good conscience, produced both of these kinds of people in the\ngreatest profusion.\n\n\n36.\n\n_Last Words._-It will be recollected that the Emperor Augustus, that\nterrible man, who had himself as much in his own power and could be\nsilent as well as any wise Socrates, became indiscreet about himself in\nhis last words; for the first time he let his mask fall, when he gave\nto understand that he had carried a mask and played a comedy,--he had\nplayed the father of his country and wisdom on the throne well, even to\nthe point of illusion! _Plaudite amid, com\u0153dia finita est!--_The\nthought of the dying Nero: _qualis artifex pereo!_ was also the thought\nof the dying Augustus: histrionic conceit! histrionic loquacity!\nAnd the very counterpart to the dying Socrates!--But Tiberius died\nsilently, that most tortured of all self-torturers,--_he_ was _genuine_\nand not a stage-player! What may have passed through his head in the\nend! Perhaps this: \"Life--that is a long death. I am a fool, who\nshortened the lives of so many! Was _I_ created for the purpose of\nbeing a benefactor? I should have given them eternal life: and then I\ncould have _seen them dying_ eternally. I had such good eyes _for that:\nqualis spectator pereo!_\" When he seemed once more to regain his powers\nafter a long death-struggle, it was considered advisable to smother him\nwith pillows,--he died a double death.\n\n\n37.\n\n_Owing to three Errors._--Science has been furthered during recent\ncenturies, partly because it was hoped that God's goodness and wisdom\nwould be best understood therewith and thereby--the principal motive in\nthe soul of great Englishmen (like Newton); partly because the absolute\nutility of knowledge was believed in, and especially the most intimate\nconnection of morality, knowledge, and happiness--the principal motive\nin the soul of great Frenchmen (like Voltaire); and partly because it\nwas thought that in science there was something unselfish, harmless,\nself-sufficing, lovable, and truly innocent to be had, in which the\nevil human impulses did not at all participate--the principal motive in\nthe soul of Spinoza, who felt himself divine, as a knowing being:--it\nis consequently owing to three errors that science has been furthered.\n\n\n38.\n\n_Explosive People._--When one considers how ready are the forces of\nyoung men for discharge, one does not wonder at seeing them decide\nso uncritically and with so little selection for this or that cause:\n_that_ which attracts them is the sight of eagerness for a cause, as\nit were the sight of the burning match--not the cause itself. The more\ningenious seducers on that account operate by holding out the prospect\nof an explosion to such persons, and do not urge their cause by means\nof reasons; these powder-barrels are not won over by means of reasons!\n\n\n39.\n\n_Altered Taste._--The alteration of the general taste is more important\nthan the alteration of opinions; opinions, with all their proving,\nrefuting, and intellectual masquerade, are merely symptoms of altered\ntaste, and are certainly _not_ what they are still so often claimed to\nbe, the causes of the altered taste. How does the general taste alter?\nBy the fact of individuals, the powerful and influential persons,\nexpressing and tyrannically enforcing without any feeling of shame,\n_their hoc est ridiculum, hoc est absurdum;_ the decisions, therefore,\nof their taste and their disrelish:--they thereby lay a constraint upon\nmany people, out of which there gradually grows a habituation for still\nmore, and finally a _necessity for all._ The fact, however, that these\nindividuals feel and \"taste\" differently, has usually its origin in a\npeculiarity of their mode of life, nourishment, or digestion, perhaps\nin a surplus or deficiency of the inorganic salts in their blood and\nbrain, in short in their _physis;_ they have, however, the courage to\navow their physical constitution, and to lend an ear even to the most\ndelicate tones of its requirements: their \u00e6sthetic and moral judgments\nare those \"most delicate tones\" of their _physis._\n\n\n40.\n\n_The Lack of a noble Presence._--Soldiers and their leaders have always\na much higher mode of comportment toward one another than workmen\nand their employers. At present at least, all militarily established\ncivilisation still stands high above all so-called industrial\ncivilisation; the latter, in its present form, is in general the\nmeanest mode of existence that has ever been. It is simply the law\nof necessity that operates here: people want to live, and have to\nsell themselves; but they despise him who exploits their necessity\nand _purchases_ the workman. It is curious that the subjection to\npowerful, fear-inspiring, and even dreadful individuals, to tyrants and\nleaders of armies, is not at all felt so painfully as the subjection\nto such undistinguished and uninteresting persons as the captains of\nindustry; in the employer the workman usually sees merely a crafty,\nblood-sucking dog of a man, speculating on every necessity, whose name,\nform, character, and reputation are altogether indifferent to him.\nIt is probable that the manufacturers and great magnates of commerce\nhave hitherto lacked too much all those forms and attributes of a\n_superior race,_ which alone make persons interesting; if they had\nhad the nobility of the nobly-born in their looks and bearing, there\nwould perhaps have been no socialism in the masses of the people. For\nthese are really ready for _slavery_ of every kind, provided that\nthe superior class above them constantly shows itself legitimately\nsuperior, and _born_ to command--by its noble presence! The commonest\nman feels that nobility is not to be improvised, and that it is his\npart to honour it as the fruit of protracted race-culture,--but\nthe absence of superior presence, and the notorious vulgarity of\nmanufacturers with red, fat hands, brings up the thought to him that\nit is only chance and fortune that has here elevated the one above the\nother; well then--so he reasons with himself--let _us_ in our turn\ntempt chance and fortune! Let us in our turn throw the dice!--and\nsocialism commences.\n\n\n41.\n\n_Against Remorse.--_The thinker sees in his own actions attempts and\nquestionings to obtain information about something or other; success\nand failure are _answers_ to him first and foremost. To vex himself,\nhowever, because something does not succeed, or to feel remorse at\nall--he leaves that to those who act because they are commanded to\ndo so, and expect to get a beating when their gracious master is not\nsatisfied with the result.\n\n\n42.\n\n_Work and Ennui_--In respect to seeking work for the sake of the pay,\nalmost all men are alike at present in civilised countries; to all of\nthem work is a means, and not itself the end; on which account they\nare not very select in the choice of the work, provided it yields\nan abundant profit. But still there are rarer men who would rather\nperish than work without _delight_ in their labour: the fastidious\npeople, difficult to satisfy, whose object is not served by an abundant\nprofit, unless the work itself be the reward of all rewards. Artists\nand contemplative men of all kinds belong to this rare species of\nhuman beings; and also the idlers who spend their life in hunting and\ntravelling, or in love-affairs and adventures. They all seek toil and\ntrouble in so far as these are associated with pleasure, and they want\nthe severest and hardest labour, if it be necessary. In other respects,\nhowever, they have a resolute indolence, even should impoverishment,\ndishonour, and danger to health and life be associated therewith.\nThey are not so much afraid of ennui as of labour without pleasure;\nindeed they require much ennui, if _their_ work is to succeed with\nthem. For the thinker and for all inventive spirits ennui is the\nunpleasant \"calm\" of the soul which precedes the happy voyage and\nthe dancing breezes; he must endure it, he must _await_ the effect it\nhas on him:--it is precisely _this_ which lesser natures cannot at\nall experience! It is common to scare away ennui in every way, just\nas it is common to labour without pleasure. It perhaps distinguishes\nthe Asiatics above the Europeans, that they are capable of a longer\nand profounder repose; even their narcotics operate slowly and require\npatience, in contrast to the obnoxious suddenness of the European\npoison, alcohol.\n\n\n43.\n\n_What the Laws Betray._--One makes a great mistake when one studies\nthe penal laws of a people, as if they were an expression of its\ncharacter; the laws do not betray what a people is, but what appears\nto them foreign, strange, monstrous, and outlandish. The laws concern\nthemselves with the exceptions to the morality of custom; and the\nseverest punishments fall on acts which conform to the customs of the\nneighbouring peoples. Thus among the Wahabites, there are only two\nmortal sins: having another God than the Wahabite God, and--smoking\n(it is designated by them as \"the disgraceful kind of drinking\"). \"And\nhow is it with regard to murder and adultery?\"-asked the Englishman\nwith astonishment on learning these things. \"Well, God is gracious\nand pitiful!\" answered the old chief.--Thus among the ancient Romans\nthere was the idea that a woman could only sin mortally in two ways: by\nadultery on the one hand, and--by wine-drinking on the other. Old Cato\npretended that kissing among relatives had only been made a custom in\norder to keep women in control on this point; a kiss meant: did her\nbreath smell of wine? Wives had actually been punished by death who\nwere surprised taking wine: and certainly not merely because women\nunder the influence of wine sometimes unlearn altogether the art of\nsaying No; the Romans were afraid above all things of the orgiastic and\nDionysian spirit with which the women of Southern Europe at that time\n(when wine was still new in Europe) were sometimes visited, as by a\nmonstrous foreignness which subverted the basis of Roman sentiments; it\nseemed to them treason against Rome, as the embodiment of foreignness.\n\n\n44.\n\n_The Believed Motive._--However important it may be to know the motives\naccording to which mankind has really acted hitherto, perhaps the\n_belief_ in this or that motive, and therefore that which mankind\nhas assumed and imagined to be the actual mainspring of its activity\nhitherto, is something still more essential for the thinker to know.\nFor the internal happiness and misery of men have always come to them\nthrough their belief in this or that motive,--_not_ however, through\nthat which was actually the motive! All about the latter has an\ninterest of secondary rank.\n\n\n45.\n\n_Epicurus._--Yes, I am proud of perceiving the character of Epicurus\ndifferently from anyone else perhaps, and of enjoying the happiness\nof the afternoon of antiquity in all that I hear and read of him:--I\nsee his eye gazing out on a broad whitish sea, over the shore-rocks\non which the sunshine rests, while great and small creatures play\nin its light, secure and calm like this light and that eye itself.\nSuch happiness could only have been devised by a chronic sufferer,\nthe happiness of an eye before which the sea of existence has become\ncalm, and which can no longer tire of gazing at the surface and at the\nvariegated, tender, tremulous skin of this sea. Never previously was\nthere such a moderation of voluptuousness.\n\n\n46.\n\n_Our Astonishment--_There is a profound and fundamental satisfaction\nin the fact that science ascertains things that _hold their ground,_\nand again furnish the basis for new researches:--it could certainly be\notherwise. Indeed, we are so much convinced of all the uncertainty and\ncaprice of our judgments, and of the everlasting change of all human\nlaws and conceptions, that we are really astonished _how persistently_\nthe results of science hold their ground! In earlier times people\nknew nothing of this changeability of all human things; the custom of\nmorality maintained the belief that the whole inner life of man was\nbound to iron necessity by eternal fetters:--perhaps people then felt a\nsimilar voluptuousness of astonishment when they listened to tales and\nfairy stories. The wonderful did so much good to those men, who might\nwell get tired sometimes of the regular and the eternal. To leave the\nground for once! To soar! To stray! To be mad!--that belonged to the\nparadise and the revelry of earlier times; while our felicity is like\nthat of the shipwrecked man who has gone ashore, and places himself\nwith both feet on the old, firm ground--in astonishment that it does\nnot rock.\n\n\n47.\n\n_The Suppression of the Passions._--When one continually prohibits\nthe expression of the passions as something to be left to the\n\"vulgar,\" to coarser, bourgeois, and peasant natures--that is, when\none does not want to suppress the passions themselves, but only their\nlanguage and demeanour, one nevertheless realises _therewith_ just\nwhat one does not want: the suppression of the passions themselves,\nor at least their weakening and alteration,--as the court of Louis\nXIV. (to cite the most instructive instance), and all that was\ndependent on it, experienced. The generation _that followed,_ trained\nin suppressing their expression, no longer possessed the passions\nthemselves, but had a pleasant, superficial, playful disposition in\ntheir place,--a generation which was so permeated with the incapacity\nto be ill-mannered, that even an injury was not taken and retaliated,\nexcept with courteous words. Perhaps our own time furnishes the most\nremarkable counterpart to this period: I see everywhere (in life, in\nthe theatre, and not least in all that is written) satisfaction at all\nthe _coarser_ outbursts and gestures of passion; a certain convention\nof passionateness is now desired,--only not the passion itself!\nNevertheless _it_ will thereby be at last reached, and our posterity\nwill have a _genuine savagery,_ and not merely a formal savagery and\nunmannerliness.\n\n\n48.\n\n_Knowledge of Distress.--_Perhaps there is nothing by which men and\nperiods are so much separated from one another, as by the different\ndegrees of knowledge of distress which they possess; distress of the\nsoul as well as of the body. With respect to the latter, owing to lack\nof sufficient self-experience, we men of the present day (in spite of\nour deficiencies and infirmities), are perhaps all of us blunderers and\nvisionaries in comparison with the men of the age of fear--the longest\nof all ages,--when the individual had to protect himself against\nviolence, and for that purpose had to be a man of violence himself. At\nthat time a man went through a long schooling of corporeal tortures and\nprivations, and found even in a certain kind of cruelty toward himself,\nin a voluntary use of pain, a necessary means for his preservation;\nat that time a person trained his environment to the endurance of\npain; at that time a person willingly inflicted pain, and saw the most\nfrightful things of this kind happen to others without having any\nother feeling than for his own security. As regards the distress of\nthe soul however, I now look at every man with respect to whether he\nknows it by experience or by description; whether he still regards it\nas necessary to simulate this knowledge, perhaps as an indication of\nmore refined culture; or whether, at the bottom of his heart, he does\nnot at all believe in great sorrows of soul, and at the naming of them\ncalls to mind a similar experience as at the naming of great corporeal\nsufferings, such as tooth-aches, and stomach-aches. It is thus,\nhowever, that it seems to be with most people at present. Owing to\nthe universal inexperience of both kinds of pain, and the comparative\nrarity of the spectacle of a sufferer, an important consequence\nresults: people now hate pain far more than earlier man did, and\ncalumniate it worse than ever; indeed people nowadays can hardly endure\nthe _thought_ of pain, and make out of it an affair of conscience and\na reproach to collective existence. The appearance of pessimistic\nphilosophies is not at all the sign of great and dreadful miseries; for\nthese interrogative marks regarding the worth of life appear in periods\nwhen the refinement and alleviation of existence already deem the\nunavoidable gnat-stings of the soul and body as altogether too bloody\nand wicked; and in the poverty of actual experiences of pain, would now\nlike to make _painful general ideas_ appear as suffering of the worst\nkind.--There might indeed be a remedy for pessimistic philosophies and\nthe excessive sensibility which seems to me the real \"distress of the\npresent\":--but perhaps this remedy already sounds too cruel, and would\nitself be reckoned among the symptoms owing to which people at present\nconclude that \"existence is something evil.\" Well! the remedy for \"the\ndistress\" is _distress._\n\n\n49.\n\n_Magnanimity and allied Qualities.--_Those paradoxical phenomena,\nsuch as the sudden coldness in the demeanour of good-natured men, the\nhumour of the melancholy, and above all _magnanimity,_ as a sudden\nrenunciation of revenge or of the gratification of envy--appear\nin men in whom there is a powerful inner impulsiveness, in men of\nsudden satiety and sudden disgust. Their satisfactions are so rapid\nand violent that satiety, aversion and flight into the antithetical\ntaste, immediately follow upon them: in this contrast the convulsion\nof feeling liberates itself, in one person by sudden coldness, in\nanother by laughter, and in a third by tear and self-sacrifice. The\nmagnanimous person appears to me--at least that kind of magnanimous\nperson who has always made most impression--as a man with the strongest\nthirst for vengeance, to whom a gratification presents itself close at\nhand, and who _already_ drinks it off _in imagination_ so copiously,\nthoroughly, and to the last drop, that an excessive, rapid disgust\nfollows this rapid licentiousness;--he now elevates himself \"above\nhimself,\" as one says, and forgives his enemy, yea, blesses and honours\nhim. With this violence done to himself, however, with this mockery\nof his impulse to revenge, even still so powerful he merely yields\nto the new impulse, the disgust which has become powerful, and does\nthis just as impatiently and licentiously, as a short time previously\nhe _forestalled,_ and as it were exhausted, the joy of revenge with\nhis fantasy. In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in\nrevenge, but a different quality of egoism.\n\n\n50.\n\n_The Argument of Isolation._--The reproach of conscience, even in the\nmost conscientious, is weak against the feeling: \"This and that are\ncontrary to the good morals of _your_ society.\" A cold glance or a\nwry mouth on the part of those among whom and for whom one has been\neducated, is still _feared_ even by the strongest. What is really\nfeared there? Isolation! as the argument which demolishes even the\nbest arguments for a person or cause!--It is thus that the gregarious\ninstinct speaks in us.\n\n\n51.\n\n_Sense for Truth.--_Commend me to all scepticism where I am permitted\nto answer: \"Let us put it to the test!\" But I don't wish to hear\nanything more of things and questions which do not admit of being\ntested. That is the limit of my \"sense for truth\": for bravery has\nthere lost its right.\n\n\n52.\n\n_What others Know of us.--_That which we know of ourselves and have\nin our memory is not so decisive for the happiness of our life as is\ngenerally believed. One day it flashes upon our mind what _others_ know\nof us (or think they know)--and then we acknowledge that it is the more\npowerful. We get on with our bad conscience more easily than with our\nbad reputation.\n\n\n53.\n\n_Where Goodness Begins.--_Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil\nimpulse as such, on account of its refinement,--there man sets up the\nkingdom of goodness; and the feeling of having now gone over into the\nkingdom of goodness brings all those impulses (such as the feelings\nof security, of comfortableness, of benevolence) into simultaneous\nactivity, which were threatened and confined by the evil impulses.\nConsequently, the duller the eye so much the further does goodness\nextend! Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the populace and of children!\nHence the gloominess and grief (allied to the bad conscience) of great\nthinkers.\n\n\n54.\n\n_The Consciousness of Appearance.--_How wonderfully and novelly, and\nat the same time how awfully and ironically, do I feel myself situated\nwith respect to collective existence, with my knowledge! I have\n_discovered_ for myself that the old humanity and animality, yea, the\ncollective primeval age, and the past of all sentient being, continues\nto meditate, love, hate, and reason in me,--I have suddenly awoke in\nthe midst of this dream, but merely to the consciousness that I just\ndream, and that I _must_ dream on in order not to perish; just as\nthe sleep-walker must dream on in order not to tumble down. What is\nit that is now \"appearance\" to me! Verily, not the antithesis of any\nkind of essence,--what knowledge can I assert of any kind of essence\nwhatsoever, except merely the predicates of its appearance! Verily\nnot a dead mask which one could put upon an unknown X, and which to\nbe sure one could also remove! Appearance is for me the operating\nand living thing itself; which goes so far in its self-mockery as to\nmake me feel that here there is appearance, and Will o' the Wisp, and\nspirit-dance, and nothing more,--that among all these dreamers, I\nalso, the \"thinker,\" dance my dance, that the thinker is a means of\nprolonging further the terrestrial dance, and in so far is one of the\nmasters of ceremony of existence, and that the sublime consistency\nand connectedness of all branches of knowledge is perhaps, and will\nperhaps, be the best means for _maintaining_ the universality of the\ndreaming, the complete, mutual understandability of all those dreamers,\nand thereby _the duration of the dream_.\n\n\n55.\n\n_The Ultimate Nobility of Character._--What then makes a person\n\"noble\"? Certainly not that he makes sacrifices; even the frantic\nlibertine makes sacrifices. Certainly not that he generally follows\nhis passions; there are contemptible passions. Certainly not that\nhe does something for others, and without selfishness; perhaps the\neffect of selfishness is precisely at its greatest in the noblest\npersons.--But that the passion which seizes the noble man is a\npeculiarity, without his knowing that it is so: the use of a rare\nand singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy: the feeling of heat in\nthings which feel cold to all other persons: a divining of values\nfor which scales have not yet been invented: a sacrificing on altars\nwhich are consecrated to an unknown God: a bravery without the desire\nfor honour: a self-sufficiency which has superabundance, and imparts\nto men and things. Hitherto, therefore, it has been the rare in man,\nand the unconsciousness of this rareness, that has made men noble.\nHere, however, let us consider that everything ordinary, immediate,\nand indispensable, in short, what has been most preservative of the\nspecies, and generally the _rule_ in mankind hitherto, has been judged\nunreasonable and calumniated in its entirety by this standard, in\nfavour of the exceptions. To become the advocate of the rule--that\nmay perhaps be: the ultimate form and refinement in which nobility of\ncharacter will reveal itself on earth.\n\n\n56.\n\n_The Desire for Suffering._--When I think of the desire to do\nsomething, how it continually tickles and stimulates millions of\nyoung Europeans, who cannot endure themselves and all their ennui,--I\nconceive that there must be a desire in them to suffer something,\nin order to derive from their suffering a worthy motive for acting,\nfor doing something. Distress is necessary! Hence the cry of the\npoliticians, hence the many false trumped-up, exaggerated \"states of\ndistress\" of all possible kinds, and the blind readiness to believe in\nthem. This young world desires that there should arrive or appear _from\nthe outside--not_ happiness--but misfortune; and their imagination is\nalready busy beforehand to form a monster out of it, so that they may\nafterwards be able to fight with a monster. If these distress-seekers\nfelt the power to benefit themselves, to do something for themselves\nfrom internal sources, they would also understand how to create a\ndistress of their own, specially their own, from internal sources.\nTheir inventions might then be more refined, and their gratifications\nmight sound like good music: while at present they fill the world with\ntheir cries of distress, and consequently too often with the _feeling\nof distress_ in the first place! They do not know what to make of\nthemselves--and so they paint the misfortune of others on the wall;\nthey always need others! And always again other others!--Pardon me, my\nfriends, I have ventured to paint my _happiness_ on the wall.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK SECOND\n\n\n57.\n\n_To the Realists._--Ye sober beings, who feel yourselves armed against\npassion and fantasy, and would gladly make a pride and an ornament out\nof your emptiness, ye call yourselves realists, and give to understand\nthat the world is actually constituted as it appears to you; before\nyou alone reality stands unveiled, and ye yourselves would perhaps\nbe the best part of it,--oh, ye dear images of Sais! But are not ye\nalso in your unveiled condition still extremely passionate and dusky\nbeings compared with the fish, and still all too like an enamoured\nartist?[1]--and what is \"reality\" to an enamoured artist! Ye still\ncarry about with you the valuations of things which had their origin\nin the passions and infatuations of earlier centuries! There is still\na secret and ineffaceable drunkenness embodied in your sobriety! Your\nlove of \"reality,\" for example--oh, that is an old, primitive \"love\"!\nIn every feeling, in every sense-impression, there is a portion of\nthis old love: and similarly also some kind of fantasy, prejudice,\nirrationality, ignorance, fear, and whatever else has become mingled\nand woven into it. There is that mountain! There is that cloud! What\nis \"real\" in them? Remove the phantasm and the whole human _element_\ntherefrom, ye sober ones! Yes, if ye could do _that!_ If ye could\nforget your origin, your past, your preparatory schooling,--your whole\nhistory as man and beast! There is no \"reality\" for us--nor for you\neither, ye sober ones,--we are far from being so alien to one another\nas ye suppose; and perhaps our good-will to get beyond drunkenness is\njust as respectable as your belief that ye are altogether _incapable_\nof drunkenness.\n\n\n[1] Schiller's poem, \"The Veiled Image of Sais,\" is again referred to\nhere.--TR.\n\n\n58.\n\n_Only as Creators!_--It has caused me the greatest trouble, and for\never causes me the greatest trouble, to perceive that unspeakably more\ndepends upon _what things are called,_ than on what they are. The\nreputation, the name and appearance, the importance, the usual measure\nand weight of things--each being in origin most frequently an error and\narbitrariness thrown over the things like a garment, and quite alien\nto their essence and even to their exterior--have gradually, by the\nbelief therein and its continuous growth from generation to generation,\ngrown as it were on-and-into things and become their very body; the\nappearance at the very beginning becomes almost always the essence in\nthe end, and _operates_ as the essence! What a fool he would be who\nwould think it enough to refer here to this origin and this nebulous\nveil of illusion, in order to _annihilate_ that which virtually passes\nfor the world--namely, so-called \"reality\"! It is only as creators\nthat we can annihilate!--But let us not forget this: it suffices to\ncreate new names and valuations and probabilities, in order in the long\nrun to create new \"things.\"\n\n\n59.\n\n_We Artists!_--When we love a woman we have readily a hatred against\nnature, on recollecting all the disagreeable natural functions to\nwhich every woman is subject; we prefer not to think of them at all,\nbut if once our soul touches on these things it twitches impatiently,\nand glances, as we have said, contemptuously at nature:--we are hurt;\nnature seems to encroach upon our possessions, and with the profanest\nhands. We then shut our ears against all physiology, and we decree in\nsecret that \"we will hear nothing of the fact that man is something\nelse than _soul and form!\"_ \"The man under the skin\" is an abomination\nand monstrosity, a blasphemy of God and of love to all lovers.--Well,\njust as the lover still feels with respect to nature and natural\nfunctions, so did every worshipper of God and his \"holy omnipotence\"\nfeel formerly: in all that was said of nature by astronomers,\ngeologists, physiologists, and physicians, he saw an encroachment on\nhis most precious possession, and consequently an attack,--and moreover\nalso an impertinence of the assailant! The \"law of nature\" sounded to\nhim as blasphemy against God; in truth he would too willingly have\nseen the whole of mechanics traced back to moral acts of volition and\narbitrariness:--but because nobody could render him this service,\nhe _concealed_ nature and mechanism from himself as best he could,\nand lived in a dream. Oh, those men of former times understood how to\n_dream,_ and did not need first to go to sleep!--and we men of the\npresent day also still understand it too well, with all our good-will\nfor wakefulness and daylight! It suffices to love, to hate, to desire,\nand in general to feel _immediately_ the spirit and the power of the\ndream come over us, and we ascend, with open eyes and indifferent\nto all danger, the most dangerous paths, to the roofs and towers of\nfantasy, and without any giddiness, as persons born for climbing--we\nthe night-walkers by day! We artists! We concealers of naturalness! We\nmoon-struck and God-struck ones! We death-silent, untiring wanderers\non heights which we do not see as heights, but as our plains, as our\nplaces of safety!\n\n\n60.\n\n_Women and their Effect in the Distance._--Have I still ears? Am I\nonly ear, and nothing else besides? Here I stand in the midst of the\nsurging of the breakers, whose white flames fork up to my feet;--from\nall sides there is howling, threatening, crying, and screaming at me,\nwhile in the lowest depths the old earth-shaker sings his aria hollow\nlike a roaring bull; he beats such an earth-shaker's measure thereto,\nthat even the hearts of these weathered rock-monsters tremble at the\nsound. Then, suddenly, as if born out of nothingness, there appears\nbefore the portal of this hellish labyrinth, only a few fathoms\ndistant,--a great sailing-ship gliding silently along like a ghost. Oh,\nthis ghostly beauty! With what enchantment it seizes me! What? Has all\nthe repose and silence in the world embarked here? Does my happiness\nitself sit in this quiet place, my happier ego, my second immortalised\nself? Still not dead, but also no longer living? As a ghost-like,\ncalm, gazing, gliding, sweeping, neutral being? Similar to the ship,\nwhich, with its white sails, like an immense butterfly, passes over\nthe dark sea! Yes! Passing _over_ existence! That is it! That would be\nit!--It seems that the noise here has made me a visionary? All great\nnoise causes one to place happiness in the calm and the distance. When\na man is in the midst of _his_ hubbub, in the midst of the breakers\nof his plots and plans, he there sees perhaps calm, enchanting beings\nglide past him, for whose happiness and retirement he longs--_they are\nwomen._ He almost thinks that there with the women dwells his better\nself; that in these calm places even the loudest breakers become still\nas death, and life itself a dream of life. But still! but still! my\nnoble enthusiast, there is also in the most beautiful sailing-ship so\nmuch noise and bustling, and alas, so much petty, pitiable bustling!\nThe enchantment and the most powerful effect of women is, to use\nthe language of philosophers, an effect at a distance, an _actio\nin distans;_ there belongs thereto, however, primarily and above\nall,--_distance!_\n\n\n6l.\n\n_In Honour of Friendship._--That the sentiment of friendship was\nregarded by antiquity as the highest sentiment, higher even than the\nmost vaunted pride of the self-sufficient and wise, yea, as it were its\nsole and still holier brotherhood, is very well expressed by the story\nof the Macedonian king who made the present of a talent to a cynical\nAthenian philosopher from whom he received it back again. \"What?\"\nsaid the king, \"has he then no friend?\" He therewith meant to say, \"I\nhonour this pride of the wise and independent man, but I should have\nhonoured his humanity still higher, if the friend in him had gained\nthe victory over his pride. The philosopher has lowered himself in my\nestimation, for he showed that he did not know one of the two highest\nsentiments--and in fact the higher of them!\"\n\n\n62.\n\n_Love.--_Love pardons even the passion of the beloved.\n\n\n63.\n\n_Woman in Music--How_ does it happen that warm and rainy winds bring\nthe musical mood and the inventive delight in melody with them? Are\nthey not the same winds that fill the churches and give women amorous\nthoughts?\n\n\n64.\n\n_Sceptics._--I fear that women who have grown old are more sceptical in\nthe secret recesses of their hearts than any of the men; they believe\nin the superficiality of existence as in its essence, and all virtue\nand profundity is to them only the disguising of this \"truth,\" the very\ndesirable disguising of a _pudendum,_--an affair, therefore, of decency\nand modesty, and nothing more!\n\n\n65.\n\n_Devotedness._--There are noble women with a certain poverty of spirit,\nwho, in order to _express_ their profoundest devotedness, have no other\nalternative but to offer their virtue and modesty: it is the highest\nthing they have. And this present is often accepted without putting the\nrecipient under such deep obligation as the giver supposed,--a very\nmelancholy story!\n\n\n66.\n\n_The Strength of the Weak.--_Women are all skilful in exaggerating\ntheir weaknesses, indeed they are inventive in weaknesses, so as to\nseem quite fragile ornaments to which even a grain of dust does harm;\ntheir existence is meant to bring home to man's mind his coarseness,\nand to appeal to his conscience. They thus defend themselves against\nthe strong and all \"rights of might.\"\n\n\n67.\n\n_Self-dissembling._--She loves him now and has since been looking\nforth with as quiet confidence as a cow; but alas! It was precisely\nhis delight that she seemed so fitful and absolutely incomprehensible!\nHe had rather too much steady weather in himself already! Would she\nnot do well to feign her old character? to feign indifference? Does\nnot--love itself advise her _to do so? Vivat com\u0153dia!_\n\n\n68.\n\n_Will and Willingness._--Some one brought a youth to a wise man,\nand said, \"See, this is one who is being corrupted by women!\" The\nwise man shook his head and smiled. \"It is men,\" he called out, \"who\ncorrupt women; and everything that women lack should be atoned for\nand improved in men--for man creates for himself the ideal of woman,\nand woman moulds herself according to this ideal.\"--\"You are too\ntender-hearted towards women,\" said one of the bystanders, \"you do not\nknow them!\" The wise man answered: \"Man's attribute is will, woman's\nattribute is willingness--such is the law of the sexes, verily! a\nhard law for woman! All human beings are innocent of their existence,\nwomen, however, are doubly innocent; who could have enough of salve\nand gentleness for them!\"--\"What about salve! What about gentleness!\"\ncalled out another person in the crowd, \"we must educate women\nbetter!\"--\"We must educate men better,\" said the wise man, and made a\nsign to the youth to follow him.--The youth, however, did not follow\nhim.\n\n\n69.\n\n_Capacity for Revenge--_That a person cannot and consequently will not\ndefend himself, does not yet cast disgrace upon him in our eyes; but\nwe despise the person who has neither the ability nor the good-will\nfor revenge--whether it be a man or a woman. Would a woman be able to\ncaptivate us (or, as people say, to \"fetter\" us) whom we did not credit\nwith knowing how to employ the dagger (any kind of dagger) skilfully\n_against us_ under certain circumstances? Or against herself; which in\na certain case might be the severest revenge (the Chinese revenge).\n\n\n70.\n\n_The Mistresses of the Masters--_A powerful contralto voice, as\nwe occasionally hear it in the theatre, raises suddenly for us the\ncurtain on possibilities in which we usually do not believe; all at\nonce we are convinced that somewhere in the world there may be women\nwith high, heroic, royal souls, capable and prepared for magnificent\nremonstrances, resolutions, and self-sacrifices, capable and prepared\nfor domination over men, because in them the best in man, superior to\nsex, has become a corporeal ideal. To be sure, it is not the intention\nof the theatre that such voices should give such a conception of women;\nthey are usually intended to represent the ideal male lover, for\nexample, a Romeo; but, to judge by my experience, the theatre regularly\nmiscalculates here, and the musician also, who expects such effects\nfrom such a voice. People do not believe in _these_ lovers; these\nvoices still contain a tinge of the motherly and housewifely character,\nand most of all when love is in their tone.\n\n\n71.\n\n_On Female Chastity.--_There is something quite astonishing and\nextraordinary in the education of women of the higher class; indeed,\nthere is perhaps nothing more paradoxical. All the world is agreed\nto educate them with as much ignorance as possible _in eroticis,_\nand to inspire their soul with a profound shame of such things, and\nthe extremest impatience and horror at the suggestion of them. It is\nreally here only that all the \"honour\" of woman is at stake; what would\none not forgive them in other respects! But here they are intended\nto remain ignorant to the very backbone:--they are intended to have\nneither eyes, ears, words, nor thoughts for this, their \"wickedness\";\nindeed knowledge here is already evil. And then! To be hurled as with\nan awful thunderbolt into reality and knowledge with marriage--and\nindeed by him whom they most love and esteem: to have to encounter love\nand shame in contradiction, yea, to have to feel rapture, abandonment,\nduty, sympathy, and fright at the unexpected proximity of God and\nanimal, and whatever else besides! all at once!--There, in fact, a\npsychic entanglement has been effected which is quite unequalled!\nEven the sympathetic curiosity of the wisest discerner of men does\nnot suffice to divine how this or that woman gets along with the\nsolution of this enigma and the enigma of this solution; what dreadful,\nfar-reaching suspicions must awaken thereby in the poor unhinged soul;\nand forsooth, how the ultimate philosophy and scepticism of the woman\ncasts anchor at this point!--Afterwards the same profound silence as\nbefore and often even a silence to herself, a shutting of her eyes to\nherself.--Young wives on that account make great efforts to appear\nsuperficial and thoughtless the most ingenious of them simulate a kind\nof impudence.--Wives easily feel their husbands as a question-mark to\ntheir honour, and their children as an apology or atonement,--they\nrequire children, and wish for them in quite another spirit than a\nhusband wishes for them.--In short, one cannot be gentle enough towards\nwomen!\n\n\n72.\n\n_Mothers._--Animals think differently from men with respect to females;\nwith them the female is regarded as the productive being. There is no\npaternal love among them, but there is such a thing as love of the\nchildren of a beloved, and habituation to them. In the young, the\nfemales find gratification for their lust of dominion; the young are a\nproperty, an occupation, something quite comprehensible to them, with\nwhich they can chatter: all this conjointly is maternal love,--it is\nto be compared to the love of the artist for his work. Pregnancy has\nmade the females gentler, more expectant, more timid, more submissively\ninclined; and similarly intellectual pregnancy engenders the character\nof the contemplative, who are allied to women in character:--they are\nthe masculine mothers.--Among animals the masculine sex is regarded as\nthe beautiful sex.\n\n\n73.\n\n_Saintly Cruelty.--_A man holding a newly born child in his hands\ncame to a saint. \"What should I do with this child,\" he asked, \"it\nis wretched, deformed, and has not even enough of life to die\" \"Kill\nit,\" cried the saint with a dreadful voice, \"kill it, and then hold\nit in thy arms for three days and three nights to brand it on thy\nmemory:--thus wilt thou never again beget a child when it is not the\ntime for thee to beget.\"--When the man had heard this he went away\ndisappointed; and many found fault with the saint because he had\nadvised cruelty; for he had advised to kill the child. \"But is it not\nmore cruel to let it live?\" asked the saint.\n\n\n74.\n\n_The Unsuccessful--_Those poor women always fail of success who become\nagitated and uncertain, and talk too much in presence of him whom they\nlove; for men are most successfully seduced by a certain subtle and\nphlegmatic tenderness.\n\n\n75.\n\n_The Third Sex._--\"A small man is a paradox, but still a man,--but\na small woman seems to me to be of another sex in comparison with\nwell-grown ones\"--said an old dancing-master. A small woman is never\nbeautiful--said old Aristotle.\n\n\n76.\n\n_The greatest Danger._--Had there not at all times been a larger\nnumber of men who regarded the cultivation of their mind--their\n\"rationality\"--as their pride, their obligation, their virtue, and were\ninjured or shamed by all play of fancy and extravagance of thinking--as\nlovers of \"sound common sense\":--mankind would long ago have perished!\nIncipient _insanity_ has hovered, and hovers continually over mankind\nas its greatest danger: it is precisely the breaking out of inclination\nin feeling, seeing, and hearing; the enjoyment of the unruliness of\nthe mind; the delight in human unreason. It is not truth and certainty\nthat is the antithesis of the world of the insane, but the universality\nand all-obligatoriness of a belief, in short, non-voluntariness in\nforming opinions. And the greatest labour of human beings hitherto has\nbeen to agree with one another regarding a number of things, and to\nimpose upon themselves a _law of agreement_--indifferent whether these\nthings are true or false. This is the discipline of the mind which has\npreserved mankind;--but the counter-impulses are still so powerful that\none can really speak of the future of mankind with little confidence.\nThe ideas of things still continually shift and move, and will perhaps\nalter more than ever in the future; it is continually the most select\nspirits themselves who strive against universal obligatoriness--the\ninvestigators of _truth_ above all! The accepted belief, as the belief\nof all the world, continually engenders a disgust and a new longing\nin the more ingenious minds; and already the slow _tempo_ which it\ndemands for all intellectual processes (the imitation of the tortoise,\nwhich is here recognised as the rule) makes the artists and poets\nrunaways:--it is in these impatient spirits that a downright delight\nin delirium breaks out, because delirium has such a joyful _tempo!_\nVirtuous intellects, therefore, are needed--ah! I want to use the\nleast ambiguous word,--_virtuous stupidity_ is needed, imperturbable\nconductors of the _slow_ spirits are needed, in order that the faithful\nof the great collective belief may remain with one another and dance\ntheir dance further: it is a necessity of the first importance that\nhere enjoins and demands. _We others are the exceptions and the\ndanger,_--we eternally need protection--Well, there can actually be\nsomething said in favour of the exceptions _provided that they never\nwant to become the rule._\n\n\n77.\n\n_The Animal with good Conscience._--It is not unknown to me that there\nis vulgarity in everything that pleases Southern Europe--whether it be\nItalian opera (for example, Rossini's and Bellini's), or the Spanish\nadventure-romance (most readily accessible to us in the French garb of\nGil Blas)--but it does not offend me, any more than the vulgarity which\none encounters in a walk through Pompeii, or even in the reading of\nevery ancient book: what is the reason of this? Is it because shame is\nlacking here, and because the vulgar always comes forward just as sure\nand certain of itself as anything noble, lovely, and passionate in the\nsame kind of music or romance? \"The animal has its rights like man, so\nlet it run about freely; and you, my dear fellow-man, are still this\nanimal, in spite of all!\"--that seems to me the moral of the case, and\nthe peculiarity of southern humanity. Bad taste has its rights like\ngood taste, and even a prerogative over the latter when it is the great\nrequisite, the sure satisfaction, and as it were a universal language,\nan immediately intelligible mask and attitude; the excellent, select\ntaste on the other hand has always something of a seeking, tentative\ncharacter, not fully certain that it understands,--it is never, and\nhas never been popular! The _masque_ is and remains popular! So let\nall this masquerade run along in the melodies and cadences, in the\nleaps and merriment of the rhythm of these operas! Quite the ancient\nlife! What does one understand of it, if one does not understand the\ndelight in the masque, the good conscience of all masquerade! Here is\nthe bath and the refreshment of the ancient spirit:--and perhaps this\nbath was still more necessary for the rare and sublime natures of the\nancient world than for the vulgar.--On the other hand, a vulgar turn in\nnorthern works, for example in German music, offends me unutterably.\nThere is _shame_ in it, the artist has lowered himself in his own\nsight, and could not even avoid blushing: we are ashamed with him, and\nare so hurt because we surmise that he believed he had to lower himself\non our account.\n\n\n78.\n\n_What we should be Grateful for.--_It is only the artists, and\nespecially the theatrical artists, who have furnished men with eyes\nand ears to hear and see with some pleasure what everyone is in\nhimself, what he experiences and aims at: it is only _they_ who have\ntaught us how to estimate the hero that is concealed in each of these\ncommon-place men, and the art of looking at ourselves from a distance\nas heroes, and as it were simplified and transfigured--the art of\n\"putting ourselves on the stage\" before ourselves. It is thus only that\nwe get beyond some of the paltry details in ourselves! Without that art\nwe should be nothing but foreground, and would live absolutely under\nthe spell of the perspective which makes the closest and the commonest\nseem immensely large and like reality in itself.--Perhaps there is\nmerit of a similar kind in the religion which commanded us to look at\nthe sinfulness of every individual man with a magnifying-glass, and\nmade a great, immortal criminal of the sinner; in that it put eternal\nperspectives around man, it taught him to see himself from a distance,\nand as something past, something entire.\n\n\n79.\n\n_The Charm of Imperfection.--_I see here a poet, who, like so many\nmen, exercises a higher charm by his imperfections than by all that\nis rounded off and takes perfect shape under his hands,--indeed,\nhe derives his advantage and reputation far more from his actual\nlimitations than from his abundant powers. His work never expresses\naltogether what he would really like to express, what he _would like\nto have seen:_ he appears to have had the foretaste of a vision and\nnever the vision itself:--but an extraordinary longing for this\nvision has remained in his soul; and from this he derives his equally\nextraordinary eloquence of longing and craving. With this he raises\nthose who listen to him above his work and above all \"works,\" and\ngives them wings to rise higher than hearers have ever risen before,\nthus making them poets and seers themselves; they then show an\nadmiration for the originator of their happiness, as if he had led them\nimmediately to the vision of his holiest and ultimate verities, as if\nhe had reached his goal, and had actually _seen_ and communicated his\nvision. It is to the advantage of his reputation that he has not really\narrived at his goal.\n\n\n80.\n\n_Art and Nature._--The Greeks (or at least the Athenians) liked to\nhear good talking: indeed they had an eager inclination for it, which\ndistinguished them more than anything else from non-Greeks. And so they\nrequired good talking even from passion on the stage, and submitted\nto the unnaturalness of dramatic verse with delight:--in nature,\nforsooth, passion is so sparing of words! so dumb and confused! Or if\nit finds words, so embarrassed and irrational and a shame to itself! We\nhave now, all of us, thanks to the Greeks, accustomed ourselves to this\nunnaturalness on the stage, as we endure that other unnaturalness, the\n_singing_ passion, and willingly endure it, thanks to the Italians.--It\nhas become a necessity to us, which we cannot satisfy out of the\nresources of actuality, to hear men talk well and in full detail in the\nmost trying situations: it enraptures us at present when the tragic\nhero still finds words, reasons, eloquent gestures, and on the whole\na bright spirituality, where life approaches the abysses, and where\nthe actual man mostly loses his head, and certainly his fine language.\nThis kind of _deviation from nature_ is perhaps the most agreeable\nrepast for man's pride: he loves art generally on account of it, as the\nexpression of high, heroic unnaturalness and convention. One rightly\nobjects to the dramatic poet when he does not transform everything into\nreason and speech, but always retains a remnant of _silence:_--just as\none is dissatisfied with an operatic musician who cannot find a melody\nfor the highest emotion, but only an emotional, \"natural\" stammering\nand crying. Here nature _has to_ be contradicted! Here the common\ncharm of illusion _has to_ give place to a higher charm! The Greeks\ngo far, far in this direction--frightfully far! As they constructed\nthe stage as narrow as possible and dispensed with all the effect of\ndeep backgrounds, as they made pantomime and easy motion impossible\nto the actor, and transformed him into a solemn, stiff, masked bogey,\nso they have also deprived passion itself of its deep background, and\nhave dictated to it a law of fine talk; indeed, they have really done\neverything to counteract the elementary effect of representations that\ninspire pity and terror: _they did not want pity and terror,_--with due\ndeference, with the highest deference to Aristotle! but he certainly\ndid not hit the nail, to say nothing of the head of the nail, when\nhe spoke about the final aim of Greek tragedy! Let us but look at\nthe Grecian tragic poets with respect to _what_ most excited their\ndiligence, their inventiveness, and their emulation,--certainly it\nwas not the intention of subjugating the spectators by emotion! The\nAthenian went to the theatre _to hear fine talking!_ And fine talking\nwas arrived at by Sophocles!--pardon me this heresy!--It is very\ndifferent with _serious opera:_ all its masters make it their business\nto prevent their personages being understood. \"An occasional word\npicked up may come to the assistance of the inattentive listener; but\non the whole the situation must be self-explanatory,--the _talking_ is\nof no account!