{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_52319/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_52319","id":"gutenberg_52319","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52319","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Ethics"],"text":"THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS\n\nA POLEMIC\n\nBY\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\nTRANSLATED BY\n\nHORACE B. SAMUEL, M.A.\n\nPEOPLES AND COUNTRIES (FRAGMENT)\n\n\nT. N. FOULIS\n\n13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET\n\nEDINBURGH: AND LONDON\n\n1913\n\n\n\n\nEDITOR'S NOTE.\n\n\nIn 1887, with the view of amplifying and completing certain new\ndoctrines which he had merely sketched in _Beyond Good and Evil_\n(see especially aphorism 260), Nietzsche published _The Genealogy of\nMorals_. This work is perhaps the least aphoristic, in form, of all\nNietzsche's productions. For analytical power, more especially in those\nparts where Nietzsche examines the ascetic ideal, _The Genealogy of\nMorals_ is unequalled by any other of his works; and, in the light\nwhich it throws upon the attitude of the ecclesiast to the man of\nresentment and misfortune, it is one of the most valuable contributions\nto sacerdotal psychology.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nFIRST ESSAY. \"GOOD AND EVIL,\" \"GOOD AND BAD\"\n\nSECOND ESSAY. \"GUILT,\" \"BAD CONSCIENCE,\" AND THE LIKE\n\nTHIRD ESSAY. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ASCETIC IDEALS?\n\nPEOPLES AND COUNTRIES. Translated by J. M. Kennedy\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\n1.\n\nWe are unknown, we knowers, ourselves to ourselves: this has its own\ngood reason. We have never searched for ourselves--how should it then\ncome to pass, that we should ever _find_ ourselves? Rightly has it been\nsaid: \"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.\" _Our_\ntreasure is there, where stand the hives of our knowledge. It is to\nthose hives that we are always striving; as born creatures of flight,\nand as the honey-gatherers of the spirit, we care really in our hearts\nonly for one thing--to bring something \"home to the hive!\"\n\nAs far as the rest of life with its so-called \"experiences\" is\nconcerned, which of us has even sufficient serious interest? or\nsufficient time? In our dealings with such points of life, we are, I\nfear, never properly to the point; to be precise, our heart is not\nthere, and certainly not our ear. Rather like one who, delighting\nin a divine distraction, or sunken in the seas of his own soul, in\nwhose ear the clock has just thundered with all its force its twelve\nstrokes of noon, suddenly wakes up, and asks himself, \"What has in\npoint of fact just struck?\" so do we at times rub afterwards, as it\nwere, our puzzled ears, and ask in complete astonishment and complete\nembarrassment, \"Through what have we in point of fact just lived?\"\nfurther, \"Who are we in point of fact?\" and count, _after they have\nstruck_, as I have explained, all the twelve throbbing beats of the\nclock of our experience, of our life, of our being--ah!--and count\nwrong in the endeavour. Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves,\nwe understand ourselves not, in ourselves we are bound to be mistaken,\nfor of us holds good to all eternity the motto, \"Each one is the\nfarthest away from himself\"--as far as ourselves are concerned we are\nnot \"knowers.\"\n\n\n2.\n\nMy thoughts concerning the _genealogy_ of our moral prejudices--for\nthey constitute the issue in this polemic--have their first, bald,\nand provisional expression in that collection of aphorisms entitled\n_Human, all-too-Human, a Book for Free Minds_, the writing of which\nwas begun in Sorrento, during a winter which allowed me to gaze over\nthe broad and dangerous territory through which my mind had up to that\ntime wandered. This took place in the winter of 1876-77; the thoughts\nthemselves are older. They were in their substance already the same\nthoughts which I take up again in the following treatises:--we hope\nthat they have derived benefit from the long interval, that they have\ngrown riper, clearer, stronger, more complete. The fact, however,\nthat I still cling to them even now, that in the meanwhile they have\nalways held faster by each other, have, in fact, grown out of their\noriginal shape and into each other, all this strengthens in my mind the\njoyous confidence that they must have been originally neither separate\ndisconnected capricious nor sporadic phenomena, but have sprung from\na common root, from a fundamental \"_fiat_\" of knowledge, whose empire\nreached to the soul's depth, and that ever grew more definite in its\nvoice, and more definite in its demands. That is the only state of\naffairs that is proper in the case of a philosopher.\n\nWe have no right to be \"_disconnected_\"; we must neither err\n\"disconnectedly\" nor strike the truth \"disconnectedly.\" Rather with\nthe necessity with which a tree bears its fruit, so do our thoughts,\nour values, our Yes's and No's and If's and Whether's, grow connected\nand interrelated, mutual witnesses of _one_ will, _one_ health, _one_\nkingdom, _one_ sun--as to whether they are to _your_ taste, these\nfruits of ours?--But what matters that to the trees? What matters that\nto us, us the philosophers?\n\n\n3.\n\nOwing to a scrupulosity peculiar to myself, which I confess\nreluctantly,--it concerns indeed _morality_,--a scrupulosity, which\nmanifests itself in my life at such an early period, with so much\nspontaneity, with so chronic a persistence and so keen an opposition\nto environment, epoch, precedent, and ancestry that I should have\nbeen almost entitled to style it my \"_\u00e2 priori_\"--my curiosity and my\nsuspicion felt themselves betimes bound to halt at the question, of\nwhat in point of actual fact was the _origin_ of our \"Good\" and of\nour \"Evil.\" Indeed, at the boyish age of thirteen the problem of the\norigin of Evil already haunted me: at an age \"when games and God divide\none's heart,\" I devoted to that problem my first childish attempt\nat the literary game, my first philosophic essay--and as regards my\ninfantile solution of the problem, well, I gave quite properly the\nhonour to God, and made him the _father_ of evil. Did my own \"_\u00e2\npriori_\" demand that precise solution from me? that new, immoral, or\nat least \"amoral\" \"_\u00e2 priori_\" and that \"categorical imperative\" which\nwas its voice (but oh! how hostile to the Kantian article, and how\npregnant with problems!), to which since then I have given more and\nmore attention, and indeed what is more than attention. Fortunately\nI soon learned to separate theological from moral prejudices, and\nI gave up looking for a _supernatural_ origin of evil. A certain\namount of historical and philological education, to say nothing of\nan innate faculty of psychological discrimination _par excellence_\nsucceeded in transforming almost immediately my original problem into\nthe following one:--Under what conditions did Man invent for himself\nthose judgments of values, \"Good\" and \"Evil\"? _And what intrinsic value\ndo they possess in themselves?_ Have they up to the present hindered\nor advanced human well-being? Are they a symptom of the distress,\nimpoverishment, and degeneration of Human Life? Or, conversely, is\nit in them that is manifested the fulness, the strength, and the\nwill of Life, its courage, its self-confidence, its future? On this\npoint I found and hazarded in my mind the most diverse answers, I\nestablished distinctions in periods, peoples, and castes, I became a\nspecialist in my problem, and from my answers grew new questions, new\ninvestigations, new conjectures, new probabilities; until at last I had\na land of my own and a soil of my own, a whole secret world growing and\nflowering, like hidden gardens of whose existence no one could have an\ninkling--oh, how happy are we, we finders of knowledge, provided that\nwe know how to keep silent sufficiently long.\n\n\n4.\n\nMy first impulse to publish some of my hypotheses concerning the origin\nof morality I owe to a clear, well-written, and even precocious little\nbook, in which a perverse and vicious kind of moral philosophy (your\nreal English kind) was definitely presented to me for the first time;\nand this attracted me--with that magnetic attraction, inherent in that\nwhich is diametrically opposed and antithetical to one's own ideas.\nThe title of the book was _The Origin of the Moral Emotions_; its\nauthor, Dr. Paul R\u00e9e; the year of its appearance, 1877. I may almost\nsay that I have never read anything in which every single dogma and\nconclusion has called forth from me so emphatic a negation as did that\nbook; albeit a negation tainted by either pique or intolerance. I\nreferred accordingly both in season and out of season in the previous\nworks, at which I was then working, to the arguments of that book, not\nto refute them--for what have I got to do with mere refutations but\nsubstituting, as is natural to a positive mind, for an improbable\ntheory one which is more probable, and occasionally no doubt, for one\nphilosophic error, another. In that early period I gave, as I have\nsaid, the first public expression to those theories of origin to which\nthese essays are devoted, but with a clumsiness which I was the last\nto conceal from myself, for I was as yet cramped, being still without\na special language for these special subjects, still frequently liable\nto relapse and to vacillation. To go into details, compare what I say\nin _Human, all-too-Human_, part i., about the parallel early history\nof Good and Evil, Aph. 45 (namely, their origin from the castes of the\naristocrats and the slaves); similarly, Aph. 136 et seq., concerning\nthe birth and value of ascetic morality; similarly, Aphs. 96, 99,\nvol. ii., Aph. 89, concerning the Morality of Custom, that far older\nand more original kind of morality which is _toto c\u0153lo_ different\nfrom the altruistic ethics (in which Dr. R\u00e9e, like all the English\nmoral philosophers, sees the ethical \"Thing-in-itself\"); finally,\nAph. 92. Similarly, Aph. 26 in _Human, all-too-Human_, part ii., and\nAph. 112, the _Dawn of Day_, concerning the origin of Justice as a\nbalance between persons of approximately equal power (equilibrium as\nthe hypothesis of all contract, consequently of all law); similarly,\nconcerning the origin of Punishment, _Human, all-too-Human_, part\nii., Aphs. 22, 23, in regard to which the deterrent object is neither\nessential nor original (as Dr. R\u00e9e thinks:--rather is it that this\nobject is only imported, under certain definite conditions, and always\nas something extra and additional).\n\n\n5.\n\nIn reality I had set my heart at that time on something much more\nimportant than the nature of the theories of myself or others\nconcerning the origin of morality (or, more precisely, the real\nfunction from my view of these theories was to point an end to which\nthey were one among many means). The issue for me was the value\nof morality, and on that subject I had to place myself in a state\nof abstraction, in which I was almost alone with my great teacher\nSchopenhauer, to whom that book, with all its passion and inherent\ncontradiction (for that book also was a polemic), turned for present\nhelp as though he were still alive. The issue was, strangely enough,\nthe value of the \"un-egoistic\" instincts, the instincts of pity,\nself-denial, and self-sacrifice which Schopenhauer had so persistently\npainted in golden colours, deified and etherealised, that eventually\nthey appeared to him, as it were, high and dry, as \"intrinsic values\nin themselves,\" on the strength of which he uttered both to Life\nand to himself his own negation. But against _these very_ instincts\nthere voiced itself in my soul a more and more fundamental mistrust, a\nscepticism that dug ever deeper and deeper: and in this very instinct\nI saw the _great_ danger of mankind, its most sublime temptation and\nseduction--seduction to what? to nothingness?