\"--so they all think, and so they have all made fun of\nthe words. Perhaps they have only lacked courage to express fully their\nextreme contempt for words: a little additional insolence in Rossini,\nand he would have allowed la-la-la-la to be sung throughout--and it\nmight have been the rational course! The personages of the opera are\n_not_ meant to be believed \"in their words,\" but in their tones! That\nis the difference, that is the fine _unnaturalness_ on account of which\npeople go to the opera! Even the _recitativo secco_ is not really\nintended to be heard as words and text: this kind of half-music is\nmeant rather in the first place to give the musical ear a little repose\n(the repose from _melody,_ as from the sublimest, and on that account\nthe most straining enjoyment of this art),--but very soon something\ndifferent results, namely, an increasing impatience, an increasing\nresistance, a new longing for _entire_ music, for melody.--How is it\nwith the art of Richard Wagner as seen from this standpoint? Is it\nperhaps the same? Perhaps otherwise? It would often seem to me as if\none needed to have learned by heart both the words _and_ the music of\nhis creations before the performances; for without that--so it seemed\nto me--me _may hear_ neither the words, nor even the music.\n\n\n81.\n\n_Grecian Taste_--\"What is beautiful in it?\"--asked a certain\ngeometrician, after a performance of the _Iphigenia--_\"there is nothing\nproved in it!\" Could the Greeks have been so far from this taste? In\nSophocles at least \"everything is proved.\"\n\n\n82.\n\n_Esprit Un-Grecian._--The Greeks were exceedingly logical and plain\nin all their thinking; they did not get tired of it, at least during\ntheir long flourishing period, as is so often the case with the French;\nwho too willingly made a little excursion into the opposite, and in\nfact endure the spirit of logic only when it betrays its _sociable_\ncourtesy, its sociable self-renunciation, by a multitude of such little\nexcursions into its opposite. Logic appears to them as necessary as\nbread and water, but also like these as a kind of prison-fare, as\nsoon as it is to be taken pure and by itself. In good society one\nmust never want to be in the right absolutely and solely, as all pure\nlogic requires; hence the little dose of irrationality in all French\n_esprit_.--The social sense of the Greeks was far less developed than\nthat of the French in the present and the past; hence, so little\n_esprit_ in their cleverest men, hence, so little wit, even in their\nwags, hence--alas! But people will not readily believe these tenets of\nmine, and how much of the kind I have still on my soul!--_Est res magna\ntacere_--says Martial, like all garrulous people.\n\n\n83.\n\n_Translations._--One can estimate the amount of the historical sense\nwhich an age possesses by the way in which it makes _translations_ and\nseeks to embody in itself past periods and literatures. The French\nof Corneille, and even the French of the Revolution, appropriated\nRoman antiquity in a manner for which we would no longer have the\ncourage--owing to our superior historical sense. And Roman antiquity\nitself: how violently, and at the same time how na\u00efvely, did it lay\nits hand on everything excellent and elevated belonging to the older\nGrecian antiquity! How they translated these writings into the Roman\npresent! How they wiped away intentionally and unconcernedly the\nwing-dust of the butterfly moment! It is thus that Horace now and then\ntranslated Alc\u00e6us or Archilochus, it is thus that Propertius translated\nCallimachus and Philetas (poets of equal rank with Theocritus, if\nwe _be allowed_ to judge): of what consequence was it to them that\nthe actual creator experienced this and that, and had inscribed the\nindication thereof in his poem!--as poets they were averse to the\nantiquarian, inquisitive spirit which precedes the historical sense;\nas poets they did not respect those essentially personal traits and\nnames, nor anything peculiar to city, coast, or century, such as its\ncostume and mask, but at once put the present and the Roman in its\nplace. They seem to us to ask: \"Should we not make the old new for\nourselves, and adjust _ourselves_ to it? Should we not be allowed\nto inspire this dead body with our soul? for it is dead indeed: how\nloathsome is everything dead!\"--They did not know the pleasure of the\nhistorical sense; the past and the alien was painful to them, and\nas Romans it was an incitement to a Roman conquest. In fact, they\nconquered when they translated,--not only in that they omitted the\nhistorical: they added also allusions to the present; above all, they\nstruck out the name of the poet and put their own in its place--not\nwith the feeling of theft, but with the very best conscience of the\n_Imperium Romanum_.\n\n\n84.\n\n_The Origin of Poetry.--_The lovers of the fantastic in man, who\nat the same time represent the doctrine of instinctive morality,\ndraw this conclusion: \"Granted that utility has been honoured at\nall times as the highest divinity, where then in all the world has\npoetry come from?--this rhythmising of speech which thwarts rather\nthan furthers plainness of communication, and which, nevertheless,\nhas sprung up everywhere on the earth, and still springs up, as a\nmockery of all useful purpose! The wildly beautiful irrationality\nof poetry refutes you, ye utilitarians! The wish _to get rid of_\nutility in some way--that is precisely what has elevated man, that\nis what has inspired him to morality and art!\" Well, I must here\nspeak for once to please the utilitarians,--they are so seldom in the\nright that it is pitiful! In the old times which called poetry into\nbeing, people had still utility in view with respect to it, and a\nvery important utility--at the time when rhythm was introduced into\nspeech, that force which arranges all the particles of the sentence\nanew, commands the choosing of the words, recolours the thought, and\nmakes it more obscure, more foreign, and more distant: to be sure a\n_superstitious utility!_ It was intended that a human entreaty should\nbe more profoundly impressed upon the Gods by virtue of rhythm, after\nit had been observed that men could remember a verse better than an\nunmetrical speech. It was likewise thought that people could make\nthemselves audible at greater distances by the rhythmical beat; the\nrhythmical prayer seemed to come nearer to the ear of the Gods. Above\nall, however, people wanted to have the advantage of the elementary\nconquest which man experiences in himself when he hears music: rhythm\nis a constraint; it produces an unconquerable desire to yield, to join\nin; not only the step of the foot, but also the soul itself follows\nthe measure,--probably the soul of the Gods also, as people thought!\nThey attempted, therefore, to _constrain_ the Gods by rhythm, and to\nexercise a power over them; they threw poetry around the Gods like a\nmagic noose. There was a still more wonderful idea, and it has perhaps\noperated most powerfully of all in the originating of poetry. Among\nthe Pythagoreans it made its appearance as a philosophical doctrine\nand as an artifice of teaching: but long before there were philosophers\nmusic was acknowledged to possess the power of unburdening the\nemotions, of purifying the soul, of soothing the _ferocia animi_--and\nthis was owing to the rhythmical element in music. When the proper\ntension and harmony of the soul were lost a person had to _dance_\nto the measure of the singer,--that was the recipe of this medical\nart. By means of it Terpander quieted a tumult, Empedocles calmed\na maniac, Damon purged a love-sick youth; by means of it even the\nmaddened, revengeful Gods were treated for the purpose of a cure. This\nwas effected by driving the frenzy and wantonness of their emotions\nto the highest pitch, by making the furious mad, and the revengeful\nintoxicated with vengeance all the orgiastic cults seek to discharge\nthe _ferocia_ of a deity all at once, and thus make an orgy, so that\nthe deity may feel freer and quieter afterwards, and leave man in\npeace. _Melos,_ according to its root, signifies a soothing agency,\nnot because the song is gentle itself, but because its after-effect is\ngentle.--And not only in the religious song, but also in the secular\nsong of the most ancient times, the prerequisite is that the rhythm\nshould exercise a magical influence; for example, in drawing water, or\nin rowing: the song is for the enchanting of the spirits supposed to be\nactive thereby; it makes them obliging, involuntary and the instruments\nof man. And as often as a person acts he has occasion to sing, _every_\naction is dependent on the assistance of spirits: magic song and\nincantation appear to be the original form of poetry. When verse also\ncame to be used in oracles--the Greeks said that the hexameter was\ninvented at Delphi,--the rhythm was here also intended to exercise\na compulsory influence. To make a prophecy--that means originally\n(according to what seems to me the probable derivation of the Greek\nword) to determine something; people thought they could determine the\nfuture by winning Apollo over to their side: he who, according to the\nmost ancient idea, is far more than a foreseeing deity. According as\nthe formula is pronounced with literal and rhythmical correctness,\nit determines the future: the formula, however, is the invention of\nApollo, who as the God of rhythm, can also determine the goddesses of\nfate--Looked at and investigated as a whole, was there ever anything\n_more serviceable_ to the ancient superstitious species of human being\nthan rhythm? People could do everything with it: they could make labour\ngo on magically; they could compel a God to appear, to be near at\nhand, and listen to them; they could arrange the future for themselves\naccording to their will; they could unburden their own souls of any\nkind of excess (of anxiety, of mania, of sympathy, of revenge), and not\nonly their own souls, but the souls of the most evil spirits,--without\nverse a person was nothing, by means of verse a person became almost\na God. Such a fundamental feeling no longer allows itself to be\nfully eradicated,--and even now, after millenniums of long labour\nin combating such superstition, the very wisest of us occasionally\nbecomes the fool of rhythm, be it only that one _perceives_ a thought\nto be _truer_ when it has a metrical form and approaches with a\ndivine hopping. Is it not a very funny thing that the most serious\nphilosophers, however anxious they are in other respects for strict\ncertainty, still appeal to _poetical sayings_ in order to give their\nthoughts force and credibility? and yet it is more dangerous to a truth\nwhen the poet assents to it than when he contradicts it! For, as Homer\nsays, \"Minstrels speak much falsehood!\"--\n\n\n85.\n\n_The Good and the Beautiful._--Artists, glorify continually--they do\nnothing else,--and indeed they glorify all those conditions and things\nthat have a reputation, so that man may feel himself good or great, or\nintoxicated, or merry, or pleased and wise by it. Those _select_ things\nand conditions whose value for human _happiness_ is regarded as secure\nand determined, are the objects of artists: they are ever lying in wait\nto discover such things, to transfer them into the domain of art. I\nmean to say that they are not themselves the valuers of happiness and\nof the happy ones, but they always press close to these valuers with\nthe greatest curiosity and longing, in order immediately to use their\nvaluations advantageously. As besides their impatience, they have also\nthe big lungs of heralds and the feet of runners, they are generally\nalways among the first to glorify the _new_ excellency, and often\n_seem_ to be the first who have called it good and valued it as good.\nThis, however, as we have said, is an error; they are only faster and\nlouder than the actual valuers:--And who then are these?--They are the\nrich and the leisurely.\n\n\n86.\n\n_The Theatre.--_This day has given me once more strong and elevated\nsentiments, and if I could have music and art in the evening, I know\nwell what music and art I should _not_ like to have; namely, none of\nthat which would fain intoxicate its hearers and _excite_ them to a\ncrisis of strong and high feeling,--those men with commonplace souls,\nwho in the evening are not like victors on triumphal cars, but like\ntired mules to whom life has rather too often applied the whip. What\nwould those men at all know of \"higher moods,\" unless there were\nexpedients for causing ecstasy and idealistic strokes of the whip!--and\nthus they have their inspirers as they have their wines. But what is\ntheir drink and their drunkenness to _me!_ Does the inspired one need\nwine? He rather looks with a kind of disgust at the agency and the\nagent which are here intended to produce an effect without sufficient\nreason,--an imitation of the high tide of the soul! What? One gives\nthe mole wings and proud fancies--before going to sleep, before he\ncreeps into his hole? One sends him into the theatre and puts great\nmagnifying-glasses to his blind and tired eyes? Men, whose life is\nnot \"action\" but business, sit in front of the stage and look at\nstrange beings to whom life is more than business? \"This is proper,\"\nyou say, \"this is entertaining, this is what culture wants!\"--Well\nthen! culture is too often lacking in me, for this sight is too often\ndisgusting to me. He who has enough of tragedy and comedy in himself\nsurely prefers to remain away from the theatre; or as an exception,\nthe whole procedure--theatre and public and poet included--becomes for\nhim a truly tragic and comic play, so that the performed piece counts\nfor little in comparison. He who is something like Faust and Manfred,\nwhat does it matter to him about the Fausts and Manfreds of the\ntheatre!--while it certainly gives him something to think about _that_\nsuch figures are brought into the theatre at all. The _strongest_\nthoughts and passions before those who are not capable of thought\nand passion--but of _intoxication_ only! And _those_ as a means to\nthis end! And theatre and music the hashish-smoking and betel-chewing\nof Europeans! Oh, who will narrate to us the whole history of\nnarcotics!--It is almost the history of \"culture,\" the so-called higher\nculture!\n\n\n87.\n\n_The Conceit of Artists._I think artists often do not know what they\ncan do best, because they are too conceited, and have set their minds\non something loftier than those little plants appear to be, which\ncan grow up to perfection on their soil, fresh, rare, and beautiful.\nThe final value of their own garden and vineyard is superciliously\nunderestimated by them, and their love and their insight are not of the\nsame quality. Here is a musician, who, more than any one else, has the\ngenius for discovering the tones peculiar to suffering, oppressed,\ntortured souls, and who can endow even dumb animals with speech. No\none equals him in the colours of the late autumn, in the indescribably\ntouching happiness of a last, a final, and all too short enjoyment; he\nknows a chord for those secret and weird midnights of the soul when\ncause and effect seem out of joint, and when every instant something\nmay originate \"out of nothing.\" He draws his resources best of all\nout of the lower depths of human happiness, and so to speak, out of\nits drained goblet, where the bitterest and most nauseous drops have\nultimately, for good or for ill, commingled with the sweetest. He\nknows the weary shuffling along of the soul which can no longer leap\nor fly, yea, not even walk; he has the shy glance of concealed pain,\nof understanding without comfort, of leave-taking without avowal; yea,\nas the Orpheus of all secret misery, he is greater than anyone; and in\nfact much has been added to art by him which was hitherto inexpressible\nand not even thought worthy of art, and which was only to be scared\naway, by words, and not grasped many small and quite microscopic\nfeatures of the soul: yes, he is the master of miniature. But he does\nnot _wish_ to be so! His _character_ is more in love with large walls\nand daring frescoes! He fails to see that his _spirit_ has a different\ntaste and inclination, and prefers to sit quietly in the corners of\nruined houses:--concealed in this way, concealed even from himself,\nhe there paints his proper masterpieces, all of which are very short,\noften only one bar in length,--there only does he become quite good,\ngreat, and perfect, perhaps there only.--But he does not know it! He is\ntoo conceited to know it.\n\n\n88.\n\n_Earnestness for the Truth._--Earnest for the truth! What different\nthings men understand by these words! Just the same opinions, and modes\nof demonstration and testing which a thinker regards as a frivolity\nin himself, to which he has succumbed with shame at one time or\nother,--just the same opinions may give to an artist, who comes in\ncontact with them and accepts them temporarily, the consciousness that\nthe profoundest earnestness for the truth has now taken hold of him,\nand that it is worthy of admiration that, although an artist, he at the\nsame time exhibits the most ardent desire for the antithesis of the\napparent. It is thus possible that a person may, just by his pathos of\nearnestness, betray how superficially and sparingly his intellect has\nhitherto operated in the domain of knowledge.--And is not everything\nthat we consider _important_ our betrayer? It shows where our motives\nlie, and where our motives are altogether lacking.\n\n\n89.\n\n_Now and Formerly._--Of what consequence is all our art in artistic\nproducts, if that higher art, the art of the festival, be lost by us?\nFormerly all artistic products were exhibited on the great festive-path\nof humanity, as tokens of remembrance, and monuments of high and happy\nmoments. One now seeks to allure the exhausted and sickly from the\ngreat suffering-path of humanity for a wanton moment by means of works\nof art; one furnishes them with a little ecstasy and insanity.\n\n\n90.\n\n_Lights and Shades.--_Books and writings are different with different\nthinkers. One writer has collected together in his book all the\nrays of light which he could quickly plunder and carry home from an\nilluminating experience; while another gives only the shadows, and the\ngrey and black replicas of that which on the previous day had towered\nup in his soul.\n\n\n91.\n\n_Precaution.--_Alfieri, as is well known, told a great many\nfalsehoods when he narrated the history of his life to his astonished\ncontemporaries. He told falsehoods owing to the despotism toward\nhimself which he exhibited, for example, in the way in which he created\nhis own language, and tyrannised himself into a poet:--he finally found\na rigid form of sublimity into which he _forced_ his life and his\nmemory; he must have suffered much in the process.--I would also give\nno credit to a history of Plato's life written by himself, as little as\nto Rousseau's, or to the _Vita nuova_ of Dante.\n\n\n92.\n\n_Prose and Poetry._--Let it be observed that the great masters of prose\nhave almost always been poets as well, whether openly, or only in\nsecret and for the \"closet\"; and in truth one only writes good prose\n_in view of poetry!_ For prose is an uninterrupted, polite warfare with\npoetry; all its charm consists in the fact that poetry is constantly\navoided and contradicted; every abstraction wants to have a gibe at\npoetry, and wishes to be uttered with a mocking voice; all dryness and\ncoolness is meant to bring the amiable goddess into an amiable despair;\nthere are often approximations and reconciliations for the moment, and\nthen a sudden recoil and a burst of laughter; the curtain is often\ndrawn up and dazzling light let in just while the goddess is enjoying\nher twilights and dull colours; the word is often taken out of her\nmouth and chanted to a melody while she holds her fine hands before her\ndelicate little ears:--and so there are a thousand enjoyments of the\nwarfare, the defeats included, of which the unpoetic, the so-called\nprose--men know nothing at all:--they consequently write and speak\nonly bad prose! _Warfare is the father of all good things,_ it is also\nthe father of good prose!--There have been four very singular and\ntruly poetical men in this century who have arrived at mastership in\nprose, for which otherwise this century is not suited, owing to lack\nof poetry, as we have indicated. Not to take Goethe into account, for\nhe is reasonably claimed by the century that produced him, I look only\non Giacomo Leopardi, Prosper M\u00e9rim\u00e9e, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walter\nSavage Landor the author of _Imaginary Conversations,_ as worthy to be\ncalled masters of prose.\n\n\n93.\n\n_But why, then, do you Write?_--A: I do not belong to those who _think_\nwith the wet pen in hand; and still less to those who yield themselves\nentirely to their passions before the open ink-bottle, sitting on\ntheir chair and staring at the paper. I am always vexed and abashed\nby writing; writing is a necessity for me,--even to speak of it in a\nsimile is disagreeable. B: But why, then, do you write? A: Well, my\ndear Sir, to tell you in confidence, I have hitherto found no other\nmeans of _getting rid of_ my thoughts. B: And why do you wish to get\nrid of them? A: Why I wish? Do I really wish! I must--B: Enough! Enough!\n\n\n94.\n\n_Growth after Death._--Those few daring words about moral matters\nwhich Fontenelle threw into his immortal _Dialogues of the Dead,_ were\nregarded by his age as paradoxes and amusements of a not unscrupulous\nwit; even the highest judges of taste and intellect saw nothing more\nin them,--indeed, Fontenelle himself perhaps saw nothing more. Then\nsomething incredible takes place: these thoughts become truths! Science\nproves them! The game becomes serious! And we read those dialogues with\na feeling different from that with which Voltaire and Helvetius read\nthem, and we involuntarily raise their originator into another and\n_much higher_ class of intellects than they did.--Rightly?' Wrongly?\n\n\n95.\n\n_Chamfort._--That such a judge of men and of the multitude as\nChamfort should side with the multitude, instead of standing apart\nin philosophical resignation and defence--I am at a loss to explain\nthis, except as follows:--There was an instinct in him stronger than\nhis wisdom, and it had never been gratified: the hatred against all\n_noblesse_ of blood; perhaps his mother's old and only too explicable\nhatred, which was consecrated in him by love of her,--an instinct of\nrevenge from his boyhood, which waited for the hour to avenge his\nmother. But then the course of his life, his genius, and alas! most of\nall, perhaps, the paternal blood in his veins, had seduced him to rank\nand consider himself equal to the _noblesse--_for many, many years!\nIn the end, however, he could not endure the sight of himself, the\n\"old man\" under the old _r\u00e9gime,_ any longer; he got into a violent,\npenitential passion, and _in this state_ he put on the raiment of the\npopulace as _his_ special kind of hair-shirt! His bad conscience was\nthe neglect of revenge.--If Chamfort had then been a little more of\nthe philosopher, the Revolution would not have had its tragic wit and\nits sharpest sting; it would have been regarded as a much more stupid\naffair, and would have had no such seductive influence on men's minds.\nBut Chamfort's hatred and revenge educated an entire generation;\nand the most illustrious men passed through his school. Let us but\nconsider that Mirabeau looked up to Chamfort as to his higher and older\nself, from whom he expected (and endured) impulses, warnings, and\ncondemnations,--Mirabeau, who as a man belongs to an entirely different\norder of greatness, as the very foremost among the statesman-geniuses\nof yesterday and to-day.--Strange, that in spite of such a friend and\nadvocate--we possess Mirabeau's letters to Chamfort--this wittiest of\nall moralists has remained unfamiliar to the French, quite the same\nas Stendhal, who has perhaps had the most penetrating eyes and ears\nof any. Frenchman of _this_ century. Is it because the latter had\nreally too much of the German and the Englishman in his nature for the\nParisians to endure him?--while Chamfort, a man with ample knowledge\nof the profundities and secret motives of the soul, gloomy, suffering,\nardent--a thinker who found laughter necessary as the remedy of life,\nand who almost gave himself up as lost every day that he had not\nlaughed,--seems much more like an Italian, and related by blood to\nDante and Leopardi, than like a Frenchman. One knows Chamfort's last\nwords: \"_Ah! mon ami,_\" he said to Siey\u00e8s, \"_je m'en vais enfin de ce\nmonde, o\u00f9 il faut que le c\u0153ur se brise ou se bronze_--.\" These were\ncertainly not the words of a dying Frenchman.\n\n\n96.\n\n_Two Orators.--_Of these two orators the one arrives at a full\nunderstanding of his case only when he yields himself to emotion; it is\nonly this that pumps sufficient blood and heat into his brain to compel\nhis high intellectuality to reveal itself The other attempts, indeed,\nnow and then to do the same: to state his case sonorously, vehemently,\nand spiritedly with the aid of emotion,--but usually with bad success.\nHe then very soon speaks obscurely and confusedly; he exaggerates,\nmakes omissions, and excites suspicion of the justice of his case:\nindeed, he himself feels this suspicion, and the sudden changes into\nthe coldest and most repulsive tones (which raise a doubt in the hearer\nas to his passionateness being genuine) are thereby explicable. With\nhim emotion always drowns the spirit; perhaps because it is stronger\nthan in the former. But he is at the height of his power when he\nresists the impetuous storm of his feeling, and as it were scorns it;\nit is then only that his spirit emerges fully from its concealment, a\nspirit logical, mocking and playful, but nevertheless awe-inspiring.\n\n\n97.\n\n_The Loquacity of Authors._--There is a loquacity of anger--frequent in\nLuther, also in Schopenhauer. A loquacity which comes from too great a\nstore of conceptual formul\u00e6, as in Kant. A loquacity which comes from\ndelight in ever new modifications of the same idea: one finds it in\nMontaigne. A loquacity of malicious natures: whoever reads writings of\nour period will recollect two authors in this connection. A loquacity\nwhich comes from delight in fine words and forms of speech: by no means\nrare in Goethe's prose. A loquacity which comes from pure satisfaction\nin noise and confusion of feelings: for example in Carlyle.\n\n\n98.\n\n_In Honour of Shakespeare._--The best thing I could say in honour of\nShakespeare, _the man,_ is that he believed in Brutus, and cast not\na shadow of suspicion on the kind of virtue which Brutus represents!\nIt is to him that Shakespeare consecrated his best tragedy--it is\nat present still called by a wrong name,--to him, and to the most\nterrible essence of lofty morality. Independence of soul!--that is\nthe question at issue! No sacrifice can be too great there: one must\nbe able to sacrifice to it even one's dearest friend, although he be\nthe grandest of men, the ornament of the world, the genius without\npeer,--if one really loves freedom as the freedom of great souls, and\nif _this_ freedom be threatened by him:--it is thus that Shakespeare\nmust have felt! The elevation in which he places C\u00e6sar is the most\nexquisite honour he could confer upon Brutus; it is thus only that he\nlifts into vastness the inner problem of his hero, and similarly the\nstrength of soul which could cut _this knot!--_And was it actually\npolitical freedom that impelled the poet to sympathy with Brutus,--and\nmade him the accomplice of Brutus? Or was political freedom merely\na symbol for something inexpressible? Do we perhaps stand before\nsome sombre event or adventure of the poet's own soul, which has\nremained unknown, and of which he only cared to speak symbolically?\nWhat is all Hamlet-melancholy in comparison with the melancholy of\nBrutus!--and perhaps Shakespeare also knew this, as he knew the\nother, by experience! Perhaps he also had his dark hour and his bad\nangel, just as Brutus had them!--But whatever similarities and secret\nrelationships of that kind there may have been, Shakespeare cast\nhimself on the ground and felt unworthy and alien in presence of the\naspect and virtue of Brutus:--he has inscribed the testimony thereof\nin the tragedy itself. He has twice brought in a poet in it, and twice\nheaped upon him such an impatient and extreme contempt, that it sounds\nlike a cry,--like the cry of self-contempt. Brutus, even Brutus loses\npatience when the poet appears, self-important, pathetic and obtrusive,\nas poets usually are,--persons who seem to abound in the possibilities\nof greatness, even moral greatness, and nevertheless rarely attain even\nto ordinary uprightness in the philosophy of practice and of life \"He\nmay know the times, _but I know his temper_,--away with the jigging\nfool!\"--shouts Brutus. We may translate this back into the soul of the\npoet that composed it.\n\n\n99.\n\n_The Followers of Schopenhauer.--_What one sees at the contact\nof civilized peoples with barbarians,--namely, that the lower\ncivilization regularly accepts in the first place the vices, weaknesses\nand excesses of the higher; then, from that point onward, feels the\ninfluence of a charm; and finally, by means of the appropriated\nvices and weaknesses also allows something of the valuable influence\nof the higher culture to leaven it:-one can also see this close at\nhand and without journeys to barbarian peoples, to be sure, somewhat\nrefined and spiritualised, and not so readily palpable. What are\nthe German followers of _Schopenhauer_ still accustomed to receive\nfirst of all from their master?--those who, when placed beside his\nsuperior culture, must deem themselves sufficiently barbarous to be\nfirst of all barbarously fascinated and seduced by him. Is it his hard\nmatter-of-fact sense, his inclination to clearness and rationality,\nwhich often makes him appear so English, and so unlike Germans?\nOr the strength of his intellectual conscience, which _endured_ a\nlife-long contradiction of \"being\" and \"willing,\" and compelled him\nto contradict himself constantly even in his writings on almost\nevery point? Or his purity in matters relating to the Church and the\nChristian God?--for here he was pure as no German philosopher had\nbeen hitherto, so that he lived and died \"as a Voltairian.\" Or his\nimmortal doctrines of the intellectuality of intuition, the apriority\nof the law of causality, the instrumental nature of the intellect,\nand the non-freedom of the will? No, nothing of this enchants, nor\nis felt as enchanting; but Schopenhauer's mystical embarrassments\nand shufflings in those passages where the matter-of-fact thinker\nallowed himself to be seduced and corrupted by the vain impulse to be\nthe unraveller of the world's riddle: his undemonstrable doctrine of\n_one will_ (\"all causes are merely occasional causes of the phenomenon\nof the will at such a time and at such a place,\" \"the will to live,\nwhole and undivided, is present in every being, even in the smallest,\nas perfectly as in the sum of all that was, is, and will be\"); his\n_denial of the individual_ (\"all lions are really only one lion,\"\n\"plurality of individuals is an appearance,\" as also _development_ is\nonly an appearance: he calls the opinion of Lamarck \"an ingenious,\nabsurd error\"); his fantasy about _genius_ (\"in \u00e6sthetic contemplation\nthe individual is no longer an individual, but a pure, will-less,\npainless, timeless subject of knowledge,\" \"the subject, in that it\nentirely merges in the contemplated object, has become this object\nitself\"); his nonsense about _sympathy,_ and about the outburst of\nthe _principium individuationis_ thus rendered possible, as the\nsource of all morality; including also such assertions as, \"dying\nis really the design of existence,\" \"the possibility should not be\nabsolutely denied that a magical effect could proceed from a person\nalready dead\":--these, and similar _extravagances_ and vices of the\nphilosopher, are always first accepted and made articles of faith;\nfor vices and extravagances are always easiest to imitate, and do not\nrequire a long preliminary practice. But let us speak of the most\ncelebrated of the living Schopenhauerians, Richard Wagner.--It has\nhappened to him as it has already happened to many an artist: he made\na mistake in the interpretation of the characters he created, and\nmisunderstood the unexpressed philosophy of the art peculiarly his\nown. Richard Wagner allowed himself to be misled by Hegel's influence\ntill the middle of his life; and he did the same again when later on\nhe read Schopenhauer's doctrine between the lines of his characters,\nand began to express himself with such terms as \"will,\" \"genius,\"\nand \"sympathy.\" Nevertheless it will remain true that nothing is\nmore counter to Schopenhauer's spirit than the essentially Wagnerian\nelement in Wagner's heroes: I mean the innocence of the supremest\nselfishness, the belief in strong passion as the good in itself, in\na word, the Siegfried trait in the countenances of his heroes. \"All\nthat still smacks more of Spinoza than of me,\"--Schopenhauer would\nprobably have said. Whatever good reasons, therefore, Wagner might have\nhad to be on the outlook for other philosophers than Schopenhauer,\nthe enchantment to which he succumbed in respect to this thinker, not\nonly made him blind towards all other philosophers, but even towards\nscience itself; his entire art is more and more inclined to become\nthe counterpart and complement of the Schopenhauerian philosophy,\nand it always renounces more emphatically the higher ambition to\nbecome the counterpart and complement of human knowledge and science.\nAnd not only is he allured thereto by the whole mystic pomp of this\nphilosophy (which would also have allured a Cagliostro), the peculiar\nairs and emotions of the philosopher have all along been seducing him\nas well! For example, Wagner's indignation about the corruption of\nthe German language is Schopenhauerian; and if one should commend his\nimitation in this respect, it is nevertheless not to be denied that\nWagner's style itself suffers in no small degree from all the tumours\nand turgidities, the sight of which made Schopenhauer so furious;\nand that, in respect to the German-writing Wagnerians, Wagneromania\nis beginning to be as dangerous as only some kinds of Hegelomania\nhave been. From Schopenhauer comes Wagner's hatred of the Jews, to\nwhom he cannot do justice even in their greatest exploit: are not\nthe Jews the inventors of Christianity! The attempt of Wagner to\nconstrue Christianity as a seed blown away from Buddhism, and his\nendeavour to initiate a Buddhistic era in Europe, under a temporary\napproximation to Catholic-Christian formulas and sentiments, are both\nSchopenhauerian. Wagner's preaching in favour of pity in dealing with\nanimals is Schopenhauerian; Schopenhauer's predecessor here, as is\nwell known, was Voltaire, who already perhaps, like his successors,\nknew how to disguise his hatred of certain men and things as pity\ntowards animals. At least Wagner's hatred of science, which manifests\nitself in his preaching, has certainly not been inspired by the\nspirit of charitableness and kindness--nor by the _spirit_ at all, as\nis sufficiently obvious.--Finally, it is of little importance what\nthe philosophy of an artist is, provided it is only a supplementary\nphilosophy, and does not do any injury to his art itself. We cannot\nbe sufficiently on our guard against taking a dislike to an artist on\naccount of an occasional, perhaps very unfortunate and presumptuous\nmasquerade; let us not forget that the dear artists are all of them\nsomething of actors--and must be so; it would be difficult for them\nto hold out in the long run without stage-playing. Let us be loyal to\nWagner in that which is _true_ and original in him,--and especially\nin this point, that we, his disciples, remain loyal to ourselves\nin that which is true and original in us. Let us allow him his\nintellectual humours and spasms, let us in fairness rather consider\nwhat strange nutriments and necessaries an art like his _is entitled\nto,_ in order to be able to live and grow! It is of no account that\nhe is often wrong as a thinker; justice and patience are not _his_\naffair. It is sufficient that his life is right in his own eyes, and\nmaintains its right,--the life which calls to each of us: \"Be a man,\nand do not follow me--but thyself! thyself!\" _Our_ life, also ought to\nmaintain its right in our own eyes! We also are to grow and blossom\nout of ourselves, free and fearless, in innocent selfishness! And so,\non the contemplation of such a man, these thoughts still ring in my\nears to-day, as formerly: \"That passion is better than stoicism or\nhypocrisy; that straight-forwardness, even in evil, is better than\nlosing oneself in trying to observe traditional morality; that the free\nman is just as able to be good as evil, but that the unemancipated\nman is a disgrace to nature, and has no share in heavenly or earthly\nbliss; finally, that _all who wish to be free must become so through\nthemselves,_ and that freedom falls to nobody's lot as a gift from\nHeaven.\" (_Richard Wagner in Bayreuth,_ Vol. I. of this Translation,\npp. 199-200).\n\n\n100.\n\n_Learning to do Homage._--One must learn the art of homage, as well as\nthe art of contempt. Whoever goes in new paths and has led many persons\ntherein, discovers with astonishment how awkward and incompetent\nall of them are in the expression of their gratitude, and indeed how\nrarely gratitude _is able_ even to express itself. It is always as if\nsomething comes into people's throats when their gratitude wants to\nspeak so that it only hems and haws, and becomes silent again. The way\nin which a thinker succeeds in tracing the effect of his thoughts,\nand their transforming and convulsing power, is almost a comedy: it\nsometimes seems as if those who have been operated upon felt profoundly\ninjured thereby, and could only assert their independence, which they\nsuspect to be threatened, by all kinds of improprieties. It needs\nwhole generations in order merely to devise a courteous convention\nof gratefulness; it is only very late that the period arrives when\nsomething of spirit and genius enters into gratitude Then there is\nusually some one who is the great receiver of thanks, not only for the\ngood he himself has done, but mostly for that which has been gradually\naccumulated by his predecessors, as a treasure of what is highest and\nbest.\n\n\n101.\n\n_Voltaire_--Wherever there has been a court, it has furnished the\nstandard of good-speaking and with this also the standard of style for\nwriters The court language, however, is the language of the courtier\nwho _has no profession,_ and who even in conversations on scientific\nsubjects avoids all convenient, technical expressions, because they\nsmack of the profession; on that account the technical expression, and\neverything that betrays the specialist, is a _blemish of style_ in\ncountries which have a court culture. At present, when all courts have\nbecome caricatures of past and present times, one is astonished to find\neven Voltaire unspeakably reserved and scrupulous on this point (for\nexample, in his judgments concerning such stylists as Fontenelle and\nMontesquieu),--we are now, all of us, emancipated from court taste,\nwhile Voltaire was its _perfecter!_\n\n\n102.\n\n_A Word for Philologists.--_It is thought that there are books so\nvaluable and royal that whole generations of scholars are well\nemployed when through their efforts these books are kept genuine and\nintelligible,--to confirm this belief again and again is the purpose\nof philology. It presupposes that the rare men are not lacking\n(though they may not be visible), who actually know how to use such\nvaluable books:--those men perhaps who write such books themselves,\nor could write them. I mean to say that philology presupposes a noble\nbelief,--that for the benefit of some few who are always \"to come,\" and\nare not there, a very great amount of painful, and even dirty labour\nhas to be done beforehand: it is all labour _in usum Delphinorum_.\n\n\n103.\n\n_German Music._--German music, more than any other, has now become\nEuropean music; because the changes which Europe experienced through\nthe Revolution have therein alone found expression: it is only German\nmusic that knows how to express the agitation of popular masses, the\ntremendous artificial uproar, which does not even need to be very\nnoisy,--while Italian opera, for example, knows only the choruses of\ndomestics or soldiers, but not \"the people.\" There is the additional\nfact that in all German music a profound _bourgeois_ jealousy of\nthe _noblesse_ can be traced, especially a jealousy of _esprit_ and\n_\u00e9l\u00e9gance,_ as the expressions of a courtly, chivalrous, ancient, and\nself-confident society. It is not music like that of Goethe's musician\nat the gate, which was pleasing also \"in the hall,\" and to the king as\nwell; it is not here said: \"The knights looked on with martial air;\nwith bashful eyes the ladies.\" Even the Graces are not allowed in\nGerman music without a touch of remorse; it is only with Pleasantness,\nthe country sister of the Graces that the German begins to feel morally\nat ease--and from this point up to his enthusiastic, learned, and often\ngruff \"sublimity\" (the Beethoven-like sublimity), he feels more and\nmore so. If we want to imagine the man of _this_ music,--well, let us\njust imagine Beethoven as he appeared beside Goethe, say, at their\nmeeting at Teplitz: as semi-barbarism beside culture, as the masses\nbeside the nobility, as the good-natured man beside the good and more\nthan \"good\" man, as the visionary beside the artist, as the man needing\ncomfort beside the comforted, as the man given to exaggeration and\ndistrust beside the man of reason, as the crank and self-tormenter, as\nthe foolishly enraptured, blessedly unfortunate, sincerely immoderate\nman! as the pretentious and awkward man,--and altogether as the\n\"untamed man\": it was thus that Goethe conceived and characterised\nhim, Goethe, the exceptional German, for whom a music of equal rank\nhas not yet been found!--Finally, let us consider whether the present\ncontinually extending contempt of melody and the stunting of the sense\nfor melody among Germans should not be understood as a democratic\nimpropriety and an after-effect of the Revolution? For melody has\nsuch an obvious delight in conformity to law, and such an aversion to\neverything evolving, unformed and arbitrary, that it sounds like a note\nout of the _ancient_ European regime, and as a seduction and guidance\nback to it.\n\n\n104.\n\n_The Tone of the German Language._--We know whence the German\noriginated which for several centuries has been the universal literary\nlanguage of Germany. The Germans, with their reverence for everything\nthat came from the _court,_ intentionally took the chancery style as\ntheir pattern in all that they had to _write,_ especially in their\nletters, records, wills, &c. To write in the chancery style, that\nwas to write in court and government style,--that was regarded as\nsomething select, compared with the language of the city in which a\nperson lived. People gradually drew this inference, and spoke also\nas they wrote,--they thus became still more select in the forms of\ntheir words, in the choice of their terms and modes of expression,\nand finally also in their tones: they affected a court tone when they\nspoke, and the affectation at last became natural. Perhaps nothing\nquite similar has ever happened elsewhere:--the predominance of the\nliterary style over the talk, and the formality and affectation of an\nentire people becoming the basis of a common and no longer dialectical\nlanguage. I believe that the sound of the German language in the\nMiddle Ages, and especially after the Middle Ages, was extremely\nrustic and vulgar; it has ennobled itself somewhat during the last\ncenturies, principally because it was found necessary to imitate so\nmany French, Italian, and Spanish sounds, and particularly on the part\nof the German (and Austrian) nobility, who could not at all content\nthemselves with their mother-tongue. But notwithstanding this practice,\nGerman must have sounded intolerably vulgar to Montaigne, and even\nto Racine: even at present, in the mouths of travellers among the\nItalian populace, it still sounds very coarse, sylvan, and hoarse, as\nif it had originated in smoky rooms and outlandish districts.--Now I\nnotice that at present a similar striving after selectness of tone is\nspreading among the former admirers of the chancery style, and that\nthe Germans are beginning to accommodate themselves to a peculiar\n\"witchery of sound,\" which might in the long run become an actual\ndanger to the German language,--for one may seek in vain for more\nexecrable sounds in Europe. Something mocking, cold, indifferent and\ncareless in the voice: that is what at present sounds \"noble\" to the\nGermans--and I hear the approval of this nobleness in the voices of\nyoung officials, teachers, women, and trades-people; indeed, even\nthe little girls already imitate this German of the officers. For the\nofficer, and in fact the Prussian officer is the inventor of these\ntones: this same officer, who as soldier and professional man possesses\nthat admirable tact for modesty which the Germans as a whole might\nwell imitate (German professors and musicians included!). But as soon\nas he speaks and moves he is the most inmodest and inelegant figure\nin old Europe--no doubt unconsciously to himself! And unconsciously\nalso to the good Germans, who gaze at him as the man of the foremost\nand most select society, and willingly let him \"give them his tone.\"\nAnd indeed he gives it to them!--in the first place it is the\nsergeant-majors and non-commissioned officers that imitate his tone\nand coarsen it. One should note the roars of command, with which the\nGerman cities are absolutely surrounded at present, when there is\ndrilling at all the gates: what presumption, furious imperiousness,\nand mocking coldness speaks in this uproar! Could the Germans actually\nbe a musical people?--It is certain that the Germans martialise\nthemselves at present in the tone of their language: it is probable\nthat, being exercised to speak martially, they will finally write\nmartially also. For habituation to definite tones extends deeply into\nthe character:--people soon have the words and modes of expression, and\nfinally also the thoughts which just suit these tones! Perhaps they\nalready write in the officers' style; perhaps I only read too little\nof what is at present written in Germany to know this. But one thing\nI know all the surer: the German public decorations which also reach\nplaces abroad, are not inspired by German music, but just by that new\ntone of tasteless arrogance. Almost in every speech of the foremost\nGerman statesman, and even when he makes himself heard through his\nimperial mouth-piece, there is an accent which the ear of a foreigner\nrepudiates with aversion: but the Germans endure it,--they endure\nthemselves.\n\n\n105.\n\n_The Germans as Artists.--_When once a German actually experiences\npassion (and not only, as is usual, the mere inclination to it), he\nthen behaves just as he must do in passion, and does not think further\nof his behaviour. The truth is, however, that he then behaves very\nawkwardly and uglily, and as if destitute of rhythm and melody; so that\nonlookers are pained or moved thereby, but nothing more--_unless_ he\nelevate himself to the sublimity and enrapturedness of which certain\npassions are capable. Then even the German becomes _beautiful._ The\nconsciousness of the _height at which_ beauty begins to shed its\ncharm even over Germans, forces German artists to the height and\nthe super-height, and to the extravagances of passion: they have an\nactual, profound longing, therefore, to get beyond, or at least to\nlook beyond the ugliness and awkwardness--into a better, easier, more\nsouthern, more sunny world. And thus their convulsions are often merely\nindications that they would like to _dance:_ these poor bears in whom\nhidden nymphs and satyrs, and sometimes still higher divinities, carry\non their game!\n\n\n106.\n\n_Music as Advocate._--\"I have a longing for a master of the musical\nart,\" said an innovator to his disciple, \"that he may learn from me\nmy ideas and speak them more widely in his language: I shall thus be\nbetter able to reach men's ears and hearts. For by means of tones one\ncan seduce men to every error and every truth: who could _refute_ a\ntone?\"--\"You would, therefore, like to be regarded as irrefutable?\"\nsaid his disciple. The innovator answered: \"I should like the germ to\nbecome a tree. In order that a doctrine may become a tree, it must be\nbelieved in for a considerable period; in order that it may be believed\nin it must be regarded as irrefutable. Storms and doubts and worms and\nwickedness are necessary to the tree, that it may manifest its species\nand the strength of its germ; let it perish if it is not strong enough!\nBut a germ is always merely annihilated,--not refuted!\"--When he had\nsaid this, his disciple called out impetuously: \"But I believe in your\ncause, and regard it as so strong that I will say everything against\nit, everything that I still have in my heart.\"--The innovator laughed\nto himself and threatened the disciple with his finger. \"This kind of\ndiscipleship,\" said he then, \"is the best, but it is dangerous, and not\nevery kind of doctrine can stand it.\"\n\n\n107.\n\n_Our Ultimate Gratitude to Art._--If we had not approved of the Arts\nand invented this sort of cult of the untrue, the insight into the\ngeneral untruth and falsity of things now given us by science--an\ninsight into delusion and error as conditions of intelligent and\nsentient existence--would be quite unendurable. _Honesty_ would have\ndisgust and suicide in its train. Now, however, our honesty has a\ncounterpoise which helps us to escape such consequences;--namely, Art,\nas the _good-will_ to illusion. We do not always restrain our eyes from\nrounding off and perfecting in imagination: and then it is no longer\nthe eternal imperfection that we carry over the river of Becoming--for\nwe think we carry a _goddess,_ and are proud and artless in rendering\nthis service. As an \u00e6sthetic phenomenon existence is still _endurable_\nto us; and by Art, eye and hand and above all the good conscience are\ngiven to us, _to be able_ to make such a phenomenon out of ourselves.\nWe must rest from ourselves occasionally by contemplating and looking\ndown upon ourselves, and by laughing or weeping _over_ ourselves from\nan artistic remoteness: we must discover the _hero,_ and likewise the\n_fool,_ that is hidden in our passion for knowledge; we must now and\nthen be joyful in our folly, that we may continue to be joyful in our\nwisdom! And just because we are heavy and serious men in our ultimate\ndepth, and are rather weights than men, there is nothing that does us\nso much good as the _fool's cap and bells:_ we need them in presence of\nourselves--we need all arrogant, soaring, dancing, mocking, childish\nand blessed Art, in order not to lose the _free dominion over things_\nwhich our ideal demands of us. It would be _backsliding_ for us,\nwith our susceptible integrity, to lapse entirely into morality, and\nactually become virtuous monsters and scarecrows, on account of the\nover-strict requirements which we here lay down for ourselves. We\nought also to _be able_ to stand _above_ morality, and not only stand\nwith the painful stiffness of one who every moment fears to slip and\nfall, but we should also be able to soar and play above it! How could\nwe dispense with Art for that purpose, how could we dispense with the\nfool?--And as long as you are still _ashamed_ of yourselves in any\nway, you still do not belong to us!\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THIRD\n\n\n108.\n\n_New Struggles._--After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for\ncenturies afterwards in a cave,--an immense frightful shadow. God is\ndead:--but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be\ncaves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow.--And\nwe--we have still to overcome his shadow!\n\n\n109.\n\n_Let us be on our Guard._--Let us be on our guard against thinking\nthat the world is a living being. Where could it extend itself? What\ncould it nourish itself with? How could it grow and increase? We know\ntolerably well what the organic is; and we are to reinterpret the\nemphatically derivative, tardy, rare and accidental, which we only\nperceive on the crust of the earth, into the essential, universal\nand eternal, as those do who call the universe an organism? That\ndisgusts me. Let us now be on our guard against believing that the\nuniverse is a machine; it is assuredly not constructed with a view\nto _one_ end; we invest it with far too high an honour with the word\n\"machine.\" Let us be on our guard against supposing that anything so\nmethodical as the cyclic motions of our neighbouring stars obtains\ngenerally and throughout the universe; indeed a glance at the\nMilky Way induces doubt as to whether there are not many cruder and\nmore contradictory motions there, and even stars with continuous,\nrectilinearly gravitating orbits, and the like. The astral arrangement\nin which we live is an exception; this arrangement, and the relatively\nlong durability which is determined by it, has again made possible the\nexception of exceptions, the formation of organic life. The general\ncharacter of the world, on the other hand, is to all eternity chaos;\nnot by the absence of necessity, but in the sense of the absence of\norder, structure, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever else our \u00e6sthetic\nhumanities are called. Judged by our reason, the unlucky casts are far\noftenest the rule, the exceptions are not the secret purpose; and the\nwhole musical box repeats eternally its air, which can never be called\na melody,--and finally the very expression, \"unlucky cast\" is already\nan anthropomorphising which involves blame. But how could we presume to\nblame or praise the universe! Let us be on our guard against ascribing\nto it heartlessness and unreason, or their opposites; it is neither\nperfect, nor beautiful, nor noble; nor does it seek to be anything of\nthe kind, it does not at all attempt to imitate man! It is altogether\nunaffected by our \u00e6sthetic and moral judgments! Neither has it any\nself-preservative instinct, nor instinct at all; it also knows no law.\nLet us be on our guard against saying that there are laws in nature.\nThere are only necessities: there is no one who commands, no one who\nobeys, no one who transgresses. When you know that there is no design,\nyou know also that there is no chance: for it is only where there is a\nworld of design that the word \"chance\" has a meaning. Let us be on our\nguard against saying that death is contrary to life. The living being\nis only a species of dead being, and a very rare species.--Let us be on\nour guard against thinking that the world eternally creates the new.\nThere are no eternally enduring substances; matter is just another such\nerror as the God of the Eleatics. But when shall we be at an end with\nour foresight and precaution! When will all these shadows of God cease\nto obscure us? When shall we have nature entirely undeified! When shall\nwe be permitted to _naturalise_ ourselves by means of the pure, newly\ndiscovered, newly redeemed nature?\n\n\n110.\n\n_Origin of Knowledge._--Throughout immense stretches of time the\nintellect produced nothing but errors; some of them proved to be useful\nand preservative of the species: he who fell in with them, or inherited\nthem, waged the battle for himself and his offspring with better\nsuccess. Those erroneous articles of faith which were successively\ntransmitted by inheritance, and have finally become almost the property\nand stock of the human species, are, for example, the following:--that\nthere are enduring things, that there are equal things, that there are\nthings, substances, and bodies, that a thing is what it appears, that\nour will is free, that what is good for me is also good absolutely. It\nwas only very late that the deniers and doubters of such propositions\ncame forward,--it was only very late that truth made its appearance\nas the most impotent form of knowledge. It seemed as if it were\nimpossible to get along with truth, our organism was adapted for\nthe very opposite; all its higher functions, the perceptions of the\nsenses, and in general every kind of sensation, co-operated with those\nprimevally embodied, fundamental errors. Moreover, those propositions\nbecame the very standards of knowledge according to which the \"true\"\nand the \"false\" were determined--throughout the whole domain of pure\nlogic. The _strength_ of conceptions does not, therefore, depend on\ntheir degree of truth, but on their antiquity, their embodiment, their\ncharacter as conditions of life. Where life and knowledge seemed to\nconflict, there has never been serious contention; denial and doubt\nhave there been regarded as madness. The exceptional thinkers like the\nEleatics, who, in spite of this, advanced and maintained the antitheses\nof the natural errors, believed that it was possible also _to live_\nthese counterparts: it was they who devised the sage as the man of\nimmutability, impersonality and universality of intuition, as one and\nall at the same time, with a special faculty for that reverse kind of\nknowledge; they were of the belief that their knowledge was at the same\ntime the principle of _life._ To be able to affirm all this, however,\nthey had to _deceive_ themselves concerning their own condition: they\nhad to attribute to themselves impersonality and unchanging permanence,\nthey had to mistake the nature of the philosophic individual, deny the\nforce of the impulses in cognition, and conceive of reason generally\nas an entirely free and self-originating activity; they kept their\neyes shut to the fact that they also had reached their doctrines in\ncontradiction to valid methods, or through their longing for repose or\nfor exclusive possession or for domination. The subtler development of\nsincerity and of scepticism finally made these men impossible; their\nlife also, and their judgments, turned out to be dependent on the\nprimeval impulses and fundamental errors of all sentient being.--The\nsubtler sincerity and scepticism arose wherever two antithetical\nmaxims appeared to be _applicable_ to life, because both of them were\ncompatible with the fundamental errors; where, therefore, there could\nbe contention concerning a higher or lower degree of _utility_ for\nlife; and likewise where new maxims proved to be, not necessarily\nuseful, but at least not injurious, as expressions of an intellectual\nimpulse to play a game that was like all games innocent and happy. The\nhuman brain was gradually filled with such judgments and convictions;\nand in this tangled skein there arose ferment, strife and lust for\npower. Not only utility and delight, but every kind of impulse took\npart in the struggle for \"truths\": the intellectual struggle became\na business, an attraction, a calling, a duty, an honour--: cognizing\nand striving for the true finally arranged themselves as needs among\nother needs. From that moment, not only belief and conviction, but also\nexamination, denial, distrust and contradiction became _forces;_ all\n\"evil\" instincts were subordinated to knowledge, were placed in its\nservice, and acquired the prestige of the permitted, the honoured,\nthe useful, and finally the appearance and innocence of the _good._\nKnowledge, thus became a portion of life itself, and as life it became\na continually growing power: until finally the cognitions and those\nprimeval, fundamental errors clashed with each other, both as life,\nboth as power, both in the same man. The thinker is now the being in\nwhom the impulse to truth and those life-preserving errors wage their\nfirst conflict, now that the impulse to truth has also _proved_ itself\nto be a life-preserving power. In comparison with the importance of\nthis conflict everything else is indifferent; the final question\nconcerning the conditions of life is here raised, and the first attempt\nis here made to answer it by experiment. How far is truth susceptible\nof embodiment?--that is the question, that is the experiment.\n\n\n111.\n\n_Origin of the Logical._--Where has logic originated in men's heads?\nUndoubtedly out of the illogical, the domain of which must originally\n_have_ been immense. But numberless beings who reasoned otherwise than\nwe do at present, perished; albeit that they may have come nearer to\ntruth than we! Whoever, for example, could not discern the \"like\" often\nenough with regard to food, and with regard to animals dangerous to\nhim, whoever, therefore, deduced too slowly, or was too circumspect in\nhis deductions, had smaller probability of survival than he who in all\nsimilar cases immediately divined the equality. The preponderating\ninclination, however, to deal with the similar as the equal--an\nillogical inclination, for there is nothing equal in itself--first\ncreated the whole basis of logic. It was just so (in order that the\nconception of substance should originate, this being indispensable to\nlogic, although in the strictest sense nothing actual corresponds to\nit) that for a long period the changing process in things had to be\noverlooked, and remain unperceived; the beings not seeing correctly\nhad an advantage over those who saw everything \"in flux.\" In itself\nevery high degree of circumspection in conclusions, every sceptical\ninclination, is a great danger to life. No living being might have\nbeen preserved unless the contrary inclination--to affirm rather than\nsuspend judgment, to mistake and fabricate rather than wait, to assent\nrather than deny, to decide rather than be in the right--had been\ncultivated with extraordinary assiduity.--The course of logical thought\nand reasoning in our modern brain corresponds to a process and struggle\nof impulses, which singly and in themselves are all very illogical\nand unjust; we experience usually only the result of the struggle, so\nrapidly and secretly does this primitive mechanism now operate in us.\n\n\n112.\n\n_Cause and Effect._--We say it is \"explanation\"; but it is only in\n\"description\" that we are in advance of the older stages of knowledge\nand science. We describe better,--we explain just as little as our\npredecessors. We have discovered a manifold succession where the na\u00efve\nman and investigator of older cultures saw only two things, \"cause\"\nand \"effect,\" as it was said; we have perfected the conception of\nbecoming, but have not got a knowledge of what is above and behind the\nconception. The series of \"causes\" stands before us much more complete\nin every case; we conclude that this and that must first precede in\norder that that other may follow--but we have not _grasped_ anything\nthereby. The peculiarity, for example, in every chemical process seems\na \"miracle,\" the same as before, just like all locomotion; nobody\nhas \"explained\" impulse. How could we ever explain! We operate only\nwith things which do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms,\ndivisible times, divisible spaces--how can explanation ever be possible\nwhen we first make everything a _conception,_ our conception! It is\nsufficient to regard science as the exactest humanising of things that\nis possible; we always learn to describe ourselves more accurately by\ndescribing things and their successions. Cause and effect: there is\nprobably never any such duality; in fact there is a _continuum_ before\nus, from which we isolate a few portions;--just as we always observe\na motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it,\nbut infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads\nus into error; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an\ninfinite multitude of processes in that abrupt moment which escape us.\nAn intellect which could see cause and effect as a _continuum,_ which\ncould see the flux of events not according to our mode of perception,\nas things arbitrarily separated and broken--would throw aside the\nconception of cause and effect, and would deny all conditionality.\n\n\n113.\n\n_The Theory of Poisons._--So many things have to be united in order\nthat scientific thinking may arise, and all the necessary powers\nmust have been devised, exercised, and fostered singly! In their\nisolation, however, they have very often had quite a different\neffect than at present, when they are confined within the limits of\nscientific thinking and kept mutually in check:--they have operated as\npoisons; for example, the doubting impulse, the denying impulse, the\nwaiting impulse, the collecting impulse, the disintegrating impulse.\nMany hecatombs of men were sacrificed ere these impulses learned to\nunderstand their juxtaposition and regard themselves as functions of\none organising force in one man! And how far are we still from the\npoint at which the artistic powers and the practical wisdom of life\nshall co-operate with scientific thinking, so that a higher organic\nsystem may be formed, in relation to which the scholar, the physician,\nthe artist, and the lawgiver, as we know them at present, will seem\nsorry antiquities!\n\n\n114.\n\n_The Extent of the Moral._--We construct a new picture, which we see\nimmediately with the aid of all the old experiences which we have\nhad, _always according to the degree_ of our honesty and justice.\nThe only experiences are moral experiences, even in the domain of\nsense-perception.\n\n\n115.\n\n_The Four Errors._--Man has been reared by his errors: firstly, he saw\nhimself always imperfect; secondly,-he attributed to himself--imaginary\nqualities; thirdly, he felt himself in a false position in relation\nto the animals and nature; fourthly, he always devised new tables of\nvalues, and accepted them for a time as eternal and unconditioned, so\nthat at one time this, and at another time that human impulse or state\nstood first, and was ennobled in consequence. When one has deducted\nthe effect of these four errors, one has also deducted humanity,\nhumaneness, and \"human dignity.\"\n\n\n116.\n\n_Herd-Instinct._--Wherever we meet with a morality we find a\nvaluation and order of rank of the human impulses and activities.\nThese valuations and orders of rank are always the expression of the\nneeds of a community or herd: that which is in the first place to\n_its_ advantage--and in the second place and third place--is also the\nauthoritative standard for the worth of every individual. By morality\nthe individual is taught to become a function of the herd, and to\nascribe to himself value only as a function. As the conditions for\nthe maintenance of one community have been very different from those\nof another community, there have been very different moralities;\nand in respect to the future essential transformations of herds and\ncommunities, states and societies, one can prophesy that there will\nstill be very divergent moralities. Morality is the herd-instinct in\nthe individual.\n\n\n117.\n\n_The Herd's Sting of Conscience._--In the longest and remotest ages\nof the human race there was quite a different sting of conscience\nfrom that of the present day. At present one only feels responsible\nfor what one intends and for what one does, and we have our pride\nin ourselves. All our professors of jurisprudence start with this\nsentiment of individual independence and pleasure, as if the source\nof right had taken its rise here from the beginning. But throughout\nthe longest period in the life of mankind there was nothing more\nterrible to a person than to feel himself independent. To be alone,\nto feel independent, neither to obey nor to rule, to represent an\nindividual--that was no pleasure to a person then, but a punishment; he\nwas condemned \"to be an individual.\" Freedom of thought was regarded as\ndiscomfort personified. While we feel law and regulation as constraint\nand loss, people formerly regarded egoism as a painful thing, and a\nveritable evil. For a person to be himself, to value himself according\nto his own measure and weight--that was then quite distasteful. The\ninclination to such a thing would have been regarded as madness; for\nall miseries and terrors were associated with being alone. At that\ntime the \"free will\" had bad conscience in close proximity to it; and\nthe less independently a person acted, the more the herd-instinct, and\nnot his personal character, expressed itself in his conduct, so much\nthe more moral did he esteem himself. All that did injury to the herd,\nwhether the individual had intended it or not, then caused him a sting\nof conscience--and his neighbour likewise, indeed the whole herd!--It\nis in this respect that we have most changed our mode of thinking.\n\n\n118.\n\n_Benevolence--_Is it virtuous when a cell transforms itself into the\nfunction of a stronger cell? It must do so. And is it wicked when\nthe stronger one assimilates the other? It must do so likewise: it\nis necessary, for it has to have abundant indemnity and seeks to\nregenerate itself. One has therefore to distinguish the instinct\nof appropriation and the instinct of submission in benevolence,\naccording as the stronger or the weaker feels benevolent. Gladness\nand covetousness are united in the stronger person, who wants to\ntransform something to his function: gladness and desire-to-be-coveted\nin the weaker person, who would like to become a function.--The former\ncase is essentially pity, a pleasant excitation of the instinct of\nappropriation at the sight of the weak: it is to be remembered,\nhowever, that \"strong\" and \"weak\" are relative conceptions.\n\n\n119.\n\n_No Altruism!_/--I see in many men an excessive impulse and delight\nin wanting to be a function; they strive after it, and have the\nkeenest scent for all those positions in which precisely _they_\nthemselves can be functions. Among such persons are those women who\ntransform themselves into just that function of a man that is but\nweakly-developed in him, and then become his purse, or his politics, or\nhis social intercourse. Such beings maintain themselves best when they\ninsert themselves in an alien organism; if they do not succeed they\nbecome vexed, irritated, and eat themselves up.\n\n\n120.\n\n_Health of the Soul._--The favourite medico-moral formula (whose\noriginator was Ariston of Chios), \"Virtue is the health of the soul,\"\nwould, for all practical purposes, have to be altered to this: \"Thy\nvirtue is the health of thy soul.\" For there is no such thing as\nhealth in itself, and all attempts to define a thing in that way have\nlamentably failed. It is necessary to know thy aim, thy horizon,\nthy powers, thy impulses, thy errors, and especially the ideals and\nfantasies of thy soul, in order to determine _what health_ implies even\nfor thy _body._ There are consequently innumerable kinds of physical\nhealth; and the more one again permits the unique and unparalleled to\nraise its head, the more one unlearns the dogma of the \"Equality of\nmen,\" so much the more also must the conception of a normal health,\ntogether with a normal diet and a normal course of disease, be\nabrogated by our physicians. And then only would it be time to turn\nour thoughts to the health and disease of the _soul,_ and make the\nspecial virtue of everyone consist in its health; but, to be sure,\nwhat appeared as health in one person might appear as the contrary of\nhealth in another. In the end the great question might still remain\nopen:--Whether we could _do without_ sickness for the development of\nour virtue, and whether our thirst for knowledge and self-knowledge\nwould not especially need the sickly soul as well as the sound one; in\nshort, whether the mere will to health is not a prejudice, a cowardice,\nand perhaps an instance of the subtlest barbarism and unprogressiveness?\n\n\n121.\n\n_Life no Argument._--We have arranged for ourselves a world in which\nwe can live--by the postulating of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and\neffects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of\nfaith no one could manage to live at present! But for all that they\nare still unproved. Life is no argument; error might be among the\nconditions of life.\n\n\n122.\n\n_The Element of Moral Scepticism in Christianity._--Christianity also\nhas made a great contribution to enlightenment, and has taught moral\nscepticism --in a very impressive and effective manner, accusing and\nembittering, but with untiring patience and subtlety; it annihilated\nin every individual the belief in his virtues: it made the great\nvirtuous ones, of whom antiquity had no lack, vanish for ever from\nthe earth, those popular men, who, in the belief in their perfection,\nwalked about with the dignity of a hero of the bull-fight. When,\ntrained in this Christian school of scepticism, we now read the moral\nbooks of the ancients, for example those of Seneca and Epictetus, we\nfeel a pleasurable superiority, and are full of secret insight and\npenetration,--it seems to us as if a child talked before an old man, or\na pretty, gushing girl before La Rochefoucauld:--we know better what\nvirtue is! After all, however, we have applied the same scepticism to\nall _religious_ states and processes, such as sin, repentance, grace,\nsanctification, &c., and have allowed the worm to burrow so well, that\nwe have now the same feeling of subtle superiority and insight even\nin reading all Christian books:--we know also the religious feelings\nbetter! And it is time to know them well and describe them well, for\nthe pious ones of the old belief die out also; let us save their\nlikeness and type, at least for the sake of knowledge.\n\n\n123.\n\n_Knowledge more than a Means._--Also _without_ this passion--I refer\nto the passion for knowledge--science would be furthered: science has\nhitherto increased and grown up without it. The good faith in science,\nthe prejudice in its favour, by which States are at present dominated\n(it was even the Church formerly), rests fundamentally on the fact that\nthe absolute inclination and impulse has so rarely revealed itself in\nit, and that science is regarded _not_ as a passion, but as a condition\nand an \"ethos.\" Indeed, _amour-plaisir_ of knowledge (curiosity) often\nenough suffices, _amour-vanit\u00e9_ suffices, and habituation to it, with\nthe afterthought of obtaining honour and bread; it even suffices for\nmany that they do not know what to do with a surplus of leisure, except\nto continue reading, collecting, arranging, observing and narrating;\ntheir \"scientific impulse\" is their ennui. Pope Leo X once (in the\nbrief to Beroaldus) sang the praise of science; he designated it as the\nfinest ornament and the greatest pride of our life, a noble employment\nin happiness and in misfortune; \"without it,\" he says finally, \"all\nhuman undertakings would be without a firm basis,--even with it they\nare still sufficiently mutable and insecure!\" But this rather sceptical\nPope, like all other ecclesiastical panegyrists of science, suppressed\nhis ultimate judgment concerning it. If one may deduce from his words\nwhat is remarkable enough for such a lover of art, that he places\nscience above art it is alter all, however, only from politeness that\nhe omits to speak of that which he places high above all science:\nthe \"revealed truth,\" and the \"eternal salvation o the soul,\"--what\nare ornament, pride, entertainment and security of life to him, in\ncomparison thereto? \"Science is something of secondary rank, nothing\nultimate or unconditioned, no object of passion\"--this judgment was\nkept back in Leos soul: the truly Christian judgment concerning\nscience! In antiquity its dignity and appreciation were lessened by\nthe fact that, even among its most eager disciples, the striving after\n_virtue_ stood foremost and that people thought they had given the\nhighest praise to knowledge when they celebrated it as the best means\nto virtue. It is something new in history that knowledge claims to be\nmore than a means.\n\n\n124.\n\n_In the Horizon of the Infinite._--We have left the land and have gone\naboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us,--nay, more, the\nland behind us! Well, little ship! look out! Beside thee is the ocean;\nit is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like\nsilk and gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come when thou wilt\nfeel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than\ninfinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes\nagainst the walls of this cage! Alas, if home-sickness for the land\nshould attack thee, as if there had been more _freedom_ there,--and\nthere is no \"land\" any longer!\n\n\n125.\n\n_The Madman._--Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright\nmorning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out\nunceasingly: \"I seek God! I seek God!\"--As there were many people\nstanding about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal\nof amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a\nchild? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of\nus? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated?--the people cried out\nlaughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst\nand transfixed them with his glances. \"Where is God gone?\" he called\nout. \"I mean to tell you! _We have killed him,_--you and I! We are all\nhis murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up\nthe sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What\ndid we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it\nnow move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on\nunceasingly? Back-wards, sideways, forewards, in all directions? Is\nthere still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite\nnothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become\ncolder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall\nwe not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise\nof the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine\nputrefaction?--for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead!\nAnd we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most\nmurderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the\nworld has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,--who\nwill wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse\nourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is\nnot the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves\nhave to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a\ngreater event,--and on account of it, all who are born after us belong\nto a higher history than any history hitherto!\"--Here the madman was\nsilent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and\nlooked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground,\nso that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. \"I come too early,\"\nhe then said, \"I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event\nis still on its way, and is travelling,--it has not yet reached men's\nears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs\ntime, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard.\nThis deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star,--_and yet\nthey have done it!\"--It_ is further stated that the madman made his way\ninto different churches on the same day, and there intoned his _Requiem\n\u00e6ternam deo._ When led out and called to account, he always gave the\nreply: \"What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and\nmonuments of God?\"--\n\n\n126.\n\n_Mystical Explanations._--Mystical explanations are regarded as\nprofound; the truth is that they do not even go the length of being\nsuperficial.\n\n\n127.\n\n_After-Effect of the most Ancient Religiousness.--_The thoughtless\nman thinks that the Will is the only thing that operates, that willing\nis something simple, manifestly given, underived, and comprehensible\nin itself. He is convinced that when he does anything, for example,\nwhen he delivers a blow, it is _he_ who strikes, and he has struck\nbecause he _willed_ to strike. He does not notice anything of a problem\ntherein, but the feeling of _willing_ suffices to him, not only for\nthe acceptance of cause and effect, but also for the belief that he\n_understands_ their relationship. Of the mechanism of the occurrence,\nand of the manifold subtle operations that must be performed in order\nthat the blow may result, and likewise of the incapacity of the Will\nin itself to effect even the smallest part of those operations--he\nknows nothing. The Will is to him a magically operating force; the\nbelief in the Will as the cause of effects is the belief in magically\noperating forces. In fact, whenever he saw anything happen, man\noriginally believed in a Will as cause, and in personally _willing_\nbeings operating in the background,--the conception of mechanism was\nvery remote from him. Because, however, man for immense periods of\ntime believed only in persons (and not in matter, forces, things,\n&c.), the belief in cause and effect has become a fundamental belief\nwith him, which he applies everywhere when anything happens,--and even\nstill uses instinctively as a piece of atavism of remotest origin. The\npropositions, \"No effect without a cause,\" and \"Every effect again\nimplies a cause,\" appear as generalisations of several less general\npropositions:--\"Where there is operation there has been _willing_.\"\n\"Operating is only possible on _willing_ beings.\" \"There is never\na pure, resultless experience of activity, but every experience\ninvolves stimulation of the Will\" (to activity, defence, revenge or\nretaliation). But in the primitive period of the human race, the\nlatter and the former propositions were identical, the first were not\ngeneralisations of the second, but the second were explanations of\nthe first.--Schopenhauer, with his assumption that all that exists is\nsomething _volitional,_ has set a primitive mythology on the throne;\nhe seems never to have attempted an analysis of the Will, because\nhe _believed_ like everybody in the simplicity and immediateness of\nall volition:--while volition is in fact such a cleverly practised\nmechanical process that it almost escapes the observing eye. I set the\nfollowing propositions against those of Schopenhauer:--Firstly, in\norder that Will may arise, an idea of pleasure and pain is necessary.\nSecondly, that a vigorous excitation may be felt as pleasure or pain,\nis the affair of the _interpreting_ intellect, which, to be sure,\noperates thereby for the most part unconsciously to us, and one and the\nsame excitation _may_ be interpreted as pleasure or pain. Thirdly, it\nis only in an intellectual being that there is pleasure, displeasure\nand Will; the immense majority of organisms have nothing of the kind.\n\n\n128.\n\n_The Value of Prayer.--_Prayer has been devised for such men as have\nnever any thoughts of their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul\nis unknown, or passes unnoticed; what shall these people do in holy\nplaces and in all important situations in life which require repose and\nsome kind of dignity? In order at least that they may not _disturb,_\nthe wisdom of all the founders of religions, the small as well as\nthe great, has commended to them the formula of prayer, as a long\nmechanical labour of the lips, united with an effort of the memory,\nand with a uniform, prescribed attitude of hands and feet--_and_ eyes!\nThey may then, like the Tibetans, chew the cud of their \"_om mane\npadme hum,\"_ innumerable times, or, as in Benares, count the name of\nthe God Ram-Ram-Ram (etc., with or without grace) on their fingers;\nor honour Vishnu with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with his\nninety-nine; or they may make use of the prayer-wheels and the rosary:\nthe main thing is that they are settled down for a time at this work,\nand present a tolerable appearance; their mode of prayer is devised\nfor the advantage of the pious who have thought and elevation of their\nown. But even these have their weary hours when a series of venerable\nwords and sounds, and a mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But\nsupposing that these rare men--in every religion the religious man is\nan exception--know how to help themselves, the poor in spirit do not\nknow, and to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean to take their\nreligion from them, a fact which Protestantism brings more and more to\nlight. All that religion wants with such persons is that they should\n_keep still_ with their eyes, hands, legs, and all their organs: they\nthereby become temporarily beautified and--more human-looking!\n\n\n129.\n\n_The Conditions for God.--_\"God himself cannot subsist without wise\nmen,\" said Luther, and with good reason; but \"God can still less\nsubsist without unwise men,\"--good Luther did not say that!\n\n\n130.\n\n_A Dangerous Resolution.--_The Christian resolution to find the world\nugly and bad, has made the world ugly and bad.\n\n\n131.\n\n_Christianity and Suicide._--Christianity made use of the excessive\nlonging for suicide at the time of its origin as a lever for its power:\nit left only two forms of suicide, invested them with the highest\ndignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all others with dreadful\nthreatenings. But martyrdom and the slow self-annihilation of the\nascetic were permitted.\n\n\n132.\n\n_Against Christianity._--It is now no longer our reason, but our taste\nthat decides against Christianity.\n\n\n133.\n\n_Axioms._--An unavoidable hypothesis on which mankind must always fall\nback again, is in the long run _more powerful_ than the most firmly\nbelieved belief in something untrue (like the Christian belief). In the\nlong run: that means a hundred thousand years hence.\n\n\n134.\n\n_Pessimists as Victims._--When a profound dislike of existence gets\nthe upper hand, the after-effect of a great error in diet of which a\npeople has been long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism\n(_not_ its origin) is thus to a considerable extent dependent on the\nexcessive and almost exclusive rice-fare of the Indians, and on the\nuniversal enervation that results therefrom. Perhaps the modern,\nEuropean discontentedness is to be looked upon as caused by the fact\nthat the world of our forefathers, the whole Middle Ages, was given to\ndrink, owing to the influence of German tastes in Europe: the Middle\nAges, that means the alcoholic poisoning of Europe.--The German dislike\nof life (including the influence of the cellar-air and stove-poison in\nGerman dwellings), is essentially a cold-weather complaint.\n\n\n135.\n\n_Origin of Sin_--Sin, as it is at present felt wherever Christianity\nprevails or has prevailed is a Jewish feeling and a Jewish invention;\nand in respect to this background of all Christian morality\nChristianity has in fact aimed at \"Judaising\" the whole world. To\nwhat an extent this has succeeded in Europe is traced most accurately\nin our remarkable alienness to Greek antiquity--a world without the\nfeeling of sin--in our sentiments even at present; in spite of all the\ngood will to approximation and assimilation, which whole generations\nand many distinguished individuals have not failed to display. \"Only\nwhen thou _repentest_ is God gracious to thee\"--that would arouse\nthe laughter or the wrath of a Greek: he would say, \"Slaves may have\nsuch sentiments.\" Here a mighty being, an almighty being, and yet a\nrevengeful being, is presupposed; his power is so great that no injury\nwhatever can be done to him except in the point of honour. Every sin is\nan infringement of respect, a _crimen l\u00e6s\u00e6 majestatis divin\u00e6_?--and\nnothing more! Contrition, degradation, rolling-in-the-dust,--these\nare the first and last conditions on which his favour depends: the\nrestoration, therefore, of his divine honour! If injury be caused\notherwise by sin, if a profound, spreading evil be propagated by it,\nan evil which, like a disease, attacks and strangles one man after\nanother--that does not trouble this honour-craving Oriental in heaven;\nsin is an offence against him, not against mankind!--to him on whom\nhe has bestowed his favour he bestows also this indifference to the\nnatural consequences of sin. God and mankind are here thought of as\nseparated as so antithetical that sin against the latter cannot be at\nall possible,--all deeds are to be looked upon _solely with respect to\ntheir supernatural consequences,_ and not with respect to their natural\nresults: it is thus that the Jewish feeling, to which all that is\nnatural seems unworthy in itself, would have things. The _Greeks,_ on\nthe other hand, were more familiar with the thought that transgression\nalso may have dignity,--even theft, as in the case of Prometheus, even\nthe slaughtering of cattle as the expression of frantic jealousy, as in\nthe case of Ajax; in their need to attribute dignity to transgression\nand embody it therein, they invented _tragedy,_--an art and a delight,\nwhich in its profoundest essence has remained alien to the Jew, in\nspite of all his poetic endowment and taste for the sublime.\n\n\n136.\n\n_The Chosen People._--The Jews, who regard themselves as the chosen\npeople among the nations, and that too because they are the moral\ngenius among the nations (in virtue of their capacity for _despising_\nthe human in themselves _more_ than any other people)--the Jews have\na pleasure in their divine monarch and saint similar to that which\nthe French nobility had in Louis XIV. This nobility had allowed its\npower and autocracy to be taken from it, and had become contemptible:\nin order not to feel this, in order to be able to forget it, an\n_unequalled_ royal magnificence, royal authority and plenitude of power\nwas needed, to which there was access only for the nobility. As in\naccordance with this privilege they raised themselves to the elevation\nof the court, and from that elevation saw everything under them,--saw\neverything contemptible,--they got beyond all uneasiness of conscience.\nThey thus elevated intentionally the tower of the royal power more and\nmore into the clouds, and set the final coping-stone of their own power\nthereon.\n\n\n137.\n\n_Spoken in Parable._--A Jesus Christ was only possible in a\nJewish landscape--I mean in one over which the gloomy and sublime\nthunder-cloud of the angry Jehovah hung continually. Here only was\nthe rare, sudden flashing of a single sunbeam through the dreadful,\nuniversal and continuous nocturnal-day regarded as a miracle of \"love,\"\nas a beam of the most unmerited \"grace.\" Here only could Christ dream\nof his rainbow and celestial ladder on which God descended to man;\neverywhere else the clear weather and the sun were considered the rule\nand the commonplace.\n\n\n138.\n\n_The Error of Christ.--_The founder of Christianity thought there was\nnothing from which men suffered so much as from their sins:--it was\nhis error, the error of him who felt himself without sin, to whom\nexperience was lacking in this respect! It was thus that his soul\nfilled with that marvellous, fantastic pity which had reference to\na trouble that even among his own people, the inventors of sin, was\nrarely a great trouble! But Christians understood subsequently how\nto do justice to their master, and how to sanctify his error into a\n\"truth.\"\n\n\n139.\n\n_Colour of the Passions.--_Natures such as the apostle Paul, have\nan evil eye for the passions; they learn to know only the filthy,\nthe distorting, and the heart-breaking in them,--their ideal aim,\ntherefore, is the annihilation of the passions; in the divine they see\ncomplete purification from passion. The Greeks, quite otherwise than\nPaul and the Jews, directed their ideal aim precisely to the passions,\nand loved, elevated, embellished and deified them: in passion they\nevidently not only felt themselves happier, but also purer and diviner\nthan otherwise.--And now the Christians? Have they wished to become\nJews in this respect? Have they perhaps become Jews?\n\n\n140.\n\n_Too Jewish.--_If God had wanted to become an object of love, he would\nfirst of all have had to forgo judging and justice:-a judge, and even\na gracious judge, is no object of love. The founder of Christianity\nshowed too little of the finer feelings in this respect--being a Jew.\n\n\n141.\n\n_Too Oriental._--What? A God who loves men provided that they believe\nin him, and who hurls frightful glances and threatenings at him who\ndoes not believe in this love! What? A conditioned love as the feeling\nof an almighty God! A love which has not even become master of the\nsentiment of honour and of the irritable desire for vengeance! How\nOriental is all that! \"If I love thee, what does it concern thee?\"[1]\nis already a sufficient criticism of the whole of Christianity.\n\n\n142.\n\n_Frankincense.--Buddha_ says: \"Do not flatter thy benefactor!\" Let one\nrepeat this saying in a Christian church:--it immediately purifies the\nair.\n\n\n143.\n\n_The Greatest Utility of Polytheism._--For the individual to set up\nhis _own_ ideal and derive from it his laws, his pleasures and his\nrights--_that_ has perhaps been hitherto regarded as the most monstrous\nof all human aberrations, and as idolatry in itself; in fact, the\nfew who have ventured to do this have always needed to apologise to\nthemselves, usually in this wise: \"Not I! not I! but _a God,_ through\nmy instrumentality!\" It was in the marvellous art and capacity for\ncreating Gods--in polytheism--that this impulse was permitted to\ndischarge itself, it was here that it became purified, perfected, and\nennobled; for it was originally a commonplace and unimportant impulse,\nakin to stubbornness, disobedience and envy. To be _hostile_ to this\nimpulse towards the individual ideal,--that was formerly the law of\nevery morality. There was then only one norm, \"the man\"--and every\npeople believed that it _had_ this one and ultimate norm. But above\nhimself, and outside of himself, in a distant over-world, a person\ncould see a _multitude of norms:_ the one God was not the denial\nor blasphemy of the other Gods! It was here that individuals were\nfirst permitted, it was here that the right of individuals was first\nrespected. The inventing of Gods, heroes, and supermen of all kinds,\nas well as co-ordinate men and undermen--dwarfs, fairies, centaurs,\nsatyrs, demons, devils--was the inestimable preliminary to the\njustification of the selfishness and sovereignty of the individual: the\nfreedom which was granted to one God in respect to other Gods, was at\nlast given to the individual himself in respect to laws, customs and\nneighbours. Monotheism, on the contrary, the rigid consequence of the\ndoctrine of one normal human being--consequently the belief in a normal\nGod, beside whom there are only false, spurious Gods--has perhaps been\nthe greatest danger of mankind in the past: man was then threatened\nby that premature state of inertia, which, so far as we can see, most\nof the other species of animals reached long ago, as creatures who\nall believed in one normal animal and ideal in their species, and\ndefinitely translated their morality of custom into flesh and blood. In\npolytheism man's free-thinking and many-sided thinking had a prototype\nset up: the power to create for himself new and individual eyes, always\nnewer and more individualised: so that these are no _eternal_ horizons\nand perspectives.\n\n\n[1] This means that true love does not look for reciprocity.\n\n\n144.\n\n_Religious Wars._--The greatest advance of the masses hitherto has\nbeen religious war, for it proves that the masses have begun to deal\nreverently with conceptions of things. Religious wars only result\nwhen human reason generally has been refined by the subtle disputes\nof sects; so that even the populace becomes punctilious and regards\ntrifles as important, actually thinking it possible that the \"eternal\nsalvation of the soul\" may depend upon minute distinctions of concepts.\n\n\n145.\n\n_Danger of Vegetarians._--The immense prevalence of rice-eating impels\nto the use of opium and narcotics, in like manner as the immense\nprevalence of potato-eating impels to the use of brandy:--it also\nimpels, however, in its more subtle after-effects to modes of thought\nand feeling which operate narcotically. This is in accord with the fact\nthat those who promote narcotic modes of thought and feeling, like\nthose Indian teachers, praise a purely vegetable diet, and would like\nto make it a law for the masses: they want thereby to call forth and\naugment the need which _they_ are in a position to satisfy.\n\n\n146.\n\n_German Hopes.--_Do not let us forget that the names of peoples are\ngenerally names of reproach. The Tartars, for example, according to\ntheir name, are \"the dogs\"; they were so christened by the Chinese.\n_\"Deutschen\"_ (Germans) means originally \"heathen\": it is thus that the\nGoths after their conversion named the great mass of their unbaptized\nfellow-tribes, according to the indication in their translation of\nthe Septuagint, in which the heathen are designated by the word which\nin Greek signifies \"the nations.\" (See Ulfilas.)--It might still be\npossible for the Germans to make an honourable name ultimately out\nof their old name of reproach, by becoming the first _non-Christian_\nnation of Europe; for which purpose Schopenhauer, to their honour,\nregarded them as highly qualified. The work of _Luther_ would thus be\nconsummated,--he who taught them to be anti-Roman, and to say: \"Here\n_I_ stand! _I_ cannot do otherwise!\"--\n\n\n147.\n\n_Question and Answer._--What do savage tribes at present accept\nfirst of all from Europeans? Brandy and Christianity, the European\nnarcotics.--And by what means are they fastest ruined?--By the European\nnarcotics.\n\n\n148.\n\n_Where Reformations Originate._--At the time of the great corruption\nof the church it was least of all corrupt in Germany: it was on\nthat account that the Reformation originated _here,_ as a sign that\neven the beginnings of corruption were felt to be unendurable. For,\ncomparatively speaking, no people was ever more Christian than the\nGermans at the time of Luther; their Christian culture was just about\nto burst into bloom with a hundred-fold splendour,--one night only was\nstill lacking; but that night brought the storm which put an end to all.\n\n\n149.\n\n_The Failure of Reformations._--It testifies to the higher culture of\nthe Greeks, even in rather early ages, that attempts to establish new\nGrecian religions frequently failed; it testifies that quite early\nthere must have been a multitude of dissimilar individuals in Greece,\nwhose dissimilar troubles were not cured by a single recipe of faith\nand hope. Pythagoras and Plato, perhaps also Empedocles, and already\nmuch earlier the Orphic enthusiasts, aimed at founding new religions;\nand the two first-named were so endowed with the qualifications for\nfounding religions, that one cannot be sufficiently astonished at their\nfailure: they just reached the point of founding sects. Every time that\nthe Reformation of an entire people fails and only sects raise their\nheads, one may conclude that the people already contains many types,\nand has begun to free itself from the gross herding instincts and\nthe morality of, custom,--a momentous state of suspense, which one is\naccustomed to disparage as decay of morals and corruption, while it\nannounces the maturing of the egg and the early rupture of the shell.\nThat Luther's Reformation succeeded in the north, is a sign that the\nnorth had remained backward in comparison with the south of Europe, and\nstill had requirements tolerably uniform in colour and kind; and there\nwould have been no Christianising of Europe at all, if the culture of\nthe old world of the south had not been gradually barbarized by an\nexcessive admixture of the blood of German barbarians, and thus lost\nits ascendency. The more universally and unconditionally an individual,\nor the thought of an individual, can operate, so much more homogeneous\nand so much lower must be the mass that is there operated upon; while\ncounter-strivings betray internal counter-requirements, which also want\nto gratify and realise themselves. Reversely, one may always conclude\nwith regard to an actual elevation of culture, when powerful and\nambitious natures only produce a limited and sectarian effect: this is\ntrue also for the separate arts, and for the provinces of knowledge.\nWhere there is ruling there are masses: where there are masses there is\nneed of slavery. Where there is slavery the individuals are but few,\nand have the instincts and conscience of the herd opposed to them.\n\n\n150.\n\n_Criticism of Saints._--Must one then, in order to have a virtue, be\ndesirous of having it precisely in its most brutal form?--as the\nChristian saints desired and needed;--those who only _endured_ life\nwith the thought that at the sight of their virtue self-contempt might\nseize every man. A virtue with such an effect I call brutal.\n\n\n151.\n\n_The Origin of Religion._--The metaphysical requirement is not the\norigin of religions, as Schopenhauer claims, but only a _later sprout_\nfrom them. Under the dominance of religious thoughts we have accustomed\nourselves to the idea of \"another (back, under, or upper) world,\" and\nfeel an uncomfortable void and privation through the annihilation\nof the religious illusion;--and then \"another world\" grows out of\nthis feeling once more, but now it is only a metaphysical world, and\nno longer a religious one. That however which in general led to the\nassumption of \"another world\" in primitive times, was _not_ an impulse\nor requirement, but an _error_ in the interpretation of certain natural\nphenomena, a difficulty of the intellect.\n\n\n152.\n\n_The greatest Change._--The lustre and the hues of all things have\nchanged! We no longer quite understand how earlier men conceived of the\nmost familiar and frequent things,--for example, of the day, and the\nawakening in the morning: owing to their belief in dreams the waking\nstate seemed to them differently illuminated. And similarly of the\nwhole of life, with its reflection of death and its significance: our\n\"death\" is an entirely different death. All events were of a different\nlustre, for a God shone forth in them; and similarly of all resolutions\nand peeps into the distant future: for people had oracles, and secret\nhints, and believed in prognostication. \"Truth\" was conceived in quite\na different manner, for the insane could formerly be regarded as its\nmouthpiece--a thing which makes _us_ shudder, or laugh. Injustice made\na different impression on the feelings: for people were afraid of\ndivine retribution, and not only of legal punishment and disgrace. What\njoy was there in an age when men believed in the devil and tempter!\nWhat passion was there when people saw demons lurking close at hand!\nWhat philosophy was there when doubt was regarded as sinfulness of the\nmost dangerous kind, and in fact as an outrage on eternal love, as\ndistrust of everything good, high, pure, and compassionate!