--in these very instincts\nI saw the beginning of the end, stability, the exhaustion that gazes\nbackwards, the will turning _against_ Life, the last illness announcing\nitself with its own mincing melancholy: I realised that the morality\nof pity which spread wider and wider, and whose grip infected even\nphilosophers with its disease, was the most sinister symptom of our\nmodern European civilisation; I realised that it was the route along\nwhich that civilisation slid on its way to--a new Buddhism?--a European\nBuddhism?--_Nihilism_? This exaggerated estimation in which modern\nphilosophers have held pity, is quite a new phenomenon: up to that time\nphilosophers were absolutely unanimous as to the worthlessness of pity.\nI need only mention Plato, Spinoza, La Rochefoucauld, and Kant--four\nminds as mutually different as is possible, but united on one point;\ntheir contempt of pity.\n\n\n6.\n\nThis problem of the value of pity and of the pity-morality (I am an\nopponent of the modern infamous emasculation of our emotions) seems at\nthe first blush a mere isolated problem, a note of interrogation for\nitself; he, however, who once halts at this problem, and learns how to\nput questions, will experience what I experienced:--a new and immense\nvista unfolds itself before him, a sense of potentiality seizes him\nlike a vertigo, every species of doubt, mistrust, and fear springs\nup, the belief in morality, nay, in all morality, totters,--finally a\nnew demand voices itself. Let us speak out this _new demand_: we need\na _critique_ of moral values, _the value of these values_ is for the\nfirst time to be called into question--and for this purpose a knowledge\nis necessary of the conditions and circumstances out of which these\nvalues grew, and under which they experienced their evolution and\ntheir distortion (morality as a result, as a symptom, as a mask, as\nTartuffism, as disease, as a misunderstanding; but also morality as a\ncause, as a remedy, as a stimulant, as a fetter, as a drug), especially\nas such a knowledge has neither existed up to the present time nor is\neven now generally desired. The value of these \"values\" was taken for\ngranted as an indisputable fact, which was beyond all question. No one\nhas, up to the present, exhibited the faintest doubt or hesitation in\njudging the \"good man\" to be of a higher value than the \"evil man,\" of\na higher value with regard specifically to human progress, utility,\nand prosperity generally, not forgetting the future. What? Suppose the\nconverse were the truth! What? Suppose there lurked in the \"good man\"\na symptom of retrogression, such as a danger, a temptation, a poison,\na _narcotic_, by means of which the present _battened on the future_!\nMore comfortable and less risky perhaps than its opposite, but also\npettier, meaner! So that morality would really be saddled with the\nguilt, if the _maximum potentiality of the power and splendour_ of the\nhuman species were never to be attained? So that really morality would\nbe the danger of dangers?\n\n\n7.\n\nEnough, that after this vista had disclosed itself to me, I myself had\nreason to search for learned, bold, and industrious colleagues (I am\ndoing it even to this very day). It means traversing with new clamorous\nquestions, and at the same time with new eyes, the immense, distant,\nand completely unexplored land of morality--of a morality which has\nactually existed and been actually lived! and is this not practically\nequivalent to first _discovering_ that land? If, in this context, I\nthought, amongst others, of the aforesaid Dr. R\u00e9e, I did so because I\nhad no doubt that from the very nature of his questions he would be\ncompelled to have recourse to a truer method, in order to obtain his\nanswers. Have I deceived myself on that score? I wished at all events\nto give a better direction of vision to an eye of such keenness, and\nsuch impartiality. I wished to direct him to the real _history of\nmorality_, and to warn him, while there was yet time, against a world\nof English theories that culminated in _the blue vacuum of heaven_.\nOther colours, of course, rise immediately to one's mind as being a\nhundred times more potent than blue for a genealogy of morals:--for\ninstance, grey, by which I mean authentic facts capable of definite\nproof and having actually existed, or, to put it shortly, the whole\nof that long hieroglyphic script (which is so hard to decipher) about\nthe past history of human morals. This script was unknown to Dr. R\u00e9e;\nbut he had read Darwin:--and so in his philosophy the Darwinian beast\nand that pink of modernity, the demure weakling and dilettante, who\n\"bites no longer,\" shake hands politely in a fashion that is at least\ninstructive, the latter exhibiting a certain facial expression of\nrefined and good-humoured indolence, tinged with a touch of pessimism\nand exhaustion; as if it really did not pay to take all these things--I\nmean moral problems--so seriously. I, on the other hand, think that\nthere are no subjects which pay better for being taken seriously; part\nof this payment is, that perhaps eventually they admit of being taken\ngaily. This gaiety indeed, or, to use my own language, this joyful\nwisdom, is a payment; a payment for a protracted, brave, laborious, and\nburrowing seriousness, which, it goes without saying, is the attribute\nof but a few. But on that day on which we say from the fullness of our\nhearts, \"Forward! our old morality too is fit material for Comedy,\"\nwe shall have discovered a new plot, and a new possibility for the\nDionysian drama entitled The Soul's Fate--and he will speedily utilise\nit, one can wager safely, he, the great ancient eternal dramatist of\nthe comedy of our existence.\n\n\n8.\n\nIf this writing be obscure to any individual, and jar on his ears, I\ndo not think that it is necessarily I who am to blame. It is clear\nenough, on the hypothesis which I presuppose, namely, that the reader\nhas first read my previous writings and has not grudged them a certain\namount of trouble: it is not, indeed, a simple matter to get really at\ntheir essence. Take, for instance, my _Zarathustra_; I allow no one\nto pass muster as knowing that book, unless every single word therein\nhas at some time wrought in him a profound wound, and at some time\nexercised on him a profound enchantment: then and not till then can he\nenjoy the privilege of participating reverently in the halcyon element,\nfrom which that work is born, in its sunny brilliance, its distance,\nits spaciousness, its certainty. In other cases the aphoristic form\nproduces difficulty, but this is only because this form is treated\n_too casually_. An aphorism properly coined and cast into its final\nmould is far from being \"deciphered\" as soon as it has been read; on\nthe contrary, it is then that it first requires _to be expounded_--of\ncourse for that purpose an art of exposition is necessary. The third\nessay in this book provides an example of what is offered, of what in\nsuch cases I call exposition: an aphorism is prefixed to that essay,\nthe essay itself is its commentary. Certainly one _quality_ which\nnowadays has been best forgotten--and that is why it will take some\ntime yet for my writings to become readable--is essential in order\nto practise reading as an art--a quality for the exercise of which it\nis necessary to be a cow, and under no circumstances a modern man!--\nrumination.\n\nSils-Maria, Upper Engadine, July 1887.\n\n\n\n\nFIRST ESSAY. \"GOOD AND EVIL,\" \"GOOD AND BAD.\"\n\n\n1.\n\nThose English psychologists, who up to the present are the only\nphilosophers who are to be thanked for any endeavour to get as far\nas a history of the origin of morality--these men, I say, offer us\nin their own personalities no paltry problem;--they even have, if I\nam to be quite frank about it, in their capacity of living riddles,\nan advantage over their books--_they themselves are interesting!_\nThese English psychologists--what do they really mean? We always\nfind them voluntarily or involuntarily at the same task of pushing\nto the front the _partie honteuse_ of our inner world, and looking\nfor the efficient, governing, and decisive principle in that precise\nquarter where the intellectual self-respect of the race would be\nthe most reluctant to find it (for example, in the _vis inerti\u00e6_ of\nhabit, or in forgetfulness, or in a blind and fortuitous mechanism\nand association of ideas, or in some factor that is purely passive,\nreflex, molecular, or fundamentally stupid)--what is the real motive\npower which always impels these psychologists in precisely _this_\ndirection? Is it an instinct for human disparagement somewhat sinister,\nvulgar, and malignant, or perhaps incomprehensible even to itself? or\nperhaps a touch of pessimistic jealousy, the mistrust of disillusioned\nidealists who have become gloomy, poisoned, and bitter? or a petty\nsubconscious enmity and rancour against Christianity (and Plato), that\nhas conceivably never crossed the threshold of consciousness? or just a\nvicious taste for those elements of life which are bizarre, painfully\nparadoxical, mystical, and illogical? or, as a final alternative, a\ndash of each of these motives--a little vulgarity, a little gloominess,\na little anti-Christianity, a little craving for the necessary piquancy?\n\nBut I am told that it is simply a case of old frigid and tedious frogs\ncrawling and hopping around men and inside men, as if they were as\nthoroughly at home there, as they would be in a _swamp_.\n\nI am opposed to this statement, nay, I do not believe it; and if, in\nthe impossibility of knowledge, one is permitted to wish, so do I wish\nfrom my heart that just the converse metaphor should apply, and that\nthese analysts with their psychological microscopes should be, at\nbottom, brave, proud, and magnanimous animals who know how to bridle\nboth their hearts and their smarts, and have specifically trained\nthemselves to sacrifice what is desirable to what is true, any truth\nin fact, even the simple, bitter, ugly, repulsive, unchristian, and\nimmoral truths--for there are truths of that description.\n\n\n2.\n\nAll honour, then, to the noble spirits who would fain dominate these\nhistorians of morality. But it is certainly a pity that they lack the\n_historical sense_ itself, that they themselves are quite deserted\nby all the beneficent spirits of history. The whole train of their\nthought runs, as was always the way of old-fashioned philosophers, on\nthoroughly unhistorical lines: there is no doubt on this point. The\ncrass ineptitude of their genealogy of morals is immediately apparent\nwhen the question arises of ascertaining the origin of the idea and\njudgment of \"good.\" \"Man had originally,\" so speaks their decree,\n\"praised and called 'good' altruistic acts from the standpoint of\nthose on whom they were conferred, that is, those to whom they were\n_useful_; subsequently the origin of this praise was _forgotten_, and\naltruistic acts, simply because, as a sheer matter of habit, they were\npraised as good, came also to be felt as good--as though they contained\nin themselves some intrinsic goodness.\" The thing is obvious:--this\ninitial derivation contains already all the typical and idiosyncratic\ntraits of the English psychologists--we have \"utility,\" \"forgetting,\"\n\"habit,\" and finally \"error,\" the whole assemblage forming the basis\nof a system of values, on which the higher man has up to the present\nprided himself as though it were a kind of privilege of man in general.