--We have\ncoloured things anew, we paint them over continually,--but what have we\nbeen able to do hitherto in comparison with the _splendid colouring_ of\nthat old master!--I mean ancient humanity.\n\n\n153.\n\n_Homo poeta._--\"I myself who have made this tragedy of tragedies\naltogether independently, in so far as it is completed; I who have\nfirst entwined the perplexities of morality about existence, and\nhave tightened them so that only a God could unravel them--so Horace\ndemands!--I have already in the fourth act killed all the Gods--for the\nsake of morality! What is now to be done about the fifth act? Where\nshall I get the tragic _d\u00e9nouement!_ Must I now think about a comic\n_d\u00e9nouement_?\"\n\n\n154.\n\n_Differences in the Dangerousness of Life._--You don't know at all what\nyou experience; you run through life as if intoxicated, and now and\nthen fall down a stair. Thanks however to your intoxication you still\ndo not break your limbs: your muscles are too languid and your head too\nconfused to find the stones of the staircase as hard as we others do!\nFor, us life is a greater danger: we are made of glass--alas, if we\nshould _strike against_ anything! And all is lost if we should _fall_!\n\n\n155.\n\n_What we Lack._--We love the _grandeur_ of Nature, and have discovered\nit; that is because human grandeur is lacking in our minds. It was\nthe reverse with the Greeks: their feeling towards Nature was quite\ndifferent from ours.\n\n\n156.\n\n_The most Influential Person._--The fact that a person resists the\nwhole spirit of his age, stops it at the door and calls it to account,\n_must_ exert an influence! It is indifferent whether he wishes to exert\nan influence; the point is that he _can_.\n\n\n157.\n\n_Mentiri._--Take care!--he reflects: he will have a lie ready\nimmediately. This is a stage in the civilisation of whole nations.\nConsider only what the Romans expressed by _mentiri!_\n\n\n158.\n\n_An Inconvenient Peculiarity._--To find everything deep is an\ninconvenient peculiarity: it makes one constantly strain one's eyes, so\nthat in the end one always finds more than one wishes.\n\n\n159.\n\n_Every Virtue has its Time._--The honesty of him who is at present\ninflexible often causes him remorse; for inflexibility is the virtue of\na time different from that in which honesty prevails.\n\n\n160.\n\n_In Intercourse with Virtues._--One can also be undignified and\nflattering towards a virtue.\n\n\n161.\n\n_To the Admirers of the Age._--The runaway priest and the liberated\ncriminal are continually making grimaces; what they want is a look\nwithout a past. But have you ever seen men who know that their looks\nreflect the future, and who are so courteous to you, the admirers of\nthe \"age,\" that they assume a look without a future?--\n\n\n162.\n\n_Egoism._--Egoism is the _perspective_ law of our sentiment, according\nto which the near appears large and momentous, while in the distance\nthe magnitude and importance of all things diminish.\n\n\n163.\n\n_After a Great Victory._--The best thing in a great victory is that\nit deprives the conqueror of the fear of defeat. \"Why should I not be\nworsted for once?\" he says to himself, \"I am now rich enough to stand\nit.\"\n\n\n164.\n\n_Those who Seek Repose._--I recognise the minds that seek repose by the\nmany _dark_ objects with which they surround themselves: those who want\nto sleep darken their chambers, or creep into caverns. A hint to those\nwho do not know what they really seek most, and would like to know!\n\n\n165.\n\n_The Happiness of Renunciation._--He who has absolutely dispensed with\nsomething for a long time will almost imagine, when he accidentally\nmeets with it again, that he has discovered it,--and what happiness\nevery discoverer has! Let us be wiser than the serpents that lie too\nlong in the same sunshine.\n\n\n166.\n\n_Always in our own Society._--All that is akin to me in nature and\nhistory speaks to me, praises me, urges me forward and comforts me--:\nother things are unheard by me, or immediately forgotten. We are only\nin our own society always.\n\n\n167.\n\n_Misanthropy and Philanthropy._--We only speak about being sick of men\nwhen we can no longer digest them, and yet have the stomach full of\nthem. Misanthropy is the result of a far too eager philanthropy and\n\"cannibalism,\"--but who ever bade you swallow men like oysters, my\nPrince Hamlet?\n\n\n168.\n\n_Concerning an Invalid._--\"Things go badly with him!\"--What is\nwrong?--\" He suffers from the longing to be praised, and finds no\nsustenance for it.\"--Inconceivable! All the world does honour to him,\nand he is reverenced not only in deed but in word!--\"Certainly, but he\nis dull of hearing for the praise. When a friend praises him it sounds\nto him as if the friend praised himself; when an enemy praises him,\nit sounds to him as if the enemy wanted to be praised for it; when,\nfinally, some one else praises him--there are by no means so many of\nthese, he is so famous!--he is offended because they neither want him\nfor a friend nor for an enemy; he is accustomed to say: 'What do I care\nfor those who can still pose as the all-righteous towards me!'\"\n\n\n169.\n\n_Avowed Enemies._--Bravery in presence of an enemy is a thing by\nitself: a person may possess it and still be a coward and an irresolute\nnum-skull. That was Napoleon's opinion concerning the \"bravest man\" he\nknew, Murat:--whence it follows that avowed enemies are indispensable\nto some men, if they are to attain to _their_ virtue, to their\nmanliness, to their cheerfulness.\n\n\n170.\n\n_With, the Multitude._--He has hitherto gone with the multitude and is\nits panegyrist; but one day he will be its opponent! For he follows\nit in the belief that his laziness will find its advantage thereby:\nhe has not yet learned that the multitude is not lazy enough for him!\nthat it always presses forward! that it does not allow any one to stand\nstill!--And he likes so well to stand still!\n\n\n171.\n\n_Fame._--When the gratitude of many to one casts aside all shame, then\nfame originates.\n\n\n172.\n\n_The Perverter of Taste._--A: \"You are a perverter of taste--they say\nso everywhere!\" B: \"Certainly! I pervert every one's taste for his\nparty:--no party forgives me for that.\"\n\n\n173.\n\n_To be Profound and to Appear Profound._--He who knows that he is\nprofound strives for clearness; he who would like to appear profound to\nthe multitude strives for obscurity. The multitude thinks everything\nprofound of which it cannot see the bottom; it is so timid and goes so\nunwillingly into the water.\n\n\n174.\n\n_Apart._--Parliamentarism, that is to say, the public permission to\nchoose between five main political opinions, insinuates itself into\nthe favour of the numerous class who would fain _appear_ independent\nand individual, and like to fight for their opinions. After all,\nhowever, it is a matter of indifference whether one opinion is imposed\nupon the herd, or five opinions are permitted to it.--He who diverges\nfrom the five public opinions and goes apart, has always the whole herd\nagainst him.\n\n\n175.\n\n_Concerning Eloquence._--What has hitherto had the most convincing\neloquence? The rolling of the drum: and as long as kings have this at\ntheir command, they will always be the best orators and popular leaders.\n\n\n176.\n\n_Compassion._--The poor, ruling princes! All their rights now change\nunexpectedly into claims, and all these claims immediately sound like\npretensions! And if they but say \"we,\" or \"my people,\" wicked old\nEurope begins laughing. Verily, a chief-master-of-ceremonies of the\nmodern world would make little ceremony with them; perhaps he would\ndecree that \"_les souverains rangent aux parvenus._\"\n\n\n177.\n\n_On \"Educational Matters.\"_--In Germany an important educational means\nis lacking for higher men; namely, the laughter of higher men; these\nmen do not laugh in Germany.\n\n\n178.\n\n_For Moral Enlightenment_.--The Germans must be talked out of their\nMephistopheles--and out of their Faust also. These are two moral\nprejudices against the value of knowledge.\n\n\n179.\n\n_Thoughts.--_Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments--always however\nobscurer, emptier and simpler.\n\n\n180.\n\n_The Good Time for Free Spirits._--Free Spirits take liberties even\nwith regard to Science--and meanwhile they are allowed to do so,--while\nthe Church still remains!--In so far they have now their good time.\n\n\n181.\n\n_Following and Leading._--A: \"Of the two, the one will always follow,\nthe other will always lead, whatever be the course of their destiny.\n_And yet_ the former is superior to the other in virtue and intellect.\"\nB: \"And yet? And yet? That is spoken for the others; not for me, not\nfor us!--_Fit secundum regulam._\"\n\n\n182.\n\n_In Solitude._--When one lives alone one does not speak too loudly,\nand one does not write too loudly either, for one fears the hollow\nreverberation--the criticism of the nymph Echo.--And all voices sound\ndifferently in solitude!\n\n\n183.\n\n_The Music of the Best Future._--The first musician for me would be he\nwho knew only the sorrow of the profoundest happiness, and no other\nsorrow: there has not hitherto been such a musician.\n\n\n184.\n\n_Justice._--Better allow oneself to be robbed than have scarecrows\naround one--that is my taste. And under all circumstances it is just a\nmatter of taste--and nothing more!\n\n\n185.\n\n_Poor._--He is now poor, but not because everything has been taken from\nhim, but because he has thrown everything away:--what does he care? He\nis accustomed to find new things.--It is the poor who misunderstand his\nvoluntary poverty.\n\n\n186.\n\n_Bad Conscience._--All that he now does is excellent and proper--and\nyet he has a bad conscience with it all. For the exceptional is his\ntask.\n\n\n187.\n\n_Offensiveness in Expression._--This artist offends me by the way in\nwhich he expresses his ideas, his very excellent ideas: so diffusely\nand forcibly, and with such gross rhetorical artifices, as if he\nwere speaking to the mob. We feel always as if \"in bad company\" when\ndevoting some time to his art.\n\n\n188.\n\n_Work._--How closely work and the workers now stand even to the most\nleisurely of us! The royal courtesy in the words: \"We are all workers,\"\nwould have been a cynicism and an indecency even under Louis XIV.\n\n\n189.\n\n_The Thinker._--He is a thinker: that is to say, he knows how to take\nthings more simply than they are.\n\n\n190.\n\n_Against Eulogisers._--A: \"One is only praised by one's equals!\" B:\n\"Yes! And he who praises you says: 'You are my equal!'\"\n\n\n191.\n\n_Against many a Vindication._--The most perfidious manner of injuring a\ncause is to vindicate it intentionally with fallacious arguments.\n\n\n192.\n\n_The Good-natured._--What is it that distinguishes the good-natured,\nwhose countenances beam kindness, from other people? They feel quite\nat ease in presence of a new person, and are quickly enamoured of him;\nthey therefore wish him well; their first opinion is: \"He pleases me.\"\nWith them there follow in succession the wish to appropriate (they make\nlittle scruple about the person's worth), rapid appropriation, joy in\nthe possession, and actions in favour of the person possessed.\n\n\n193.\n\n_Kant's Joke._--Kant tried to prove, in a way that dismayed\n\"everybody,\" that \"everybody\" was in the right:--that was his secret\njoke. He wrote against the learned, in favour of popular prejudice; he\nwrote, however, for the learned and not for the people.\n\n\n194.\n\n_The \"Open-hearted\" Man._--That man acts probably always from concealed\nmotives; for he has always communicable motives on his tongue, and\nalmost in his open hand.\n\n\n195.\n\n_Laughable!_--See! See! He runs _away_ from men--: they follow him,\nhowever, because he runs _before_ them,--they are such a gregarious lot!\n\n\n196.\n\n_The Limits of our Sense of Hearing._--We hear only the questions to\nwhich we are capable of finding an answer.\n\n\n197.\n\n_Caution therefore!_--There is nothing we are fonder of communicating\nto others than the seal of secrecy--together with what is under it.\n\n\n198.\n\n_Vexation of the Proud Man._--The proud man is vexed even with those\nwho help him forward: he looks angrily at his carriage-horses.\n\n\n199.\n\n_Liberality._--Liberality is often only a form of timidity in the rich.\n\n\n200.\n\n_Laughing._--To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good\nconscience.\n\n\n201.\n\n_In Applause._--In applause there is always some kind of noise: even in\nself-applause.\n\n\n202.\n\n_A Spendthrift._--He has not yet the poverty of the rich man who\nhas counted all his treasure,--he squanders his spirit with the\nirrationalness of the spendthrift Nature.\n\n\n203.\n\n_Hic niger est_.--Usually he has no thoughts,--but in exceptional cases\nbad thoughts come to him.\n\n\n204.\n\n_Beggars and Courtesy._--\"One is not discourteous when one knocks at a\ndoor with a stone when the bell-pull is awanting\"--so think all beggars\nand necessitous persons, but no one thinks they are in the right.\n\n\n205.\n\n_Need._--Need is supposed to be the cause of things; but in truth it is\noften only the result of things.\n\n\n206.\n\n_During the Rain._--It rains, and I think of the poor people who now\ncrowd together with their many cares, which they are unaccustomed to\nconceal; all of them, therefore, ready and anxious to give pain to one\nanother, and thus provide themselves with a pitiable kind of comfort,\neven in bad weather. This, this only, is the poverty of the poor!\n\n\n207.\n\n_The Envious Man._--That is an envious man--it is not desirable that he\nshould have children; he would be envious of them, because he can no\nlonger be a child.\n\n\n208.\n\n_A Great Man!_--Because a person is \"a great man,\" we are not\nauthorised to infer that he is a man. Perhaps he is only a boy, or a\nchameleon of all ages, or a bewitched girl.\n\n\n209.\n\n_A Mode of Asking for Reasons._--There is a mode of asking for our\nreasons which not only makes us forget our best reasons, but also\narouses in us a spite and repugnance against reason generally:-a very\nstupefying mode of questioning, and really an artifice of tyrannical\nmen!\n\n\n210.\n\n_Moderation in Diligence._--One must not be anxious to surpass the\ndiligence of one's father--that would make one ill.\n\n\n211.\n\n_Secret Enemies._--To be able to keep a secret enemy--that is a luxury\nwhich the morality even of the highest-minded persons can rarely afford.\n\n\n212.\n\n_Not Letting oneself be Deluded._--His spirit has bad manners, it is\nhasty and always stutters with impatience; so that one would hardly\nsuspect the deep breathing and the large chest of the soul in which it\nresides.\n\n\n213.\n\n_The Way to Happiness._--A sage asked of a fool the way to happiness.\nThe fool answered without delay, like one who had been asked the way\nto the next town: \"Admire yourself, and live on the street!\" \"Hold,\"\ncried the sage, \"you require too much; it suffices to admire oneself!\"\nThe fool replied: \"But how can one constantly admire without constantly\ndespising?\"\n\n\n214.\n\n_Faith Saves._--Virtue gives happiness and a state of blessedness only\nto those who have a strong faith in their virtue:--not, however, to\nthe more refined souls whose virtue consists of a profound distrust of\nthemselves and of all virtue. After all, therefore, it is \"faith that\nsaves\" here also!--and be it well observed, _not_ virtue!\n\n\n215.\n\n_The Ideal and the Material._--You have a noble ideal before your eyes:\nbut are you also such a noble stone that such a divine image could be\nformed out of you? And without that--is not all your labour barbaric\nsculpturing? A blasphemy of your ideal?\n\n\n216.\n\n_Danger in the Voice._--With a very loud voice a person is almost\nincapable of reflecting on subtle matters.\n\n\n217.\n\n_Cause and Effect._--Before the effect one believes in other causes\nthan after the effect.\n\n\n218.\n\n_My Antipathy._--I do not like those people who, in order to produce\nan effect, have to burst like bombs, and in whose neighbourhood one is\nalways in danger of suddenly losing one's hearing--or even something\nmore.\n\n\n219.\n\n_The Object of Punishment._--The object of punishment is to improve\nhim _who punishes,_--that is the ultimate appeal of those who justify\npunishment.\n\n\n220.\n\n_Sacrifice._--The victims think otherwise than the spectators about\nsacrifice and sacrificing: but they have never been allowed to express\ntheir opinion.\n\n\n221.\n\n_Consideration._--Fathers and sons are much more considerate of one\nanother than mothers and daughters.\n\n\n222.\n\n_Poet and Liar._--The poet sees in the liar his foster-brother whose\nmilk he has drunk up; the latter has thus remained wretched, and has\nnot even attained to a good conscience.\n\n\n223.\n\n_Vicariousness of the Senses._--\"We have also eyes in order to hear\nwith them,\"--said an old confessor who had grown deaf; \"and among the\nblind he that has the longest ears is king.\"\n\n\n224.\n\n_Animal Criticism._--I fear the animals regard man as a being\nlike themselves, seriously endangered by the loss of sound animal\nunderstanding;--they regard him perhaps as the absurd animal, the\nlaughing animal, the crying animal, the unfortunate animal.\n\n\n225.\n\n_The Natural._--\"Evil has always had the great effect! And Nature is\nevil! Let us therefore be natural!\"--so reason secretly the great\naspirants after effect, who are too often counted among great men.\n\n\n226.\n\n_The Distrustful and their Style._--We say the strongest things simply,\nprovided people are about us who believe in our strength:--such an\nenvironment educates to \"simplicity of style.\" The distrustful, on the\nother hand, speak emphatically; they make things emphatic.\n\n\n227.\n\n_Fallacy, Fallacy._--He cannot rule himself; therefore that woman\nconcludes that it will be easy to rule him, and throws out her lines to\ncatch him;--the poor creature, who in a short time will be his slave.\n\n\n228.\n\n_Against Mediators._--He who attempts to mediate between two decided\nthinkers is rightly called mediocre: he has not an eye for seeing the\nunique; similarising and equalising are signs of weak eyes.\n\n\n229.\n\n_Obstinacy and Loyalty._--Out of obstinacy he holds fast to a cause of\nwhich the questionableness has become obvious,--he calls that, however,\nhis \"loyalty.\"\n\n\n230.\n\n_Lack of Reserve._--His whole nature fails to _convince_--that results\nfrom the fact that he has never been reticent about a good action he\nhas performed.\n\n\n231.\n\n_The \"Plodders.\"_--Persons slow of apprehension think that slowness\nforms part of knowledge.\n\n\n232.\n\n_Dreaming._--Either one does not dream at all, or one dreams in\nan interesting manner. One must learn to be awake in the same\nfashion:--either not at all, or in an interesting manner.\n\n\n233.\n\n_The most Dangerous Point of View._--What I now do, or neglect to do,\nis as important _for all that is to come,_ as the greatest event of the\npast: in this immense perspective of effects all actions are equally\ngreat and small.\n\n\n234.\n\n_Consolatory Words of a Musician._--\"Your life does not sound into\npeople's ears: for them you live a dumb life, and all refinements of\nmelody, all fond resolutions in following or leading the way, are\nconcealed from them. To be sure you do not parade the thoroughfares\nwith regimental music,--but these good people have no right to say on\nthat account that your life is lacking in music. He that hath ears let\nhim hear.\"\n\n\n235.\n\n_Spirit and Character._--Many a one attains his full height of\ncharacter, but his spirit is not adapted to the elevation,--and many a\none reversely.\n\n\n236.\n\n_To Move the Multitude._--Is it not necessary for him who wants to\nmove the multitude to give a stage representation of himself? Has he\nnot first to translate himself into the grotesquely obvious, and then\n_set forth_ his whole personality and cause in that vulgarised and\nsimplified fashion?\n\n\n237.\n\n_The Polite Man._--\"He is so polite!\"--Yes, he has always a sop\nfor Cerberus with him, and is so timid that he takes everybody for\nCerberus, even you and me,--that is his \"politeness.\"\n\n\n238.\n\n_Without Envy._--He is wholly without envy, but there is no merit\ntherein: for he wants to conquer a land which no one has yet possessed\nand hardly any one has even seen.\n\n\n239.\n\n_The Joyless Person._--A single joyless person is enough to make\nconstant displeasure and a clouded heaven in a household; and it is\nonly by a miracle that such a person is lacking!--Happiness is not\nnearly such a contagious disease;--how is that?\n\n\n240.\n\n_On the Sea-Shore._--I would not build myself a house (it is an element\nof my happiness not to be a house-owner!). If I had to do so, however,\nI should build it, like many of the Romans, right into the sea,--I\nshould like to have some secrets in common with that beautiful monster.\n\n\n241.\n\n_Work and Artist._--This artist is ambitious and nothing more;\nultimately, however, his work is only a magnifying-glass, which he\noffers to every one who looks in his direction.\n\n\n242.\n\n_Suum cuique._--However great be my greed of knowledge, I cannot\nappropriate aught of things but what already belongs to me,--the\nproperty of others still remains in the things. How is it possible for\na man to be a thief or a robber?\n\n\n243.\n\n_Origin of \"Good\" and \"Bad.\"_--He only will devise an improvement who\ncan feel that \"this is not good.\"\n\n\n244.\n\n_Thoughts and Words._--Even our thoughts we are unable to render\ncompletely in words.\n\n\n245.\n\n_Praise in Choice._--The artist chooses his subjects; that is his mode\nof praising.\n\n\n246.\n\n_Mathematics._--We want to carry the refinement and rigour of\nmathematics into all the sciences, as far as it is in any way possible,\nnot in the belief that we shall apprehend things in this way, but in\norder thereby to _assert_ our human relation to things. Mathematics is\nonly a means to general and ultimate human knowledge.\n\n\n247.\n\n_Habits._--All habits make our hand wittier and our wit unhandier.\n\n\n248.\n\n_Books._--Of what account is a book that never carries us away beyond\nall books?\n\n\n249.\n\n_The Sigh of the Seeker of Knowledge._--\"Oh, my covetousness! In this\nsoul there is no disinterestedness--but an all-desiring self, which,\nby means of many individuals, would fain see as with _its own_ eyes,\nand grasp as with _its own_ hands--a self bringing back even the entire\npast, and wanting to lose nothing that could in anyway belong to it!\nOh, this flame of my covetousness! Oh, that I were reincarnated in a\nhundred individuals!\"--He who does not know this sigh by experience,\ndoes not know the passion of the seeker of knowledge either.\n\n\n250.\n\n_Guilt._--Although the most intelligent judges of the witches, and even\nthe witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchcraft, the\nguilt, nevertheless, was not there. So it is with all guilt.\n\n\n251.\n\n_Misunderstood Sufferers._--Great natures suffer otherwise than their\nworshippers imagine; they suffer most severely from the ignoble, petty\nemotions of certain evil moments; in short, from doubt of their own\ngreatness;--not however from the sacrifices and martyrdoms which their\ntasks require of them. As long as Prometheus sympathises with men and\nsacrifices himself for them, he is happy and proud in himself; but on\nbecoming envious of Zeus and of the homage which mortals pay him--then\nPrometheus suffers!\n\n\n252.\n\n_Better to be in Debt._--\"Better to remain in debt than to pay with\nmoney which does not bear our stamp!\"--that is what our sovereignty\nprefers.\n\n\n253.\n\n_Always at Home._--One day we attain our _goal_--and then refer with\npride to the long journeys we have made to reach it. In truth, we did\nnot notice that we travelled. We got into the habit of thinking that we\nwere _at home_ in every place.\n\n\n254.\n\n_Against Embarrassment._--He who is always thoroughly occupied is rid\nof all embarrassment.\n\n\n255.\n\n_Imitators._--A: \"What? You don't want to have imitators?\" B: \"I\ndon't want people to do anything _after_ me; I want every one to do\nsomething _before_ himself (as a pattern to himself)--just as _I_ do.\"\nA: \"Consequently--?\"\n\n\n256.\n\n_Skinniness._--All profound men have their happiness in imitating\nthe flying-fish at times, and playing on the crests of the waves;\nthey think that what is best of all in things is their surface: their\nskinniness--_sit venia verbo_.\n\n\n257.\n\n_From Experience._--A person often does not know how rich he is, until\nhe learns from experience what rich men even play the thief on him.\n\n\n258.\n\n_The Deniers of Chance._--No conqueror believes in chance.\n\n\n259.\n\n_From Paradise._--\"Good and Evil are God's prejudices\"--said the\nserpent.\n\n\n260.\n\n_One times One._--One only is always in the wrong, but with two truth\nbegins.--One only cannot prove himself right; but two are already\nbeyond refutation.\n\n\n261.\n\n_Originality._--What is originality? To _see_ something that does\nnot yet bear a name, that cannot yet be named, although it is before\neverybody's eyes. As people are usually constituted, it is the name\nthat first makes a thing generally visible to them.--Original persons\nhave also for the most part been the namers of things.\n\n\n262.\n\n_Sub specie \u00e6terni._--A: \"You withdraw faster and faster from the\nliving; they will soon strike you out of their lists!\"--B: \"It is the\nonly way to participate in the privilege of the dead.\" A: \"In what\nprivilege?\"--B: \"No longer having to die.\"\n\n\n263.\n\n_Without Vanity._--When we love we want our defects to remain\nconcealed,--not out of vanity, but lest the person loved should suffer\ntherefrom. Indeed, the lover would like to appear as a God,--and not\nout of vanity either.\n\n\n264.\n\n_What we Do._--What we do is never understood, but only praised and\nblamed.\n\n\n265.\n\n_Ultimate Scepticism._--But what after all are man's truths?--They are\nhis _irrefutable_ errors.\n\n\n266.\n\n_Where Cruelty is Necessary._--He who is great is cruel to his\nsecond-rate virtues and judgments.\n\n\n267.\n\n_With a high Aim._--With a high aim a person is superior even to\njustice, and not only to his deeds and his judges.\n\n\n268.\n\n_What makes Heroic?_--To face simultaneously one's greatest suffering\nand one's highest hope.\n\n\n269.\n\n_What dost thou Believe in?_--In this: That the weights of all things\nmust be determined anew.\n\n\n270.\n\n_What Saith thy Conscience?_--\"Thou shalt become what thou art.\"\n\n\n271.\n\n_Where are thy Greatest Dangers?_--In pity.\n\n\n272.\n\n_What dost thou Love in others?_--My hopes.\n\n\n273.\n\n_Whom dost thou call Bad?_--Him who always wants to put others to shame.\n\n\n274.\n\n_What dost thou think most humane?_--To spare a person shame.\n\n\n275.\n\n_What is the Seal of Attained Liberty?_--To be no longer ashamed of\noneself.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK FOURTH\n\n\nSANCTUS JANUARIUS\n\n\n                      Thou who with cleaving fiery lances\n                        The stream of my soul from\n                            its ice dost free,\n                      Till with a rush and a roar it advances\n                        To enter with glorious hoping the sea:\n                      Brighter to see and purer ever,\n                        Free in the bonds of thy sweet constraint,--\n                      So it praises thy wondrous endeavour,\n                        January, thou beauteous saint!\n\n                      _Genoa,_ January 1882.\n\n\n276.\n\n_For the New Year._--I still live, I still think; I must still live,\nfor I must still think. _Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum._ To-day\neveryone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favourite\nthought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself\nto-day, and what thought first crossed my mind this year,--a thought\nwhich ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my\nfuture life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters\nin things as the beautiful:--I shall thus be one of those who beautify\nthings. _Amor fati:_ let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to\nwage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to\naccuse the accusers. _Looking aside,_ let that be my sole negation!\nAnd all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a\nyea-sayer!\n\n\n277.\n\n_Personal Providence._--There is a certain climax in life, at which,\nnotwithstanding all our freedom, and however much we may have denied\nall directing reason and goodness in the beautiful chaos of existence,\nwe are once more in great danger of intellectual bondage, and have to\nface our hardest test. For now the thought of a personal Providence\nfirst presents itself before us with its most persuasive force, and\nhas the best of advocates, apparentness, in its favour, now when it\nis obvious that all and everything that happens to us always _turns\nout for the best._ The life of every day and of every hour seems to be\nanxious for nothing else but always to prove this proposition anew;\nlet it be what it will, bad or good weather, the loss of a friend,\na sickness, a calumny, the non-receipt of a letter, the spraining\nof one's foot, a glance into a shop-window, a counter-argument, the\nopening of a book, a dream, a deception:--it shows itself immediately,\nor very soon afterwards, as something \"not permitted to be absent,\"--it\nis full of profound significance and utility precisely _for us!_ Is\nthere a more dangerous temptation to rid ourselves of the belief in\nthe Gods of Epicurus, those careless, unknown Gods, and believe in\nsome anxious and mean Divinity, who knows personally every little hair\non our heads, and feels no disgust in rendering the most wretched\nservices? Well--I mean in spite of all this! we want to leave the\nGods alone (and the serviceable genii likewise), and wish to content\nourselves with the assumption that our own practical and theoretical\nskilfulness in explaining and suitably arranging events has now reached\nits highest point. We do not want either to think too highly of this\ndexterity of our wisdom, when the wonderful harmony which results from\nplaying on our instrument sometimes surprises us too much: a harmony\nwhich sounds too well for us to dare to ascribe it to ourselves. In\nfact, now and then there is one who plays _with_ us--beloved Chance: he\nleads our hand occasionally, and even the all-wisest Providence could\nnot devise any finer music than that of which our foolish hand is then\ncapable.\n\n\n278.\n\n_The Thought of Death._--It gives me a melancholy happiness to live\nin the midst of this confusion of streets, of necessities, of voices:\nhow much enjoyment, impatience and desire, how much thirsty life and\ndrunkenness of life comes to light here every moment! And yet it will\nsoon be so still for all these shouting, lively, life-loving people!\nHow everyone's shadow, his gloomy travelling-companion stands behind\nhim! It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an\nemigrant-ship: people have more than ever to say to one another, the\nhour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently\nbehind all the noise--so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all,\nall, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that\nthe near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this\nself-deafening and self-overreaching! Everyone wants to be foremost in\nthis future,--and yet death and the stillness of death are the only\nthings certain and common to all in this future! How strange that\nthis sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost\nno influence on men, and that they are the _furthest_ from regarding\nthemselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that\nmen do not want to think at all of the idea of death! I would fain do\nsomething to make the idea of life even a hundred times _more worthy of\ntheir attention_.\n\n\n279.\n\n_Stellar Friendship_.--We were friends, and have become strangers to\neach other. But this is as it ought to be, and we do not want either\nto conceal or obscure the fact, as if we had to be ashamed of it. We\nare two ships, each of which has its goal and its course; we may,\nto be sure, cross one another in our paths, and celebrate a feast\ntogether as we did before,--and then the gallant ships lay quietly in\none harbour, and in one sunshine, so that it might have been thought\nthey were already at their goal, and that they had had one goal. But\nthen the almighty strength of our tasks forced us apart once more into\ndifferent seas and into different zones, and perhaps we shall never see\none another again,--or perhaps we may see one another, but not know\none another again; the different seas and suns have altered us! That\nwe had to become strangers to one another is the law to which we are\n_subject_: just by that shall we become more sacred to one another!\nJust by that shall the thought of our former friendship become holier!\nThere is probably some immense, invisible curve and stellar orbit in\nwhich our courses and goals, so widely different, may be _comprehended_\nas small stages of the way,--let us raise ourselves to this thought!\nBut our life is too short, and our power of vision too limited for us\nto be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility.--And\nso we will _believe_ in our stellar friendship, though we should have\nto be terrestrial enemies to one another.\n\n\n280.\n\n_Architecture for Thinkers._--An insight is needed (and that probably\nvery soon) as to what is specially lacking in our great cities--namely,\nquiet, spacious, and widely extended places for reflection, places\nwith long, lofty colonnades for bad weather, or for too sunny days,\nwhere no noise of wagons or of shouters would penetrate, and where\na more refined propriety would prohibit loud praying even to the\npriest: buildings and situations which as a whole would express the\nsublimity of self-communion and seclusion from the world. The time\nis past when the Church possessed the monopoly of reflection, when\nthe _vita contemplativa_ had always in the first place to be the\n_vita religiosa:_ and everything that the Church has built expresses\nthis thought. I know not how we could content ourselves with their\nstructures, even if they should be divested of their ecclesiastical\npurposes: these structures speak a far too pathetic and too biassed\nspeech, as houses of God and places of splendour for supernatural\nintercourse, for us godless ones to be able to think _our thoughts_ in\nthem. We want to have _ourselves_ translated into stone and plant, we\nwant to go for a walk in _ourselves_ when we wander in these halls and\ngardens.\n\n\n281.\n\n_Knowing how to Find the End._--Masters of the first rank are\nrecognised by knowing in a perfect manner how to find the end, in\nthe whole as well as in the part; be it the end of a melody or of a\nthought, be it the fifth act of a tragedy or of a state affair. The\nmasters of the second degree always become restless towards the end,\nand seldom dip down into the sea with such proud, quiet equilibrium\nas for example, the mountain-ridge at _Porto fino_--where the Bay of\nGenoa sings its melody to an end.\n\n\n282.\n\n_The Gait._--There are mannerisms of the intellect by which even\ngreat minds betray that they originate from the populace, or from the\nsemi-populace--it is principally the gait and step, of their thoughts\nwhich betray them; they cannot _walk._ It was thus that even Napoleon,\nto his profound chagrin, could not walk \"legitimately\" and in princely\nfashion on occasions when it was necessary to do so properly, as in\ngreat coronation processions and on similar occasions: even there he\nwas always just the leader of a column--proud and brusque at the same\ntime, and very self-conscious of it all.--It is something laughable to\nsee those writers who make the folding robes of their periods rustle\naround them: they want to cover their _feet_.\n\n\n283.\n\n_Pioneers._--I greet all the signs indicating that a more manly and\nwarlike age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again\ninto honour! For it has to prepare the way for a yet higher age,\nand gather the force which the latter will one day require,--the age\nwhich will carry heroism into knowledge, and _wage war_ for the sake\nof ideas and their consequences. For that end many brave pioneers\nare now needed, who, however, cannot originate out of nothing,--and\njust as little out of the sand and slime of present-day civilisation\nand the culture of great cities: men silent, solitary and resolute,\nwho know how to be content and persistent in invisible activity: men\nwho with innate disposition seek in all things that which is _to be\novercome_ in them: men to whom cheerfulness, patience, simplicity, and\ncontempt of the great vanities belong just as much as do magnanimity in\nvictory and indulgence to the trivial vanities of all the vanquished:\nmen with an acute and independent judgment regarding all victors, and\nconcerning the part which chance has played in the winning of victory\nand fame: men with their own holidays, their own work-days, and their\nown periods of mourning; accustomed to command with perfect assurance,\nand equally ready, if need be, to obey, proud in the one case as in\nthe other, equally serving their own interests: men more imperilled,\nmore productive, more happy! For believe me!--the secret of realising\nthe largest productivity and the greatest enjoyment of existence is\n_to live in danger!_ Build your cities on the slope of Vesuvius! Send\nyour ships into unexplored seas! Live in war with your equals and with\nyourselves! Be robbers and spoilers, ye knowing ones, as long as ye\ncannot be rulers and possessors! The time will soon pass when you\ncan be satisfied to live like timorous deer concealed in the forests.\nKnowledge will finally stretch out her hand for that which belongs to\nher:--she means to _rule_ and _possess,_ and you with her!\n\n\n284.\n\n_Belief in Oneself_--In general, few men have belief in\nthemselves:--and of those few some are endowed with it as a useful\nblindness or partial obscuration of intellect (what would they perceive\nif they could see _to the bottom of themselves!_). The others must\nfirst acquire the belief for themselves: everything good, clever, or\ngreat that they do, is first of all an argument against the sceptic\nthat dwells in them: the question is how to convince or persuade _this\nsceptic,_ and for that purpose genius almost is needed. They are\nsignally dissatisfied with themselves.\n\n\n285.\n\n_Excelsior!_--\"Thou wilt never more pray, never more worship, never\nmore repose in infinite trust--thou refusest to stand still and\ndismiss thy thoughts before an ultimate wisdom, an ultimate virtue, an\nultimate power,--thou hast no constant guardian and friend in thy seven\nsolitudes--thou livest without the outlook on a mountain that has snow\non its head and fire in its heart--there is no longer any requiter for\nthee, nor any amender with, his finishing touch--there is no longer any\nreason in that which happens, or any love in that which will happen\nto thee--there is no longer any resting-place for thy weary heart,\nwhere it has only to find and no longer to seek, thou art opposed to\nany kind of ultimate peace, thou desirest the eternal recurrence of\nwar and peace:--man of renunciation, wilt thou renounce in all these\nthings? Who will give thee the strength to do so? No one has yet had\nthis strength!\"--There is a lake which one day refused to flow away,\nand threw up a dam at the place where it had hitherto discharged: since\nthen this lake has always risen higher and higher. Perhaps the very\nrenunciation will also furnish us with the strength with which the\nrenunciation itself can be borne; perhaps man will ever rise higher and\nhigher from that point onward, when he no longer _flows out_ into a God.\n\n\n286.\n\n_A Digression._--Here are hopes; but what will you see and hear of\nthem, if you have not experienced glance and glow and dawn of day in\nyour own souls? I can only suggest--I cannot do more! To move the\nstones, to make animals men--would you have me do that? Alas, if you\nare yet stones and animals, you must seek your Orpheus!\n\n\n287.\n\n_Love of Blindness._--\"My thoughts,\" said the wanderer to his shadow,\n\"ought to show me where I stand, but they should not betray to me\n_whither I go._ I love ignorance of the future, and do not want to come\nto grief by impatience and anticipatory tasting of promised things.\"\n\n\n288.\n\n_Lofty Moods._--It seems to me that most men do not believe in lofty\nmoods, unless it be for the moment, or at the most for a quarter of\nan hour,--except the few who know by experience a longer duration of\nhigh feeling. But to be absolutely a man with a single lofty feeling,\nthe incarnation of a single lofty mood--that has hitherto been only a\ndream and an enchanting possibility: history does not yet give us any\ntrustworthy example of it Nevertheless one might also some day produce\nsuch men--when a multitude of favourable conditions have been created\nand established, which at present even the happiest chance is unable to\nthrow together. Perhaps that very state which has hitherto entered into\nour soul as an exception, felt with horror now and then, may be the\nusual condition of those future souls: a continuous movement between\nhigh and low, and the feeling of high and low, a constant state of\nmounting as on steps, and at the same time reposing as on clouds.\n\n\n289.\n\n_Aboard Ship!_--When one considers how a full philosophical\njustification of his mode of living and thinking operates upon every\nindividual--namely, as a warming, blessing, and fructifying sun,\nspecially shining on him; how it makes him independent of praise and\nblame, self-sufficient, rich and generous in the bestowal of happiness\nand kindness; how it unceasingly transforms the evil to the good,\nbrings all the energies to bloom and maturity, and altogether hinders\nthe growth of the greater and lesser weeds of chagrin and discontent\n--one at last cries out importunately: Oh, that many such new suns were\ncreated! The evil man, also, the unfortunate man, and the exceptional\nman, shall each have his philosophy, his rights, and his sunshine! It\nis not sympathy with them that is necessary!--we must unlearn this\narrogant fancy, notwithstanding that humanity has so long learned\nit and used it exclusively,--we have not to set up any confessor,\nexorcist, or pardoner for them! It is a new _justice,_ however, that is\nnecessary! And a new solution! And new philosophers! The moral earth\nalso is round! The moral earth also has its antipodes! The antipodes\nalso have their right to exist! there is still another world to\ndiscover--and more than one! Aboard ship! ye philosophers!\n\n\n290.\n\n_One Thing is Needful_--To \"give style\" to one's character--that is\na grand and a rare art! He who surveys all that his nature presents\nin its strength and in its weakness, and then fashions it into an\ningenious plan, until everything appears artistic and rational, and\neven the weaknesses enchant the eye--exercises that admirable art. Here\nthere has been a great amount of second nature added, there a portion\nof first nature has been taken away:--in both cases with long exercise\nand daily labour at the task. Here the ugly, which does not permit of\nbeing taken away, has been concealed, there it has been re-interpreted\ninto the sublime. Much of the vague, which refuses to take form, has\nbeen reserved and utilised for the perspectives:--it is meant to give\na hint of the remote and immeasurable. In the end, when the work has\nbeen completed, it is revealed how it was the constraint of the same\ntaste that organised and fashioned it in whole and in part: whether\nthe taste was good or bad is of less importance than one thinks,--it\nis sufficient that it was _a taste!_--It will be the strong imperious\nnatures which experience their most refined joy in such constraint, in\nsuch confinement and perfection under their own law; the passion of\ntheir violent volition lessens at the sight of all disciplined nature,\nall conquered and ministering nature: even when they have palaces to\nbuild and gardens to lay out, it is not to their taste to allow nature\nto be free.--It is the reverse with weak characters who have not power\nover themselves, and _hate_ the restriction of style: they feel that if\nthis repugnant constraint were laid upon them, they would necessarily\nbecome _vulgarised_ under it: they become slaves as soon as they serve,\nthey hate service. Such intellects--they may be intellects of the first\nrank--are always concerned with fashioning and interpreting themselves\nand their surroundings as _free_ nature--wild, arbitrary, fantastic,\nconfused and surprising: and it is well for them to do so, because only\nin this manner can they please themselves! For one thing is needful:\nnamely, that man should _attain to_ satisfaction with himself--be it\nbut through this or that fable and artifice: it is only then that man's\naspect is at all endurable! He who is dissatisfied with himself is\never ready to avenge himself on that account: we others will be his\nvictims, if only in having always to endure his ugly aspect. For the\naspect of the ugly makes one mean and sad.\n\n\n291.\n\n_Genoa._--I have looked upon this city, its villas and\npleasure-grounds, and the wide circuit of its inhabited heights and\nslopes, for a considerable time: in the end I must say that I see\n_countenances_ out of past generations,--this district is strewn with\nthe images of bold and autocratic men. They have _lived_ and have\nwanted to live on--they say so with their houses, built and decorated\nfor centuries, and not for the passing hour: they were well disposed\nto life, however ill-disposed they may often have been towards\nthemselves. I always see the builder, how he casts his eye on all\nthat is built around him far and near, and likewise on the city, the\nsea, and the chain of mountains; how he expresses power and conquest\nwith his gaze: all this he wishes to fit into _his_ plan, and in the\nend make it his _property,_ by its becoming a portion of the same.\nThe whole district is overgrown with this superb, insatiable egoism\nof the desire to possess and exploit; and as these men when abroad\nrecognised no frontiers, and in their thirst for the new placed a new\nworld beside the old, so also at home everyone rose up against everyone\nelse, and devised some mode of expressing his superiority, and of\nplacing between himself and his neighbour his personal illimitableness.\nEveryone won for himself his home once more by over-powering it with\nhis architectural thoughts, and by transforming it into a delightful\nsight for his race. When we consider the mode of building cities in\nthe north, the law and the general delight in legality and obedience,\nimpose upon us: we thereby divine the propensity to equality and\nsubmission which must have ruled in those builders. Here, however, on\nturning every corner you find a man by himself, who knows the sea,\nknows adventure, and knows the Orient, a man who is averse to law and\nto neighbour, as if it bored him to have to do with them, a man who\nscans all that is already old and established, with envious glances:\nwith a wonderful craftiness of fantasy, he would like, at least in\nthought, to establish all this anew, to lay his hand upon it, and\nintroduce his meaning into it--if only for the passing hour of a sunny\nafternoon, when for once his insatiable and melancholy soul feels\nsatiety, and when only what is his own, and nothing strange, may show\nitself to his eye.\n\n\n292.\n\n_To the Preachers of Morality._--I do not mean to moralise, but to\nthose who do, I would give this advice: if you mean ultimately to\ndeprive the best things and the best conditions of all honour and\nworth, continue to speak of them in the same way as heretofore! Put\nthem at the head of your morality, and speak from morning till night\nof the happiness of virtue, of repose of soul, of righteousness, and\nof reward and punishment in the nature of things: according as you\ngo on in this manner, all these good things will finally acquire a\npopularity and a street-cry for themselves: but then all the gold on\nthem will also be worn off, and more besides: all the gold _in them_\nwill have changed into lead. Truly, you understand the reverse art of\nalchemy, the depreciating of the most valuable things! Try, just for\nonce, another recipe, in order not to realise as hitherto the opposite\nof what you mean to attain: _deny_ those good things, withdraw from\nthem the applause of the populace and discourage the spread of them,\nmake them once more the concealed chastities of solitary souls, and\nsay: _morality is something forbidden!_ Perhaps you will thus attract\nto your cause the sort of men who are only of any account, I mean the\n_heroic._ But then there must be something formidable in it, and not\nas hitherto something disgusting I Might one not be inclined to say at\npresent with reference to morality what Master Eckardt says: \"I pray\nGod to deliver me from God!\"\n\n\n293.\n\n_Our Atmosphere._--We know it well: in him who only casts a glance now\nand then at science, as when taking a walk (in the manner of women,\nand alas! also like many artists), the strictness in its service,\nits inexorability in small matters as well as in great, its rapidity\nin weighing, judging and condemning, produce something of a feeling\nof giddiness and fright. It is especially terrifying to him that the\nhardest is here demanded, that the best is done without the reward of\npraise or distinction; it is rather as among soldiers--almost nothing\nbut blame and sharp reprimand _is heard_; for doing well prevails here\nas the rule, doing ill as the exception; the rule, however, has, here\nas everywhere, a silent tongue. It is the same with this \"severity of\nscience\" as with the manners and politeness of the best society: it\nfrightens the uninitiated. He, however, who is accustomed to it, does\nnot like to live anywhere but in this clear, transparent, powerful, and\nhighly electrified atmosphere, this _manly_ atmosphere. Anywhere else\nit is not pure and airy enough for him: he suspects that _there_ his\nbest art would neither be properly advantageous to anyone else, nor a\ndelight to himself, that through misunderstandings half of his life\nwould slip through his fingers, that much foresight, much concealment,\nand reticence would constantly be necessary,--nothing but great and\nuseless losses of power! In _this_ keen and clear element, however,\nhe has his entire power: here he can fly! Why should he again go down\ninto those muddy waters where he has to swim and wade and soil his\nwings!--No! There it is too hard for us to live! we cannot help it that\nwe are born for the atmosphere, the pure atmosphere, we rivals of the\nray of light; and that we should like best to ride like it on the atoms\nof ether, not away from the sun, but _towards the sun_! That, however,\nwe cannot do:--so we want to do the only thing that is in our power:\nnamely, to bring light to the earth, we want to be \"the light of the\nearth!\" And for that purpose we have our wings and our swiftness and\nour severity, on that account we are manly, and even terrible like the\nfire. Let those fear us, who do not know how to warm and brighten\nthemselves by our influence!\n\n\n294.\n\n_Against the Disparagers of Nature._--They are disagreeable to me,\nthose men in whom every natural inclination forthwith becomes a\ndisease, something disfiguring, or even disgraceful. _They_ have\nseduced us to the opinion that the inclinations and impulses of men are\nevil; _they_ are the cause of our great injustice to our own nature,\nand to all nature! There are enough of men who _may_ yield to their\nimpulses gracefully and carelessly: but they do not do so, for fear\nof that imaginary \"evil thing\" in nature! _That is the cause_ why\nthere is so little nobility to be found among men: the indication of\nwhich will always be to have no fear of oneself, to expect nothing\ndisgraceful from oneself, to fly without hesitation whithersoever we\nare impelled--we free-born birds! Wherever we come, there will always\nbe freedom and sunshine around us.\n\n\n295.\n\n_Short-lived Habits._--I love short-lived habits, and regard them as an\ninvaluable means for getting a knowledge of _many_ things and various\nconditions, to the very bottom of their sweetness and bitterness; my\nnature is altogether arranged for short-lived habits, even in the needs\nof its bodily health, and in general, _as far as_ I can see, from the\nlowest up to the highest matters. I always think that _this_ will at\nlast satisfy me permanently (the short-lived habit has also this\ncharacteristic belief of passion, the belief in everlasting duration;\nI am to be envied for having found it and recognised it), and then it\nnourishes me at noon and at eve, and spreads a profound satisfaction\naround me and in me, so that I have no longing for anything else, not\nneeding to compare, or despise, or hate. But one day the habit has had\nits time: the good thing separates from me, not as something which then\ninspires disgust in me--but peaceably, and as though satisfied with\nme, as I am with it; as if we had to be mutually thankful, and _thus_\nshook hands for farewell. And already the new habit waits at the door,\nand similarly also my belief--indestructible fool and sage that I\nam!--that this new habit will be the right one, the ultimate right one.\nSo it is with me as regards foods, thoughts, men, cities, poems, music,\ndoctrines, arrangements of the day, and modes of life.--On the other\nhand, I hate _permanent_ habits, and feel as if a tyrant came into\nmy neighbourhood, and as if my life's breath _condensed,_ when events\ntake such a form that permanent habits seem necessarily to grow out\nof them: for example, through an official position, through constant\ncompanionship with the same persons, through a settled abode, or\nthrough a uniform state of health. Indeed, from the bottom of my soul I\nam gratefully disposed to all my misery and sickness, and to whatever\nis imperfect in me, because such things leave me a hundred back-doors\nthrough which I can escape from permanent habits. The most unendurable\nthing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without\nhabits, a life which continually required improvisation:--that would\nbe my banishment and my Siberia.\n\n\n296.\n\n_A Fixed Reputation._--A fixed reputation was formerly a matter of\nthe very greatest utility; and wherever society continues to be\nruled by the herd-instinct, it is still most suitable for every\nindividual _to give_ to his character and business _the appearance_\nof unalterableness,--even when they are not so in reality. \"One can\nrely on him, he remains the same\"--that is the praise which has most\nsignificance in all dangerous conditions of society. Society feels with\nsatisfaction that it has a reliable _tool_ ready at all times in the\nvirtue of this one, in the ambition of that one, and in the reflection\nand passion of a third one,--it honours this _tool-like nature,_ this\nself-constancy, this unchangeableness in opinions, efforts, and even in\nfaults, with the highest honours. Such a valuation, which prevails and\nhas prevailed everywhere simultaneously with the morality of custom,\neducates \"characters,\" and brings all changing, re-learning, and\nself-transforming into _disrepute._ Be the advantage of this mode of\nthinking ever so great otherwise, it is in any case the mode of judging\nwhich is most injurious _to knowledge:_ for precisely the good-will of\nthe knowing one ever to declare himself unhesitatingly as _opposed_ to\nhis former opinions, and in general to be distrustful of all that wants\nto be fixed in him--is here condemned and brought into disrepute. The\ndisposition of the thinker, as incompatible with a \"fixed reputation,\"\nis regarded as _dishonourable,_ while the petrifaction of opinions has\nall the honour to itself:--we have at present still to live under the\ninterdict of such rules! How difficult it is to live when one feels\nthat the judgment of many millenniums is around one and against one. It\nis probable that for many millenniums knowledge was afflicted with a\nbad conscience, and there must have been much self-contempt and secret\nmisery in the history of the greatest intellects.\n\n\n297.\n\n_Ability to Contradict_--Everyone knows at present that the ability,\nto endure contradiction is a good indication of culture. Some people\neven know that the higher man courts opposition, and provokes it, so as\nto get a cue to his hitherto unknown partiality. But the _ability_ to\ncontradict, the attainment of a _good_ conscience in hostility to the\naccustomed, the traditional and the hallowed,--that is more than both\nthe above-named abilities, and is the really great, new and astonishing\nthing in our culture, the step of all steps of the emancipated\nintellect: who knows that?--\n\n\n298.\n\n_A Sigh._--I caught this notion on the way, and rapidly took the\nreadiest, poor words to hold it fast, so that it might not again fly\naway. But it has died in these dry words, and hangs and flaps about in\nthem--and now I hardly know, when I look upon it, how I could have had\nsuch happiness when I caught this bird.\n\n\n299.\n\n_What one should Learn from Artists._--What means have we for making\nthings beautiful, attractive, and desirable, when they are not so?--and\nI suppose they are never so in themselves! We have here something to\nlearn from physicians, when, for example, they dilute what is bitter,\nor put wine and sugar into their mixing-bowl; but we have still more to\nlearn from artists, who in fact, are continually concerned in devising\nsuch inventions and artifices. To withdraw from things until one no\nlonger sees much of them, until one has even to see things into them,\n_in order to see them at all_--or to view them from the side, and as in\na frame--or to place them so that they partly disguise themselves and\nonly permit of perspective views--or to look at them through coloured\nglasses, or in the light of the sunset--or to furnish them with a\nsurface or skin which is not fully transparent: we should learn all\nthis from artists, and moreover be wiser than they. For this fine power\nof theirs usually ceases with them where art ceases and life begins;\n_we,_ however, want to be the poets of our lives, and first of all in\nthe smallest and most commonplace matters.\n\n\n300.\n\n_Prelude to Science._--Do you believe then that the sciences would\nhave arisen and grown up if the sorcerers, alchemists, astrologers\nand witches had not been their forerunners; those who, with their\npromisings and foreshadowings, had first to create a thirst, a hunger,\nand a taste for _hidden and forbidden_ powers? Yea, that infinitely\nmore had to be _promised_ than could ever be fulfilled, in order that\nsomething might be fulfilled in the domain of knowledge? Perhaps\nthe whole of _religion,_ also, may appear to some distant age as an\nexercise and a prelude, in like manner as the prelude and preparation\nof science here exhibit themselves, though _not_ at all practised and\nregarded as such. Perhaps religion may have been the peculiar means for\nenabling individual men to enjoy but once the entire self-satisfaction\nof a God and all his self-redeeming power. Indeed!--one may ask--would\nman have learned at all to get on the tracks of hunger and thirst\nfor _himself,_ and to extract satiety and fullness out of _himself,_\nwithout that religious schooling and preliminary history? Had\nPrometheus first to _fancy_ that he had _stolen_ the light, and that he\ndid penance for the theft,--in order finally to discover that he had\ncreated the light, _in that he had longed for the light,_ and that not\nonly man, but also _God,_ had been the work of _his_ hands and the clay\nin his hands? All mere creations of the creator?--just as the illusion,\nthe theft, the Caucasus, the vulture, and the whole tragic Prometheia\nof all thinkers?\n\n\n301.\n\n_Illusion of the Contemplative._--Higher men are distinguished from\nlower, by seeing and hearing immensely more, and in a thoughtful\nmanner--and it is precisely this that distinguishes man from the\nanimal, and the higher animal from the lower. The world always becomes\nfuller for him who grows up to the full stature of humanity; there are\nalways more interesting fishing-hooks, thrown out to him; the number of\nhis stimuli is continually on the increase, and similarly the varieties\nof his pleasure and pain,--the higher man becomes always at the same\ntime happier and unhappier. An _illusion,_ however, is his constant\naccompaniment all along: he thinks he is placed as a _spectator_ and\n_auditor_ before the great pantomime and concert of life; he calls his\nnature a _contemplative nature,_ and thereby overlooks the fact that\nhe himself is also a real creator, and continuous poet of life,--that\nhe no doubt differs greatly from the _actor_ in this drama, the\nso-called practical man, but differs still more from a mere onlooker or\nspectator _before_ the stage. There is certainly _vis contemplativa,_\nand re-examination of his work peculiar to him as poet, but at the\nsame time, and first and foremost, he has the _vis creativa,_ which\nthe practical man or doer _lacks,_ whatever appearance and current\nbelief may say to the contrary. It is we, who think and feel, that\nactually and unceasingly _make_ something which did not before exist:\nthe whole eternally increasing world of valuations, colours, weights,\nperspectives, gradations, affirmations and negations. This composition\nof ours is continually learnt, practised, and translated into flesh and\nactuality, and even into the commonplace, by the so-called practical\nmen (our actors, as we have said). Whatever has _value_ in the\npresent world, has not it in itself, by its nature,--nature is always\nworthless:--but a value was once given to it, bestowed upon it and it\nwas _we_ who gave and bestowed! We only have created the world _which\nis of any account to man!_--But it is precisely this knowledge that we\nlack, and when we get hold of it for a moment we have forgotten it the\nnext: we misunderstand our highest power, we contemplative men, and\nestimate ourselves at too low a rate,--we are neither as _proud nor as\nhappy_ as we might be.\n\n\n302.\n\n_The Danger of the Happiest Ones._--To have fine senses and a fine\ntaste; to be accustomed to the select and the intellectually best as\nour proper and readiest fare; to be blessed with a strong, bold, and\ndaring soul; to go through life with a quiet eye and a firm step,\never ready for the worst as for a festival, and full of longing for\nundiscovered worlds and seas, men and Gods; to listen to all joyous\nmusic, as if there perhaps brave men, soldiers and seafarers, took a\nbrief repose and enjoyment, and in the profoundest pleasure of the\nmoment were overcome with tears and the whole purple melancholy of\nhappiness: who would not like all this to be _his_ possession, his\ncondition! It was the _happiness of Homerr_! The condition of him who\ninvented the Gods for the Greeks,--nay, who invented _his_ Gods for\nhimself! But let us not conceal the fact that with this happiness of\nHomer in one's soul, one is more liable to suffering than any other\ncreature under the sun! And only at this price do we purchase the most\nprecious pearl that the waves of existence have hitherto washed ashore!\nAs its possessor one always becomes more sensitive to pain, and at\nlast too sensitive: a little displeasure and loathing sufficed in the\nend to make Homer disgusted with life. He was unable to solve a foolish\nlittle riddle which some young fishers proposed to him! Yes, the little\nriddles are the dangers of the happiest ones!--\n\n\n303.\n\n_Two Happy Ones._--Certainly this man, notwithstanding his youth,\nunderstands the _improvisation of life,_ and astonishes even the\nacutest observers. For it seems that he never makes a mistake,\nalthough he constantly plays the most hazardous games. One is reminded\nof the improvising masters of the musical art, to whom even the\nlisteners would fain ascribe a divine _infallibility_ of the hand,\nnotwithstanding that they now and then make a mistake, as every mortal\nis liable to do. But they are skilled and inventive, and always ready\nin a moment to arrange into the structure of the score the most\naccidental tone (where the jerk of a finger or a humour brings it\nabout), and to animate the accident with a fine meaning and soul.--Here\nis quite a different man: everything that he intends and plans fails\nwith him in the long run. That on which he has now and again set his\nheart has already brought him several times to the abyss, and to the\nvery verge of ruin; and if he has as yet got out of the scrape, it\ncertainly has not been merely with a \"black eye.\" Do you think he is\nunhappy over it? He resolved long ago not to regard his own wishes and\nplans as of so much importance. \"If this does not succeed with me,\"\nhe says to himself, \"perhaps that will succeed; and on the whole I do\nnot know but that I am under more obligation to thank my failures than\nany of my successes. Am I made to be headstrong, and to wear the bull's\nhorns? That which constitutes the worth and the sum of life _for me,_\nlies somewhere else; I know more of life, because I have been so often\non the point of losing it; and just on that account I _have_ more of\nlife than any of you!\"\n\n\n304.\n\n_In Doing we Leave Undone._--In the main all those moral systems are\ndistasteful to me which say: \"Do not do this! Renounce! Overcome\nthyself!\" On the other hand I am favourable to those moral systems\nwhich stimulate me to do something, and to do it again from morning\ntill evening, to dream of it at night, and think of nothing else but to\ndo it _well,_ as well as is possible for _me_ alone! From him who so\nlives there fall off one after the other the things that do not pertain\nto such a life: without hatred or antipathy, he sees _this_ take leave\nof him to-day, and _that_ to-morrow, like the yellow leaves which every\nlivelier breeze strips from the tree: or he does not see at all that\nthey take leave of him, so firmly is his eye fixed upon his goal, and\ngenerally forward, not sideways, backward, or downward. \"Our doing must\ndetermine what we leave undone; in that we do, we leave undone\"--so\nit pleases me, so runs _my placitum._ But I do not mean to strive with\nopen eyes for my impoverishment; I do not like any of the negative\nvirtues whose very essence is negation and self-renunciation.\n\n\n305.\n\n_Self-control--_Those moral teachers who first and foremost order man\nto get himself into his own power, induce thereby a curious infirmity\nin him--namely, a constant sensitiveness with reference to all natural\nstrivings and inclinations, and as it were, a sort of itching. Whatever\nmay henceforth drive him, draw him, allure or impel him, whether\ninternally or externally--it always seems to this sensitive being as if\nhis self-control were in danger: he is no longer at liberty to trust\nhimself to any instinct, to any free flight, but stands constantly with\ndefensive mien, armed against himself, with sharp distrustful eye, the\neternal watcher of his stronghold, to which office he has appointed\nhimself. Yes, he can be _great_ in that position! But how unendurable\nhe has now become to others, how difficult even for himself to bear,\nhow impoverished and cut off from the finest accidents of his soul!\nYea, even from all further _instruction! _ For we must be able to lose\nourselves at times, if we want to learn something of what we have not\nin ourselves.\n\n\n306.\n\n_Stoic and Epicurean._--The Epicurean selects the situations, the\npersons, and even the events which suits his extremely sensitive,\nintellectual constitution; he renounces the rest--that is to say, by\nfar the greater part of experience--because it would be too strong and\ntoo heavy fare for him. The Stoic, on the contrary, accustoms himself\nto swallow stones and vermin, glass-splinters and scorpions, without\nfeeling any disgust: his stomach is meant to become indifferent in the\nend to all that the accidents of existence cast into it:--he reminds\none of the Arabic sect of the Assaua, with which the French became\nacquainted in Algiers; and like those insensible persons, he also likes\nwell to have an invited public at the exhibition of his insensibility,\nthe very thing the Epicurean willingly dispenses with:--he has of\ncourse his \"garden\"! Stoicism may be quite advisable for men with whom\nfate improvises, for those who live in violent times and are dependent\non abrupt and changeable individuals. He, however, who _anticipates_\nthat fate will permit him to spin \"a long thread,\" does well to make\nhis arrangements in Epicurean fashion; all men devoted to intellectual\nlabour have done it hitherto! For it would be a supreme loss to them to\nforfeit their fine sensibility, and to acquire the hard, stoical hide\nwith hedgehog prickles in exchange.\n\n\n307.\n\n_In Favour of Criticism._--Something now appears to thee as an error\nwhich thou formerly lovedst as a truth, or as a probability: thou\npushest it from thee and imaginest that thy reason has there gained a\nvictory. But perhaps that error was then, when thou wast still another\nperson--thou art always another person,--just as necessary to thee as\nall thy present \"truths,\" like a skin, as it were, which concealed and\nveiled from thee much which thou still mayst not see. Thy new life,\nand not thy reason, has slain that opinion for thee: _thou dost not\nrequire it any longer,_ and now it breaks down of its own accord, and\nthe irrationality crawls out of it as a worm into the light. When we\nmake use of criticism it is not something arbitrary and impersonal,--it\nis, at least very often, a proof that there are lively, active forces\nin us, which cast a skin. We deny, and must deny, because something in\nus _wants_ to live and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do not\nas yet know, do not as yet see!--So much in favour of criticism.\n\n\n308.\n\n_The History of each Day.--_What is it that constitutes the history\nof each day for thee? Look at thy habits of which it consists: are\nthey the product of numberless little acts of cowardice and laziness,\nor of thy bravery and inventive reason? Although the two cases are so\ndifferent, it is possible that men might bestow the same praise upon\nthee, and that thou mightst also be equally useful to them in the one\ncase as in the other. But praise and utility and respectability may\nsuffice for him whose only desire is to have a good conscience,--not\nhowever for thee, the \"trier of the reins,\" who hast a _consciousness\nof the conscience!_\n\n\n309.\n\n_Out of the Seventh Solitude._--One day the wanderer shut a door behind\nhim, stood still, and wept. Then he said: \"Oh, this inclination and\nimpulse towards the true, the real, the non-apparent, the certain! How\nI detest it! Why does this gloomy and passionate taskmaster follow\njust _me?_ I should like to rest, but it does not permit me to do so.\nAre there not a host of things seducing me to tarry! Everywhere there\nare gardens of Armida for me, and therefore there will ever be fresh\nseparations and fresh bitterness of heart! I must set my foot forward,\nmy weary wounded foot: and because I feel I must do this, I often cast\ngrim glances back at the most beautiful things which could not detain\nme--_because_ they could not detain me!\"\n\n\n310.\n\n_Will and Wave._--How eagerly this wave comes hither, as if it were\na question of its reaching something! How it creeps with frightful\nhaste into the innermost corners of the rocky cliff! It seems that\nit wants to forestall some one; it seems that something is concealed\nthere that has value, high value.--And now it retreats somewhat more\nslowly, still quite white with excitement,--is it disappointed? Has it\nfound what it sought? Does it merely pretend to be disappointed?--But\nalready another wave approaches, still more eager and wild than the\nfirst, and its soul also seems to be full of secrets, and of longing\nfor treasure-seeking. Thus live the waves,--thus live we who exercise\nwill!--I do not say more.--But what! Ye distrust me? Ye are angry at\nme, ye beautiful monsters? Do ye fear that I will quite betray your\nsecret? Well! Just be angry with me, raise your green, dangerous\nbodies as high as ye can, make a wall between me and the sun--as at\npresent! Verily, there is now nothing more left of the world save\ngreen twilight and green lightning-flashes. Do as ye will, ye wanton\ncreatures, roar with delight and wickedness--or dive under again, pour\nyour emeralds down into the depths, and cast your endless white tresses\nof foam and spray over them--it is all the same to me, for all is so\nwell with you, and I am so pleased with you for it all: how could I\nbetray _you!_ For--take this to heart!--I know you and your secret, I\nknow your race! You and I are indeed of one race! You and I have indeed\none secret!\n\n\n311.\n\n_Broken Lights._--We are not always brave, and when we are weary,\npeople of our stamp are liable to lament occasionally in this\nwise:--\"It is so hard to cause pain to men--oh, that it should be\nnecessary! What good is it to live concealed, when we do not want to\nkeep to ourselves that which causes vexation? Would it not be more\nadvisable to live in the madding crowd, and compensate individuals\nfor sins that are committed, and must be committed, against mankind\nin general? Foolish with fools, vain with the vain, enthusiastic\nwith enthusiasts? Would that not be reasonable when there is such\nan inordinate amount of divergence in the main? When I hear of the\nmalignity of others against me--is not my first feeling that of\nsatisfaction? It is well that it should be so!--I seem to myself to say\nto them--I am so little in harmony with you, and have so much truth\non my side: see henceforth that ye be merry at my expense as often as\nye can! Here are my defects and mistakes, here are my illusions, my\nbad taste, my confusion, my tears, my vanity, my owlish concealment,\nmy contradictions! Here you have something to laugh at! Laugh then,\nand enjoy yourselves! I am not averse to the law and nature of things,\nwhich is that defects and errors should give pleasure!--To be sure,\nthere were once 'more glorious' times, when as soon as any one got\nan idea, however moderately new it might be, he would think himself\nso _indispensable_ as to go out into the street with it, and call to\neverybody: 'Behold! the kingdom of heaven is at hand!'--I should not\nmiss myself, if I were a-wanting. We are none of us indispensable!\"--As\nwe have said, however, we do not think thus when we are brave; we do\nnot think _about it_ at all.\n\n\n312.\n\n_My Dog._--I have given a name to my pain, and call it \"a dog,\"--it\nis just as faithful, just as importunate and shameless, just as\nentertaining, just as wise, as any other dog--and I can domineer\nover it, and vent my bad humour on it, as others do with their dogs,\nservants, and wives.\n\n\n313.\n\n_No Picture of a Martyr._--I will take my cue from Raphael, and not\npaint any more martyr-pictures. There are enough of sublime things\nwithout its being necessary to seek sublimity where it is linked with\ncruelty; moreover my ambition would not be gratified in the least if I\naspired to be a sublime executioner.\n\n\n314.\n\n_New Domestic Animals._--I want to have my lion and my eagle about me,\nthat I may always have hints and premonitions concerning the amount of\nmy strength or weakness. Must I look down on them to-day, and be afraid\nof them? And will the hour come once more when they will look up to me,\nand tremble?--\n\n\n315.\n\n_The Last Hour._--Storms are my danger. Shall I have my storm in which\nI perish, as Oliver Cromwell perished in his storm? Or shall I go out\nas a light does, not first blown out by the wind, but grown tired and\nweary of itself--a burnt-out light? Or finally, shall I blow myself\nout, so as _not to burn out?_\n\n\n316.\n\n_Prophetic Men._--Ye cannot divine how sorely prophetic men suffer: ye\nthink only that a fine \"gift\" has been given to them, and would fain\nhave it yourselves,--but I will express my meaning by a simile. How\nmuch may not the animals suffer from the electricity of the atmosphere\nand the clouds! Some of them, as we see, have a prophetic faculty with\nregard to the weather, for example, apes (as one can observe very well\neven in Europe,--and not only in menageries, but at Gibraltar). But\nit never occurs to us that it is their _sufferings_--that are their\nprophets! When strong positive electricity, under the influence of\nan approaching cloud not at all visible, is suddenly converted into\nnegative electricity, and an alteration of the weather is imminent,\nthese animals then behave as if an enemy were approaching them, and\nprepare for defence, or flight: they generally hide themselves,--they\ndo not think of the bad weather as weather, but as an enemy whose hand\nthey already _feel!_\n\n\n317.\n\n_Retrospect._--We seldom become conscious of the real pathos of any\nperiod of life as such, as long as we continue in it, but always\nthink it is the only possible and reasonable thing for us henceforth,\nand that it is altogether _ethos_ and not _pathos_[1]--to speak and\ndistinguish like the Greeks. A few notes of music to-day recalled a\nwinter and a house, and a life of utter solitude to my mind, and at the\nsame time the sentiments in which I then lived: I thought I should be\nable to live in such a state always. But now I understand that it was\nentirely pathos and passion, something comparable to this painfully\nbold and truly comforting music,--it is not one's lot to have these\nsensations for years, still less for eternities: otherwise one would\nbecome too \"ethereal\" for this planet.\n\n\n[1] The distinction between ethos and pathos in Aristotle is, broadly,\nthat between internal character and external circumstance.--P. V. C.\n\n\n318.\n\n_Wisdom in Pain._--In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure:\nlike the latter it is one of the best self-preservatives of a species.\nWere it not so, pain would long ago have been done away with; that it\nis hurtful is no argument against it, for to be hurtful is its very\nessence. In pain I hear the commanding call of the ship's captain:\n\"Take in sail!\" \"Man,\" the bold seafarer, must have learned to set\nhis sails in a thousand different ways, otherwise he could not have\nsailed long, for the ocean would soon have swallowed him up. We must\nalso know how to live with reduced energy: as soon as pain gives its\nprecautionary signal, it is time to reduce the speed--some great\ndanger, some storm, is approaching, and we do well to \"catch\" as little\nwind as possible--It is true that there are men who, on the approach of\nsevere pain, hear the very opposite call of command, and never appear\nmore proud, more martial, or more happy than when the storm is brewing;\nindeed, pain itself provides them with their supreme moments! These\nare the heroic men, the great _pain-bringers_ of mankind: those few\nand rare ones who need just the same apology as pain generally,--and\nverily, it should not be denied them! They are forces of the greatest\nimportance for preserving and advancing the species, be it only because\nthey are opposed to smug ease, and do not conceal their disgust at this\nkind of happiness.\n\n\n319.\n\n_As Interpreters of our Experiences._--One form of honesty has always\nbeen lacking among founders of religions and their kin:--they have\nnever made their experiences a matter of the intellectual conscience.\n\"What did I really experience? What then took place in me and around\nme? Was my understanding clear enough? Was my will directly opposed\nto all deception of the senses, and courageous in its defence against\nfantastic notions?\"--None of them ever asked these questions, nor\nto this day do any of the good religious people ask them. They have\nrather a thirst for things which are _contrary to reason,_ and they\ndon't want to have too much difficulty in satisfying this thirst,--so\nthey experience \"miracles\" and \"regenerations,\" and hear the voices of\nangels! But we who are different, who are thirsty for reason, want to\nlook as carefully into our experiences as in the case of a scientific\nexperiment, hour by hour, day by day! We ourselves want to be our own\nexperiments, and our own subjects of experiment.\n\n\n320.\n\n_On Meeting Again._--A: Do I quite understand you? You are in search\nof something? _Where,_ in the midst of the present, actual world, is\n_your_ niche and star? Where can _you_ lay yourself in the sun, so that\nyou also may have a surplus of well-being, that your existence may\njustify itself? Let everyone do that for himself--you seem to say,\n--and let him put talk about generalities, concern for others and\nsociety, out of his mind!--B: I want more; I am no seeker. I want to\ncreate my own sun for myself.\n\n\n321.\n\n_A New Precaution._--Let us no longer think so much about punishing,\nblaming, and improving! We shall seldom be able to alter an individual,\nand if we should succeed in doing so, something else may also succeed,\nperhaps unawares: _we_ may have been altered by him! Let us rather see\nto it that our own influence on _all that is to come_ outweighs and\noverweighs his influence! Let us not struggle in direct conflict!--all\nblaming, punishing, and desire to improve comes under this category.\nBut let us elevate ourselves all the higher! Let us ever give to our\npattern more shining colours! Let us obscure, the other by our light!\nNo! We do not mean to become _darker_ ourselves on his account, like\nthose who punish and are discontented! Let us rather go aside! Let us\nlook away!\n\n\n322.\n\n_A Simile._--Those thinkers in whom all the stars move in cyclic\norbits, are not the most profound. He who looks into himself, as into\nan immense universe, and carries Milky Ways in himself, knows also\nhow irregular all Milky Ways are; they lead into the very chaos and\nlabyrinth of existence.\n\n323.\n\n_Happiness in Destiny._--Destiny confers its greatest distinction\nupon us when it has made us fight for a time on the side of our\nadversaries. We are thereby _predestined_ to a great victory.\n\n\n324.\n\n_In Media Vita._--No! Life has not deceived me! On the contrary, from\nyear to year I find it richer, more desirable and more mysterious--from\nthe day on which the great liberator broke my fetters, the thought\nthat life may be an experiment of the thinker--and not a duty, not\na fatality, not a deceit!--And knowledge itself may be for others\nsomething different; for example, a bed of ease, or the path to a\nbed of ease, or an entertainment, or a course of idling,--for me\nit is a world of dangers and victories, in which even the heroic\nsentiments have their arena and dancing-floor. _\"Life as a means to\nknowledge\"_--with this principle in one's heart, one can not only be\nbrave, but can even _live joyfully and laugh joyfully!_ And who could\nknow how to laugh well and live well, who did not first understand the\nfull significance of war and victory?\n\n\n325.\n\n_What Belongs to Greatness._--Who can attain to anything great if he\ndoes not feel in himself the force and will _to inflict_ great pain?\nThe ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and\neven slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal\ndistress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry\nof it--that is great, that belongs to greatness.\n\n\n326.\n\n_Physicians of the Soul and Pain._--All preachers of morality, as\nalso all theologians, have a bad habit in common: all of them try to\npersuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical\ncure is necessary. And because mankind as a whole has for centuries\nlistened too eagerly to those teachers, something of the superstition\nthat the human race is in a very bad way has actually come over men:\nso that they are now far too ready to sigh; they find nothing more\nin life and make melancholy faces at each other, as if life were\nindeed very hard _to endure._ In truth, they are inordinately assured\nof their life and in love with it, and full of untold intrigues and\nsubtleties for suppressing everything disagreeable, and for extracting\nthe thorn from pain and misfortune. It seems to me that people always\nspeak _with exaggeration_ about pain and misfortune, as if it were a\nmatter of good behaviour to exaggerate here: on the other hand people\nare intentionally silent in regard to the number of expedients for\nalleviating pain; as for instance, the deadening of it, feverish\nflurry of thought, a peaceful position, or good and bad reminiscences,\nintentions, and hopes,--also many kinds of pride and fellow-feeling,\nwhich have almost the effect of an\u00e6sthetics: while in the greatest\ndegree of pain fainting takes place of itself. We understand very well\nhow to pour sweetness on our bitterness, especially on the bitterness\nof our soul; we find a remedy in our bravery and sublimity, as well\nas in the nobler delirium of submission and resignation. A loss\nscarcely remains a loss for an hour: in some way or other a gift from\nheaven has always fallen into our lap at the same moment--a new form\nof strength, for example: be it but a new opportunity for the exercise\nof strength! What have the preachers of morality not dreamt concerning\nthe inner \"misery\" of evil men! What _lies_ have they not told us\nabout the misfortunes of impassioned men! Yes, lying is here the right\nword: they were only too well aware of the overflowing happiness of\nthis kind of man, but they kept silent as death about it; because it\nwas a refutation of their theory, according to which happiness only\noriginates through the annihilation of the passions and the silencing\nof the will! And finally, as regards the recipe of all those physicians\nof the soul and their recommendation of a severe radical cure, we may\nbe allowed to ask: Is our life really painful and burdensome enough\nfor us to exchange it with advantage for a Stoical mode of living, and\nStoical petrification? We do _not_ feel _sufficiently miserable_ to\nhave to feel ill in the Stoical fashion!\n\n\n327.\n\n_Taking Things Seriously._--The intellect is with most people an\nawkward, obscure and creaking machine, which is difficult to set in\nmotion: they call it \"_taking a thing seriously_\" when they work with\nthis machine and want to think well--oh, how burdensome must good\nthinking be to them! That delightful animal, man, seems to lose his\ngood-humour whenever he thinks well; he becomes \"serious\"! And \"where\nthere is laughing and gaiety, thinking cannot be worth anything:\n\"--so speaks the prejudice of this serious animal against all \"Joyful\nWisdom.\"--Well, then! Let us show that it is prejudice!\n\n\n328.\n\n_Doing Harm to Stupidity._--It is certain that the belief in the\nreprehensibility of egoism, preached with such stubbornness and\nconviction, has on the whole done harm to egoism (_in favour of the\nherd-instinct,_ as I shall repeat a hundred times!), especially by\ndepriving it of a good conscience, and by bidding us seek in it the\nsource of all misfortune. \"Thy selfishness is the bane of thy life\"--so\nrang the preaching for millenniums: it did harm, as we have said,\nto selfishness, and deprived it of much spirit, much cheerfulness,\nmuch ingenuity, and much beauty; it stultified and deformed and\npoisoned selfishness!--Philosophical antiquity, on the other hand,\ntaught that there was another principal source of evil: from Socrates\ndownwards, the thinkers were never weary of preaching that \"your\nthoughtlessness and stupidity, your unthinking way of living according\nto rule, and your subjection to the opinion of your neighbour, are\nthe reasons why you so seldom attain to happiness,--we thinkers are,\nas thinkers, the happiest of mortals.\" Let us not decide here whether\nthis preaching against stupidity was more sound than the preaching\nagainst selfishness; it is certain, however, that stupidity was thereby\ndeprived of its good conscience:--those philosophers _did harm to\nstupidity._\n\n\n329.\n\n_Leisure and Idleness._--There is an Indian savagery, a savagery\npeculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans\nstrive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work--the\ncharacteristic vice of the new world--already begins to infect\nold Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange\nlack of intellectuality. One is now ashamed of repose: even long\nreflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with\na stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial\nnewspaper; we live like men who are continually \"afraid of letting\nopportunities slip.\" \"Better do anything whatever, than nothing\"--this\nprinciple also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste\nmay be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this\nhurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye\nfor the melody of movement, also disappear. The proof of this is\nthe _clumsy perspicuity_ which is now everywhere demanded in all\npositions where a person would like to be sincere with his fellows,\nin intercourse with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers,\npupils, leaders and princes,--one has no longer either time or energy\nfor ceremonies, for roundabout courtesies, for any _esprit_ in\nconversation, or for any _otium_ whatever. For life in the hunt for\ngain continually compels a person to consume his intellect, even to\nexhaustion, in constant dissimulation, overreaching, or forestalling:\nthe real virtue nowadays is to do something in a shorter time than\nanother person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse\n_permitted:_ in them, however, people are tired, and would not only\nlike \"to let themselves go,\" but _to stretch their legs_ out wide in\nawkward style. The way people write their _letters_ nowadays is quite\nin keeping with the age; their style and spirit will always be the true\n\"sign of the times.\" If there be still enjoyment in society and in art,\nit is enjoyment such as over-worked slaves provide for themselves. Oh,\nthis moderation in \"joy\" of our cultured and uncultured classes! Oh,\nthis increasing suspiciousness of all enjoyment! _Work_ is winning over\nmore and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment\nalready calls itself \"need of recreation,\" and even begins to be\nashamed of itself. \"One owes it to one's health,\" people say, when they\nare caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could\nnot yield to the desire for the _vita contemplativa_ (that is to say,\nexcursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad\nconscience.--Well! Formerly it was the very reverse: it was \"action\"\nthat suffered from a bad conscience. A man of good family _concealed_\nhis work when need compelled him to labour. The slave laboured under\nthe weight of the feeling that he did something contemptible:--the\n\"doing\" itself was something contemptible. \"Only in _otium_ and\n_bellum_ is there nobility and honour:\" so rang the voice of ancient\nprejudice!\n\n\n330.\n\n_Applause._--The thinker does not need applause or the clapping of\nhands, provided he be sure of the clapping of his own hands: the\nlatter, however, he cannot do without. Are there men who could also\ndo without this, and in general without any kind of applause? I doubt\nit: and even as regards the wisest, Tacitus, who is no calumniator\nof the wise, says: _quando etiam sapientibus glori\u00e6 cupido novissima\nexuitur_--that means with him: never.\n\n\n331.\n\n_Better Deaf than Deafened._--Formerly a person wanted to have his\n_calling,_ but that no longer suffices to-day, for the market has\nbecome too large,--there has now to be _bawling._ The consequence\nis that even good throats outcry each other, and the best wares are\noffered for sale with hoarse voices; without market-place bawling and\nhoarseness there is now no longer any genius.--It is, sure enough, an\nevil age for the thinker: he has to learn to find his stillness betwixt\ntwo noises, and has to pretend to be deaf until he finally becomes so.\nAs long as he has not learned this, he is in danger of perishing from\nimpatience and headaches.\n\n\n332.\n\n_The Evil Hour._--There has perhaps been an evil hour for every\nphilosopher, in which he thought: What do I matter, if people should\nnot believe my poor arguments!--And then some malicious bird has flown\npast him and twittered: \"What do you matter? What do you matter?\"\n\n\n333.\n\n_What does Knowing Mean?--Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed\nintelligere!_ says Spinoza, so simply and sublimely, as is his wont.\nNevertheless, what else is this _intelligere_ ultimately, but just\nthe form in which the three other things become perceptible to us all\nat once? A result of the diverging and opposite impulses of desiring\nto deride, lament and execrate? Before knowledge is possible each of\nthese impulses must first have brought forward its one-sided view of\nthe object or event. The struggle of these one-sided views occurs\nafterwards, and out of it there occasionally arises a compromise, a\npacification, a recognition of rights on all three sides, a sort of\njustice and agreement: for in virtue of the justice and agreement\nall those impulses can maintain themselves in existence and retain\ntheir mutual rights. We, to whose consciousness only the closing\nreconciliation scenes and final settling of accounts of these long\nprocesses manifest themselves, think on that account that _intelligere_\nis something conciliating, just and good, something essentially\nantithetical to the impulses; whereas it is only _a certain relation of\nthe impulses to one another._ For a very long time conscious thinking\nwas regarded as the only thinking: it is now only that the truth dawns\nupon us that the greater part of our intellectual activity goes on\nunconsciously and unfelt by us; I believe, however, that the impulses\nwhich are here in mutual conflict understand rightly how to make\nthemselves felt by _one another,_ and how to cause pain:--the violent\nsudden exhaustion which overtakes all thinkers, may have its origin\nhere (it is the exhaustion of the battle-field). Aye, perhaps in our\nstruggling interior there is much concealed _heroism,_ but certainly\nnothing divine, or eternally-reposing-in-itself, as Spinoza supposed.\n_Conscious_ thinking, and especially that of the philosopher, is the\nweakest, and on that account also the relatively mildest and quietest\nmode of thinking: and thus it is precisely the philosopher who is most\neasily misled concerning the nature of knowledge.\n\n334.\n\n_One must Learn to Love.--_This is our experience in music: we must\nfirst _learn_ in general _to hear,_ to hear fully, and to distinguish a\ntheme or a melody, we have to isolate and limit it as a life by itself;\nthen we need to exercise effort and good-will in order _to endure_ it\nin spite of its strangeness we need patience towards its aspect and\nexpression and indulgence towards what is odd in it:--in the end there\ncomes a moment when we are _accustomed_ to it, when we expect it, when\nit dawns upon us that we should miss it if it were lacking; and then\nit goes on to exercise its spell and charm more and more, and does not\ncease until we have become its humble and enraptured lovers, who want\nit, and want it again, and ask for nothing better from the world.--It\nis thus with us, however, not only in music: it is precisely thus\nthat we have _learned to love_ everything that we love. We are always\nfinally recompensed for our good-will, our patience reasonableness\nand gentleness towards what is unfamiliar, by the unfamiliar slowly\nthrowing off its veil and presenting itself to us as a new, ineffable\nbeauty:--that is its _thanks_ for our hospitality. He also who loves\nhimself must have learned it in this way: there is no other way. Love\nalso has to be learned.\n\n\n335.\n\n_Cheers for Physics!_--How many men are there who know how to observe?\nAnd among the few who do know,--how many observe themselves? \"Everyone\nis furthest from himself\"--all the \"triers of the reins\" know that\nto their discomfort; and the saying, \"Know thyself,\" in the mouth\nof a God and spoken to man, is almost a mockery. But that the case\nof self-observation is so desperate, is attested best of all by the\nmanner in which _almost everybody_ talks of the nature of a moral\naction, that prompt, willing, convinced, loquacious manner, with its\nlook, its smile, and its pleasing eagerness! Everyone seems inclined\nto say to you: \"Why, my dear Sir, that is precisely _my_ affair! You\naddress yourself with your question to him who _is authorised_ to\nanswer, for I happen to be wiser with regard to this matter than in\nanything else. Therefore, when a man decides that '_this is right_,'\nwhen he accordingly concludes that '_it must therefore be done,_ and\nthereupon _does_ what he has thus recognised as right and designated\nas necessary--then the nature of his action is _moral!\"_ But, my\nfriend, you are talking to me about three actions instead of one: your\ndeciding, for instance, that \"this is right,\" is also an action,--could\none not judge either morally or immorally? _Why_ do you regard\nthis, and just this, as right?--\"Because my conscience tells me so;\nconscience never speaks immorally, indeed it determines in the first\nplace what shall be moral!\"--But why do you _listen_ to the voice of\nyour conscience? And in how far are you justified in regarding such a\njudgment as true and infallible? This _belief_--is there no further\nconscience for it? Do you know nothing of an intellectual conscience?\nA conscience behind your \"conscience\"? Your decision, \"this is right,\"\nhas a previous history in your impulses, your likes and dislikes, your\nexperiences and non-experiences; \"_how_ has it originated?\" you must\nask, and afterwards the further question: \"_what_ really impels me to\ngive ear to it?\" You can listen to its command like a brave soldier\nwho hears the command of his officer. Or like a woman who loves him\nwho commands. Or like a flatterer and coward, afraid of the commander.\nOr like a blockhead who follows because he has nothing to say to the\ncontrary. In short, you can give ear to your conscience in a hundred\ndifferent ways. But _that_ you hear this or that judgment as the voice\nof conscience, consequently, _that_ you feel a thing to be right--may\nhave its cause in the fact that you have never thought about your\nnature, and have blindly accepted from your childhood what has been\ndesignated to you as _right:_ or in the fact that hitherto bread\nand honours have fallen to your share with that which you call your\nduty,--it is \"right\" to you, because it seems to be _your_ \"condition\nof existence\" (that you, however, have a _right_ to existence seems\nto you irrefutable!). The _persistency_ of your moral judgment might\nstill be just a proof of personal wretchedness or impersonality; your\n\"moral force\" might have its source in your obstinacy--or in your\nincapacity to perceive new ideals! And to be brief: if you had thought\nmore acutely, observed more accurately, and had learned more, you would\nno longer under all circumstances call this and that your \"duty\" and\nyour \"conscience\": the knowledge _how moral judgments have in general\nalways originated_ would make you tired of these pathetic words,--as\nyou have already grown tired of other pathetic words, for instance\n\"sin,\" \"salvation,\" and \"redemption.\"--And now, my friend, do not talk\nto me about the categorical imperative! That word tickles my ear,\nand I must laugh in spite of your presence and your seriousness. In\nthis connection I recollect old Kant, who, as a punishment for having\n_gained possession surreptitiously_ of the \"thing in itself\"--also a\nvery ludicrous affair!--was imposed upon by the categorical imperative,\nand with that in his heart _strayed back again_ to \"God,\" the \"soul,\"\n\"freedom,\" and \"immortality,\" like a fox which strays back into its\ncage: and it had been _his_ strength and shrewdness which had _broken\nopen_ this cage!--What? You admire the categorical imperative in you?\nThis \"persistency\" of your so-called moral judgment? This absoluteness\nof the feeling that \"as I think on this matter, so must everyone\nthink\"? Admire rather your _selfishness_ therein! And the blindness,\npaltriness, and modesty of your selfishness! For it is selfishness in a\nperson to regard _his_ judgment as universal law, and a blind, paltry\nand modest selfishness besides, because it betrays that you have not\nyet discovered yourself, that you have not yet created for yourself\nany personal, quite personal ideal:--for this could never be the ideal\nof another, to say nothing of all, of every one!--He who still thinks\nthat \"each would have to act in this manner in this case,\" has not yet\nadvanced half a dozen paces in self-knowledge: otherwise he would know\nthat there neither are, nor can be, similar actions,--that every action\nthat has been done, has been done in an entirely unique and inimitable\nmanner, and that it will be the same with regard to all future\nactions; that all precepts of conduct (and even the most esoteric and\nsubtle precepts of all moralities up to the present), apply only to\nthe coarse exterior,--that by means of them, indeed, a semblance of\nequality can be attained, _but only a semblance,_--that in outlook and\nretrospect, _every_ action is, and remains, an impenetrable affair,\n--that our opinions of the \"good,\" \"noble\" and \"great\" can never be\nproved by our actions, because no action is cognisable,--that our\nopinions, estimates, and tables of values are certainly among the most\npowerful levers in the mechanism of our actions, that in every single\ncase, nevertheless, the law of their mechanism is untraceable. Let us\n_confine_ ourselves, therefore, to the purification of our opinions\nand appreciations, and to the _construction of new tables of value of\nour own:_--we will, however, brood no longer over the \"moral worth of\nour actions\"! Yes, my friends! As regards the whole moral twaddle of\npeople about one another, it is time to be disgusted with it! To sit\nin judgment morally ought to be opposed to our taste! Let us leave\nthis nonsense and this bad taste to those who have nothing else to do,\nsave to drag the past a little distance further through time, and who\nare never themselves the present,--consequently to the many, to the\nmajority! We, however, _would seek to become what we are,--_the new,\nthe unique, the incomparable, making laws for ourselves and creating\nourselves! And for this purpose we must become the best students and\ndiscoverers of all the laws and necessities in the world. We must be\n_physicists_ in order to be _creators_ in that sense--whereas hitherto\nall appreciations and ideals have been based on _ignorance_ of physics,\nor in _contradiction_ thereto. And therefore, three cheers for physics!\nAnd still louder cheers for that which _impels_ us thereto--our honesty.\n\n\n336.\n\n_Avarice of Nature_--Why has nature been so niggardly towards humanity\nthat she has not let human beings shine, this man more and that man\nless, according to their inner abundance of light? Why have not great\nmen such a fine visibility in their rising and setting as the sun? How\nmuch less equivocal would life among men then be!\n\n\n337.\n\n_Future \"Humanity.