\nThis pride _must_ be brought low, this system of values _must_ lose its\nvalues: is that attained?\n\nNow the first argument that comes ready to my hand is that the real\nhomestead of the concept \"good\" is sought and located in the wrong\nplace: the judgment \"good\" did not originate among those to whom\ngoodness was shown. Much rather has it been the good themselves,\nthat is, the aristocratic, the powerful, the high-stationed, the\nhigh-minded, who have felt that they themselves were good, and that\ntheir actions were good, that is to say of the first order, in\ncontradistinction to all the low, the low-minded, the vulgar, and\nthe plebeian. It was out of this pathos of distance that they first\narrogated the right to create values for their own profit, and to\ncoin the names of such values: what had they to do with utility? The\nstandpoint of utility is as alien and as inapplicable as it could\npossibly be, when we have to deal with so volcanic an effervescence of\nsupreme values, creating and demarcating as they do a hierarchy within\nthemselves: it is at this juncture that one arrives at an appreciation\nof the contrast to that tepid temperature, which is the presupposition\non which every combination of worldly wisdom and every calculation of\npractical expediency is always based--and not for one occasional, not\nfor one exceptional instance, but chronically. The pathos of nobility\nand distance, as I have said, the chronic and despotic _esprit de\ncorps_ and fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race coming into\nassociation with a meaner race, an \"under race,\" this is the origin of\nthe antithesis of good and bad.\n\n(The masters' right of giving names goes so far that it is permissible\nto look upon language itself as the expression of the power of the\nmasters: they say \"this _is_ that, and that,\" they seal finally every\nobject and every event with a sound, and thereby at the same time take\npossession of it.) It is because of this origin that the word \"good\"\nis far from having any necessary connection with altruistic acts, in\naccordance with the superstitious belief of these moral philosophers.\nOn the contrary, it is on the occasion of the _decay_ of aristocratic\nvalues, that the antitheses between \"egoistic\" and \"altruistic\"\npresses more and more heavily on the human conscience--it is, to use\nmy own language, the _herd instinct_ which finds in this antithesis an\nexpression in many ways. And even then it takes a considerable time\nfor this instinct to become sufficiently dominant, for the valuation\nto be inextricably dependent on this antithesis (as is the case in\ncontemporary Europe); for to-day that prejudice is predominant, which,\nacting even now with all the intensity of an obsession and brain\ndisease, holds that \"moral,\" \"altruistic,\" and \"_d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9_\" are\nconcepts of equal value.\n\n\n3.\n\nIn the second place, quite apart from the fact that this hypothesis as\nto the genesis of the value \"good\" cannot be historically upheld, it\nsuffers from an inherent psychological contradiction. The utility of\naltruistic conduct has presumably been the origin of its being praised,\nand this origin has become _forgotten_:--But in what conceivable way is\nthis forgetting _possible_! Has perchance the utility of such conduct\nceased at some given moment? The contrary is the case. This utility has\nrather been experienced every day at all times, and is consequently\na feature that obtains a new and regular emphasis with every fresh\nday; it follows that, so far from vanishing from the consciousness, so\nfar indeed from being forgotten, it must necessarily become impressed\non the consciousness with ever-increasing distinctness. How much\nmore logical is that contrary theory (it is not the truer for that)\nwhich is represented, for instance, by Herbert Spencer, who places\nthe concept \"good\" as essentially similar to the concept \"useful,\"\n\"purposive,\" so that in the judgments \"good\" and \"bad\" mankind is\nsimply summarising and investing with a sanction its _unforgotten_ and\n_unforgettable_ experiences concerning the \"useful-purposive\" and the\n\"mischievous-non-purposive.\" According to this theory, \"good\" is the\nattribute of that which has previously shown itself useful; and so\nis able to claim to be considered \"valuable in the highest degree,\"\n\"valuable in itself.\" This method of explanation is also, as I have\nsaid, wrong, but at any rate the explanation itself is coherent, and\npsychologically tenable.\n\n\n4.\n\nThe guide-post which first put me on the right track was this\nquestion--what is the true etymological significance of the various\nsymbols for the idea \"good\" which have been coined in the various\nlanguages? I then found that they all led back to _the same evolution\nof the same idea_--that everywhere \"aristocrat,\" \"noble\" (in the\nsocial sense), is the root idea, out of which have necessarily\ndeveloped \"good\" in the sense of \"with aristocratic soul,\" \"noble,\"\nin the sense of \"with a soul of high calibre,\" \"with a privileged\nsoul\"--a development which invariably runs parallel with that other\nevolution by which \"vulgar,\" \"plebeian,\" \"low,\" are made to change\nfinally into \"bad.\" The most eloquent proof of this last contention\nis the German word \"_schlecht_\" itself: this word is identical with\n\"_schlicht_\"--(compare \"_schlechtweg_\" and \"_schlechterdings_\")--which,\noriginally and as yet without any sinister innuendo, simply denoted\nthe plebeian man in contrast to the aristocratic man. It is at the\nsufficiently late period of the Thirty Years' War that this sense\nbecomes changed to the sense now current. From the standpoint of\nthe Genealogy of Morals this discovery seems to be substantial: the\nlateness of it is to be attributed to the retarding influence exercised\nin the modern world by democratic prejudice in the sphere of all\nquestions of origin. This extends, as will shortly be shown, even to\nthe province of natural science and physiology, which, _prima facie_\nis the most objective. The extent of the mischief which is caused by\nthis prejudice (once it is free of all trammels except those of its own\nmalice), particularly to Ethics and History, is shown by the notorious\ncase of Buckle: it was in Buckle that that _plebeianism_ of the modern\nspirit, which is of English origin, broke out once again from its\nmalignant soil with all the violence of a slimy volcano, and with that\nsalted, rampant, and vulgar eloquence with which up to the present time\nall volcanoes have spoken.\n\n\n5.\n\nWith regard to our problem, which can justly be called an intimate\nproblem, and which elects to appeal to only a limited number of ears:\nit is of no small interest to ascertain that in those words and roots\nwhich denote \"good\" we catch glimpses of that arch-trait, on the\nstrength of which the aristocrats feel themselves to be beings of\na higher order than their fellows. Indeed, they call themselves in\nperhaps the most frequent instances simply after their superiority\nin power (_e.g._ \"the powerful,\" \"the lords,\" \"the commanders\"), or\nafter the most obvious sign of their superiority, as for example\n\"the rich,\" \"the possessors\" (that is the meaning of _arya_; and the\nIranian and Slav languages correspond). But they also call themselves\nafter some _characteristic idiosyncrasy_; and this is the case which\nnow concerns us. They name themselves, for instance, \"the truthful\":\nthis is first done by the Greek nobility whose mouthpiece is found in\nTheognis, the Megarian poet. The word \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, which is coined for the\npurpose, signifies etymologically \"one who _is_,\" who has reality, who\nis real, who is true; and then with a subjective twist, the \"true,\"\nas the \"truthful\": at this stage in the evolution of the idea, it\nbecomes the motto and party cry of the nobility, and quite completes\nthe transition to the meaning \"noble,\" so as to place outside the pale\nthe lying, vulgar man, as Theognis conceives and portrays him--till\nfinally the word after the decay of the nobility is left to delineate\npsychological _noblesse_, and becomes as it were ripe and mellow. In\nthe word \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 as in \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2 (the plebeian in contrast to the \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2)\nthe cowardice is emphasised. This affords perhaps an inkling on what\nlines the etymological origin of the very ambiguous \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2 is to be\ninvestigated. In the Latin _malus_ (which I place side by side with\n\u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03c2) the vulgar man can be distinguished as the dark-coloured, and\nabove all as the black-haired (\"_hic niger est_\"), as the pre-Aryan\ninhabitants of the Italian soil, whose complexion formed the clearest\nfeature of distinction from the dominant blondes, namely, the Aryan\nconquering race:--at any rate Gaelic has afforded me the exact\nanalogue--_Fin_ (for instance, in the name Fin-Gal), the distinctive\nword of the nobility, finally--good, noble, clean, but originally the\nblonde-haired man in contrast to the dark black-haired aboriginals. The\nCelts, if I may make a parenthetic statement, were throughout a blonde\nrace; and it is wrong to connect, as Virchow still connects, those\ntraces of an essentially dark-haired population which are to be seen\non the more elaborate ethnographical maps of Germany with any Celtic\nancestry or with any admixture of Celtic blood: in this context it is\nrather the _pre-Aryan_ population of Germany which surges up to these\ndistricts. (The same is true substantially of the whole of Europe: in\npoint of fact, the subject race has finally again obtained the upper\nhand, in complexion and the shortness of the skull, and perhaps in\nthe intellectual and social qualities. Who can guarantee that modern\ndemocracy, still more modern anarchy, and indeed that tendency to the\n\"Commune,\" the most primitive form of society, which is now common to\nall the Socialists in Europe, does not in its real essence signify a\nmonstrous reversion--and that the conquering and _master_ race--the\nAryan race, is not also becoming inferior physiologically?) I believe\nthat I can explain the Latin _bonus_ as the \"warrior\": my hypothesis\nis that I am right in deriving _bonus_ from an older _duonus_ (compare\n_bellum_ = _duellum_ = _duen-lum_, in which the word _duonus_ appears\nto me to be contained). Bonus accordingly as the man of discord, of\nvariance, \"entzweiung\" (_duo_), as the warrior: one sees what in\nancient Rome \"the good\" meant for a man. Must not our actual German\nword _gut_ mean \"_the godlike_, the man of godlike race\"? and be\nidentical with the national name (originally the nobles' name) of the\n_Goths_?\n\nThe grounds for this supposition do not appertain to this work.\n\n\n6.\n\nAbove all, there is no exception (though there are opportunities for\nexceptions) to this rule, that the idea of political superiority\nalways resolves itself into the idea of psychological superiority, in\nthose cases where the highest caste is at the same time the _priestly_\ncaste, and in accordance with its general characteristics confers on\nitself the privilege of a title which alludes specifically to its\npriestly function. It is in these cases, for instance, that \"clean\" and\n\"unclean\" confront each other for the first time as badges of class\ndistinction; here again there develops a \"good\" and a \"bad,\" in a sense\nwhich has ceased to be merely social. Moreover, care should be taken\nnot to take these ideas of \"clean\" and \"unclean\" too seriously, too\nbroadly, or too symbolically: all the ideas of ancient man have, on\nthe contrary, got to be understood in their initial stages, in a sense\nwhich is, to an almost inconceivable extent, crude, coarse, physical,\nand narrow, and above all essentially unsymbolical. The \"clean man\" is\noriginally only a man who washes himself, who abstains from certain\nfoods which are conducive to skin diseases, who does not sleep with\nthe unclean women of the lower classes, who has a horror of blood--not\nmore, not much more! On the other hand, the very nature of a priestly\naristocracy shows the reasons why just at such an early juncture\nthere should ensue a really dangerous sharpening and intensification\nof opposed values: it is, in fact, through these opposed values that\ngulfs are cleft in the social plane, which a veritable Achilles of\nfree thought would shudder to cross. There is from the outset a\ncertain _diseased taint_ in such sacerdotal aristocracies, and in the\nhabits which prevail in such societies--habits which, _averse_ as they\nare to action, constitute a compound of introspection and explosive\nemotionalism, as a result of which there appears that introspective\nmorbidity and neurasthenia, which adheres almost inevitably to all\npriests at all times: with regard, however, to the remedy which they\nthemselves have invented for this disease--the philosopher has no\noption but to state, that it has proved itself in its effects a hundred\ntimes more dangerous than the disease, from which it should have been\nthe deliverer. Humanity itself is still diseased from the effects of\nthe na\u00efvet\u00e9s of this priestly cure. Take, for instance, certain kinds\nof diet (abstention from flesh), fasts, sexual continence, flight\ninto the wilderness (a kind of Weir-Mitchell isolation, though of\ncourse without that system of excessive feeding and fattening which\nis the most efficient antidote to all the hysteria of the ascetic\nideal); consider too the whole metaphysic of the priests, with its\nwar on the senses, its enervation, its hair-splitting; consider its\nself-hypnotism on the fakir and Brahman principles (it uses Brahman as\na glass disc and obsession), and that climax which we can understand\nonly too well of an unusual satiety with its panacea of _nothingness_\n(or God:--the demand for a _unio mystica_ with God is the demand of the\nBuddhist for nothingness, Nirvana--and nothing else!). In sacerdotal\nsocieties _every_ element is on a more dangerous scale, not merely\ncures and remedies, but also pride, revenge, cunning, exaltation, love,\nambition, virtue, morbidity:--further, it can fairly be stated that it\nis on the soil of this _essentially dangerous_ form of human society,\nthe sacerdotal form, that man really becomes for the first time an\n_interesting animal_, that it is in this form that the soul of man has\nin a higher sense attained _depths_ and become _evil_--and those are\nthe two fundamental forms of the superiority which up to the present\nman has exhibited over every other animal.\n\n\n7.\n\nThe reader will have already surmised with what ease the priestly mode\nof valuation can branch off from the knightly aristocratic mode, and\nthen develop into the very antithesis of the latter: special impetus\nis given to this opposition, by every occasion when the castes of the\npriests and warriors confront each other with mutual jealousy and\ncannot agree over the prize. The knightly-aristocratic \"values\" are\nbased on a careful cult of the physical, on a flowering, rich, and\neven effervescing healthiness, that goes considerably beyond what\nis necessary for maintaining life, on war, adventure, the chase,\nthe dance, the tourney--on everything, in fact, which is contained\nin strong, free, and joyous action. The priestly-aristocratic mode\nof valuation is--we have seen--based on other hypotheses: it is bad\nenough for this class when it is a question of war! Yet the priests\nare, as is notorious, _the worst enemies_--why? Because they are the\nweakest. Their weakness causes their hate to expand into a monstrous\nand sinister shape, a shape which is most crafty and most poisonous.\nThe really great haters in the history of the world have always been\npriests, who are also the cleverest haters--in comparison with the\ncleverness of priestly revenge, every other piece of cleverness is\npractically negligible. Human history would be too fatuous for anything\nwere it not for the cleverness imported into it by the weak--take at\nonce the most important instance. All the world's efforts against the\n\"aristocrats,\" the \"mighty,\" the \"masters,\" the \"holders of power,\"\nare negligible by comparison with what has been accomplished against\nthose classes by _the Jews_--the Jews, that priestly nation which\neventually realised that the one method of effecting satisfaction on\nits enemies and tyrants was by means of a radical transvaluation of\nvalues, which was at the same time an act of the _cleverest revenge_.\nYet the method was only appropriate to a nation of priests, to a nation\nof the most jealously nursed priestly revengefulness. It was the Jews\nwho, in opposition to the aristocratic equation (good = aristocratic\n= beautiful = happy = loved by the gods), dared with a terrifying\nlogic to suggest the contrary equation, and indeed to maintain with\nthe teeth of the most profound hatred (the hatred of weakness) this\ncontrary equation, namely, \"the wretched are alone the good; the poor,\nthe weak, the lowly, are alone the good; the suffering, the needy, the\nsick, the loathsome, are the only ones who are pious, the only ones\nwho are blessed, for them alone is salvation--but you, on the other\nhand, you aristocrats, you men of power, you are to all eternity the\nevil, the horrible, the covetous, the insatiate, the godless; eternally\nalso shall you be the unblessed, the cursed, the damned!\" We know who\nit was who reaped the heritage of this Jewish transvaluation. In the\ncontext of the monstrous and inordinately fateful initiative which\nthe Jews have exhibited in connection with this most fundamental of\nall declarations of war, I remember the passage which came to my pen\non another occasion (_Beyond Good and Evil_, Aph. 195)--that it was,\nin fact, with the Jews that the _revolt of the slaves_ begins in the\nsphere _of morals_; that revolt which has behind it a history of two\nmillennia, and which at the present day has only moved out of our\nsight, because it--has achieved victory.\n\n\n8.\n\nBut you understand this not? You have no eyes for a force which\nhas taken two thousand years to achieve victory?--There is nothing\nwonderful in this: all _lengthy_ processes are hard to see and to\nrealise. But _this_ is what took place: from the trunk of that tree\nof revenge and hate, Jewish hate,--that most profound and sublime\nhate, which creates ideals and changes old values to new creations,\nthe like of which has never been on earth,--there grew a phenomenon\nwhich was equally incomparable, _a new love_, the most profound and\nsublime of all kinds of love;--and from what other trunk could it have\ngrown? But beware of supposing that this love has soared on its upward\ngrowth, as in any way a real negation of that thirst for revenge, as\nan antithesis to the Jewish hate! No, the contrary is the truth! This\nlove grew out of that hate, as its crown, as its triumphant crown,\ncircling wider and wider amid the clarity and fulness of the sun, and\npursuing in the very kingdom of light and height its goal of hatred,\nits victory, its spoil, its strategy, with the same intensity with\nwhich the roots of that tree of hate sank into everything which was\ndeep and evil with increasing stability and increasing desire. This\nJesus of Nazareth, the incarnate gospel of love, this \"Redeemer\"\nbringing salvation and victory to the poor, the sick, the sinful--was\nhe not really temptation in its most sinister and irresistible form,\ntemptation to take the tortuous path to those very _Jewish_ values and\nthose very Jewish ideals? Has not Israel really obtained the final goal\nof its sublime revenge, by the tortuous paths of this \"Redeemer,\" for\nall that he might pose as Israel's adversary and Israel's destroyer? Is\nit not due to the black magic of a really _great_ policy of revenge,\nof a far-seeing, burrowing revenge, both acting and calculating with\nslowness, that Israel himself must repudiate before all the world the\nactual instrument of his own revenge and nail it to the cross, so\nthat all the world--that is, all the enemies of Israel--could nibble\nwithout suspicion at this very bait? Could, moreover, any human mind\nwith all its elaborate ingenuity invent a bait that was more truly\n_dangerous_? Anything that was even equivalent in the power of its\nseductive, intoxicating, defiling, and corrupting influence to that\nsymbol of the holy cross, to that awful paradox of a \"god on the\ncross,\" to that mystery of the unthinkable, supreme, and utter horror\nof the self-crucifixion of a god for the _salvation of man_? It is\nat least certain that _sub hoc signo_ Israel, with its revenge and\ntransvaluation of all values, has up to the present always triumphed\nagain over all other ideals, over all more aristocratic ideals.\n\n\n9.\n\n\"But why do you talk of nobler ideals? Let us submit to the facts;\nthat the people have triumphed--or the slaves, or the populace, or the\nherd, or whatever name you care to give them--if this has happened\nthrough the Jews, so be it! In that case no nation ever had a greater\nmission in the world's history. The 'masters' have been done away\nwith; the morality of the vulgar man has triumphed. This triumph may\nalso be called a blood-poisoning (it has mutually fused the races)--I\ndo not dispute it; but there is no doubt but that this intoxication\nhas succeeded. The 'redemption' of the human race (that is, from the\nmasters) is progressing swimmingly; everything is obviously becoming\nJudaised, or Christianised, or vulgarised (what is there in the\nwords?). It seems impossible to stop the course of this poisoning\nthrough the whole body politic of mankind--but its _tempo_ and pace\nmay from the present time be slower, more delicate, quieter, more\ndiscreet--there is time enough. In view of this context has the Church\nnowadays any necessary purpose? has it, in fact, a right to live? Or\ncould man get on without it? _Qu\u00e6ritur_. It seems that it fetters and\nretards this tendency, instead of accelerating it. Well, even that\nmight be its utility. The Church certainly is a crude and boorish\ninstitution, that is repugnant to an intelligence with any pretence at\ndelicacy, to a really modern taste. Should it not at any rate learn to\nbe somewhat more subtle? It alienates nowadays, more than it allures.\nWhich of us would, forsooth, be a freethinker if there were no Church?\nIt is the Church which repels us, not its poison--apart from the Church\nwe like the poison.\" This is the epilogue of a freethinker to my\ndiscourse, of an honourable animal (as he has given abundant proof),\nand a democrat to boot; he had up to that time listened to me, and\ncould not endure my silence, but for me, indeed, with regard to this\ntopic there is much on which to be silent.\n\n\n10.