\"--_When I look at this age with the eye of a distant\nfuture, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of the present day as\nhis peculiar virtue and sickness called \"the historical sense.\" It is a\ntendency to something quite new and foreign in history: if this embryo\nwere given several centuries and more, there might finally evolve out\nof it a marvellous plant, with a smell equally marvellous, on account\nof which our old earth might be more pleasant to live in than it has\nbeen hitherto. We moderns are just beginning to form the chain of a\nvery powerful, future sentiment, link by link,--we hardly know what\nwe are doing. It almost seems to us as if it were not the question\nof a new sentiment, but of the decline of all old sentiments:--the\nhistorical sense is still something so poor and cold, and many are\nattacked by it as by a frost, and are made poorer and colder by it. To\nothers it appears as the indication of stealthily approaching age, and\nour planet is regarded by them as a melancholy invalid, who, in order\nto forget his present condition, writes the history of his youth. In\nfact, this is one aspect of the new sentiment. He who knows how to\nregard the history of man in its entirety as _his own history,_ feels\nin the immense generalisation all the grief of the invalid who thinks\nof health, of the old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of\nthe lover who is robbed of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is\ndestroyed, of the hero on the evening of the indecisive battle which\nhas brought him wounds and the loss of a friend. But to bear this\nimmense sum of grief of all kinds, to be able to bear it, and yet still\nbe the hero who at the commencement of a second day of battle greets\nthe dawn and his happiness, as one who has an horizon of centuries\nbefore and behind him, as the heir of all nobility, of all past\nintellect, and the obligatory heir (as the noblest) of all the old\nnobles; while at the same time the first of a new nobility, the equal\nof which has never been seen nor even dreamt of: to take all this upon\nhis soul, the oldest, the newest, the losses, hopes, conquests, and\nvictories of mankind: to have all this at last in one soul, and to\ncomprise it in one feeling:--this would necessarily furnish a happiness\nwhich man has not hitherto known,--a God's happiness, full of power and\nlove, full of tears and laughter, a happiness which, like the sun in\nthe evening, continually gives of its inexhaustible riches and empties\ninto the sea,--and like the sun, too, feels itself richest when even\nthe poorest fisherman rows with golden oars! This divine feeling might\nthen be called--humanity!\n\n\n338.\n\n_The Will to Suffering and the Compassionate._--Is it to your advantage\nto be above all compassionate? And is it to the advantage of the\nsufferers when you are so? But let us leave the first question for a\nmoment without an answer.--That from which we suffer most profoundly\nand personally is almost incomprehensible and inaccessible to every\none else: in this matter we are hidden from our neighbour even when\nhe eats at the same table with us. Everywhere, however, where we are\n_noticed_ as sufferers, our suffering is interpreted in a shallow way;\nit belongs to the nature of the emotion of pity to _divest_ unfamiliar\nsuffering of its properly personal character:--our \"benefactors\"\nlower our value and volition more than our enemies. In most benefits\nwhich are conferred on the unfortunate there is something shocking\nin the intellectual levity with which the compassionate person plays\nthe r\u00f4le of fate: he knows nothing of all the inner consequences and\ncomplications which are called misfortune for _me_ or for _you!_ The\nentire economy of my soul and its adjustment by \"misfortune,\" the\nuprising of new sources and needs, the closing up of old wounds, the\nrepudiation of whole periods of the past--none of these things which\nmay be connected with misfortune preoccupy the dear sympathiser. He\nwishes _to succour,_ and does not reflect that there is a personal\nnecessity for misfortune; that terror, want, impoverishment, midnight\nwatches, adventures, hazards and mistakes are as necessary to me and\nto you as their opposites, yea, that, to speak mystically, the path to\none's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one's own\nhell. No, he knows nothing thereof. The \"religion of compassion\" (or\n\"the heart\") bids him help, and he thinks he has helped best when he\nhas helped most speedily! If you adherents of this religion actually\nhave the same sentiments towards yourselves which you have towards your\nfellows, if you are unwilling to endure your own suffering even for an\nhour, and continually forestall all possible misfortune, if you regard\nsuffering and pain generally as evil, as detestable, as deserving of\nannihilation, and as blots on existence, well, you have then, besides\nyour religion of compassion, yet another religion in your heart (and\nthis is perhaps the mother of the former)--_the religion of smug ease._\nAh, how little you know of the _happiness_ of man, you comfortable\nand good-natured ones!--for happiness and misfortune are brother and\nsister, and twins, who grow tall together, or, as with you, _remain\nsmall_ together! But now let us return to the first question.--How is\nit at all possible for a person to keep to _his_ path! Some cry or\nother is continually calling one aside: our eye then rarely lights on\nanything without it becoming necessary for us to leave for a moment our\nown affairs and rush to give assistance. I know there are hundreds of\nrespectable and laudable methods of making me stray _from my course,_\nand in truth the most \"moral\" of methods! Indeed, the opinion of the\npresent-day preachers of the morality of compassion goes so far as to\nimply that just this, and this alone is moral:--to stray from _our_\ncourse to that extent and to run to the assistance of our neighbour. I\nam equally certain that I need only give myself over to the sight of\none case of actual distress, and I, too, _am_ lost! And if a suffering\nfriend said to me, \"See, I shall soon die, only promise to die with\nme\"--I might promise it, just as--to select for once bad examples for\ngood reasons--the sight of a small, mountain people struggling for\nfreedom,. would bring me to the point of offering them my hand and my\nlife. Indeed, there is even a secret seduction in all this awakening\nof compassion, and calling for help: our \"own way\" is a thing too\nhard and insistent, and too far removed from the love and gratitude\nof others,--we escape from it and from our most personal conscience,\nnot at all unwillingly, and, seeking security in the conscience of\nothers, we take refuge in the lovely temple of the \"religion of pity.\"\nAs soon now as any war breaks out, there always breaks out at the\nsame time a certain secret delight precisely in the noblest class of\nthe people: they rush with rapture to meet the new danger of _death,_\nbecause they believe that in the sacrifice for their country they have\nfinally that long-sought-for permission--the permission _to shirk\ntheir aim:_--war is for them a detour to suicide, a detour, however,\nwith a good conscience. And although silent here about some things,\nI will not, however, be silent about my morality, which says to me:\nLive in concealment in order that thou _mayest_ live to thyself. Live\n_ignorant_ of that which seems to thy age to be most important! Put at\nleast the skin of three centuries betwixt thyself, and the present day!\nAnd the clamour of the present day, the noise of wars and revolutions,\nought to be a murmur to thee! Thou wilt also want to help, but only\nthose whose distress thou entirely _understandest,_ because they have\n_one_ sorrow and _one_ hope in common with thee--thy _friends:_ and\nonly in _the_ way that thou helpest thyself:--I want to make them more\ncourageous, more enduring, more simple, more joyful! I want to teach\nthem that which at present so few understand, and the preachers of\nfellowship in sorrow least of all:--namely, _fellowship in joy!_\n\n\n339.\n\n_Vita femina._--To see the ultimate beauties in a work--all knowledge\nand good-will is not enough; it requires the rarest, good chance for\nthe veil of clouds to move for once from the summits, and for the sun\nto shine on them. We must not only stand at precisely the right place\nto see this, our very soul itself must have pulled away the veil from\nits heights, and must be in need of an external expression and simile,\nso as to have a hold and remain master of itself. All these, however,\nare so rarely united at the same time that I am inclined to believe\nthat the highest summit of all that is good, be it work, deed, man, or\nnature, has hitherto remained for most people, and even for the best,\nas something concealed and shrouded:--that, however, which unveils\nitself to us, _unveils itself to us but once._ The Greeks indeed\nprayed: \"Twice and thrice, everything beautiful!\" Ah, they had their\ngood reason to call on the Gods, for ungodly actuality does not furnish\nus with the beautiful at all, or only does so once! I mean to say that\nthe world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless\npoor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those\nbeautiful things. But perhaps this is the greatest charm of life: it\nputs a gold-embroidered veil of lovely potentialities over itself,\npromising, resisting, modest, mocking, sympathetic, seductive. Yes,\nlife is a woman!\n\n\n340.\n\n_The Dying Socrates.--_-I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in\nall that he did, said--and did not say. This mocking and amorous demon\nand rat-catcher of Athens, who made the most insolent youths tremble\nand sob, was not only the wisest babbler that has ever lived, but was\njust as great in his silence. I would that he had also been silent in\nthe last moment of his life,--perhaps he might then have belonged to a\nstill higher order of intellects. Whether it was death, or the poison,\nor piety, or wickedness--something or other loosened his tongue at that\nmoment, and he said: \"O Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepios.\" For him who\nhas ears, this ludicrous and terrible \"last word\" implies: \"O Crito,\n_life is a long sickness!\"_ Is it possible! A man like him, who had\nlived cheerfully and to all appearance as a soldier,--was a pessimist!\nHe had merely put on a good demeanour towards life, and had all along\nconcealed his ultimate judgment, his profoundest sentiment! Socrates,\nSocrates _had suffered from life!_ And he also took his revenge for\nit--with that veiled, fearful, pious, and blasphemous phrase! Had\neven a Socrates to revenge himself? Was there a grain too little of\nmagnanimity in his superabundant virtue? Ah, my friends! We must\nsurpass even the Greeks!\n\n\n341.\n\n_The Heaviest Burden._--What if a demon crept after thee into thy\nloneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: \"This life,\nas thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it\nonce more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new\nin it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh,\nand all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee\nagain, and all in the same series and sequence--and similarly this\nspider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment,\nand I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned\nonce more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!\"--Wouldst thou not\nthrow thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so\nspake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou\nwouldst answer him: \"Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything\nso divine!\" If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it\nwould transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard\nto all and everything: \"Dost thou want this once more, and also for\ninnumerable times?\" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity!\nOr, how wouldst thou have to become favourably inclined to thyself and\nto life, so as _to long for nothing more ardently_ than for this last\neternal sanctioning and sealing?--\n\n\n342.\n\n_Incipit Trag\u0153dia._--When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left\nhis home and the Lake of Urmi, and went into the mountains. There he\nenjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not weary\nof it. But at last his heart changed,--and rising one morning with the\nrosy dawn, he went before the sun and spake thus to it: \"Thou great\nstar! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou\nshinest! For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave: thou\nwouldst have wearied of thy light and of the journey, had it not been\nfor me, mine eagle, and my serpent. But we awaited thee every morning,\ntook from thee thine overflow, and blessed thee for it. Lo! I am weary\nof my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need\nhands outstretched to take it. I would fain bestow and distribute,\nuntil the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the\npoor happy in their riches. Therefore must I descend into the deep, as\nthou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea and givest\nlight also to the nether-world, thou most rich star! Like thee must I\n_go down,_ as men say, to whom I shall descend. Bless me then, thou\ntranquil eye, that canst behold even the greatest happiness without\nenvy! Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow\ngolden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss! Lo!\nThis cup is again going to empty itself, and Zarathustra is again going\nto be a man.\"--Thus began Zarathustra's down-going.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK FIFTH\n\n\nFEARLESS ONES\n\n\n\n\"Carcasse, tu trembles? Tu tremblerais bien davantage, tu savais, o\u00f9 je\nte m\u00e8ne.\" _Turenne._\n\n\n343.\n\n\n_What our Cheerfulness Signifies._--The most important of more recent\nevents--that \"God is dead,\" that the belief in the Christian God has\nbecome unworthy of belief--already begins to cast its first shadows\nover Europe. To the few at least whose eye, whose _suspecting_ glance,\nis strong enough and subtle enough for this drama, some sun seems\nto have set, some old, profound confidence seems to have changed\ninto doubt: our old world must seem to them daily more darksome,\ndistrustful, strange and \"old.\" In the main, however, one may say that\nthe event itself is far too great, too remote, too much beyond most\npeople's power of apprehension, for one to suppose that so much as\nthe report of it could have _reached_ them; not to speak of many who\nalready knew _what_ had taken place, and what must all collapse now\nthat this belief had been undermined,--because so much was built upon\nit, so much rested on it, and had become one with it: for example, our\nentire European morality. This lengthy, vast and uninterrupted process\nof crumbling, destruction, ruin and overthrow which is now imminent:\nwho has realised it sufficiently to-day to have to stand up as the\nteacher and herald of such a tremendous logic of terror, as the prophet\nof a period of gloom and eclipse, the like of which has probably never\ntaken place on earth before?... Even we, the born riddle-readers, who\nwait as it were on the mountains posted 'twixt to-day and to-morrow,\nand engirt by their contradiction, we, the firstlings and premature\nchildren of the coming century, into whose sight especially the shadows\nwhich must forthwith envelop Europe _should_ already have come--how is\nit that even we, without genuine sympathy for this period of gloom,\ncontemplate its advent without any _personal_ solicitude or fear?\nAre we still, perhaps, too much under the _immediate effects_ of the\nevent--and are these effects, especially as regards _ourselves,_\nperhaps the reverse of what was to be expected--not at all sad and\ndepressing, but rather like a new and indescribable variety of light,\nhappiness, relief, enlivenment, encouragement, and dawning day?... In\nfact, we philosophers and \"free spirits\" feel ourselves irradiated as\nby a new dawn by the report that the \"old God is dead\"; our hearts\noverflow with gratitude, astonishment, presentiment and expectation.\nAt last the horizon seems open once more, granting even that it is not\nbright; our ships can at last put out to sea in face of every danger;\nevery hazard is again permitted to the discerner; the sea, _our_ sea,\nagain lies open before us; perhaps never before did such an \"open sea\"\nexist.--\n\n\n344.\n\n_To what Extent even We are still Pious._--It is said with good reason\nthat convictions have no civic rights in the domain of science: it is\nonly when a conviction voluntarily condescends to the modesty of an\nhypothesis, a preliminary standpoint for experiment, or a regulative\nfiction, that its access to the realm of knowledge, and a certain\nvalue therein, can be conceded,--always, however, with the restriction\nthat it must remain under police supervision, under the police of our\ndistrust.--Regarded more accurately, however, does not this imply\nthat only when a conviction _ceases_ to be a conviction can it obtain\nadmission into science? Does not the discipline of the scientific\nspirit just commence when one no longer harbours any conviction?...\nIt is probably so: only, it remains to be asked whether, _in order\nthat this discipline may commence,_ it is not necessary that there\nshould already be a conviction, and in fact one so imperative and\nabsolute, that it makes a sacrifice of all other convictions. One\nsees that science also rests on a belief: there is no science at all\n\"without premises.\" The question whether _truth_ is necessary, must\nnot merely be affirmed beforehand, but must be affirmed to such an\nextent that the principle, belief, or conviction finds expression,\nthat \"there is _nothing more necessary_ than truth, and in comparison\nwith it everything else has only secondary value.\"--This absolute\nwill to truth: what is it? Is it the will _not to allow ourselves to\nbe deceived?_ Is it the will _not to deceive?_ For the will to truth\ncould also be interpreted in this fashion, provided one included under\nthe generalisation, \"I will not deceive,\" the special case, \"I will\nnot deceive myself.\" But why not deceive? Why not allow oneself to be\ndeceived?--Let it be noted that the reasons for the former eventuality\nbelong to a category quite different from those for the latter: one\ndoes not want to be deceived oneself, under the supposition that it\nis injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived,--in this sense\nscience would be a prolonged process of caution, foresight and utility;\nagainst which, however, one might reasonably make objections. What? is\nnot-wishing-to-be-deceived really less injurious, less dangerous, less\nfatal? What do you know of the character of existence in all its phases\nto be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of\nabsolute distrust, or of absolute trustfulness? In case, however, of\nboth being necessary, much trusting _and_ much distrusting, whence then\nshould science derive the absolute belief, the conviction on which it\nrests, that truth is more important than anything else, even than every\nother conviction? This conviction could not have arisen if truth _and_\nuntruth had both continually proved themselves to be useful: as is the\ncase. Thus--the belief in science, which now undeniably exists, cannot\nhave had its origin in such a utilitarian calculation, but rather _in\nspite of_ the fact of the inutility and dangerousness of the \"Will\nto truth,\" of \"truth at all costs,\" being continually demonstrated.\n\"At all costs\": alas, we understand that sufficiently well, after\nhaving sacrificed and slaughtered one belief after another at this\naltar!--Consequently, \"Will to truth\" does _not_ imply, \"I will not\nallow myself to be deceived,\" but--there is no other alternative--\"I\nwill not deceive, not even myself\": _and thus we have reached the\nrealm of morality._ For, let one just ask oneself fairly: \"Why wilt\nthou not deceive?\" especially if it should seem--and it does seem--as\nif life were laid out with a view to appearance, I mean, with a view\nto error deceit, dissimulation, delusion, self-delusion; and when on\nthe other hand it is a matter of fact that the great type of life\nhas always manifested itself on the side of the most unscrupulous\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9. Such an intention might perhaps, to express it mildly,\nbe a piece of Quixotism, a little enthusiastic craziness; it might\nalso, however, be something worse, namely, a destructive principle,\nhostile to life.... \"Will to Truth,\"--that might be a concealed Will to\nDeath.--Thus the question Why is there science? leads back to the moral\nproblem: _What in general is the purpose of morality,_ if life, nature,\nand history are \"non-moral\"? There is no doubt that the conscientious\nman in the daring and extreme sense in which he is presupposed by the\nbelief in science, _affirms thereby a world other than_ that of life,\nnature, and history; and in so far as he affirms this \"other world,\"\nwhat? must he not just thereby--deny its counterpart, this world, _our_\nworld?... But what I have in view will now be understood, namely,\nthat it is always a _metaphysical belief_ on which our belief in\nscience rests,--and that even we knowing ones of to-day, landless and\nanti-metaphysical, still take _our_ fire from the conflagration kindled\nby a belief a millennium old, the Christian belief, which was also the\nbelief of Plato, that God is truth, that the truth is divine.... But\nwhat if this itself always becomes more untrustworthy, what if nothing\nany longer proves itself divine, except it be error, blindness, and\nfalsehood;--what if God himself turns out to be our most persistent\nlie?--\n\n\n345.\n\n_Morality as a Problem._--A defect in personality revenges itself\neverywhere: an enfeebled, lank, obliterated, self-disavowing and\ndisowning personality is no longer fit for anything good--it is least\nof all fit for philosophy. \"Selflessness\" has no value either in\nheaven or on earth; the great problems all demand _great love,_ and\nit is only the strong, well-rounded, secure spirits, those who have a\nsolid basis, that are qualified for them. It makes the most material\ndifference whether a thinker stands personally related to his problems,\nhaving his fate, his need, and even his highest happiness therein; or\nmerely impersonally, that is to say, if he can only feel and grasp\nthem with the tentacles of cold, prying thought. In the latter case\nI warrant that nothing comes of it: for the great problems, granting\nthat they let themselves be grasped at all, do not let themselves\nbe _held_ by toads and weaklings: that has ever been their taste--a\ntaste also which they share with all high-spirited women.--How is it\nthat I have not yet met with any one, not even in books, who seems to\nhave stood to morality in this position, as one who knew morality as\na problem, and this problem as _his own_ personal need, affliction,\npleasure and passion? It is obvious that up to the present morality\nhas not been a problem at all; it has rather been the very ground on\nwhich people have met after all distrust, dissension and contradiction,\nthe hallowed place of peace, where thinkers could obtain rest even\nfrom themselves, could recover breath and revive. I see no one who\nhas ventured to _criticise_ the estimates of moral worth. I miss in\nthis connection even the attempts of scientific curiosity, and the\nfastidious, groping imagination of psychologists and historians, which\neasily anticipates a problem and catches it on the wing, without\nrightly knowing what it catches. With difficulty I have discovered\nsome scanty data for the purpose of furnishing a _history of the\norigin_ of these feelings and estimates of value (which is something\ndifferent from a criticism of them, and also something different from\na history of ethical systems). In an individual case I have done\neverything to encourage the inclination and talent for this kind of\nhistory--in vain, as it would seem to me at present. There is little to\nbe learned from those historians of morality (especially Englishmen):\nthey themselves are usually, quite unsuspiciously, under the influence\nof a definite morality, and act unwittingly as its armour-bearers and\nfollowers--perhaps still repeating sincerely the popular superstition\nof Christian Europe, that the characteristic of moral action consists\nin abnegation, self-denial, self-sacrifice, or in fellow-feeling and\nfellow-suffering. The usual error in their premises is their insistence\non a certain _consensus_ among human beings, at least among civilised\nhuman beings, with regard to certain propositions of morality, from\nthence they conclude that these propositions are absolutely binding\neven upon you and me; or reversely, they come to the conclusion that\n_no_ morality is binding, after the truth has dawned upon them that\namong different peoples moral valuations are _necessarily_ different:\nboth of which conclusions are equally childish follies. The error\nof the more subtle amongst them is that they discover and criticise\nthe probably foolish opinions of a people about its own morality, or\nthe opinions of mankind about human morality generally (they treat\naccordingly of its origin, its religious sanctions, the superstition\nof free will, and such matters), and they think that just by so doing\nthey have criticised the morality itself. But the worth of a precept,\n\"Thou shalt,\" is fundamentally different from and independent of such\nopinions about it, and must be distinguished from the weeds of error\nwith which it has perhaps been overgrown: just as the worth of a\nmedicine to a sick person is altogether independent of the question\nwhether he has a scientific opinion about medicine, or merely thinks\nabout it as an old wife would do. A morality could even have grown _out\nof_ an error: but with this knowledge the problem of its worth would\nnot even be touched.--Thus, no one hitherto has tested the _value_\nof that most celebrated of all medicines, called morality: for which\npurpose it is first of all necessary for one--_to call it in question._\nWell, that is just our work.--\n\n\n346.\n\n_Our Note of Interrogation._--But you don't understand it? As a matter\nof fact, an effort will be necessary in order to understand us. We\nseek for words; we seek perhaps also for ears. Who are we after all?\nIf we wanted simply to call ourselves in older phraseology, atheists,\nunbelievers, or even immoralists, we should still be far from thinking\nourselves designated thereby: we are all three in too late a phase for\npeople generally to conceive, for _you,_ my inquisitive friends, to be\nable to conceive, what is our state of mind under the circumstances.\nNo! we have no longer the bitterness and passion of him who has\nbroken loose, who has to make for himself a belief, a goal, and even\na martyrdom out of his unbelief! We have become saturated with the\nconviction (and have grown cold and hard in it) that things are not\nat all divinely ordered in this world, nor even according to human\nstandards do they go on rationally, mercifully, or justly: we know\nthe fact that the world in which we live is ungodly, immoral, and\n\"inhuman,\"--we have far too long interpreted it to ourselves falsely\nand mendaciously, according to the wish and will of our veneration,\nthat is to say, according to our _need._ For man is a venerating\nanimal! But he is also a distrustful animal: and that the world is\n_not_ worth what we believed it to be worth is about the surest thing\nour distrust has at last managed to grasp. So much distrust, so much\nphilosophy! We take good care not to say that the world is of _less_\nvalue: it seems to us at present absolutely ridiculous when man claims\nto devise values _to surpass_ the values of the actual world,--it is\nprecisely from that point that we have retraced our steps; as from\nan extravagant error of human conceit and irrationality, which for a\nlong period has not been recognised as such. This error had its last\nexpression in modern Pessimism; an older and stronger manifestation\nin the teaching of Buddha; but Christianity also contains it, more\ndubiously, to be sure, and more ambiguously, but none the less\nseductive on that account. The whole attitude of \"man _versus_ the\nworld,\" man as world-denying principle, man as the standard of the\nvalue of things, as judge of the world, who in the end puts existence\nitself on his scales and finds it too light--the monstrous impertinence\nof this attitude has dawned upon us as such, and has disgusted us,--we\nnow laugh when we find, \"Man _and_ World\" placed beside one another,\nseparated by the sublime presumption of the little word \"and\"! But how\nis it? Have we not in our very laughing just made a further step in\ndespising mankind? And consequently also in Pessimism, in despising\nthe existence cognisable _by us?_ Have we not just thereby awakened\nsuspicion that there is an opposition between the world in which we\nhave hitherto been at home with our venerations--for the sake of\nwhich we perhaps _endure_ life--and another world _which we ourselves\nare:_ an inexorable, radical, most profound suspicion concerning\nourselves, which is continually getting us Europeans more annoyingly\ninto its power, and could easily face the coming generation with the\nterrible alternative: Either do away with your venerations, or--_with\nyourselves!\"_ The latter would be Nihilism--but would not the former\nalso be Nihilism? This is _our_ note of interrogation.\n\n\n347.\n\n_Believers and their Need of Belief._--How much _faith_ a person\nrequires in order to flourish, how much \"fixed opinion\" he requires\nwhich he does not wish to have shaken, because he _holds_ himself\nthereby--is a measure of his power (or more plainly speaking, of his\nweakness). Most people in old Europe, as it seems to me, still need\nChristianity at present, and on that account it still finds belief. For\nsuch is man: a theological dogma might be refuted to him a thousand\ntimes,--provided, however, that he had need of it, he would again and\nagain accept it as \"true,\"--according to the famous \"proof of power\"\nof which the Bible speaks. Some have still need of metaphysics; but\nalso the impatient _longing for certainty_ which at present discharges\nitself in scientific, positivist fashion among large numbers of the\npeople, the longing by all means to get at something stable (while\non account of the warmth of the longing the establishing of the\ncertainty is more leisurely and negligently undertaken):--even this is\nstill the longing for a hold, a support; in short, the _instinct of\nweakness,_ which, while not actually creating religions, metaphysics,\nand convictions of all kinds, nevertheless--preserves them. In\nfact, around all these positivist systems there fume the vapours\nof a certain pessimistic gloom, something of weariness, fatalism,\ndisillusionment, and fear of new disillusionment--or else manifest\nanimosity, ill-humour, anarchic exasperation, and whatever there is of\nsymptom or masquerade of the feeling of weakness. Even the readiness\nwith which our cleverest contemporaries get lost in wretched corners\nand alleys, for example, in Vaterl\u00e4nderei (so I designate Jingoism,\ncalled _chauvinisme_ in France, and \"_deutsch_\" in Germany), or in\npetty \u00e6sthetic creeds in the manner of Parisian _naturalisme_ (which\nonly brings into prominence and uncovers--_that_ aspect of nature which\nexcites simultaneously disgust and astonishment--they like at present\nto call this aspect _la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 vraie_, or in Nihilism in the St\nPetersburg style (that is to say, in the _belief in unbelief,_ even to\nmartyrdom for it):--this shows always and above all the need of belief,\nsupport, backbone, and buttress.... Belief is always most desired, most\npressingly needed, where there is a lack of will: for the will, as\nemotion of command, is the distinguishing characteristic of sovereignty\nand power. That is to say, the less a person knows how to command,\nthe more urgent is his desire for that; which commands, and commands\nsternly,--a God, a prince, a caste, a physician, a confessor, a dogma,\na party conscience. From whence perhaps it could be inferred that the\ntwo world-religions, Buddhism and Christianity, might well have had the\ncause of their rise, and especially of their rapid extension, in an\nextraordinary _malady of the will_ And in truth it has been so: both\nreligions lighted upon a longing, monstrously exaggerated by malady of\nthe will, for an imperative, a \"Thou-shalt,\" a longing going the length\nof despair; both religions were teachers of fanaticism in times of\nslackness of will-power, and thereby offered to innumerable persons a\nsupport, a new possibility of exercising will, an enjoyment in willing.\nFor in fact fanaticism is the sole \"volitional strength\" to which the\nweak and irresolute can be excited, as a sort of hypnotising of the\nentire sensory-intellectual system, in favour of the over-abundant\nnutrition (hypertrophy) of a particular point of view and a particular\nsentiment, which then dominates--the Christian calls it his _faith._\nWhen a man arrives at the fundamental conviction that he _requires_ to\nbe commanded, he becomes \"a believer.\" Reversely, one could imagine\na delight and a power of self-determining, and a _freedom_ of will,\nwhereby a spirit could bid farewell to every belief, to every wish for\ncertainty, accustomed as it would be to support itself on slender cords\nand possibilities, and to dance even on the verge of abysses. Such a\nspirit would be the _free spirit par excellence._\n\n\n348.\n\n_The Origin of the Learned._--The learned man in Europe grows out\nof all the different ranks and social conditions, like a plant\nrequiring no specific soil: on that account he belongs essentially\nand involuntarily to the partisans of democratic thought. But this\norigin betrays itself. If one has trained one's glance to some\nextent to recognise in a learned book or scientific treatise the\nintellectual _idiosyncrasy_ of the learned man--all of them have\nsuch idiosyncrasy,--and if we take it by surprise, we shall almost\nalways get a glimpse behind it of the \"antecedent history\" of the\nlearned man and his family, especially of the nature of their callings\nand occupations. Where the feeling finds expression, \"That is at\nlast proved, I am now done with it,\" it is commonly the ancestor\nin the blood and instincts of the learned man that approves of the\n\"accomplished work\" in the nook from which he sees things;--the belief\nin the proof is only an indication of what has been looked upon for\nages by a laborious family as \"good work.\" Take an example: the sons\nof registrars and office-clerks of every kind, whose main task has\nalways been to arrange a variety of material, distribute it in drawers,\nand systematise it generally, evince, when they become learned men,\nan inclination to regard a problem as almost solved when they have\nsystematised it There are philosophers who are at bottom nothing but\nsystematising brains--the formal part of the paternal occupation has\nbecome its essence to them. The talent for classifications, for tables\nof categories, betrays something; it is not for nothing that a person\nis the child of his parents. The son of an advocate will also have to\nbe an advocate as investigator: he seeks as a first consideration, to\ncarry the point in his case, as a second consideration, he perhaps\nseeks to be in the right. One recognises the sons of Protestant\nclergymen and schoolmasters by the na\u00efve assurance with which as\nlearned men they already assume their case to be proved, when it has\nbut been presented by them staunchly and warmly: they are thoroughly\naccustomed to people _believing_ in them,--it belonged to their\nfathers' \"trade\"! A Jew, contrariwise, in accordance with his business\nsurroundings and the past of his race, is least of all accustomed--to\npeople believing him. Observe Jewish scholars with regard to this\nmatter,--they all lay great stress on logic, that is to say, on\n_compelling_ assent by means of reasons; they know that they must\nconquer thereby, even when race and class antipathy is against them,\neven where people are unwilling to believe them. For in fact, nothing\nis more democratic than logic: it knows no respect of persons, and\ntakes even the crooked nose as straight. (In passing we may remark that\nin respect to logical thinking, in respect to _cleaner_ intellectual\nhabits, Europe is not a little indebted to the Jews; above all the\nGermans, as being a lamentably _d\u00e9raisonnable_ race, who, even at the\npresent day, must always have their \"heads washed\"[1] in the first\nplace. Wherever the Jews have attained to influence, they have taught\nto analyse more subtly, to argue more acutely, to write more clearly\nand purely: it has always been their problem to bring a people \"to\n_raison._\")\n\n\n[1] In German the expression _Kopf zu waschen,_ besides the literal\nsense, also means \"to give a person a sound drubbing.\"--TR.\n\n\n349.\n\n_The Origin of the Learned once more._--To seek self-preservation\nmerely, is the expression of a state of distress, or of limitation of\nthe true, fundamental instinct of life, which aims at the _extension\nof power,_ and with this in view often enough calls in question\nself-preservation and sacrifices it. It should be taken as symptomatic\nwhen individual philosophers, as for example, the consumptive Spinoza,\nhave seen and have been obliged to see the principal feature of life\nprecisely in the so-called self-preservative instinct:--they have just\nbeen men in states of distress. That our modern natural sciences have\nentangled themselves so much with Spinoza's dogma (finally and most\ngrossly in Darwinism, with its inconceivably one-sided doctrine of the\n\"struggle for existence\"--), is probably owing to the origin of most of\nthe inquirers into nature: they belong in this respect to the people,\ntheir forefathers have been poor and humble persons, who knew too well\nby immediate experience the difficulty of making a living. Over the\nwhole of English Darwinism there hovers something of the suffocating\nair of over-crowded England, something of the odour of humble people\nin need and in straits. But as an investigator of nature, a person\nought to emerge from his paltry human nook: and in nature the state of\ndistress does not _prevail,_ but superfluity, even prodigality to the\nextent of folly. The struggle for existence is only an _exception,_ a\ntemporary restriction of the will to live; the struggle, be it great or\nsmall, turns everywhere on predominance, on increase and expansion, on\npower, in conformity to the will to power, which is just the will to\nlive.\n\n\n350.\n\n_In Honour of Homines Religiosi._--The struggle against the church is\ncertainly (among other things--for it has a manifold significance)\nthe struggle of the more ordinary, cheerful, confiding, superficial\nnatures against the rule of the graver, profounder, more contemplative\nnatures, that is to say, the more malign and suspicious men, who with\nlong continued distrust in the worth of life, brood also over their own\nworth:--the ordinary instinct of the people, its sensual gaiety, its\n\"good heart,\" revolts against them. The entire Roman Church rests on a\nSouthern suspicion of the nature of man (always misunderstood in the\nNorth), a suspicion whereby the European South has succeeded, to the\ninheritance of the profound Orient--the mysterious, venerable Asia--and\nits contemplative spirit. Protestantism was a popular insurrection\nin favour of the simple, the respectable, the superficial (the North\nhas always been more good-natured and more shallow than the South),\nbut it was the French Revolution that first gave the sceptre wholly\nand solemnly into the hands of the \"good man\" (the sheep, the ass,\nthe goose, and everything incurably shallow, bawling, and fit for the\nBedlam of \"modern ideas\").\n\n\n351.\n\n_In Honour of Priestly Natures._--I think that philosophers have always\nfelt themselves very remote from that which the people (in all classes\nof society nowadays) take for wisdom: the prudent, bovine placidity,\npiety, and country-parson meekness, which lies in the meadow and\n_gazes at_ life seriously and ruminatingly:--this is probably because\nphilosophers have not had sufficiently the taste of the \"people,\" or\nof the country-parson, for that kind of wisdom. Philosophers will\nalso perhaps be the last to acknowledge that the people _should_\nunderstand something of that which lies furthest from them, something\nof the great _passion_ of the thinker, who lives and must live\ncontinually in the storm-cloud of the highest problems and the heaviest\nresponsibilities (consequently, not gazing at all, to say nothing of\ndoing so indifferently, securely, objectively). The people venerate an\nentirely different type of men when on their part they form the ideal\nof a \"sage,\" and they are a thousand times justified in rendering\nhomage with the highest eulogies and honours to precisely that type\nof men--namely, the gentle, serious, simple, chaste, priestly natures\nand those related to them,--it is to them that the praise falls due\nin the popular veneration of wisdom. And to whom should the multitude\nhave more reason to be grateful than to these men who pertain to its\nclass and rise from its ranks, but are persons consecrated, chosen,\nand _sacrificed_ for its good--they themselves believe themselves\nsacrificed to God,--before whom every one can pour forth his heart with\nimpunity, by whom he can _get rid_ of his secrets, cares, and worse\nthings (for the man who \"communicates himself\" gets rid of himself,\nand he who has \"confessed\" forgets). Here there exists a great need:\nfor sewers and pure cleansing waters are required also for spiritual\nfilth, and rapid currents of love are needed, and strong, lowly, pure\nhearts, who qualify and sacrifice themselves for such service of the\nnon-public health-department--for it _is_ a sacrificing, the priest\nis, and continues to be, a human sacrifice.... The people regard\nsuch sacrificed, silent, serious men of \"faith\" as \"_wise,\"_ that is\nto say, as men who have become sages, as \"reliable\" in relation to\ntheir own unreliability. Who would desire to deprive the people of\nthat expression and that veneration?--But as is fair on the other\nside, among philosophers the priest also is still held to belong to\nthe \"people,\" and is _not_ regarded as a sage, because, above all,\nthey themselves do not believe in \"sages,\" and they already scent \"the\npeople\" in this very belief and superstition. It was _modesty_ which\ninvented in Greece the word \"philosopher,\" and left to the play-actors\nof the spirit the superb arrogance of assuming the name \"wise\"--the\nmodesty of such monsters of pride and self-glorification as Pythagoras\nand Plato.--\n\n\n352.\n\n_Why we can hardly Dispense with Morality.--_The naked man is\ngenerally an ignominious spectacle--I speak of us European males\n(and by no means of European females!). If the most joyous company\nat table suddenly found themselves stripped and divested of their\ngarments through the trick of an enchanter, I believe that not only\nwould the joyousness be gone and the strongest appetite lost;--it\nseems that we Europeans cannot at all dispense with the masquerade\nthat is called clothing. But should not the disguise of \"moral men,\"\nthe screening under moral formul\u00e6 and notions of decency, the whole\nkindly concealment of our conduct under conceptions of duty, virtue,\npublic sentiment, honourableness, and disinterestedness, have just\nas good reasons in support of it? Not that I mean hereby that human\nwickedness and baseness, in short, the evil wild beast in us, should\nbe disguised; on the contrary, my idea is that it is precisely as\n_tame animals_ that we are an ignominious spectacle and require moral\ndisguising,--that the \"inner man\" in Europe is far from having enough\nof intrinsic evil \"to let himself be seen\" with it (to be _beautiful_\nwith it). The European disguises himself _in morality_ because he has\nbecome a sick, sickly, crippled animal, who has good reasons for being\n\"tame,\" because he is almost an abortion, an imperfect, weak and clumsy\nthing.... It is not the fierceness of the beast of prey that finds\nmoral disguise necessary, but the gregarious animal, with its profound\nmediocrity, anxiety and ennui. _Morality dresses up the European_--let\nus acknowledge it!--in more distinguished, more important, more\nconspicuous guise--in \"divine\" guise--\n\n\n353.\n\n_The Origin of Religions._--The real inventions of founders of\nreligions are, on the one hand, to establish a definite mode of life\nand everyday custom, which operates as _disciplina voluntatis,_ and\nat the same time does away with ennui; and on the other hand, to give\nto that very mode of life an _interpretation,_ by virtue of which it\nappears illumined with the highest value; so that it henceforth becomes\na good for which people struggle, and under certain circumstances lay\ndown their lives. In truth, the second of these inventions is the\nmore essential: the first, the mode of life, has usually been there\nalready, side by side, however, with other modes of life, and still\nunconscious of the value which it embodies. The import, the originality\nof the founder of a religion, discloses itself usually in the fact that\nhe _sees_ the mode of life, _selects_ it, and _divines_ for the first\ntime the purpose for which it can be used, how it can be interpreted.\nJesus (or Paul) for example, found around him the life of the common\npeople in the Roman province, a modest, virtuous, oppressed life: he\ninterpreted it, he put the highest significance and value into it--and\nthereby the courage to despise every other mode of life, the calm\nfanaticism of the Moravians, the secret, subterranean self-confidence\nwhich goes on increasing, and is at last ready \"to overcome the world\"\n(that is to say, Rome, and the upper classes throughout the empire).\nBuddha, in like manner, found the same type of man,--he found it in\nfact dispersed among all the classes and social ranks of a people who\nwere good and kind (and above all inoffensive), owing to indolence, and\nwho likewise owing to indolence, lived abstemiously, almost without\nrequirements. He understood that such a type of man, with all its\n_vis inerti\u00e6,_ had inevitably to glide into a belief which promises\n_to avoid_ the return of earthly ill (that is to say, labour and\nactivity generally),--this \"understanding\" was his genius. The founder\nof a religion possesses psychological infallibility in the knowledge\nof a definite, average type of souls, who have not yet _recognised_\nthemselves as akin. It is he who brings them together: the founding of\na religion, therefore, always becomes a long ceremony of recognition.--\n\n\n354.\n\n_The \"Genius of the Species.\"_--The problem of consciousness (or\nmore correctly: of becoming conscious of oneself) meets us only when\nwe begin to perceive in what measure we could dispense with it: and\nit is at the beginning of this perception that we are now placed by\nphysiology and zoology (which have thus required two centuries to\novertake the hint thrown out in advance by Leibnitz). For we could\nin fact think, feel, will, and recollect, we could likewise \"act\"\nin every sense of the term, and nevertheless nothing of it all need\nnecessarily \"come into consciousness\" (as one says metaphorically).\nThe whole of life would be possible without its seeing itself as it\nwere in a mirror: as in fact even at present the far greater part of\nour life still goes on without this mirroring,--and even our thinking,\nfeeling, volitional life as well, however painful this statement\nmay sound to an older philosopher. _What_ then is _the purpose_ of\nconsciousness generally, when it is in the main _superfluous_?--Now it\nseems to me, if you will hear my answer and its perhaps extravagant\nsupposition, that the subtlety and strength of consciousness are always\nin proportion to the _capacity for communication_ of a man (or an\nanimal), the capacity for communication in its turn being in proportion\nto the _necessity for communication:_ the latter not to be understood\nas if precisely the individual himself who is master in the art of\ncommunicating and making known his necessities would at the same time\nhave to be most dependent upon others for his necessities. It seems\nto me, however, to be so in relation to whole races and successions\nof generations: where necessity and need have long compelled men to\ncommunicate with their fellows and understand one another rapidly and\nsubtly, a surplus of the power and art of communication is at last\nacquired as if it were a fortune which had gradually accumulated,\nand now waited for an heir to squander it prodigally (the so-called\nartists are these heirs, in like manner the orators, preachers, and\nauthors: all of them men who come at the end of a long succession,\n\"late-born\" always, in the best sense of the word, and as has\nbeen said, _squanderers_ by their very nature). Granted that this\nobservation is correct, I may proceed further to the conjecture that\n_consciousness generally has only been developed under the pressure\nof the necessity for communication,_--that from the first it has been\nnecessary and useful only between man and man (especially between those\ncommanding and those obeying) and has only developed in proportion\nto its utility Consciousness is properly only a connecting network\nbetween man and man,--it is only as such that it has had to develop;\nthe recluse and wild-beast species of men would not have needed it\nThe very fact that our actions, thoughts, feelings and motions come\nwithin the range of our consciousness--at least a part of them--is the\nresult of a terrible, prolonged \"must\" ruling man's destiny: as the\nmost endangered animal he _needed_ help and protection; he needed his\nfellows, he was obliged to express his distress, he had to know how to\nmake himself understood--and for all this he needed \"consciousness\"\nfirst of all: he had to \"know\" himself what he lacked, to \"know\" how\nhe felt, and to \"know\" what he thought. For, to repeat it once more,\nman, like every living creature, thinks unceasingly, but does not know\nit; the thinking which is becoming _conscious of itself_ is only the\nsmallest part thereof, we may say, the most superficial part, the worst\npart:--for this conscious thinking alone _is done in words, that is to\nsay, in the symbols for communication,_ by means of which the origin\nof consciousness is revealed. In short, the development of speech and\nthe development of consciousness (not of reason, but of reason becoming\nself-conscious) go hand in hand. Let it be further accepted that it is\nnot only speech that serves as a bridge between man and man, but also\nthe looks, the pressure and the gestures; our becoming conscious of our\nsense impressions, our power of being able to fix them, and as it were\nto locate them outside of ourselves, has increased in proportion as the\nnecessity has increased for communicating them to _others_ by means of\nsigns. The sign-inventing man is at the same time the man who is always\nmore acutely self-conscious; it is only as a social animal that man\nhas learned to become conscious of himself,--he is doing so still, and\ndoing so more and more.