\n\nThe revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of\n_resentment_ becoming creative and giving birth to values--a resentment\nexperienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet\nof action, are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary\nrevenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant\naffirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says \"no\" from the\nvery outset to what is \"outside itself,\" \"different from itself,\" and\n\"not itself\": and this \"no\" is its creative deed. This volte-face of\nthe valuing standpoint--this _inevitable_ gravitation to the objective\ninstead of back to the subjective--is typical of \"resentment\": the\nslave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an external\nand objective world, to employ physiological terminology, it requires\nobjective stimuli to be capable of action at all--its action is\nfundamentally a reaction. The contrary is the case when we come to\nthe aristocrat's system of values: it acts and grows spontaneously,\nit merely seeks its antithesis in order to pronounce a more grateful\nand exultant \"yes\" to its own self;--its negative conception, \"low,\"\n\"vulgar,\" \"bad,\" is merely a pale late-born foil in comparison with its\npositive and fundamental conception (saturated as it is with life and\npassion), of \"we aristocrats, we good ones, we beautiful ones, we happy\nones.\"\n\nWhen the aristocratic morality goes astray and commits sacrilege on\nreality, this is limited to that particular sphere with which it\nis _not_ sufficiently acquainted--a sphere, in fact, from the real\nknowledge of which it disdainfully defends itself. It misjudges, in\nsome cases, the sphere which it despises, the sphere of the common\nvulgar man and the low people: on the other hand, due weight should be\ngiven to the consideration that in any case the mood of contempt, of\ndisdain, of superciliousness, even on the supposition that it _falsely_\nportrays the object of its contempt, will always be far removed from\nthat degree of falsity which will always characterise the attacks--in\neffigy, of course--of the vindictive hatred and revengefulness of\nthe weak in onslaughts on their enemies. In point of fact, there is\nin contempt too strong an admixture of nonchalance, of casualness,\nof boredom, of impatience, even of personal exultation, for it to be\ncapable of distorting its victim into a real caricature or a real\nmonstrosity. Attention again should be paid to the almost benevolent\n_nuances_ which, for instance, the Greek nobility imports into all\nthe words by which it distinguishes the common people from itself;\nnote how continuously a kind of pity, care, and consideration imparts\nits honeyed _flavour_, until at last almost all the words which are\napplied to the vulgar man survive finally as expressions for \"unhappy,\"\n\"worthy of pity\" (compare \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf, \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03bc\u03bf\u03c7\u03b8\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2]; the\nlatter two names really denoting the vulgar man as labour-slave\nand beast of burden)--and how, conversely, \"bad,\" \"low,\" \"unhappy\"\nhave never ceased to ring in the Greek ear with a tone in which\n\"unhappy\" is the predominant note: this is a heritage of the old noble\naristocratic morality, which remains true to itself even in contempt\n(let philologists remember the sense in which \u1f40\u03b9\u03b6\u03c5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u1f04\u03bd\u03bf\u03bb\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bb\u03ae\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd,\n\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd1\u03bd, \u03be\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ac used to be employed). The \"well-born\" simply\n_felt_ themselves the \"happy\"; they did not have to manufacture their\nhappiness artificially through looking at their enemies, or in cases\nto talk and _lie themselves_ into happiness (as is the custom with all\nresentful men); and similarly, complete men as they were, exuberant\nwith strength, and consequently _necessarily_ energetic, they were too\nwise to dissociate happiness from action--activity becomes in their\nminds necessarily counted as happiness (that is the etymology of \u03b5\u1f56\n\u03c0\u03c1\u1f06\u03c4\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd)--all in sharp contrast to the \"happiness\" of the weak and\nthe oppressed, with their festering venom and malignity, among whom\nhappiness appears essentially as a narcotic, a deadening, a quietude,\na peace, a \"Sabbath,\" an enervation of the mind and relaxation\nof the limbs,--in short, a purely _passive_ phenomenon. While the\naristocratic man lived in confidence and openness with himself\n(gennaios, \"noble-born,\" emphasises the nuance \"sincere,\" and perhaps\nalso \"na\u00eff\"), the resentful man, on the other hand, is neither sincere\nnor na\u00eff, nor honest and candid with himself. His soul _squints_; his\nmind loves hidden crannies, tortuous paths and back-doors, everything\nsecret appeals to him as _his_ world, _his_ safety, _his_ balm; he is\npast master in silence, in not forgetting, in waiting, in provisional\nself-depreciation and self-abasement. A race of such _resentful_ men\nwill of necessity eventually prove more _prudent_ than any aristocratic\nrace, it will honour prudence on quite a distinct scale, as, in fact, a\nparamount condition of existence, while prudence among aristocratic men\nis apt to be tinged with a delicate flavour of luxury and refinement;\nso among them it plays nothing like so integral a part as that complete\ncertainty of function of the governing _unconscious_ instincts, or\nas indeed a certain lack of prudence, such as a vehement and valiant\ncharge, whether against danger or the enemy, or as those ecstatic\nbursts of rage, love, reverence, gratitude, by which at all times\nnoble souls have recognised each other. When the resentment of the\naristocratic man manifests itself, it fulfils and exhausts itself in\nan immediate reaction, and consequently instills no _venom_: on the\nother hand, it never manifests itself at all in countless instances,\nwhen in the case of the feeble and weak it would be inevitable. An\ninability to take seriously for any length of time their enemies,\ntheir disasters, their _misdeeds_--that is the sign of the full strong\nnatures who possess a superfluity of moulding plastic force, that\nheals completely and produces forgetfulness: a good example of this in\nthe modern world is Mirabeau, who had no memory for any insults and\nmeannesses which were practised on him, and who was only incapable\nof forgiving because he forgot. Such a man indeed shakes off with a\nshrug many a worm which would have buried itself in another; it is\nonly in characters like these that we see the possibility (supposing,\nof course, that there is such a possibility in the world) of the real\n\"_love_ of one's enemies.\" What respect for his enemies is found,\nforsooth, in an aristocratic man--and such a reverence is already\na bridge to love! He insists on having his enemy to himself as his\ndistinction. He tolerates no other enemy but a man in whose character\nthere is nothing to despise and much to honour! On the other hand,\nimagine the \"enemy\" as the resentful man conceives him--and it is here\nexactly that we see his work, his creativeness; he has conceived \"the\nevil enemy,\" the \"evil one,\" and indeed that is the root idea from\nwhich he now evolves as a contrasting and corresponding figure a \"good\none,\" himself--his very self!\n\n\n11\n\nThe method of this man is quite contrary to that of the aristocratic\nman, who conceives the root idea \"good\" spontaneously and straight\naway, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material then\ncreates for himself a concept of \"bad\"! This \"bad\" of aristocratic\norigin and that \"evil\" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred--the\nformer an imitation, an \"extra,\" an additional nuance; the latter,\non the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in\nthe conception of a slave-morality--these two words \"bad\" and \"evil,\"\nhow great a difference do they mark, in spite of the fact that they\nhave an identical contrary in the idea \"good.\" But the idea \"good\" is\nnot the same: much rather let the question be asked, \"Who is really\nevil according to the meaning of the morality of resentment?\" In\nall sternness let it be answered thus:--_just_ the good man of the\nother morality, just the aristocrat, the powerful one, the one who\nrules, but who is distorted by the venomous eye of resentfulness,\ninto a new colour, a new signification, a new appearance. This\nparticular point we would be the last to deny: the man who learnt to\nknow those \"good\" ones only as enemies, learnt at the same time not\nto know them only as \"_evil enemies_\" and the same men who _inter\npares_ were kept so rigorously in bounds through convention, respect,\ncustom, and gratitude, though much more through mutual vigilance\nand jealousy _inter pares_, these men who in their relations with\neach other find so many new ways of manifesting consideration,\nself-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride, and friendship, these men\nare in reference to what is outside their circle (where the foreign\nelement, a _foreign_ country, begins), not much better than beasts\nof prey, which have been let loose. They enjoy there freedom from\nall social control, they feel that in the wilderness they can give\nvent with impunity to that tension which is produced by enclosure and\nimprisonment in the peace of society, they _revert_ to the innocence\nof the beast-of-prey conscience, like jubilant monsters, who perhaps\ncome from a ghastly bout of murder, arson, rape, and torture, with\nbravado and a moral equanimity, as though merely some wild student's\nprank had been played, perfectly convinced that the poets have now an\nample theme to sing and celebrate. It is impossible not to recognise\nat the core of all these aristocratic races the beast of prey; the\nmagnificent _blonde brute_, avidly rampant for spoil and victory;\nthis hidden core needed an outlet from time to time, the beast must\nget loose again, must return into the wilderness--the Roman, Arabic,\nGerman, and Japanese nobility, the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian\nVikings, are all alike in this need. It is the aristocratic races who\nhave left the idea \"Barbarian\" on all the tracks in which they have\nmarched; nay, a consciousness of this very barbarianism, and even\na pride in it, manifests itself even in their highest civilisation\n(for example, when Pericles says to his Athenians in that celebrated\nfuneral oration, \"Our audacity has forced a way over every land and\nsea, rearing everywhere imperishable memorials of itself for _good_\nand for _evil_\"). This audacity of aristocratic races, mad, absurd,\nand spasmodic as may be its expression; the incalculable and fantastic\nnature of their enterprises,Pericles sets in special relief and\nglory the \u1fbd\u03c1\u03b1\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03af\u03b1 of the Athenians, their nonchalance and contempt for\nsafety, body, life, and comfort, their awful joy and intense delight\nin all destruction, in all the ecstasies of victory and cruelty,--all\nthese features become crystallised, for those who suffered thereby\nin the picture of the \"barbarian,\" of the \"evil enemy,\" perhaps of\nthe \"Goth\" and of the \"Vandal.\" The profound, icy mistrust which\nthe German provokes, as soon as he arrives at power,--even at the\npresent time,--is always still an aftermath of that inextinguishable\nhorror with which for whole centuries Europe has regarded the wrath\nof the blonde Teuton beast (although between the old Germans and\nourselves there exists scarcely a psychological, let alone a physical,\nrelationship). I have once called attention to the embarrassment of\nHesiod, when he conceived the series of social ages, and endeavoured\nto express them in gold, silver, and bronze. He could only dispose\nof the contradiction, with which he was confronted, by the Homeric\nworld, an age magnificent indeed, but at the same time so awful and\nso violent, by making two ages out of one, which he henceforth placed\none behind each other--first, the age of the heroes and demigods, as\nthat world had remained in the memories of the aristocratic families,\nwho found therein their own ancestors; secondly, the bronze age, as\nthat corresponding age appeared to the descendants of the oppressed,\nspoiled, ill-treated, exiled, enslaved; namely, as an age of bronze,\nas I have said, hard, cold, terrible, without feelings and without\nconscience, crushing everything, and bespattering everything with\nblood. Granted the truth of the theory now believed to be true, that\nthe very _essence of all civilisation_ is to _train_ out of man, the\nbeast of prey, a tame and civilised animal, a domesticated animal,\nit follows indubitably that we must regard as the real _tools of\ncivilisation_ all those instincts of reaction and resentment, by the\nhelp of which the aristocratic races, together with their ideals,\nwere finally degraded and overpowered; though that has not yet come\nto be synonymous with saying that the bearers of those tools also\n_represented_ the civilisation. It is rather the contrary that is\nnot only probable--nay, it is _palpable_ to-day; these bearers of\nvindictive instincts that have to be bottled up, these descendants of\nall European and non-European slavery, especially of the pre-Aryan\npopulation--these people, I say, represent the _decline_ of humanity!\nThese \"tools of civilisation\" are a disgrace to humanity, and\nconstitute in reality more of an argument against civilisation, more\nof a reason why civilisation should be suspected. One may be perfectly\njustified in being always afraid of the blonde beast that lies at\nthe core of all aristocratic races, and in being on one's guard: but\nwho would not a hundred times prefer to be afraid, when one at the\nsame time admires, than to be immune from fear, at the cost of being\nperpetually obsessed with the loathsome spectacle of the distorted, the\ndwarfed, the stunted, the envenomed? And is that not our fate? What\nproduces to-day our repulsion towards \"man\"?--for we _suffer_ from\n\"man,\" there is no doubt about it. It is not fear; it is rather that\nwe have nothing more to fear from men; it is that the worm \"man\" is in\nthe foreground and pullulates; it is that the \"tame man,\" the wretched\nmediocre and unedifying creature, has learnt to consider himself a goal\nand a pinnacle, an inner meaning, an historic principle, a \"higher\nman\"; yes, it is that he has a certain right so to consider himself,\nin so far as he feels that in contrast to that excess of deformity,\ndisease, exhaustion, and effeteness whose odour is beginning to pollute\npresent-day Europe, he at any rate has achieved a relative success, he\nat any rate still says \"yes\" to life.\n\n\n12.\n\nI cannot refrain at this juncture from uttering a sigh and one last\nhope. What is it precisely which I find intolerable? That which I alone\ncannot get rid of, which makes me choke and faint? Bad air! bad air!\nThat something misbegotten comes near me; that I must inhale the odour\nof the entrails of a misbegotten soul!--That excepted, what can one\nnot endure in the way of need, privation, bad weather, sickness, toil,\nsolitude? In point of fact, one manages to get over everything, born\nas one is to a burrowing and battling existence; one always returns\nonce again to the light, one always lives again one's golden hour of\nvictory--and then one stands as one was born, unbreakable, tense, ready\nfor something more difficult, for something more distant, like a bow\nstretched but the tauter by every strain. But from time to time do ye\ngrant me--assuming that \"beyond good and evil\" there are goddesses who\ncan grant--one glimpse, grant me but one glimpse only, of something\nperfect, fully realised, happy, mighty, triumphant, of something\nthat still gives cause for fear! A glimpse of a man that justifies\nthe existence of man, a glimpse of an incarnate human happiness that\nrealises and redeems, for the sake of which one may hold fast to _the\nbelief in man_! For the position is this: in the dwarfing and levelling\nof the European man lurks _our_ greatest peril, for it is this outlook\nwhich fatigues--we see to-day nothing which wishes to be greater, we\nsurmise that the process is always still backwards, still backwards\ntowards something more attenuated, more inoffensive, more cunning,\nmore comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese, more\nChristian--man, there is no doubt about it, grows always \"better\"\n--the destiny of Europe lies even in this--that in losing the fear of\nman, we have also lost the hope in man, yea, the will to be man. The\nsight of man now fatigues.--What is present-day Nihilism if it is not\n_that_?--We are tired of _man_.\n\n\n13.\n\nBut let us come back to it; the problem of another origin of the\n_good_--of the good, as the resentful man has thought it out--demands\nits solution. It is not surprising that the lambs should bear a grudge\nagainst the great birds of prey, but that is no reason for blaming the\ngreat birds of prey for taking the little lambs. And when the lambs\nsay among themselves, \"These birds of prey are evil, and he who is as\nfar removed from being a bird of prey, who is rather its opposite,\na lamb,--is he not good?\" then there is nothing to cavil at in the\nsetting up of this ideal, though it may also be that the birds of prey\nwill regard it a little sneeringly, and perchance say to themselves,\n\"_We_ bear no grudge against them, these good lambs, we even like them:\nnothing is tastier than a tender lamb.\" To require of strength that it\nshould not express itself as strength, that it should not be a wish to\noverpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish to become master, a thirst for\nenemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require\nof weakness that it should express itself as strength. A quantum of\nforce is just such a quantum of movement, will, action--rather it\nis nothing else than just those very phenomena of moving, willing,\nacting, and can only appear otherwise in the misleading errors of\nlanguage (and the fundamental fallacies of reason which have become\npetrified therein), which understands, and understands wrongly, all\nworking as conditioned by a worker, by a \"subject.\" And just exactly\nas the people separate the lightning from its flash, and interpret the\nlatter as a thing done, as the working of a subject which is called\nlightning, so also does the popular morality separate strength from the\nexpression of strength, as though behind the strong man there existed\nsome indifferent neutral _substratum_, which enjoyed a _caprice and\noption_ as to whether or not it should express strength. But there\nis no such _substratum_, there is no \"being\" behind doing, working,\nbecoming; \"the doer\" is a mere appanage to the action. The action is\neverything. In point of fact, the people duplicate the doing, when they\nmake the lightning lighten, that is a \"doing-doing\": they make the same\nphenomenon first a cause, and then, secondly, the effect of that cause.\nThe scientists fail to improve matters when they say, \"Force moves,\nforce causes,\" and so on. Our whole science is still, in spite of all\nits coldness, of all its freedom from passion, a dupe of the tricks of\nlanguage, and has never succeeded in getting rid of that superstitious\nchangeling \"the subject\" (the atom, to give another instance, is such\na changeling, just as the Kantian \"Thing-in-itself\"). What wonder,\nif the suppressed and stealthily simmering passions of revenge and\nhatred exploit for their own advantage this belief, and indeed hold no\nbelief with a more steadfast enthusiasm than this--\"that the strong\nhas the _option_ of being weak, and the bird of prey of being a lamb.\"\nThereby do they win for themselves the right of attributing to the\nbirds of prey the _responsibility_ for being birds of prey: when the\noppressed, down-trodden, and overpowered say to themselves with the\nvindictive guile of weakness, \"Let us be otherwise than the evil,\nnamely, good! and good is every one who does not oppress, who hurts\nno one, who does not attack, who does not pay back, who hands over\nrevenge to God, who holds himself, as we do, in hiding; who goes out\nof the way of evil, and demands, in short, little from life; like\nourselves the patient, the meek, the just,\"--yet all this, in its cold\nand unprejudiced interpretation, means nothing more than \"once for\nall, the weak are weak; it is good to do _nothing for which we are not\nstrong enough_\"; but this dismal state of affairs, this prudence of the\nlowest order, which even insects possess (which in a great danger are\nfain to sham death so as to avoid doing \"too much\"), has, thanks to\nthe counterfeiting and self-deception of weakness, come to masquerade\nin the pomp of an ascetic, mute, and expectant virtue, just as though\nthe _very_ weakness of the weak--that is, forsooth, its _being_, its\nworking, its whole unique inevitable inseparable reality--were a\nvoluntary result, something wished, chosen, a deed, an act of _merit_.\nThis kind of man finds the belief in a neutral, free-choosing \"subject\"\n_necessary_ from an instinct of self-preservation, of self-assertion,\nin which every lie is fain to sanctify itself. The subject (or, to\nuse popular language, the _soul_) has perhaps proved itself the best\ndogma in the world simply because it rendered possible to the horde\nof mortal, weak, and oppressed individuals of every kind, that most\nsublime specimen of self-deception, the interpretation of weakness as\nfreedom, of being this, or being that, as _merit_.\n\n\n14.\n\nWill any one look a little into--right into--the mystery of how _ideals\nare manufactured_ in this world? Who has the courage to do it? Come!\n\nHere we have a vista opened into these grimy workshops. Wait just a\nmoment, dear Mr. Inquisitive and Foolhardy; your eye must first grow\naccustomed to this false changing light--Yes! Enough! Now speak! What\nis happening below down yonder? Speak out that what you see, man of the\nmost dangerous curiosity--for now _I_ am the listener.\n\n\"I see nothing, I hear the more. It is a cautious, spiteful, gentle\nwhispering and muttering together in all the corners and crannies. It\nseems to me that they are lying; a sugary softness adheres to every\nsound. Weakness is turned to _merit_, there is no doubt about it--it is\njust as you say.\"\n\nFurther!\n\n\"And the impotence which requites not, is turned to 'goodness,' craven\nbaseness to meekness, submission to those whom one hates, to obedience\n(namely, obedience to one of whom they say that he ordered this\nsubmission--they call him God). The inoffensive character of the weak,\nthe very cowardice in which he is rich, his standing at the door, his\nforced necessity of waiting, gain here fine names, such as 'patience,'\nwhich is also called 'virtue'; not being able to avenge one's self, is\ncalled not wishing to avenge one's self, perhaps even forgiveness (for\n_they_ know not what they do--we alone know what _they_ do). They also\ntalk of the 'love of their enemies' and sweat thereby.\"\n\nFurther!\n\n\"They are miserable, there is no doubt about it, all these whisperers\nand counterfeiters in the corners, although they try to get warm by\ncrouching close to each other, but they tell me that their misery is\na favour and distinction given to them by God, just as one beats the\ndogs one likes best; that perhaps this misery is also a preparation, a\nprobation, a training; that perhaps it is still more something which\nwill one day be compensated and paid back with a tremendous interest in\ngold, nay in happiness. This they call 'Blessedness.'