--As is obvious, my idea is that consciousness\ndoes not properly belong to the individual existence of man, but\nrather to the social and gregarious nature in him; that, as follows\ntherefrom, it is only in relation to communal and gregarious utility\nthat it is finely developed; and that consequently each of us, in\nspite of the best intention of _understanding_ himself as individually\nas possible, and of \"knowing himself,\" will always just call into\nconsciousness the non-individual in him, namely, his \"averageness\";\n--that our thought itself is continuously as it were _outvoted_ by the\ncharacter of consciousness--by the imperious \"genius of the species\"\ntherein--and is translated back into the perspective of the herd.\nFundamentally our actions are in an incomparable manner altogether\npersonal, unique and absolutely individual--there is no doubt about\nit; but as soon as we translate them into consciousness, they _do\nnot appear so any longer ..._. This is the proper phenomenalism and\nperspectivism as I understand it: the nature of _animal consciousness_\ninvolves the notion that the world of which we can become conscious is\nonly a superficial and symbolic world, a generalised and vulgarised\nworld;--that everything which becomes conscious _becomes_ just thereby\nshallow, meagre, relatively stupid,--a generalisation, a symbol, a\ncharacteristic of the herd; that with the evolving of consciousness\nthere is always combined a great, radical perversion, falsification,\nsuperficialisation, and generalisation. Finally, the growing\nconsciousness is a danger, and whoever lives among the most conscious\nEuropeans knows even that it is a disease. As may be conjectured,\nit is not the antithesis of subject and object with which I am here\nconcerned: I leave that distinction to the epistemologists who have\nremained entangled in the toils of grammar (popular metaphysics).\nIt is still less the antithesis of \"thing in itself\" and phenomenon,\nfor we do not \"know\" enough to be entitled even _to make such a\ndistinction._ Indeed, we have not any organ at all for _knowing,_ or\nfor \"truth\": we \"know\" (or believe, or fancy) just as much as may be\n_of use_ in the interest of the human herd, the species; and even what\nis here called \"usefulness\" is ultimately only a belief, a fancy, and\nperhaps precisely the most fatal stupidity by which we shall one day be\nruined.\n\n\n355.\n\n_The Origin of our Conception of \"Knowledge\"_--I take this explanation\nfrom the street. I heard one of the people saying that \"he knew me,\"\nso I asked myself: What do the people really understand by knowledge?\nwhat do they want when they seek \"knowledge\"? Nothing more than that\nwhat is strange is to be traced back to something _known._ And we\nphilosophers--have we really understood _anything more_ by knowledge?\nThe known, that is to say, what we are accustomed to so that we no\nlonger marvel at it, the commonplace, any kind of rule to which we are\nhabituated, all and everything in which we know ourselves to be at\nhome:--what? is our need of knowing not just this need of the known?\nthe will to discover in everything strange, unusual, or questionable,\nsomething which no longer disquiets us? Is it not possible that it\nshould be the _instinct of fear_ which enjoins upon us to know? Is it\nnot possible that the rejoicing of the discerner should be just his\nrejoicing in the regained feeling of security?... One philosopher\nimagined the world \"known\" when he had traced it back to the \"idea\":\nalas, was it not because the idea was so known, so familiar to him?\nbecause he had so much less fear of the \"idea\"--Oh, this moderation\nof the discerners! let us but look at their principles, and at their\nsolutions of the riddle of the world in this connection! When they\nagain find aught in things, among things, or behind things that is\nunfortunately very well known to us, for example, our multiplication\ntable, or our logic, or our willing and desiring, how happy they\nimmediately are! For \"what is known is understood\": they are unanimous\nas to that. Even the most circumspect among them think that the\nknown is at least _more easily understood_ than the strange; that\nfor example, it is methodically ordered to proceed outward from the\n\"inner world,\" from \"the facts of consciousness,\" because it is the\nworld which is _better known to us!_ Error of errors! The known is\nthe accustomed, and the accustomed is the most difficult of all to\n\"understand,\" that is to say, to perceive as a problem, to perceive\nas strange, distant, \"outside of us.\"... The great certainty of the\nnatural sciences in comparison with psychology and the criticism of the\nelements of consciousness--_unnatural_ sciences, as one might almost\nbe entitled to call them--rests precisely on the fact that they take\n_what is strange_ as their object: while it is almost like something\ncontradictory and absurd _to wish_ to take generally what is not\nstrange as an object....\n\n\n356.\n\n_In what Manner Europe will always become \"more Artistic.\"_--Providing\na living still enforces even in the present day (in our transition\nperiod when so much ceases to enforce) a definite _r\u00f4le_ on almost\nall male Europeans, their so-called callings; some have the liberty,\nan apparent liberty, to choose this r\u00f4le themselves, but most have it\nchosen for them. The result is strange enough. Almost all Europeans\nconfound themselves with their r\u00f4le when they advance in age; they\nthemselves are the victims of their \"good acting,\" they have forgotten\nhow much chance, whim and arbitrariness swayed them when their\n\"calling\" was decided--and how many other r\u00f4les they _could_ perhaps\nhave played: for it is now too late! Looked at more closely, we see\nthat their characters have actually _evolved_ out of their r\u00f4le,\nnature out of art. There were ages in which people believed with\nunshaken confidence, yea, with piety, in their predestination for\nthis very business, for that very mode of livelihood, and would not\nat all acknowledge chance, or the fortuitous r\u00f4le, or arbitrariness\ntherein. Ranks, guilds, and hereditary trade privileges succeeded] with\nthe help of this belief, in rearing those extraordinary broad towers\nof society which distinguished the Middle Ages, and of which at all\nevents one thing remains to their credit: capacity for duration (and\nduration is a thing of the first rank on earth!). But there are ages\nentirely the reverse, the properly democratic ages, in which people\ntend to become more and more oblivious of this belief, and a sort of\nimpudent conviction and quite contrary mode of viewing things comes\nto the front, the Athenian conviction which is first observed in the\nepoch of Pericles, the American conviction of the present day, which\nwants also more and more to become a European conviction: whereby the\nindividual is convinced that he can do almost anything, that he _can\nplay almost any r\u00f4le,_ whereby everyone makes experiments with himself,\nimprovises, tries anew, tries with delight, whereby all nature ceases\nand becomes art.... The Greeks, having adopted this _r\u00f4le-creed--_--an\nartist creed, if you will--underwent step by step, as is well known,\na curious transformation, not in every respect worthy of imitation:\n_they became actual stage-players;_ and as such they enchanted, they\nconquered all the world, and at last even the conqueror of the world,\n(for the _Gr\u00e6culus histrio_ conquered Rome, and _not_ Greek culture,\nas the na\u00efve are accustomed to say...). What I fear, however, and what\nis at present obvious, if we desire to perceive it, is that we modern\nmen are quite on the same road already; and whenever a man begins to\ndiscover in what respect he plays a r\u00f4le, and to what extent he _can_\nbe a stage-player, he _becomes_ a stage-player.... A new flora and\nfauna of men thereupon springs up, which cannot grow in more stable,\nmore restricted eras--or is left \"at the bottom,\" under the ban and\nsuspicion of infamy; thereupon the most interesting and insane periods\nof history always make their appearance, in which \"stage-players,\"\n_all_ kinds of stage-players, are the real masters. Precisely thereby\nanother species of man is always more and more injured, and in the\nend made impossible: above all the great \"architects\"; the building\npower is now being paralysed; the courage that makes plans for the\ndistant future is disheartened; there begins to be a lack of organising\ngeniuses. Who is there who would now venture to undertake works for\nthe completion of which millenniums would have to be _reckoned_\nupon? The fundamental belief is dying out, on the basis of which one\ncould calculate, promise and anticipate the future in one's plan,\nand offer it as a sacrifice thereto, that in fact man has only value\nand significance in so far as he is _a stone in a great building;_\nfor which purpose he has first of all to be _solid,_ he has to be\na \"stone.\"... Above all, not a--stage-player! In short--alas! this\nfact will be hushed up for some considerable time to come!--that\nwhich from henceforth will no longer be built, and _can_ no longer\nbe built, is--a society in the old sense of the term; to build that\nstructure everything is lacking, above all, the material. _None of\nus are any longer material for a society:_ that is a truth which is\nseasonable at present! It seems to me a matter of indifference that\nmeanwhile the most short-sighted, perhaps the most honest, and at any\nrate the noisiest species of men of the present day, our friends the\nSocialists, believe, hope, dream, and above all scream and scribble\nalmost the opposite; in fact one already reads their watchword of the\nfuture-: \"free society,\" on all tables and walls. Free society? Indeed!\nIndeed! But you know, gentlemen, sure enough whereof one builds it?\nOut of wooden iron! Out of the famous wooden iron! And not even out of\nwooden....\n\n\n357.\n\n_The old Problem: \"What is German?\"_--Let us count up apart the real\nacquisitions of philosophical thought for which we have to thank German\nintellects: are they in any allowable sense to be counted also to the\ncredit of the whole race? Can we say that they are at the same time\nthe work of the \"German soul,\" or at least a symptom of it, in the\nsense in which we are accustomed to think, for example, of Plato's\nideomania, his almost religious madness for form, as an event and an\nevidence of the \"Greek soul\"? Or would the reverse perhaps be true?\nWere they individually as much _exceptions_ to the spirit of the race,\nas was, for example, Goethe's Paganism with a good conscience? Or as\nBismarck's Macchiavelism was with a good conscience, his so-called\n\"practical politics\" in Germany? Did our philosophers perhaps even\ngo counter to the _need_ of the \"German soul\"? In short, were the\nGerman philosophers really philosophical _Germans_?--I call to mind\nthree cases. Firstly, _Leibnitz's_ incomparable insight--with which\nhe obtained the advantage not only over Descartes, but over all\nwho had philosophised up to his time,--that consciousness is only\nan accident of mental representation, and _not_ its necessary and\nessential attribute; that consequently what we call consciousness only\nconstitutes a state of our spiritual and psychical world (perhaps a\nmorbid state), and is _far from being that world itself_:--is there\nanything German in this thought, the profundity of which has not as\nyet been exhausted? Is there reason to think that a person of the\nLatin race would not readily have stumbled on this reversal of the\napparent?--for it is a reversal. Let us call to mind secondly, the\nimmense note of interrogation which _Kant_ wrote after the notion of\ncausality. Not that he at all doubted its legitimacy, like Hume: on\nthe contrary, he began cautiously to define the domain within which\nthis notion has significance generally (we have not even yet got\nfinished with the marking out of these limits). Let us take thirdly,\nthe astonishing hit of _Hegel,_ who stuck at no logical usage or\nfastidiousness when he ventured to teach that the conceptions of\nkinds develop _out of one another:_ with which theory the thinkers\nin Europe were prepared for the last great scientific movement, for\nDarwinism--for without Hegel there would have been no Darwin. Is there\nanything German in this Hegelian innovation which first introduced\nthe decisive conception of evolution into science?--Yes, without\ndoubt we feel that there is something of ourselves \"discovered\" and\ndivined in all three cases; we are thankful for it, and at the same\ntime surprised; each of these three principles is a thoughtful piece\nof German self-confession, self-understanding, and self-knowledge.\nWe feel with Leibnitz that \"our inner world is far richer, ampler,\nand more concealed\"; as Germans we are doubtful, like Kant, about the\nultimate validity of scientific knowledge of nature, and in general\nabout whatever _can_ be known _causaliter:_ the _knowable_ as such\nnow appears to us of _less_ worth. We Germans should still have been\nHegelians, even though there had never been a Hegel, inasmuch as we\n(in contradistinction to all Latin peoples) instinctively attribute\nto becoming, to evolution, a profounder significance and higher value\nthan to that which \"is\"--we hardly believe at all in the validity of\nthe concept \"being.\" This is all the more the case because we are not\ninclined to concede to our human logic that it is logic in itself, that\nit is the only kind of logic (we should rather like, on the contrary,\nto convince ourselves that it is only a special case, and perhaps one\nof the strangest and most stupid).--A fourth question would be whether\nalso _Schopenhauer_ with his Pessimism, that is to say, the problem\nof _the worth of existence,_ had to be a German. I think not. The\nevent _after_ which this problem was to be expected with certainty,\nso that an astronomer of the soul could have calculated the day and\nthe hour for it--namely, the decay of the belief in the Christian God,\nthe victory of scientific atheism,--is a universal European event, in\nwhich all races are to have their share of service and honour. On the\ncontrary, it has to be ascribed precisely to the Germans--those with\nwhom Schopenhauer was contemporary,--that they delayed this victory\nof atheism longest, and endangered it most. Hegel especially was its\nretarder _par excellence,_ in virtue of the grandiose attempt which he\nmade to persuade us at the very last of the divinity of existence, with\nthe help of our sixth sense, \"the historical sense.\" As philosopher,\nSchopenhauer was the _first_ avowed and inflexible atheist we Germans\nhave had: his hostility to Hegel had here its motive. The non-divinity\nof existence was regarded by him as something understood, palpable,\nindisputable; he always lost his philosophical composure and got\ninto a passion when he saw anyone hesitate and beat about the bush\nhere. It is at this point that his thorough uprightness of character\ncomes in: unconditional, honest atheism is precisely the _preliminary\ncondition_ for his raising the problem, as a final and hardwon victory\nof the European conscience, as the most prolific act of two thousand\nyears' discipline to truth, which in the end no longer tolerates the\n_lie_ of the belief in a God.... One sees what has really gained the\nvictory over the Christian God--, Christian morality itself, the\nconception of veracity, taken ever more strictly, the confessional\nsubtlety of the Christian conscience, translated and sublimated to\nthe scientific conscience, to intellectual purity at any price. To\nlook upon nature as if it were a proof of the goodness and care of a\nGod; to interpret history in honour of a divine reason, as a constant\ntestimony to a moral order in the world and a moral final purpose; to\nexplain personal experiences as pious men have long enough explained\nthem, as if everything were a dispensation or intimation of Providence,\nsomething planned and sent on behalf of the salvation of the soul: all\nthat is now _past,_ it has conscience _against_ it, it is regarded\nby all the more acute consciences as disreputable and dishonourable,\nas mendaciousness, femininism, weakness, and cowardice,--by virtue\nof this severity, if by anything, we are _good_ Europeans, the heirs\nof Europe's longest and bravest self-conquest. When we thus reject\nthe Christian interpretation, and condemn its \"significance\" as a\nforgery, we are immediately confronted in a striking manner with the\n_Schopenhauerian_ question: _Has existence then a significance at\nall?_--the question which will require a couple of centuries even to\nbe completely heard in all its profundity. Schopenhauer's own answer\nto this question was--if I may be forgiven for saying so--a premature,\njuvenile reply, a mere compromise, a stoppage and sticking in the very\nsame Christian-ascetic, moral perspectives, _the belief in which had\ngot notice to quit_ along with the belief in God.... But he _raised_\nthe question--as a good European, as we have said, and _not_ as a\nGerman.--Or did the Germans prove at least by the way in which they\nseized on the Schopenhauerian question, their inner connection and\nrelationship to him, their preparation for his problem, and their\n_need_ of it? That there has been thinking and printing even in Germany\nsince Schopenhauer's time on the problem raised by him,--it was late\nenough!--does not at all suffice to enable us to decide in favour\nof this closer relationship; one could, on the contrary, lay great\nstress on the peculiar _awkwardness_ of this post-Schopenhauerian\nPessimism--Germans evidently do not behave themselves here as in\ntheir element. I do not at all allude here to Eduard von Hartmann;\non the contrary, my old suspicion is not vanished even at present\nthat he is _too clever_ for us; I mean to say that as arrant rogue\nfrom the very first, he did not perhaps make merry solely over German\nPessimism--and that in the end he might probably \"bequeathe\" to them\nthe truth as to how far a person could bamboozle the Germans themselves\nin the age of bubble companies. But further, are we perhaps to reckon\nto the honour of Germans, the old humming-top, Bahnsen, who all his\nlife spun about with the greatest pleasure around his realistically\ndialectic misery and \"personal ill-luck,\"--was _that_ German? (In\npassing I recommend his writings for the purpose for which I myself\nhave used them, as anti-pessimistic fare, especially on account of his\n_elegantia psychologica,_ which, it seems to me, could alleviate even\nthe most constipated body and soul). Or would it be proper to count\nsuch dilettanti and old maids as the mawkish apostle of virginity,\nMainl\u00e4nder, among the genuine Germans? After all he was probably a Jew\n(all Jews become mawkish when they moralise). Neither Bahnsen, nor\nMainl\u00e4nder, nor even Eduard von Hartmann, give us a reliable grasp of\nthe question whether the pessimism of Schopenhauer (his frightened\nglance into an undeified world, which has become stupid, blind,\nderanged and problematic, his _honourable_ fright) was not only an\nexceptional case among Germans, but a _German_ event: while everything\nelse which stands in the foreground, like our valiant politics and\nour joyful Jingoism (which decidedly enough regards everything with\nreference to a principle sufficiently unphilosophical: _\"Deutschland,\nDeutschland, \u00fcber Alles\"_[2] consequently _sub specie speciei,_ namely,\nthe German _species_), testifies very plainly to the contrary. No!\nThe Germans of to-day are _not_ pessimists! And Schopenhauer was a\npessimist, I repeat it once more, as a good European, and _not_ as a\nGerman.\n\n\n[2] \"_Germany, Germany, above all_\": the first line of the German\nnational song.--TR.\n\n\n\n358.\n\n_The Peasant Revolt of the Spirit._--We Europeans find ourselves in\nview of an immense world of ruins, where some things still tower aloft,\nwhile other objects stand mouldering and dismal, where most things\nhowever already lie on the ground, picturesque enough--where were there\never finer ruins?--overgrown with weeds, large and small. It is the\nChurch which is this city of decay: we see the religious organisation\nof Christianity shaken to its deepest foundations. The belief in God is\noverthrown, the belief in the Christian ascetic ideal is now fighting\nits last fight. Such a long and solidly built work as Christianity--it\nwas the last construction of the Romans!--could not of course be\ndemolished..all at once; every sort of earthquake had to shake it,\nevery sort of spirit which perforates, digs, gnaws and moulders had\nto assist in the work of destruction. But that which is strangest is\nthat those who have exerted themselves most to retain and preserve\nChristianity, have been precisely those who did most to destroy\nit,--the Germans. It seems that the Germans do not understand the\nessence of a Church. Are they not spiritual enough, or not distrustful\nenough to do so? In any case the structure of the Church rests on\na _southern_ freedom and liberality of spirit, and similarly on a\nsouthern suspicion of nature, man, and spirit,--it rests on a knowledge\nof man an experience of man, entirely different from what the north\nhas had. The Lutheran Reformation in all its length and breadth\nwas the indignation of the simple against something \"complicated.\"\nTo speak cautiously, it was a coarse, honest misunderstanding, in\nwhich much is to be forgiven,--people did not understand the mode of\nexpression of a _victorious_ Church, and only saw corruption; they\nmisunderstood the noble scepticism, the _luxury_ of scepticism and\ntoleration which every victorious, self-confident power permits....\nOne overlooks the fact readily enough at present that as regards\nall cardinal questions concerning power Luther was badly endowed;\nhe was fatally short-sighted, superficial and imprudent--and above\nall, as a man sprung from the people, he lacked all the hereditary\nqualities of a ruling caste, and all the instincts for power; so that\nhis work, his intention to restore the work of the Romans, merely\nbecame involuntarily and unconsciously the commencement of a work of\ndestruction. He unravelled, he tore asunder with honest rage, where\nthe old spider had woven longest and most carefully. He gave the\nsacred books into the hands of everyone,--they thereby got at last\ninto the hands of the philologists, that is to say, the annihilators\nof every belief based upon books. He demolished the conception of \"the\nChurch\" in that he repudiated the belief in the inspiration of the\nCouncils: for only under the supposition that the inspiring spirit\nwhich had founded the Church still lives in it, still builds it,\nstill goes on building its house, does the conception of \"the Church\"\nretain its power. He gave back to the priest sexual intercourse:\nbut three-fourths of the reverence of which the people (and above\nall the women of the people) are capable, rests on the belief that\nan exceptional man in this respect will also be an exceptional man\nin other respects. It is precisely here that the popular belief in\nsomething superhuman in man, in a miracle, in the saving God in man,\nhas its most subtle and insidious advocate. After Luther had given a\nwife to the priest, he had _to take from him_ auricular confession;\nthat was psychologically right: but thereby he practically did away\nwith the Christian priest himself, whose profoundest utility has ever\nconsisted I in his being a sacred ear, a silent well, and a grave for\nsecrets. \"Every man his own priest\"--behind such formul\u00e6 and their\nbucolic slyness, there was concealed in Luther the profoundest hatred\nof \"higher men,\" and of the rule of \"higher men,\" as the Church had\nconceived them. Luther disowned an ideal which he did not know how\nto attain, while he seemed to combat and detest the degeneration\nthereof. As a matter of fact, he, the impossible monk, repudiated the\n_rule_ of the _homines religiosi_; he consequently brought about\nprecisely the same thing within the ecclesiastical social order that\nhe combated so impatiently in the civic order,--namely a \"peasant\ninsurrection.\"--As to all that grew out of his Reformation afterwards,\ngood and bad, which can at present be almost counted up--who would\nbe na\u00efve enough to praise or blame Luther simply on account of these\nresults? He is innocent of all; he knew not what he did. The art of\nmaking the European spirit shallower especially in the north, or more\n_good-natured,_ if people would rather hear it designated by a moral\nexpression, undoubtedly took a clever step in advance in the Lutheran\nReformation; and similarly there grew out of it the mobility and\ndisquietude of the spirit, its thirst for independence, its belief in\nthe right to freedom, and its \"naturalness.\" If people wish to ascribe\nto the Reformation in the last instance the merit of having prepared\nand favoured that which we at present honour as \"modern science,\"\nthey must of course add that it is also accessory to bringing about\nthe degeneration of the modern scholar, with his lack of reverence,\nof shame and of profundity; and that it is also responsible for all\nna\u00efve candour and plain-dealing in matters of knowledge, in short for\nthe _plebeianism of the spirit_ which is peculiar to the last two\ncenturies, and from which even pessimism hitherto, has not in any way\ndelivered us. \"Modern ideas\" also belong to this peasant insurrection\nof the north against the colder, more ambiguous, more suspicious\nspirit of the south, which has built itself its greatest monument in\nthe Christian Church. Let us not forget in the end what a Church is,\nand especially in contrast to every \"State\": a Church is above all an\nauthoritative organisation which secures to the _most spiritual_ men\nthe highest rank, and _believes_ in the power of spirituality so far\nas to forbid all grosser appliances of authority. Through this alone\nthe Church is under all circumstances a _nobler_ institution than the\nState.--\n\n\n359.\n\n_Vengeance on Intellect, and other Backgrounds of\nMorality._--Morality--where do you think it has its most dangerous and\nrancorous advocates?--There, for example, is an ill-constituted man,\nwho does not possess enough of intellect to be able to take pleasure\nin it, and just enough of culture to be aware of the fact; bored,\nsatiated, and a self-despiser; besides being cheated unfortunately by\nsome hereditary property out of the last consolation, the \"blessing\nof labour,\" the self-forgetfulness in the \"day's work \"; one who is\nthoroughly ashamed of his existence--perhaps also harbouring some\nvices,--and who on the other hand (by means of books to which he has no\nright, or more intellectual society than he can digest), cannot help\nvitiating himself more and more, and making himself vain and irritable:\nsuch a thoroughly poisoned man--for intellect becomes poison, culture\nbecomes poison, possession becomes poison, solitude becomes poison,\nto such ill-constituted beings--gets at last into a habitual state\nof vengeance and inclination for vengeance.... What do you think he\nfinds necessary, absolutely necessary in order to give himself the\nappearance in his own eyes of superiority over more intellectual men,\nso as to give himself the delight of _perfect revenge,_ at least in\nimagination? It is always _morality_ that he requires, one may wager\non it; always the big moral words, always the high-sounding words:\njustice, wisdom, holiness, virtue; always the Stoicism of gestures (how\nwell Stoicism hides what one does _not_ possess!); always the mantle\nof wise silence, of affability, of gentleness, and whatever else the\nidealist-mantle is called, in which the incurable self-despisers and\nalso the incurably conceited walk about. Let me not be misunderstood:\nout of such born _enemies of the spirit_ there arises now and then\nthe rare specimen of humanity who is honoured by the people under\nthe name of saint or sage: it is out of such men that there arise\nthose prodigies of morality that make a noise, and make history,--St\nAugustine was one of these men. Fear of the intellect, vengeance on the\nintellect--Oh! how often have these powerfully impelling vices become\nthe root of virtues! Yea, virtue _itself!_--And asking the question\namong ourselves, even the philosopher's pretension to wisdom, which has\noccasionally been made here and there on the earth, the maddest and\nmost immodest of all pretensions,--has it not always been _above all_\nin India as well as in Greece, _a means of concealment?_ Sometimes,\nperhaps, from the point of view of education which hallows so many\nlies, it is a tender regard for growing and evolving persons, for\ndisciples who have often to be guarded against themselves by means of\nthe belief in a person (by means of an error). In most cases, however,\nit is a means of concealment for a philosopher, behind which he seeks\nprotection, owing to exhaustion, age, chilliness, or hardening; as a\nfeeling of the approaching end, as the sagacity of the instinct which\nanimals have before their death,--they go apart, remain at rest, choose\nsolitude, creep into caves, become _wise_.... What? Wisdom a means of\nconcealment of the philosopher from--intellect?--\n\n\n360.\n\n_Two Kinds of Causes which are Confounded._--It seems to me one of my\nmost essential steps and advances that I have learned to distinguish\nthe cause of an action generally from the cause of an action in a\nparticular manner, say, in this direction, with this aim. The first\nkind of cause is a quantum of stored-up force, which waits to be used\nin some manner, for some purpose; the second kind of cause, on the\ncontrary, is something quite unimportant in comparison with the first,\nan insignificant hazard for the most part, in conformity with which\nthe quantum of force in question \"discharges\" itself in some unique\nand definite manner: the lucifer-match in relation to the barrel of\ngunpowder. Among those insignificant hazards and lucifer-matches I\ncount all the so-called \"aims,\" and similarly the still more so-called\n\"occupations\" of people: they are relatively optional, arbitrary, and\nalmost indifferent in relation to the immense quantum of force which\npresses on, as we have said, to be used up in any way whatever. One\ngenerally looks at the matter in a different manner: one is accustomed\nto see the _impelling_ force precisely in the aim (object, calling,\n&c.), according to a primeval error,--but it is only the _directing_\nforce; the steersman and the steam have thereby been confounded. And\nyet it is not even always a steersman, the directing force.... Is the\n\"aim\" the \"purpose,\" not often enough only an extenuating pretext, an\nadditional self-blinding of conceit, which does not wish it to be said\nthat the ship _follows_ the stream into which it has accidentally run?\nThat it \"wishes\" to go that way, _because_ it _must_ go that way? That\nit has a direction, sure enough, but--not a steersman? We still require\na criticism of the conception of \"purpose.\"\n\n\n361.\n\n_The Problem of the Actor_--The problem of the actor has disquieted me\nthe longest; I was uncertain (and am sometimes so still) whether one\ncould not get at the dangerous conception of \"artist\"--a conception\nhitherto treated with unpardonable leniency--from this point of view.\nFalsity with a good conscience; delight in dissimulation breaking forth\nas power, pushing aside, overflowing, and sometimes extinguishing\nthe so-called \"character\"; the inner longing to play a r\u00f4le, to\nassume a mask, to put on an _appearance;_ a surplus of capacity for\nadaptations of every kind, which can no longer gratify themselves in\nthe service of the nearest and narrowest utility: all that perhaps\ndoes not pertain _solely_ to the actor in himself?... Such an instinct\nwould develop most readily in families of the lower class of the\npeople, who have had to pass their lives in absolute dependence, under\nshifting pressure and constraint, who (to accommodate themselves to\ntheir conditions, to adapt themselves always to new circumstances)\nhad again and again to pass themselves off and represent themselves\nas different persons,--thus having gradually qualified themselves to\nadjust the mantle to _every_ wind, thereby almost becoming the mantle\nitself, as masters of the embodied and incarnated art of eternally\nplaying the game of hide and seek, which one calls _mimicry_ among the\nanimals:--until at last this ability, stored up from generation to\ngeneration, has become domineering, irrational and intractable, till as\ninstinct it begins to command the other instincts, and begets the actor\nand \"artist\" (the buffoon, the pantaloon, the Jack-Pudding, the fool,\nand the clown in the first place, also the classical type of servant,\nGil Blas: for in such types one has the precursors of the artist, and\noften enough even of the \"genius\"). Also under higher social conditions\nthere grows under similar pressure a similar species of men: only the\nhistrionic instinct is there for the most part held strictly in check\nby another instinct, for example, among \"diplomatists\";--for the rest,\nI should think that it would always be open to a good diplomatist to\nbecome a good actor on the stage, provided his dignity \"allowed\" it. As\nregards the _Jews,_ however, the adaptable people _par excellence,_ we\nshould, in conformity to this line of thought, expect to see among them\na world-wide historical institution at the very first, for the rearing\nof actors, a proper breeding-place for actors; and in fact the question\nis very pertinent just now: what good actor at present is _not--_a\nJew? The Jew also, as a born literary man, as the actual ruler of the\nEuropean press, exercises this power on the basis of his histrionic\ncapacity: for the literary man is essentially an actor,--he plays the\npart of \"expert,\" of \"specialist.\"--Finally _women._ If we consider\nthe whole history of women, are they not _obliged_ first of all, and\nabove all to be actresses? If we listen to doctors who have hypnotised\nwomen, or, finally, if we love them--and let ourselves be \"hypnotised\"\nby them--what is always divulged thereby? That they \"give themselves\nairs,\" even when they--\"give themselves.\" ... Woman is so artistic ...\n\n\n362.\n\n_My Belief in the Virilising of Europe._--We owe it to Napoleon (and\nnot at all to the French Revolution, which had in view the \"fraternity\"\nof the nations, and the florid interchange of good graces among people\ngenerally) that several warlike centuries, which have not had their\nlike in past history, may now follow one another--in short, that we\nhave entered upon _the classical age of war,_ war at the same time\nscientific and popular, on the grandest scale (as regards means,\ntalents and discipline), to which all coming millenniums will look back\nwith envy and awe as a work of perfection:--for the national movement\nout of which this martial glory springs, is only the counter_-choc_\nagainst Napoleon, and would not have existed without him. To him,\nconsequently, one will one day be able to attribute the fact that\n_man_ in Europe has again got the upper hand of the merchant and the\nPhilistine; perhaps even of \"woman\" also, who has become pampered owing\nto Christianity and the extravagant spirit of the eighteenth century,\nand still more owing to \"modern ideas.\" Napoleon, who saw in modern\nideas, and accordingly in civilisation, something like a personal\nenemy, has by this hostility proved himself one of the greatest\ncontinuators of the Renaissance: he has brought to the surface a whole\nblock of the ancient character, the decisive block perhaps, the block\nof granite. And who knows but that this block of ancient character\nwill in the end get the upper hand of the national movement, and will\nhave to make itself in a _positive_ sense the heir and continuator of\nNapoleon:--who, as one knows, wanted _one_ Europe, which was to be\n_mistress of the world._--\n\n\n363.\n\n_How each Sex has its Prejudice about Love.--_Notwithstanding all the\nconcessions which I am inclined to make to the monogamie prejudice, I\nwill never admit that we should speak of _equal_ rights in the love\nof man and woman: there are no such equal rights. The reason is that\nman and woman understand something different by the term love,--and it\nbelongs to the conditions of love in both sexes that the one sex does\n_not_ presuppose the same feeling, the same conception of \"love,\" in\nthe other sex. What woman understands by love is clear enough: complete\nsurrender (not merely devotion) of soul and body, without any motive,\nwithout any reservation, rather with shame and terror at the thought\nof a devotion restricted by clauses or associated with conditions. In\nthis absence of conditions her love is precisely a _faith:_ woman has\nno other.--Man, when he loves a woman, _wants_ precisely this love from\nher; he is consequently, as regards himself, furthest removed from the\nprerequisites of feminine love; granted, however, that there should\nalso be men to whom on their side the demand for complete devotion is\nnot unfamiliar,--well, they are really--not men. A man who loves like a\nwoman becomes thereby a slave; a woman, however, who loves like a woman\nbecomes thereby a _more perfect_ woman. ... The passion of woman in its\nunconditional renunciation of its own rights presupposes in fact that\nthere does _not_ exist on the other side an equal _pathos,_ an equal\ndesire for renunciation: for if both renounced themselves out of love,\nthere would result--well, I don't know what, perhaps a _horror vacui?_\nWoman wants to be taken and accepted as a possession, she wishes to be\nmerged in the conceptions of \"possession\" and \"possessed\"; consequently\nshe wants one who _takes,_ who does not offer and give himself away,\nbut who reversely is rather to be made richer in \"himself\"--by the\nincrease of power, happiness and faith which the woman herself gives\nto him. Woman gives herself, man takes her.--I do not think one will\nget over this natural contrast by any social contract, or with the very\nbest will to do justice, however desirable it may be to avoid bringing\nthe severe, frightful, enigmatical, and unmoral elements of this\nantagonism constantly before our eyes. For love, regarded as complete,\ngreat, and full, is nature, and as nature, is to all eternity something\n\"unmoral.\"_--Fidelity_ is accordingly included in woman's love, it\nfollows from the definition thereof; with man fidelity _may_ readily\nresult in consequence of his love, perhaps as gratitude or idiosyncrasy\nof taste, and so-called elective affinity, but it does not belong\nto the _essence_ of his love--and indeed so little, that one might\nalmost be entitled to speak of a natural opposition between love and\nfidelity in man, whose love is just a desire to possess, and _not_ a\nrenunciation and giving away; the desire to possess, however, comes\nto an end every time with the possession.... As a matter of fact it\nis the more subtle and jealous thirst for possession in a man (who is\nrarely and tardily convinced of having this \"possession\"), which makes\nhis love continue; in that case it is even possible that his love may\nincrease after the surrender,--he does not readily own that a woman has\nnothing more to \"surrender\" to him.--\n\n\n364.\n\n_The Anchorite Speaks._--The art of associating with men rests\nessentially on one's skilfulness (which presupposes long exercise) in\naccepting a repast, in taking a repast, in the cuisine of which one has\nno confidence. Provided one comes to the table with the hunger of a\nwolf everything is easy \"the worst society gives thee _experience_\"--\nMephistopheles says; but one has not always this wolf's-hunger when\none needs it! Alas! how difficult are our fellow-men to digest!\nFirst principle: to stake one's courage as in a misfortune, to seize\nboldly, to admire oneself at the same time, to take one's repugnance\nbetween one's teeth, to cram down one's disgust. Second principle:\nto \"improve\" one's fellow-man, by praise for example, so that he may\nbegin to sweat out his self-complacency; or to seize a tuft of his good\nor \"interesting\" qualities, and pull at it till one gets his whole\nvirtue out, and can put him under the folds of it. Third principle:\nself-hypnotism. To fix one's eye on the object of one's intercourse as\non a glass knob, until, ceasing to feel pleasure or pain thereat, one\nfalls asleep unobserved, becomes rigid, and acquires a fixed pose: a\nhousehold recipe used in married life and in friendship, well tested\nand prized as indispensable, but not yet scientifically formulated. Its\nproper name is--patience.--\n\n\n365.\n\n_The Anchorite Speaks once more._--We also have intercourse with \"men,\"\nwe also modestly put on the clothes in which people know us (_as\nsuch,_) respect us and seek us; and we thereby mingle in society, that\nis to say, among the disguised who do not wish to be so called; we also\ndo like a prudent masqueraders, and courteously dismiss all curiosity\nwhich has not reference merely to our \"clothes\" There are however other\nmodes and artifices for \"going about\" among men and associating with\nthem: for example, as a ghost,-which is very advisable when one wants\nto scare them, and get rid of them easily. An example: a person grasps\nat us, and is unable to seize us. That frightens him. Or we enter by\na closed door. Or when the lights are extinguished. Or after we are\ndead The latter is the artifice of _posthumous_ men _par excellence._\n(\"What?\" said such a one once impatiently, \"do you think we should\ndelight in enduring this strangeness, coldness, death-stillness about\nus, all this subterranean, hidden, dim, undiscovered solitude, which\nis called life with us, and might just as well be called death, if we\nwere not conscious of what _will arise_ out of us,--and that only after\nour death shall we attain to _our_ life and become living, ah! very\nliving! we posthumous men!\"--)\n\n\n366.\n\n_At the Sight of a Learned Book._--We do not belong to those who only\nget their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books,--it is\nour custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or\ndancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where\neven the paths become thoughtful. Our first question concerning the\nvalue of a book, a man, or a piece of music is: Can it walk? or still\nbetter: Can it dance?... We seldom read; we do not read the worse\nfor that--oh, how quickly we divine how a person has arrived at his\nthoughts:--if it is by sitting before an ink-bottle with compressed\nbelly and head bent over the paper: oh, how quickly we are then done\nwith his book! The constipated bowels betray themselves, one may wager\non it, just as the atmosphere of the room, the ceiling of the room, the\nsmallness of the room, betray themselves.--These were my feelings when\nclosing a straightforward, learned book, thankful, very thankful, but\nalso relieved.... In the book of a learned man there is almost always\nsomething oppressive and oppressed: the \"specialist\" comes to light\nsomewhere, his ardour, his seriousness, his wrath, his over-estimation\nof the nook in which he sits and spins, his hump--every specialist has\nhis hump. A learned book also always mirrors a distorted soul: every\ntrade distorts. Look at our friends again with whom we have spent\nour youth, after they have taken possession of their science: alas!\nhow the reverse has always taken place! Alas! how they themselves\nare now for ever occupied and possessed by their science! Grown into\ntheir nook, crumpled into unrecognisability, constrained, deprived\nof their equilibrium, emaciated and angular everywhere, perfectly\nround only in one place,--we are moved and silent when we find them\nso. Every handicraft, granting even that it has a golden floor,[3]\nhas also a leaden ceiling above it, which presses and presses on the\nsoul, till it is pressed into a strange and distorted shape. There is\nnothing to alter here. We need not think that it is at all possible\nto obviate this disfigurement by any educational artifice whatever.\nEvery kind of _perfection_ is purchased at a high price on earth, where\neverything is perhaps purchased too dear; one is an expert in one's\ndepartment at the price of being also a victim of one's department.\nBut you want to have it otherwise--\"more reasonable,\" above all more\nconvenient--is it not so, my dear contemporaries? Very well! But then\nyou will also immediately get something different: instead of the\ncraftsman and expert, you will get the literary man, the versatile,\n\"many-sided \"litt\u00e9rateur, who to be sure lacks the hump--not taking\naccount of the hump or bow which he makes before you as the shopman\nof the intellect and the \"porter\" of culture--, the litt\u00e9rateur, who\n_is_ really nothing, but \"represents\" almost everything: he plays\nand \"represents\" the expert, he also takes it upon himself in all\nmodesty _to see that he is_ paid, honoured and celebrated in this\nposition.--No, my learned friends! I bless you even on account of\nyour humps! And also because like me you despise the litt\u00e9rateurs\nand parasites of culture! And because you do not know how to make\nmerchandise of your intellect! And have so many opinions which cannot\nbe expressed in money value! And because you do not represent anything\nwhich you _are_ not! Because your sole desire is to become masters\nof your craft; because you reverence every kind of mastership and\nability, and repudiate with the most relentless scorn everything of a\nmake-believe, half-genuine, dressed-up, virtuoso, demagogic, histrionic\nnature in _litteris et artibus_--all that which does not convince you\nby its absolute _genuineness_ of discipline and preparatory training,\nor cannot stand your test! (Even genius does not help a person to get\nover such a defect, however well it may be able to deceive with regard\nto it: one understands this if one has once looked closely at our most\ngifted painters and musicians,--who almost without exception, can\nartificially and supplementarily appropriate to themselves (by means\nof artful inventions of style, make-shifts, and even principles),\nthe _appearance_ of that genuineness, that solidity of training and\nculture; to be sure, without thereby deceiving themselves, without\nthereby imposing perpetual silence on their bad consciences. For\nyou know of course that all great modern artists suffer from bad\nconsciences?...)\n\n\n[3] An allusion to the German Proverb, \"Handwerk hat einen goldenen\nBoden.\"--TR.\n\n\n367.\n\n_How one has to Distinguish first of all in Works of Art--_Everything\nthat is thought, versified, painted and composed, yea, even built and\nmoulded, belongs either to monologic art, or to art before witnesses.\nUnder the latter there is also to be included the apparently monologic\nart which involves the belief in God, the whole lyric of prayer;\nbecause for a pious man there is no solitude,--we, the godless, have\nbeen the first to devise this invention. I know of no profounder\ndistinction in all the perspective of the artist than this: Whether he\nlooks at his growing work of art (at \"himself--\") with the eye of the\nwitness; or whether he \"has forgotten the world,\" as is the essential\nthing in all monologic art,--it rests _on forgetting,_ it is the music\nof forgetting.\n\n\n368.\n\n_The Cynic Speaks.--_My objections to Wagner's music are physiological\nobjections. Why should I therefore begin by disguising them Under\n\u00e6sthetic formul\u00e6? My \"point\" is that I can no longer breathe freely\nwhen this music begins to operate on me; my _foot_ immediately becomes\nindignant at it and rebels: for what it needs is time, dance and\nmarch; it demands first of all from music the ecstasies which are in\n_good_ walking, striding, leaping and dancing. But do not my stomach,\nmy heart, my blood and my bowels also protest? Do I not become hoarse\nunawares under its influence? And then I ask myself what my body really\n_wants_ from music generally. I believe it wants to have _relief:_\nso that all animal functions should be accelerated by means of light,\nbold, unfettered, self-assured rhythms; so that brazen, leaden life\nshould be gilded by means of golden, good, tender harmonies. My\nmelancholy would fain rest its head in the hiding-places and abysses\nof _perfection:_ for this reason I need music. What do I care for the\ndrama! What do I care for the spasms of its moral ecstasies, in which\nthe \"people\" have their satisfaction! What do I care for the whole\npantomimic hocus-pocus of the actor!... It will now be divined that I\nam essentially anti-theatrical at heart,--but Wagner on the contrary,\nwas essentially a man of the stage and an actor, the most enthusiastic\nmummer-worshipper that has ever existed, even among musicians!... And\nlet it be said in passing that if Wagner's theory was that \"drama is\nthe object, and music is only the means to it,\"--his _practice_ on the\ncontrary from beginning to end has been to the effect that \"attitude\nis the object, drama and even music can never be anything else but\nmeans to _this._\" Music as a means of elucidating, strengthening and\nintensifying dramatic poses and the actor's appeal to the senses, and\nWagnerian drama only an opportunity for a number of dramatic attitudes!\nWagner possessed, along with all other instincts, the dictatorial\ninstinct of a great actor in all and everything, and as has been said,\nalso as a musician.--I once made this clear with some trouble to a\nthorough-going Wagnerian, and I had reasons for adding:--\"Do be a\nlittle more honest with yourself: we are not now in the theatre. In\nthe theatre we are only honest in the mass; as individuals we lie,\nwe belie even ourselves. We leave ourselves at home when we go to the\ntheatre; we there renounce the right to our own tongue and choice, to\nour taste, and even to our courage as we possess it and practise it\nwithin our own four walls in relation to God and man. No one takes his\nfinest taste in art into the theatre with him, not even the artist\nwho works for the theatre: there one is people, public, herd, woman,\nPharisee, voting animal, democrat, neighbour, and fellow-creature;\nthere even the most personal conscience succumbs to the levelling\ncharm of the 'great multitude'; there stupidity operates as wantonness\nand contagion; there the neighbour rules, there one _becomes_ a\nneighbour....\" (I have forgotten to mention what my enlightened\nWagnerian answered to my physiological objections: \"So the fact is that\nyou are really not healthy enough for our music?\"--)\n\n\n369.\n\n_Juxtapositions in us._--Must we not acknowledge to ourselves, we\nartists, that there is a strange discrepancy in us; that on the one\nhand our taste, and on the other hand our creative power, keep apart in\nan extraordinary manner, continue apart, and have a separate growth;--I\nmean to say that they have entirely different gradations and _tempi_ of\nage, youth, maturity, mellowness and rottenness? So that, for example,\na musician could all his life create things which _contradicted_\nall that his ear and heart, spoilt for listening, prized, relished\nand preferred:--he would not even require to be aware of the\ncontradiction! As an almost painfully regular experience shows, a\nperson's taste can easily outgrow the taste of his power, even without\nthe latter being thereby paralysed or checked in its productivity. The\nreverse, however, can also to some extent take place,--and it is to\nthis especially that I should like to direct the attention of artists.\nA constant producer, a man who is a \"mother\" in the grand sense of the\nterm, one who no longer knows or hears of anything except pregnancies\nand child-beds of his spirit, who has no time at all to reflect and\nmake comparisons with regard to himself and his work, who is also no\nlonger inclined to exercise his taste, but simply forgets it, letting\nit take its chance of standing, lying or falling,--perhaps such a man\nat last produces works _on which he is then quite unfit to pass a\njudgment:_ so that he speaks and thinks foolishly about them and about\nhimself. This seems to me almost the normal condition with fruitful\nartists,--nobody knows a child worse than its parents--and the rule\napplies even (to take an immense example) to the entire Greek world of\npoetry and art, which was never \"conscious\" of what it had done....\n\n\n370.\n\n_What is Romanticism?_--It will be remembered perhaps, at least among\nmy friends, that at first I assailed the modern world with some\ngross errors and exaggerations, but at any rate with _hope_ in my\nheart. I recognised--who knows from what personal experiences?--the\nphilosophical pessimism of the nineteenth century as the symptom of a\nhigher power of thought, a more daring courage and a more triumphant\n_plenitude_ of life than had been characteristic of the eighteenth\ncentury, the age of Hume, Kant, Condillac, and the sensualists: so that\nthe tragic view of things seemed to me the peculiar _luxury_ of our\nculture, its most precious, noble, and dangerous mode of prodigality;\nbut nevertheless, in view of its overflowing wealth, a _justifiable_\nluxury. In the same way I interpreted for myself German music as the\nexpression of a Dionysian power in the German soul: I thought I heard\nin it the earthquake by means of which a primeval force that had been\nimprisoned for ages was finally finding vent--indifferent as to whether\nall that usually calls itself culture was thereby made to totter. It\nis obvious that I then misunderstood what constitutes the veritable\ncharacter both of philosophical pessimism and of German music,--namely,\ntheir _Romanticism._ What is Romanticism? Every art and every\nphilosophy may be regarded as a healing and helping appliance in the\nservice of growing, struggling life: they always presuppose suffering\nand sufferers. But there are two kinds of sufferers: on the one hand\nthose that suffer from _overflowing vitality,_ who need Dionysian art,\nand require a tragic view and insight into life; and on the other hand\nthose who suffer from _reduced vitality,_ who seek repose, quietness,\ncalm seas, and deliverance from themselves through art or knowledge,\nor else intoxication, spasm, bewilderment and madness. All Romanticism\nin art and knowledge responds to the twofold craving of the _latter;_\nto them Schopenhauer as well as Wagner responded (and responds),--to\nname those most celebrated and decided romanticists, who were then\n_misunderstood_ by me (_not_ however to their disadvantage, as may be\nreasonably conceded to me). The being richest in overflowing vitality,\nthe Dionysian God and man, may not only allow himself the spectacle\nof the horrible and questionable, but even the fearful deed itself,\nand all the luxury of destruction, disorganisation and negation. With\nhim evil, senselessness and ugliness seem as it were licensed, in\nconsequence of the overflowing plenitude of procreative, fructifying\npower, which can convert every desert into a luxuriant orchard.\nConversely, the greatest sufferer, the man poorest in vitality, would\nhave most need of mildness, peace and kindliness in thought and\naction: he would need, if possible, a God who is specially the God\nof the sick, a \"Saviour\"; similarly he would have need of logic, the\nabstract intelligibility of existence--for logic soothes and gives\nconfidence;--in short he would need a certain warm, fear-dispelling\nnarrowness and imprisonment within optimistic horizons. In this manner\nI gradually began to understand Epicurus, the opposite of a Dionysian\npessimist;--in a similar manner also the \"Christian,\" who in fact is\nonly a type of Epicurean, and like him essentially a romanticist:--and\nmy vision has always become keener in tracing that most difficult and\ninsidious of all forms of _retrospective inference,_ in which, most\nmistakes have been made--the inference from the work to its author from\nthe deed to its doer, from the ideal to him who _needs_ it, from every\nmode of thinking and valuing to the imperative _want_ behind it.--In\nregard to all \u00e6sthetic values I now avail myself of this radical\ndistinction: I ask in every single case, \"Has hunger or superfluity\nbecome creative here?\" At the outset another distinction might seem to\nrecommend itself more--it is far more conspicuous,--namely, to have in\nview whether the desire for rigidity, for perpetuation, for _being_ is\nthe cause of the creating, or the desire for destruction, for change,\nfor the new, for the future--for _becoming._ But when looked at more\ncarefully, both these kinds of desire prove themselves ambiguous, and\nare explicable precisely according to the before-mentioned, and, as it\nseems to me, rightly preferred scheme. The desire for _destruction,_\nchange and becoming, may be the expression of overflowing power,\npregnant with futurity (my _terminus_ for this is of course the word\n\"Dionysian\"); but it may also be the hatred of the ill-constituted,\ndestitute and unfortunate, which destroys, and _must_ destroy, because\nthe enduring, yea, all that endures, in fact all being, excites and\nprovokes it. To understand this emotion we have but to look closely at\nour anarchists. The will to _perpetuation_ requires equally a double\ninterpretation. It may on the one hand proceed from gratitude and\nlove:--art of this origin will always be an art of apotheosis, perhaps\ndithyrambic, as with Rubens, mocking divinely, as with Hafiz, or clear\nand kind-hearted as with Goethe, and spreading a Homeric brightness\nand glory over everything (in this case I speak of _Apollonian_ art).\nIt may also, however, be the tyrannical will of a sorely-suffering,\nstruggling or tortured being, who would like to stamp his most\npersonal, individual and narrow characteristics, the very idiosyncrasy\nof his suffering, as an obligatory law and constraint on others; who,\nas it were, takes revenge on all things, in that he imprints, enforces\nand brands _his_ image, the image of _his_ torture, upon them. The\nlatter is _romantic pessimism_ in its most extreme form, whether it be\nas Schopenhauerian will-philosophy, or as Wagnerian music:--romantic\npessimism, the last _great_ event in the destiny of our civilisation.\n(That there _may be_ quite a different kind of pessimism, a classical\npessimism--this presentiment and vision belongs to me, as something\ninseparable from me, as my _proprium_ and _ipsissimum;_ only that the\nword \"classical\" is repugnant to my ears, it has become far too worn,\ntoo indefinite and indistinguishable. I call that pessimism of the\nfuture,--for it is coming! I see it coming!--_Dionysian_ pessimism.)\n\n\n371.\n\n_We Unintelligible Ones._--Have we ever complained among ourselves of\nbeing misunderstood, misjudged, and confounded with others; of being\ncalumniated, misheard, and not heard? That is just our lot--alas,\nfor a long time yet! say, to be modest, until 1901--, it is also our\ndistinction; we should not have sufficient respect for ourselves if\nwe wished it otherwise. People confound us with others--the reason\nof it is that we ourselves grow, we change continually, we cast off\nold bark, we still slough every spring, we always become younger,\nhigher, stronger, as men of the future, we thrust our roots always\nmore powerfully into the deep--into evil--, while at the same time we\nembrace the heavens ever more lovingly, more extensively, and suck in\ntheir light ever more eagerly with all our branches and leaves. We grow\nlike trees--that is difficult to understand, like all life!--not in\none place, but everywhere, not in one direction only, but upwards and\noutwards, as well as inwards and downwards. At the same time our force\nshoots forth in stem, branches, and roots; we are really no longer free\nto do anything separately, or to _be_ anything separately.... Such is\nour lot, as we have said: we grow in _height;_ and even should it be\nour calamity--for we dwell ever closer to the lightning!--well, we\nhonour it none the less on that account; it is that which we do not\nwish to share with others, which we do not wish to bestow upon others,\nthe fate of all elevation, _our_ fate....\n\n\n372.\n\n_Why we are not Idealists.--_Formerly philosophers were afraid of\nthe senses: have we, perhaps, been far too forgetful of this fear?\nWe are at present all of us sensualists, we representatives of the\npresent and of the future in philosophy,--_not_ according to theory,\nhowever, but in _praxis,_ in practice.... Those former philosophers,\non the contrary, thought that the senses lured them out of _their_\nworld, the cold realm of \"ideas,\" to a dangerous southern island,\nwhere they were afraid that their philosopher-virtues would melt away\nlike snow in the sun. \"Wax in the ears,\" was then almost a condition\nof philosophising; a genuine philosopher no longer listened to life,\nin so far as life is music, he _denied_ the music of life--it is an\nold philosophical superstition that all music is Sirens' music.--Now\nwe should be inclined at the present day to judge precisely in the\nopposite manner (which in itself might be just as false), and to regard\n_ideas,_ with their cold, an\u00e6mic appearance, and not even in spite of\nthis appearance, as worse seducers than the senses. They have always\nlived on the \"blood\" of the philosopher, they always consumed his\nsenses, and indeed, if you will believe me, his \"heart\" as well. Those\nold philosophers were heartless: philosophising was always a species\nof vampirism. At the sight of such figures even as Spinoza, do you\nnot feel a profoundly enigmatical and disquieting sort of impression?\nDo you not see the drama which is here performed, the constantly\n_increasing pallor_--, the spiritualisation always more ideally\ndisplayed? Do you not imagine some long-concealed blood-sucker in the\nbackground, which makes its beginning with the senses, and in the end\nretains or leaves behind nothing but bones and their rattling?--I mean\ncategories, formul\u00e6, and _words_(for you will pardon me in saying that\nwhat _remains_ of Spinoza, _amor intellectualis dei,_ is rattling and\nnothing more! What is _amor,_ what is _deus,_ when they have lost\nevery drop of blood?...) _In summa:_ all philosophical idealism has\nhitherto been something like a disease, where it has not been, as\nin the case of Plato, the prudence of superabundant and dangerous\nhealthfulness, the fear of _overpowerful_ senses, and the wisdom of a\nwise Socratic.--Perhaps, is it the case that we moderns are merely not\nsufficiently sound _to require_ Plato's idealism? And we do not fear\nthe senses because----\n\n\n373.\n\n_\"Science\" as Prejudice_.--It follows from the laws of class\ndistinction that the learned, in so far as they belong to the\nintellectual middle-class, are debarred from getting even a sight of\nthe really _great_ problems and notes of interrogation. Besides, their\ncourage, and similarly their outlook, does not reach so far,--and\nabove all, their need, which makes them investigators, their innate\nanticipation and desire that things should be constituted _in such and\nsuch a way_, their fears and hopes are too soon quieted and set at\nrest. For example, that which makes the pedantic Englishman, Herbert\nSpencer, so enthusiastic in his way, and impels him to draw a line of\nhope, a horizon of desirability, the final reconciliation of \"egoism\nand altruism\" of which he dreams,--that almost causes nausea to people\nlike us:--a humanity with such Spencerian perspectives as ultimate\nperspectives would seem to us deserving of contempt, of extermination!\nBut the _fact_ that something has to be taken by him as his highest\nhope, which is regarded, and may well be regarded, by others merely as\na distasteful possibility, is a note of interrogation which Spencer\ncould not have foreseen.... It is just the same with the belief with\nwhich at present so many materialistic natural-scientists are content,\nthe belief in a world which is supposed to have its equivalent and\nmeasure in human thinking and human valuations, a \"world of truth\"\nat which we might be able ultimately to arrive with the help of our\ninsignificant, four-cornered human reason! What? do we actually wish\nto have existence debased in that fashion to a ready-reckoner exercise\nand calculation for stay-at-home mathematicians? We should not, above\nall, seek to divest existence of its _ambiguous_ character: _good_\ntaste forbids it, gentlemen, the taste of reverence for everything that\ngoes beyond your horizon! That a world-interpretation is alone right by\nwhich _you_ maintain your position, by which investigation and work can\ngo on scientifically in _your_ sense (you really mean _mechanically?_),\nan interpretation which acknowledges numbering, calculating, weighing,\nseeing and handling, and nothing more--such an idea is a piece of\ngrossness and na\u00efvety, provided it is not lunacy and idiocy. Would the\nreverse not be quite probable, that the most superficial and external\ncharacters of existence--its most apparent quality, its outside, its\nembodiment--should let themselves be apprehended first? perhaps alone\nallow themselves to be apprehended? A \"scientific\" interpretation of\nthe world as you understand it might consequently still be one of the\n_stupidest,_ that is to say, the most destitute of significance, of\nall possible world-interpretations--I say this in confidence to my\nfriends the Mechanicians, who to-day like to hobnob with philosophers,\nand absolutely believe that mechanics is the teaching of the first and\nlast laws upon which, as upon a ground-floor, all existence must be\nbuilt. But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially\n_meaningless_ world! Supposing we valued the _worth_ of a music with\nreference to how much it could be counted, calculated, or formulated\n--how absurd such a \"scientific\" estimate of music would be! What\nwould one have apprehended, understood, or discerned in it! Nothing,\nabsolutely nothing of what is really \"music\" in it!...\n\n\n374.\n\n_Our new \"Infinite\"_--How far the perspective character of existence\nextends, or whether it have any other character at all, whether\nan existence without explanation, without \"sense\" does not just\nbecome \"nonsense,\" whether, on the other hand, all existence is not\nessentially an _explaining_ existence--these questions, as is right and\nproper, cannot be determined even by the most diligent and severely\nconscientious analysis and self-examination of the intellect, because\nin this analysis the human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself in its\nperspective forms, and _only_ in them. We cannot see round our corner:\nit is hopeless curiosity to want to know what other modes of intellect\nand perspective there _might_ be: for example, whether any kind of\nbeing could perceive time backwards, or alternately forwards and\nbackwards (by which another direction of life and another conception\nof cause and effect would be given). But I think that we are to-day\nat least far from the ludicrous immodesty of decreeing from our nook\nthat there _can_ only be legitimate perspectives from that nook. The\nworld, on the contrary, has once more become \"infinite\" to us: in\nso far we cannot dismiss the possibility that it _contains infinite\ninterpretations._ Once more the great horror seizes us--but who would\ndesire forthwith to deify once more _this_ monster of an unknown\nworld in the old fashion? And perhaps worship _the_ unknown thing as\n_the_ \"unknown person\" in future? Ah! there are too many _ungodly_\npossibilities of interpretation comprised in this unknown, too much\ndevilment, stupidity and folly of interpretation,--our own human, all\ntoo human interpretation itself, which we know....\n\n\n375.\n\n_Why we Seem to be Epicureans._--We are cautious, we modern men,\nwith regard to final convictions, our distrust lies in wait for the\nenchantments and tricks of conscience involved in every strong belief,\nin every absolute Yea and Nay: how is this explained? Perhaps one may\nsee in it a good deal of the caution of the \"burnt child,\" of the\ndisillusioned idealist; but one may also see in it another and better\nelement, the joyful curiosity of a former lingerer in a corner, who\nhas been brought to despair by his nook, and now luxuriates and revels\nin its antithesis, in the unbounded, in the \"open air in itself.\" Thus\nthere is developed an almost Epicurean inclination for knowledge, which\ndoes not readily lose sight of the questionable character of things;\nlikewise also a repugnance to pompous moral phrases and attitudes, a\ntaste that repudiates all coarse, square contrasts, and is proudly\nconscious of its habitual reserve. For _this too_ constitutes our\npride, this easy tightening of the reins in our headlong impulse\nafter certainty, this self-control of the rider in his most furious\nriding: for now, as of old, we have mad, fiery steeds under us, and if\nwe delay, it is certainly least of all the danger which causes us to\ndelay....\n\n\n376.\n\n_Our Slow Periods._--It is thus that artists feel, and all men of\n\"works,\" the maternal species of men: they always believe at every\nchapter of their life--a work always makes a chapter--that they have\nnow reached the goal itself; they would always patiently accept death\nwith the feeling: \"we are ripe for it.\" This is not the expression\nof exhaustion,--but rather that of a certain autumnal sunniness and\nmildness, which the work itself, the maturing of the work, always\nleaves behind in its originator. Then the _tempo_ of life slows\ndown--turns thick and flows with honey--into long pauses, into the\nbelief in _the_ long pause....\n\n\n377.\n\n_We Homeless Ones.--_Among the Europeans of to-day there are not\nlacking those who may call themselves homeless ones in a way which\nis at once a distinction and an honour; it is by them that my secret\nwisdom and _gaya scienza_ is especially to be laid to heart! For\ntheir lot is hard, their hope uncertain; it is a clever feat to\ndevise consolation for them. But what good does it do! We children\nof the future, how _could_ we be at home in the present? We are\nunfavourable to all ideals which could make us feel at home in this\nfrail, broken-down, transition period; and as regards the \"realities\"\nthereof, we do not believe in their _endurance. _ The ice which still\ncarries has become very thin: the thawing wind blows; we ourselves,\nthe homeless ones, are an agency that breaks the ice, and the other\ntoo thin \"realities.\"... We \"preserve\" nothing, nor would we return\nto any past age; we are not at all \"liberal,\" we do not labour for\n\"progress,\" we do not need first to stop our ears to the song of\nthe market-place and the sirens of the future--their song of \"equal\nrights,\" \"free society,\" \"no longer either lords or slaves,\" does not\nallure us! We do not by any means think it desirable that the kingdom\nof righteousness and peace should be established on earth (because\nunder any circumstances it would be the kingdom of the profoundest\nmediocrity and Chinaism); we rejoice in all men, who like ourselves\nlove danger, war and adventure, who do not make compromises, nor let\nthemselves be captured, conciliated and stunted; we count ourselves\namong the conquerors; we ponder over the need of a new order of\nthings, even of a new slavery--for every strengthening and elevation\nof the type \"man\" also involves a new form of slavery. Is it not\nobvious that with all this we must feel ill at ease in an age which\nclaims the honour of being the most humane, gentle and just that the\nsun has ever seen? What a pity that at the mere mention of these\nfine words, the thoughts at the bottom of our hearts are all the\nmore unpleasant, that we see therein only the expression--or the\nmasquerade--of profound weakening, exhaustion, age, and declining\npower! What can it matter to us with what kind of tinsel an invalid\ndecks out his weakness? He may parade it as his _virtue;_ there is no\ndoubt whatever that weakness makes people gentle, alas, so gentle, so\njust, so inoffensive, so \"humane\"!--The \"religion of pity,\" to which\npeople would like to persuade us--yes, we know sufficiently well the\nhysterical little men and women who need this religion at present as\na cloak and adornment! We are no humanitarians; we should not dare\nto speak of our \"love of mankind\"; for that, a person of our stamp\nis not enough of an actor! Or not sufficiently Saint-Simonist, not\nsufficiently French. A person must have been affected with a _Gallic_\nexcess of erotic susceptibility and amorous impatience even to\napproach mankind honourably with his lewdness.... Mankind! Was there\never a more hideous old woman among all old women (unless perhaps it\nwere \"the Truth\": a question for philosophers)? No, we do not love\nMankind! On the other hand, however, we are not nearly \"German\" enough\n(in the sense in which the word \"German\" is current at present) to\nadvocate nationalism and race-hatred, or take delight in the national\nheart-itch and blood-poisoning, on account of which the nations of\nEurope are at present bounded off and secluded from one another as\nif by quarantines. We are too unprejudiced for that, too perverse,\ntoo fastidious; also too well-informed, and too much \"travelled.\" We\nprefer much rather to live on mountains, apart and \"out of season,\"\nin past or coming centuries, in order merely to spare ourselves the\nsilent rage to which we know we should be condemned as witnesses of a\nsystem of politics which makes the German nation barren by making it\nvain, and which is a _petty_ system besides:--will it not be necessary\nfor this system to plant itself between two mortal hatreds, lest its\nown creation should immediately collapse? Will it not _be obliged_\nto desire the perpetuation of the petty-state system of Europe?...\nWe homeless ones are too diverse and mixed in race and descent for\n\"modern men,\" and are consequently little tempted to participate in the\nfalsified racial self-admiration and lewdness which at present display\nthemselves in Germany, as signs of German sentiment, and which strike\none as doubly false and unbecoming in the people with the \"historical\nsense.\" We are, in a word--and it shall be our word of honour!--_good\nEuropeans,_ the heirs of Europe, the rich, over-wealthy heirs, but too\ndeeply obligated heirs of millenniums of European thought. As such,\nwe have also outgrown Christianity, and are disinclined to it--and\njust because we have grown _out of_ it, because our forefathers were\nChristians uncompromising in their Christian integrity, who willingly\nsacrificed possessions and positions, blood and country, for the sake\nof their belief. We--do the same. For what, then? For our unbelief?\nFor all sorts of unbelief? Nay, you know better than that, my friends!\nThe hidden _Yea_ in you is stronger than all the Nays and Perhapses,\nof which you and your age are sick; and when you are obliged to put\nout to sea, you emigrants, it is--once more a _faith_ which urges you\nthereto!...\n\n\n378.\n\n_\"And once more Grow Clear.\"_--We, the generous and rich in spirit, who\nstand at the sides of the streets like open fountains and would hinder\nno one from drinking from us: we do not know, alas! how to defend\nourselves when we should like to do so; we have no means of preventing\nourselves being made _turbid_ and dark,--we have no means of preventing\nthe age in which we live casting its \"up-to-date rubbish\" into us, or\nof hindering filthy birds throwing their excrement, the boys their\ntrash, and fatigued resting travellers their misery, great and small,\ninto us. But we do as we have always done: we take whatever is cast\ninto us down into our depths--for we are deep, we do not forget--_and\nonce more grow clear_...\n\n\n379.\n\n_The Fool's Interruption._--It is not a misanthrope who has written\nthis book: the hatred of men costs too dear to-day. To hate as they\nformerly hated _man,_ in the fashion of Timon, completely, without\nqualification, with all the heart, from the pure _love_ of hatred--for\nthat purpose one would have to renounce contempt:--and how much refined\npleasure, how much patience, how much benevolence even, do we owe to\ncontempt! Moreover we are thereby the \"elect of God\": refined contempt\nis our taste and privilege, our art, our virtue perhaps, we, the\nmost modern amongst the moderns!... Hatred, on the contrary, makes\nequal, it puts men face to face, in hatred there is honour; finally,\nin hatred there is _fear,_ quite a large amount of fear. We fearless\nones, however, we, the most intellectual men of the period, know our\nadvantage well enough to live without fear as the most intellectual\npersons of this age. People will not easily behead us, shut us up, or\nbanish us; they will not even ban or burn our books. The age loves\nintellect, it loves us, and needs us, even when we have to give it\nto understand that we are artists in despising; that all intercourse\nwith men is something of a horror to us; that with all our gentleness,\npatience, humanity and courteousness, we cannot persuade our nose to\nabandon its prejudice against the proximity of man; that we love nature\nthe more, the less humanly things are done by her, and that we love art\n_when_ it is the flight of the artist from man, or the raillery of the\nartist at man, or the raillery of the artist at himself....\n\n\n380.\n\n\"_The Wanderer\" Speaks._--In order for once to get a glimpse of our\nEuropean morality from a distance, in order to compare it with other\nearlier or future moralities, one must do as the traveller who wants to\nknow the height of the towers of a city: for that purpose he _leaves_\nthe city. \"Thoughts concerning moral prejudices,\" if they are not to\nbe prejudices concerning prejudices, presuppose a position _outside\nof_ morality, some sort of world beyond good and evil, to which one\nmust ascend, climb, or fly--and in the given case at any rate, a\nposition beyond _our_ good and evil, an emancipation from all \"Europe,\"\nunderstood as a sum of inviolable valuations which have become part and\nparcel of our flesh and blood. That one does _want_ to get outside, or\naloft, is perhaps a sort of madness, a peculiar, unreasonable \"thou\nmust\"--for even we thinkers have our idiosyncrasies of \"unfree will\"--:\nthe question is whether one _can_ really get there. That may depend on\nmanifold conditions: in the main it is a question of how light or how\nheavy we are, the problem of our \"specific gravity.\" One must be _very\nlight_ in order to impel one's will to knowledge to such a distance,\nand as it were beyond one's age, in order to create eyes for oneself\nfor the survey of millenniums, and a pure heaven in these eyes besides!\nOne must have freed oneself from many things by which we Europeans of\nto-day are oppressed, hindered, held down, and made heavy. The man\nof such a \"Beyond,\" who wants to get even in sight of the highest\nstandards of worth of his age, must first of all \"surmount\" this age\nin himself--it is the test of his power--and consequently not only\nhis age, but also his past aversion and opposition _to_ his age, his\nsuffering _caused by_ his age, his unseasonableness, his Romanticism....\n\n\n381.\n\n_The Question of Intelligibility._--One not only wants to be understood\nwhen one writes, but also--quite as certainly--_not_ to be understood.\nIt is by no means an objection to a book when someone finds it\nunintelligible: perhaps this might just have been the intention of\nits author,--perhaps he did not _want_ to be understood by \"anyone.\"\nA distinguished intellect and taste, when it wants to communicate its\nthoughts, always selects its hearers; by selecting them, it at the same\ntime closes its barriers against \"the others.\" It is there that all the\nmore refined laws of style have their origin: they at the same time\nkeep off, they create distance, they prevent \"access\" (intelligibility,\nas we have said,)--while they open the ears of those who are\nacoustically related to them. And to say it between ourselves and with\nreference to my own case,--I do not desire that either my ignorance, or\nthe vivacity of my temperament, should prevent me being understood by\n_you,_ my friends: I certainly do not desire that my vivacity should\nhave that effect, however much it may impel me to arrive quickly at\nan object, in order to arrive at it at all. For I think it is best to\ndo with profound problems as with a cold bath--quickly in, quickly\nout. That one does not thereby get into the depths, that one does not\nget deep enough _down_--is a superstition of the hydrophobic, the\nenemies of cold water; they speak without experience. Oh! the great\ncold makes one quick!--And let me ask by the way: Is it a fact that a\nthing has been misunderstood and unrecognised when it has only been\ntouched upon in passing, glanced at, flashed at? Must one absolutely\nsit upon it in the first place? Must one have brooded on it as on an\negg? _Diu noctuque incubando,_ as Newton said of himself? At least\nthere are truths of a peculiar shyness and ticklishness which one can\nonly get hold of suddenly, and in no other way,--which one must either\n_take by surprise,_ or leave alone.... Finally, my brevity has still\nanother value: on those questions which pre-occupy me, I must say a\ngreat deal briefly, in order that it may be heard yet more briefly.\nFor as immoralist, one has to take care lest one ruins innocence, I\nmean the asses and old maids of both sexes, who get nothing from life\nbut their innocence; moreover my writings are meant to fill them with\nenthusiasm, to elevate them, to encourage them in virtue. I should be\nat a loss to know of anything more amusing than to see enthusiastic\nold asses and maids moved by the sweet feelings of virtue: and \"that\nhave I seen\"--spake Zarathustra. So much with respect to brevity; the\nmatter stands worse as regards my ignorance, of which I make no secret\nto myself. There are hours in which I am ashamed of it; to be sure\nthere are likewise hours in which I am ashamed of this shame. Perhaps\nwe philosophers, all of us, are badly placed at present with regard to\nknowledge: science is growing, the most learned of us are on the point\nof discovering that we know too little. But it would be worse still\nif it were otherwise,--if we knew too much; our duty is and remains\nfirst of all, not to get into confusion about ourselves. We _are_\ndifferent from the learned; although it cannot be denied that amongst\nother things we are also learned. We have different needs, a different\ngrowth, a different digestion: we need more, we need also less. There\nis no formula as to how much an intellect needs for its nourishment;\nif, however, its taste be in the direction of independence, rapid\ncoming and going, travelling, and perhaps adventure for which only the\nswiftest are qualified, it prefers rather to live free on poor fare,\nthan to be unfree and plethoric. Not fat, but the greatest suppleness\nand power is what a good dancer wishes from his nourishment,--and I\nknow not what the spirit of a philosopher would like better than to be\na good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, and also his art, in the end\nlikewise his sole piety, his \"divine service.\"...\n\n\n382.\n\n_Great Healthiness._--We, the new, the nameless, the\nhard-to-understand, we firstlings of a yet untried future--we require\nfor a new end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger,\nsharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than any healthiness hitherto. He\nwhose soul longs to experience the whole range of hitherto recognised\nvalues and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of\nthis ideal \"Mediterranean Sea,\" who, from the adventures of his most\npersonal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror and\ndiscoverer of the ideal--as likewise how it is with the artist, the\nsaint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the devotee, the prophet,\nand the godly Nonconformist of the old style:--requires one thing above\nall for that purpose, _great healthiness--_such healthiness as one not\nonly possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire, because\none continually sacrifices it again, and must sacrifice it!--And\nnow, after having been long on the way in this fashion, we Argonauts\nof the ideal, who are more courageous perhaps than prudent, and often\nenough shipwrecked and brought to grief, nevertheless, as said above,\nhealthier than people would like to admit, dangerously healthy, always\nhealthy again,--it would seem, as if in recompense for it all, that we\nhave a still undiscovered country before us, the boundaries of which no\none has yet seen, a beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal\nknown hitherto, a world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the\nquestionable, the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well\nas our thirst for possession thereof, have got out of hand--alas! that\nnothing will now any longer satisfy us! How could we still be content\nwith _the man of the present day_ after such peeps, and with such a\ncraving in our conscience and consciousness? What a pity; but it is\nunavoidable that we should look on the worthiest aims and hopes of the\nman of the present day with ill-concealed amusement, and perhaps should\nno longer look at them. Another ideal runs on before us, a strange,\ntempting ideal, full of danger, to which we should not like to persuade\nany one, because we do not so readily acknowledge any one's _right\nthereto:_ the ideal of a spirit who plays na\u00efvely (that is to say\ninvoluntarily and from overflowing abundance and power) with everything\nthat has hitherto been called holy, good, inviolable, divine; to whom\nthe loftiest conception which the people have reasonably made their\nmeasure of value, would already imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at\nleast relaxation, blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the\nideal of a humanly superhuman welfare and benevolence, which may often\nenough appear _inhuman,_ for example, when put by the side of all past\nseriousness on earth, and in comparison with all past solemnities\nin bearing, word, tone, look, morality and pursuit, as their truest\ninvoluntary parody,--but with which, nevertheless, perhaps _the great\nseriousness_ only commences, the proper interrogation mark is set\nup, the fate of the soul changes, the hour-hand moves, and tragedy\n_begins_....\n\n\n383.\n\n_Epilogue._---But while I slowly, slowly finish the painting of this\nsombre interrogation-mark, and am still inclined to remind my readers\nof the virtues of right reading--oh, what forgotten and unknown\nvirtues--it comes to pass that the wickedest, merriest, gnome-like\nlaughter resounds around me: the spirits of my book themselves pounce\nupon me, pull me by the ears, and call me to order. \"We cannot endure\nit any longer,\" they shout to me, \"away, away with this raven-black\nmusic. Is it not clear morning round about us? And green, soft ground\nand turf, the domain of the dance? Was there ever a better hour in\nwhich to be joyful? Who will sing us a song, a morning song, so sunny,\nso light and so fledged that it will _not_ scare the tantrums,--but\nwill rather invite them to take part in the singing and dancing.\nAnd better a simple rustic bagpipe than such weird sounds, such\ntoad-croakings, grave-voices and marmot-pipings, with which you have\nhitherto regaled us in your wilderness, Mr Anchorite and Musician of\nthe Future! No! Not such tones! But let us strike up something more\nagreeable and more joyful!\"--You would like to have it so, my impatient\nfriends? Well! Who would not willingly accede to your wishes? My\nbagpipe is waiting, and my voice also--it may sound a little hoarse;\ntake it as it is! don't forget we are in the mountains! But what you\nwill hear is at least new; and if you do not understand it, if you\nmisunderstand the _minstrel,_ what does it matter! That--has always\nbeen \"The Minstrel's Curse.\"[4] So much the more distinctly can you\nhear his music and melody, so much the better also can you--dance to\nhis piping. _Would you like_ to do that?...\n\n[4] Title of the well-known poem of Uhland.--TR.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\nSONGS OF PRINCE FREE-AS-A-BIRD\n\n\n\n    TO GOETHE.[1]\n\n\n    \"The Undecaying\"\n    Is but thy label,\n    God the betraying\n    Is poets' fable.\n\n    Our aims all are thwarted\n    By the World-wheel's blind roll:\n    \"Doom,\" says the downhearted,\n    \"Sport,\" says the fool.\n\n    The World-sport, all-ruling,\n    Mingles false with true:\n    The Eternally Fooling\n    Makes us play, too!\n\n\n\n    THE POET'S CALL.\n\n\n    As 'neath a shady tree I sat\n      After long toil to take my pleasure,\n    I heard a tapping \"pit-a-pat\"\n      Beat prettily in rhythmic measure.\n    Tho' first I scowled, my face set hard,\n      The sound at length my sense entrapping\n    Forced me to speak like any bard,\n      And keep true time unto the tapping.\n\n    As I made verses, never stopping,\n      Each syllable the bird went after,\n    Keeping in time with dainty hopping!\n      I burst into unmeasured laughter!\n    What, you a poet? You a poet?\n      Can your brains truly so addled be?\n    \"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,\"\n      Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.\n\n    What doth me to these woods entice?\n      The chance to give some thief a trouncing?\n    A saw, an image? Ha, in a trice\n      My rhyme is on it, swiftly pouncing!\n    All things that creep or crawl the poet\n      Weaves in his word-loom cunningly.\n    \"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,\"\n      Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.\n\n    Like to an arrow, methinks, a verse is,\n      See how it quivers, pricks and smarts\n    When shot full straight (no tender mercies!)\n      Into the reptile's nobler parts!\n\n    Wretches, you die at the hand of the poet,\n      Or stagger like men that have drunk too free.\n    \"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,\"\n      Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.\n\n    So they go hurrying, stanzas malign,\n      Drunken words--what a clattering, banging!--\n    Till the whole company, line on line,\n      All on the rhythmic chain are hanging.\n    Has he really a cruel heart, your poet?\n      Are there fiends who rejoice, the slaughter to see\n    \"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,\"\n      Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.\n\n    So you jest at me, bird, with your scornful graces?\n      So sore indeed is the plight of my head?\n    And my heart, you say, in yet sorrier case is?\n      Beware! for my wrath is a thing to dread!\n    Yet e'en in the hour of his wrath the poet\n      Rhymes you and sings with the selfsame glee.\n    \"Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,\"\n      Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.\n\n\n\n    IN THE SOUTH.[2]\n\n\n    I swing on a bough, and rest\n    My tired limbs in a nest,\n    In the rocking home of a bird,\n    Wherein I perch as his guest,\n            In the South!\n\n    I gaze on the ocean asleep,\n    On the purple sail of a boat;\n    On the harbour and tower steep,\n    On the rocks that stand out of the deep,\n            In the South!\n\n    For I could no longer stay,\n    To crawl in slow German way;\n    So I called to the birds, bade the wind\n    Lift me up and bear me away\n            To the South!\n\n    No reasons for me, if you please;\n    Their end is too dull and too plain;\n    But a pair of wings and a breeze,\n    With courage and health and ease,\n    And games that chase disease\n            From the South!\n\n    Wise thoughts can move without sound,-But\n    I've songs that I can't sing alone;\n    So birdies, pray gather around,\n    And listen to what I have found\n    In the South!\n    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .\n    \"You are merry lovers and false and gay,\n    \"In frolics and sport you pass the day;\n    \"Whilst in the North, I shudder to say,\n    \"I worshipped a woman, hideous and gray,\n    \"Her name was Truth, so I heard them say,\n    \"But I left her there and I flew away\n            \"To the South!\"\n\n\n\n    BEPPA THE PIOUS.\n\n\n    While beauty in my face is,\n      Be piety my care,\n    For God, you know, loves lasses,\n      And, more than all, the fair.\n    And if yon hapless monkling\n      Is fain with me to live,\n    Like many another monkling,\n      God surely will forgive.\n\n    No grey old priestly devil,\n      But, young, with cheeks aflame--Who\n    e'en when sick with revel,\n      Can jealous be and blame.\n    To greybeards I'm a stranger,\n      And he, too, hates the old:\n    Of God, the world-arranger,\n      The wisdom here behold!\n\n    The Church has ken of living,\n      And tests by heart and face.\n    To me she'll be forgiving!\n      Who will not show me grace?\n    I lisp with pretty halting,\n      I curtsey, bid \"good day,\"\n    And with the fresh defaulting\n      I wash the old away!\n\n    Praise be this man-God's guerdon,\n      Who loves all maidens fair,\n    And his own heart can pardon\n      The sin he planted there.\n\n    While beauty in my face is,\n      With piety I'll stand,\n    When age has killed my graces,\n      Let Satan claim my hand!\n\n\n\n    THE BOAT OF MYSTERY.\n\n\n    Yester-eve, when all things slept--\n      Scarce a breeze to stir the lane--\n    I a restless vigil kept,\n      Nor from pillows sleep could gain,\n    Nor from poppies nor--most sure\n    Of opiates--a conscience pure.\n\n    Thoughts of rest I 'gan forswear,\n      Rose and walked along the strand,\n    Found, in warm and moonlit air,\n      Man and boat upon the sand,\n    Drowsy both, and drowsily\n    Did the boat put out to sea.\n\n    Passed an hour or two perchance,\n      Or a year? then thought and sense\n    Vanished in the engulfing trance\n      Of a vast Indifference.\n    Fathomless, abysses dread\n    Opened--then the vision fled.\n\n    Morning came: becalmed, the boat\n      Rested on the purple flood:\n    \"What had happened?\" every throat\n      Shrieked the question: \"was there--\n          Blood?\"\n    Naught had happened! On the swell\n    We had slumbered, oh, so well!\n\n\n\n    AN AVOWAL OF LOVE\n\n    (_during which, however, the poet fell into a pit_).\n\n\n        Oh marvel! there he flies\n    Cleaving the sky with wings unmoved--what force\n        Impels him, bids him rise,\n    What curb restrains him? Where's his goal, his course?\n\n        Like stars and time eterne\n    He liveth now in heights that life forswore,\n        Nor envy's self doth spurn:\n    A lofty flight were't, e'en to see him soar!\n\n        Oh albatross, great bird,\n    Speeding me upward ever through the blue!\n        I thought of her, was stirred\n    To tears unending--yea, I love her true!\n\n\n\n    SONG OF A THEOCRITEAN GOATHERD.\n\n\n    Here I lie, my bowels sore,\n      Hosts of bugs advancing,\n    Yonder lights and romp and roar!\n      What's that sound? They're dancing!\n\n    At this instant, so she prated,\n      Stealthily she'd meet me:\n    Like a faithful dog I've waited,\n      Not a sign to greet me!\n\n    She promised, made the cross-sign, too,\n      Could her vows be hollow?\n    Or runs she after all that woo,\n      Like the goats I follow?\n\n    Whence your silken gown, my maid?\n      Ah, you'd fain be haughty,\n    Yet perchance you've proved a jade\n      With some satyr naughty!\n\n    Waiting long, the lovelorn wight\n      Is filled with rage and poison:\n    Even so on sultry night\n      Toadstools grow in foison.\n\n    Pinching sore, in devil's mood,\n      Love doth plague my crupper:\n    Truly I can eat no food:\n      Farewell, onion-supper!\n\n    Seaward sinks the moon away,\n      The stars are wan, and flare not:\n    Dawn approaches, gloomy, grey,\n      Let Death come! I care not!\n\n\n\n    \"SOULS THAT LACK DETERMINATION.\"\n\n\n    Souls that lack determination\n      Rouse my wrath to white-hot flame!\n    All their glory's but vexation,\n      All their praise but self-contempt and shame!\n\n    Since I baffle their advances,\n      Will not clutch their leading-string,\n    They would wither me with glances\n      Bitter-sweet, with hopeless envy sting.\n\n    Let them with fell curses shiver,\n      Curl their lip the livelong day!\n    Seek me as they will, forever\n      Helplessly their eyes shall go astray!\n\n\n\n    THE FOOL'S DILEMMA.\n\n\n    Ah, what I wrote on board and wall\n    With foolish heart, in foolish scrawl,\n    I meant but for their decoration!\n\n    Yet say you, \"Fools' abomination!\n    Both board and wall require purgation,\n    And let no trace our eyes appal!\"\n\n    Well, I will help you, as I can,\n    For sponge and broom are my vocation\n    As critic and as waterman.\n\n    But when the finished work I scan,\n    I'm glad to see each learned owl\n    With \"wisdom\" board and wall defoul.\n\n\n\n    RIMUS REMEDIUM\n\n    (_or a Consolation to Sick Poets_).\n\n\n        From thy moist lips,\n    O Time, thou witch, beslavering me,\n    Hour upon hour too slowly drips\n    In vain--I cry, in frenzy's fit,\n    \"A curse upon that yawning pit,\n      A curse upon Eternity!\"\n\n        The world's of brass,\n    A fiery bullock, deaf to wail:\n    Pain's dagger pierces my cuirass,\n    Wing\u00e9d, and writes upon my bone:\n    \"Bowels and heart the world hath none,\n      Why scourge her sins with anger's flail?\"\n\n        Pour poppies now,\n    Pour venom, Fever, on my brain!\n    Too long you test my hand and brow:\n    What ask you? \"What--reward is paid?\"\n    A malediction on you, jade,\n      And your disdain!\n\n        No, I retract,\n    'Tis cold--I hear the rain importune--\n    Fever, I'll soften, show my tact:\n    Here's gold--a coin--see it gleam!\n    Shall I with blessings on you beam,\n      Call you \"good fortune\"?\n\n        The door opes wide,\n    And raindrops on my bed are scattered,\n    The light's blown out--woes multiplied!\n    He that hath not an hundred rhymes,\n    I'll wager, in these dolorous times\n      We'd see him shattered!\n\n\n\n    MY BLISS.\n\n\n    Once more, St Mark, thy pigeons meet my gaze,\n      The Square lies still, in slumbering morning mood:\n    In soft, cool air I fashion idle lays,\n      Speeding them skyward like a pigeon's brood:\n          And then recall my minions\n    To tie fresh rhymes upon their willing pinions.\n                My bliss! My bliss!\n\n    Calm heavenly roof of azure silkiness,\n      Guarding with shimmering haze yon house divine!\n    Thee, house, I love, fear--envy, I'll confess,\n    And gladly would suck out that soul of thine!\n        \"Should I give back the prize?\"\n    Ask not, great pasture-ground for human eyes!\n                My bliss! My bliss!\n\n    Stern belfry, rising as with lion's leap\n      Sheer from the soil in easy victory,\n    That fill'st the Square with peal resounding, deep\n      Wert thou in French that Square's \"accent aigu\"?\n          Were I for ages set\n    In earth like thee, I know what silk-meshed net----\n                My bliss! My bliss!\n\n    Hence, music! First let darker shadows come,\n      And grow, and merge into brown, mellow night!\n    Tis early for your pealing, ere the dome\n      Sparkle in roseate glory, gold-bedight\n          While yet 'tis day, there's time\n    For strolling, lonely muttering, forging rhyme--\n                My bliss! My bliss!\n\n\n\n    COLUMBUS REDIVIVUS.\n\n\n    Thither I'll travel, that's my notion,\n      I'll trust myself, my grip,\n    Where opens wide and blue the ocean\n      I'll ply my Genoa ship.\n\n    New things on new the world unfolds me,\n      Time, space with noonday die:\n    Alone thy monstrous eye beholds me,\n      Awful Infinity!\n\n\n\n    SILS-MARIA.\n\n\n    Here sat I waiting, waiting, but for naught!\n    Beyond all good and evil--now by light wrought\n\n    To joy, now by dark shadows--all was leisure,\n    All lake, all noon, all time sans aim, sans measure.\n\n    Then one, dear friend, was swiftly changed to twain,\n    And Zarathustra left my teeming brain....\n\n\n\n    A DANCING SONG TO THE MISTRAL WIND.[3]\n\n\n    Wildly rushing, clouds outleaping,\n    Care-destroying, Heaven sweeping,\n      Mistral wind, thou art my friend!\n    Surely 'twas one womb did bear us,\n    Surely 'twas one fate did pair us,\n      Fellows for a common end.\n\n    From the crags I gaily greet you,\n    Running fast I come to meet you,\n      Dancing while you pipe and sing.\n    How you bound across the ocean,\n    Unimpeded, free in motion,\n      Swifter than with boat or wing!\n\n    Through my dreams your whistle sounded,\n    Down the rocky stairs I bounded\n      To the golden ocean wall;\n    Saw you hasten, swift and glorious,\n    Like a river, strong, victorious,\n      Tumbling in a waterfall.\n\n    Saw you rushing over Heaven,\n    With your steeds so wildly driven,\n      Saw the car in which you flew;\n    Saw the lash that wheeled and quivered,\n    While the hand that held it shivered,\n      Urging on the steeds anew.\n\n    Saw you from your chariot swinging,\n    So that swifter downward springing\n      Like an arrow you might go\n    Straight into the deep abysses,\n    As a sunbeam falls and kisses\n      Roses in the morning glow.\n\n    Dance, oh! dance on all the edges,\n    Wave-crests, cliffs and mountain ledges,\n      Ever finding dances new!\n    Let our knowledge be our gladness,\n    Let our art be sport and madness,\n      All that's joyful shall be true!\n\n    Let us snatch from every bower,\n    As we pass, the fairest flower,\n      With some leaves to make a crown;\n    Then, like minstrels gaily dancing,\n    Saint and witch together prancing,\n      Let us foot it up and down.\n\n    Those who come must move as; quickly\n    As the wind--we'll have no sickly,\n      Crippled, withered, in our crew.;\n    Off with hypocrites and preachers,\n    Proper folk and prosy teachers,\n      Sweep them from our heaven blue.\n\n    Sweep away all sad grimaces,\n    Whirl the dust into the faces\n      Of the dismal sick and cold!\n    Hunt them from our breezy places,\n    Not for them the wind that braces,\n      But for men of visage bold.\n\n    Off with those who spoil earth's gladness,\n    Blow away all clouds of sadness,\n      Till our heaven clear we see;\n    Let me hold thy hand, best fellow,\n    Till my joy like tempest bellow!\n      Freest thou of spirits free!\n\n    When thou partest, take a token\n    Of the joy thou hast awoken,\n      Take our wreath and fling it far;\n    Toss it up and catch it never,\n    Whirl it on before thee ever,\n      Till it reach the farthest star.\n\n\n[1] This poem is a parody of the \"Chorus Mysticus\" which concludes the\nsecond part of Goethe's \"Faust.\" Bayard Taylor's translation of the\npassage in \"Faust\" runs as follows:--\n\n    \"All things transitory\n    But as symbols are sent,\n    Earth's insufficiency\n    Here grows to Event:\n    The Indescribable\n    Here it is done:\n    The Woman-Soul leadeth us\n    Upward and on!\"\n\n[2] Translated by Miss M. D. Petre. Inserted by permission of the\neditor of the _Nation,_ in which it appeared on April 17, 1909.\n\n[3] Translated by Miss M. D. Petre. Inserted by permission of the\neditor of the _Nation,_ in which it appeared on May 15, 1909.","title":"The Joyful Wisdom (\"La Gaya Scienza\"): Complete Works, Volume Ten","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":84525}