\"\n\nFurther!\n\n\"They are now giving me to understand, that not only are they better\nmen than the mighty, the lords of the earth, whose spittle they have\ngot to lick (not out of fear, not at all out of fear! But because\nGod ordains that one should honour all authority)--not only are they\nbetter men, but that they also have a 'better time,' at any rate,\nwill one day have a 'better time.' But enough! Enough! I can endure\nit no longer. Bad air! Bad air! These workshops _where ideals are\nmanufactured_--verily they reek with the crassest lies.\"\n\nNay. Just one minute! You are saying nothing about the masterpieces\nof these virtuosos of black magic, who can produce whiteness, milk,\nand innocence out of any black you like: have you not noticed what a\npitch of refinement is attained by their _chef d'\u0153uvre_, their most\naudacious, subtle, ingenious, and lying artist-trick? Take care! These\ncellar-beasts, full of revenge and hate--what do they make, forsooth,\nout of their revenge and hate? Do you hear these words? Would you\nsuspect, if you trusted only their words, that you are among men of\nresentment and nothing else?\n\n\"I understand, I prick my ears up again (ah! ah! ah! and I hold my\nnose). Now do I hear for the first time that which they have said so\noften: 'We good, _we are the righteous_'--what they demand they call\nnot revenge but 'the triumph of _righteousness_'; what they hate is\nnot their enemy, no, they hate 'unrighteousness,' 'godlessness'; what\nthey believe in and hope is not the hope of revenge, the intoxication\nof sweet revenge (--\"sweeter than honey,\" did Homer call it?), but the\nvictory of God, of the _righteous_ _God_ over the 'godless'; what is\nleft for them to love in this world is not _their_ brothers in hate,\nbut their 'brothers in love,' as they say, all the good and righteous\non the earth.\"\n\nAnd how do they name that which serves them as a solace against all\nthe troubles of life--their phantasmagoria of their anticipated future\nblessedness?\n\n\"How? Do I hear right? They call it 'the last judgment,' the advent of\ntheir kingdom, 'the kingdom of God'--but _in the meanwhile_ they live\n'in faith,' 'in love,' 'in hope.'\"\n\nEnough! Enough!\n\n\n15.\n\nIn the faith in what? In the love for what? In the hope of what? These\nweaklings!--they also, forsooth, wish to be the strong some time; there\nis no doubt about it, some time _their_ kingdom also must come--\"the\nkingdom of God\" is their name for it, as has been mentioned: they are\nso meek in everything! Yet in order to experience _that_ kingdom it\nis necessary to live long, to live beyond death,--yes, _eternal_ life\nis necessary so that one can make up for ever for that earthly life\n\"in faith,\" \"in love,\" \"in hope.\" Make up for what? Make up by what?\nDante, as it seems to me, made a crass mistake when with awe-inspiring\ningenuity he placed that inscription over the gate of his hell, \"Me too\nmade eternal love\": at any rate the following inscription would have\na much better right to stand over the gate of the Christian Paradise\nand its \"eternal blessedness\"--\"Me too made eternal hate\"--granted\nof course that a truth may rightly stand over the gate to a lie! For\nwhat is the blessedness of that Paradise? Possibly we could quickly\nsurmise it; but it is better that it should be explicitly attested by\nan authority who in such matters is not to be disparaged, Thomas of\nAquinas, the great teacher and saint. \"_Beati in regno celesti_\" says\nhe, as gently as a lamb, \"_videbunt p\u0153nas damnatorum, ut beatitudo\nillis magis complaceat_.\" Or if we wish to hear a stronger tone, a word\nfrom the mouth of a triumphant father of the Church, who warned his\ndisciples against the cruel ecstasies of the public spectacles--But\nwhy? Faith offers us much more,--says he, _de Spectac._, c. 29\nss.,--something much stronger; thanks to the redemption, joys of quite\nanother kind stand at our disposal; instead of athletes we have our\nmartyrs; we wish for blood, well, we have the blood of Christ--but\nwhat then awaits us on the day of his return, of his triumph. And\nthen does he proceed, does this enraptured visionary: \"_at enim\nsupersunt alia spectacula, ille ultimas et perpetuus judicii dies, ille\nnationibus insperatus, ille derisus, cum tanta s\u00e6culi vetustas et tot\nejus nativitates uno igne haurientur. Qu\u00e6 tunc spectaculi latitudo!\nQuid admirer! quid rideam! Ubigaudeam! Ubi exultem, spectans tot et\ntantos reges, qui in c\u0153lum recepti nuntiabantur, cum ipso Jove et ipsis\nsuis testibus in imis tenebris congemescentes! Item pr\u00e6sides_\" (the\nprovincial governors) \"_persecutores dominici nominis s\u00e6vioribus quam\nipsi flammis s\u00e6vierunt insultantibus contra Christianos liquescentes!\nQuos pr\u00e6terea sapientes illos philosophos coram discipulis suis una\nconflagrantibus erubescentes, quibus nihil ad deum pertinere suadebant,\nquibus animas aut nullas aut non in pristina corpora redituras\naffirmabant! Etiam poetas non ad Rhadamanti nec ad Minois, sed ad\ninopinati Christi tribunal palpitantes! Tunc magis trag\u0153di audiendi,\nmagis scilicet vocales_\" (with louder tones and more violent shrieks)\n\"_in sua propria calamitate; tunc histriones cognoscendi, solutiores\nmulto per ignem; tunc spectandus auriga in flammea rota totus rubens,\ntunc xystici contemplandi non in gymnasiis, sed in igne jaculati, nisi\nquod ne tunc quidem illos velim vivos, ut qui malim ad eos potius\nconspectum insatiabilem conferre, qui in dominum scevierunt. Hic est\nille, dicam fabri aut qu\u00e6stuari\u00e6 filius_\" (as is shown by the whole of\nthe following, and in particular by this well-known description of the\nmother of Jesus from the Talmud, Tertullian is henceforth referring to\nthe Jews), \"_sabbati destructor, Samarites et d\u00e6monium habens. Hic est\nquem a Juda redemistis, hic est ille arundine et colaphis diverberatus,\nsputamentis de decoratus, felle et acete potatus. Hic est, quem\nclam discentes subripuerunt, ut resurrexisse dicatur vel hortulanus\ndetraxit, ne lactuc\u00e6 su\u00e6 frequentia commeantium laderentur. Ut talia\nspecies, ut talibus exultes, quis tibi pr\u00e6tor aut consul aut sacerdos\nde sua liberalitate prastabit? Et tamen h\u00e6c jam habemus quodammodo per\nfidem spiritu imaginante repr\u00e6sentata. Ceterum qualia illa sunt, qu\u00e6\nnec oculus vidit nec auris audivit nec in cor hominis ascenderunt?_\" (I\nCor. ii. 9.) \"_Credo circo et utraque cavea_\" (first and fourth row,\nor, according to others, the comic and the tragic stage) \"_et omni\nstudio gratiora._\" _Per fidem_: so stands it written.\n\n\n16.\n\nLet us come to a conclusion. The two _opposing values_, \"good and bad,\"\n\"good and evil,\" have fought a dreadful, thousand-year fight in the\nworld, and though indubitably the second value has been for a long time\nin the preponderance, there are not wanting places where the fortune\nof the fight is still undecisive. It can almost be said that in the\nmeanwhile the fight reaches a higher and higher level, and that in the\nmeanwhile it has become more and more intense, and always more and more\npsychological; so that nowadays there is perhaps no more decisive mark\nof the _higher nature_, of the more psychological nature, than to be in\nthat sense self-contradictory, and to be actually still a battleground\nfor those two opposites. The symbol of this fight, written in a writing\nwhich has remained worthy of perusal throughout the course of history\nup to the present time, is called \"Rome against Jud\u00e6a, Jud\u00e6a against\nRome.\" Hitherto there has been no greater event than _that_ fight,\nthe putting of _that_ question, _that_ deadly antagonism. Rome found\nin the Jew the incarnation of the unnatural, as though it were its\ndiametrically opposed monstrosity, and in Rome the Jew was held to\nbe _convicted of hatred_ of the whole human race: and rightly so, in\nso far as it is right to link the well-being and the future of the\nhuman race to the unconditional mastery of the aristocratic values, of\nthe Roman values. What, conversely, did the Jews feel against Rome?\nOne can surmise it from a thousand symptoms, but it is sufficient to\ncarry one's mind back to the Johannian Apocalypse, that most obscene\nof all the written outbursts, which has revenge on its conscience.\n(One should also appraise at its full value the profound logic of the\nChristian instinct, when over this very book of hate it wrote the name\nof the Disciple of Love, that self-same disciple to whom it attributed\nthat impassioned and ecstatic Gospel--therein lurks a portion of\ntruth, however much literary forging may have been necessary for\nthis purpose.) The Romans were the strong and aristocratic; a nation\nstronger and more aristocratic has never existed in the world, has\nnever even been dreamed of; every relic of them, every inscription\nenraptures, granted that one can divine _what_ it is that writes the\ninscription. The Jews, conversely, were that priestly nation of\nresentment par excellence, possessed by a unique genius for popular\nmorals: just compare with the Jews the nations with analogous gifts,\nsuch as the Chinese or the Germans, so as to realise afterwards what is\nfirst rate, and what is fifth rate.\n\nWhich of them has been provisionally victorious, Rome or Jud\u00e6a? but\nthere is not a shadow of doubt; just consider to whom in Rome itself\nnowadays you bow down, as though before the quintessence of all the\nhighest values--and not only in Rome, but almost over half the world,\neverywhere where man has been tamed or is about to be tamed--to _three\nJews_, as we know, and _one Jewess_ (to Jesus of Nazareth, to Peter\nthe fisher, to Paul the tent-maker, and to the mother of the aforesaid\nJesus, named Mary). This is very remarkable: Rome is undoubtedly\ndefeated. At any rate there took place in the Renaissance a brilliantly\nsinister revival of the classical ideal, of the aristocratic valuation\nof all things: Rome herself, like a man waking up from a trance,\nstirred beneath the burden of the new Judaised Rome that had been built\nover her, which presented the appearance of an \u0153cumenical synagogue\nand was called the \"Church\": but immediately Jud\u00e6a triumphed again,\nthanks to that fundamentally popular (German and English) movement\nof revenge, which is called the Reformation, and taking also into\naccount its inevitable corollary, the restoration of the Church--the\nrestoration also of the ancient graveyard peace of classical Rome.\nJud\u00e6a proved yet once more victorious over the classical ideal in the\nFrench Revolution, and in a sense which was even more crucial and even\nmore profound: the last political aristocracy that existed in Europe,\nthat of the _French_ seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, broke into\npieces beneath the instincts of a resentful populace--never had the\nworld heard a greater jubilation, a more uproarious enthusiasm: indeed,\nthere took place in the midst of it the most monstrous and unexpected\nphenomenon; the ancient ideal _itself_ swept before the eyes and\nconscience of humanity with all its life and with unheard-of splendour,\nand in opposition to resentment's lying war-cry of _the prerogative\nof the most_, in opposition to the will to lowliness, abasement, and\nequalisation, the will to a retrogression and twilight of humanity,\nthere rang out once again, stronger, simpler, more penetrating than\never, the terrible and enchanting counter-warcry of _the prerogative of\nthe few_! Like a final signpost to other ways, there appeared Napoleon,\nthe most unique and violent anachronism that ever existed, and in him\nthe incarnate problem _of the aristocratic ideal in itself_--consider\nwell what a problem it is:--Napoleon, that synthesis of Monster and\nSuperman.\n\n\n17.\n\nWas it therewith over? Was that greatest of all antitheses of ideals\nthereby relegated _ad acta_ for all time? Or only postponed, postponed\nfor a long time? May there not take place at some time or other a\nmuch more awful, much more carefully prepared flaring up of the old\nconflagration? Further! Should not one wish _that_ consummation with\nall one's strength?--will it one's self? demand it one's self? He who\nat this juncture begins, like my readers, to reflect, to think further,\nwill have difficulty in coming quickly to a conclusion,--ground enough\nfor me to come myself to a conclusion, taking it for granted that for\nsome time past what I mean has been sufficiently clear, what I exactly\n_mean_ by that dangerous motto which is inscribed on the body of my\nlast book: _Beyond Good and Evil_--at any rate that is not the same as\n\"Beyond Good and Bad.\"\n\n\nNote.--I avail myself of the opportunity offered by this treatise to\nexpress, openly and formally, a wish which up to the present has only\nbeen expressed in occasional conversations with scholars, namely,\nthat some Faculty of philosophy should, by means of a series of prize\nessays, gain the glory of having promoted the further study of the\n_history of morals_--perhaps this book may serve to give forcible\nimpetus in such a direction. With regard to a possibility of this\ncharacter, the following question deserves consideration. It merits\nquite as much the attention of philologists and historians as of actual\nprofessional philosophers.\n\n\"_What indication of the history of the evolution of the moral ideas is\nafforded by philology, and especially by etymological investigation?_\"\n\nOn the other hand, it is of course equally necessary to induce\nphysiologists and doctors to be interested in these problems (_of the\nvalue of the valuations_ which have prevailed up to the present): in\nthis connection the professional philosophers may be trusted to act\nas the spokesmen and intermediaries in these particular instances,\nafter, of course, they have quite succeeded in transforming the\nrelationship between philosophy and physiology and medicine, which\nis originally one of coldness and suspicion, into the most friendly\nand fruitful reciprocity. In point of fact, all tables of values,\nall the \"thou shalts\" known to history and ethnology, need primarily\na _physiological_, at any rate in preference to a psychological,\nelucidation and interpretation; all equally require a critique from\nmedical science. The question, \"What is the _value_ of this or that\ntable of 'values' and morality?\" will be asked from the most varied\nstandpoints. For instance, the question of \"valuable _for what_\" can\nnever be analysed with sufficient nicety. That, for instance, which\nwould evidently have value with regard to promoting in a race the\ngreatest possible powers of endurance (or with regard to increasing its\nadaptability to a specific climate, or with regard to the preservation\nof the greatest number) would have nothing like the same value, if it\nwere a question of evolving a stronger species. In gauging values,\nthe good of the majority and the good of the minority are opposed\nstandpoints: we leave it to the na\u00efvet\u00e9 of English biologists to regard\nthe former standpoint as _intrinsically_ superior. _All_ the sciences\nhave now to pave the way for the future task of the philosopher; this\ntask being understood to mean, that he must solve the problem of\n_value_, that he has to fix the _hierarchy of values_.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND ESSAY. \"GUILT,\" \"BAD CONSCIENCE,\" AND THE LIKE.\n\n\n1.\n\nThe breeding of an animal that _can promise_--is not this just that\nvery paradox of a task which nature has set itself in regard to man? Is\nnot this the very problem of man? The fact that this problem has been\nto a great extent solved, must appear all the more phenomenal to one\nwho can estimate at its full value that force of _forgetfulness_ which\nworks in opposition to it. Forgetfulness is no mere _vis inerti\u00e6_,\nas the superficial believe, rather is it a power of obstruction,\nactive and, in the strictest sense of the word, positive--a power\nresponsible for the fact that what we have lived, experienced, taken\ninto ourselves, no more enters into consciousness during the process\nof digestion (it might be called psychic absorption) than all the\nwhole manifold process by which our physical nutrition, the so-called\n\"incorporation,\" is carried on. The temporary shutting of the doors\nand windows of consciousness, the relief from the clamant alarums and\nexcursions, with which our subconscious world of servant organs works\nin mutual co-operation and antagonism; a little quietude, a little\n_tabula rasa_ of the consciousness, so as to make room again for the\nnew, and above all for the more noble functions and functionaries, room\nfor government, foresight, predetermination (for our organism is on an\noligarchic model)--this is the utility, as I have said, of the active\nforgetfulness, which is a very sentinel and nurse of psychic order,\nrepose, etiquette; and this shows at once why it is that there can\nexist no happiness, no gladness, no hope, no pride, no real _present_,\nwithout forgetfulness. The man in whom this preventative apparatus is\ndamaged and discarded, is to be compared to a dyspeptic, and it is\nsomething more than a comparison--he can \"get rid of\" nothing. But\nthis very animal who finds it necessary to be forgetful, in whom, in\nfact, forgetfulness represents a force and a form of _robust_ health,\nhas reared for himself an opposition-power, a memory, with whose help\nforgetfulness is, in certain instances, kept in check--in the cases,\nnamely, where promises have to be made;--so that it is by no means\na mere passive inability to get rid of a once indented impression,\nnot merely the indigestion occasioned by a once pledged word, which\none cannot dispose of, but an _active_ refusal to get rid of it, a\ncontinuing and a wish to continue what has once been willed, an actual\n_memory of the will_; so that between the original \"I will,\" \"I shall\ndo,\" and the actual discharge of the will, its act, we can easily\ninterpose a world of new strange phenomena, circumstances, veritable\nvolitions, without the snapping of this long chain of the will. But\nwhat is the underlying hypothesis of all this? How thoroughly, in order\nto be able to regulate the future in this way, must man have first\nlearnt to distinguish between necessitated and accidental phenomena, to\nthink causally, to see the distant as present and to anticipate it, to\nfix with certainty what is the end, and what is the means to that end;\nabove all, to reckon, to have power to calculate--how thoroughly must\nman have first become _calculable, disciplined, necessitated_ even for\nhimself and his own conception of himself, that, like a man entering\ninto a promise, he could guarantee himself _as a future_.\n\n\n2.\n\nThis is simply the long history of the origin of _responsibility_.\nThat task of breeding an animal which can make promises, includes, as\nwe have already grasped, as its condition and preliminary, the more\nimmediate task of first _making_ man to a certain extent, necessitated,\nuniform, like among his like, regular, and consequently calculable. The\nimmense work of what I have called, \"morality of custom\"[1] (cp. _Dawn\nof Day_, Aphs. 9, 14, and 16), the actual work of man on himself during\nthe longest period of the human race, his whole prehistoric work,\nfinds its meaning, its great justification (in spite of all its innate\nhardness, despotism, stupidity, and idiocy) in this fact: man, with\nthe help of the morality of customs and of social strait-waistcoats,\nwas _made_ genuinely calculable. If, however, we place ourselves at\nthe end of this colossal process, at the point where the tree finally\nmatures its fruits, when society and its morality of custom finally\nbring to light that to which it was only the means, then do we find as\nthe ripest fruit on its tree the _sovereign individual_, that resembles\nonly himself, that has got loose from the morality of custom, the\nautonomous \"super-moral\" individual (for \"autonomous\" and \"moral\" are\nmutually-exclusive terms),--in short, the man of the personal, long,\nand independent will, _competent to promise_, and we find in him a\nproud consciousness (vibrating in every fibre), of _what_ has been at\nlast achieved and become vivified in him, a genuine consciousness of\npower and freedom, a feeling of human perfection in general. And this\nman who has grown to freedom, who is really _competent_ to promise,\nthis lord of the _free_ will, this sovereign--how is it possible for\nhim not to know how great is his superiority over everything incapable\nof binding itself by promises, or of being its own security, how great\nis the trust, the awe, the reverence that he awakes--he \"deserves\"\nall three--not to know that with this mastery over himself he is\nnecessarily also given the mastery over circumstances, over nature,\nover all creatures with shorter wills, less reliable characters?\nThe \"free\" man, the owner of a long unbreakable will, finds in this\npossession his _standard of value_: looking out from himself upon\nthe others, he honours or he despises, and just as necessarily as he\nhonours his peers, the strong and the reliable (those who can bind\nthemselves by promises),--that is, every one who promises like a\nsovereign, with difficulty, rarely and slowly, who is sparing with his\ntrusts but confers _honour_ by the very fact of trusting, who gives\nhis word as something that can be relied on, because he knows himself\nstrong enough to keep it even in the teeth of disasters, even in the\n\"teeth of fate,\"--so with equal necessity will he have the heel of his\nfoot ready for the lean and empty jackasses, who promise when they have\nno business to do so, and his rod of chastisement ready for the liar,\nwho already breaks his word at the very minute when it is on his lips.\nThe proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of _responsibility_,\nthe consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over himself and\nover fate, has sunk right down to his innermost depths, and has become\nan instinct, a dominating instinct--what name will he give to it, to\nthis dominating instinct, if he needs to have a word for it? But there\nis no doubt about it--the sovereign man calls it his _conscience_.\n\n\n3.\n\nHis conscience?--One apprehends at once that the idea \"conscience,\"\nwhich is here seen in its supreme manifestation, supreme in fact to\nalmost the point of strangeness, should already have behind it a long\nhistory and evolution. The ability to guarantee one's self with all\ndue pride, and also at the same time to _say yes_ to one's self--that\nis, as has been said, a ripe fruit, but also a _late_ fruit:--How long\nmust needs this fruit hang sour and bitter on the tree! And for an even\nlonger period there was not a glimpse of such a fruit to to be had--no\none had taken it on himself to promise it, although everything on the\ntree was quite ready for it, and everything was maturing for that very\nconsummation. \"How is a memory to be made for the man-animal? How is an\nimpression to be so deeply fixed upon this ephemeral understanding,\nhalf dense, and half silly, upon this incarnate forgetfulness, that\nit will be permanently present?\" As one may imagine, this primeval\nproblem was not solved by exactly gentle answers and gentle means;\nperhaps there is nothing more awful and more sinister in the early\nhistory of man than his _system of mnemonics_. \"Something is burnt in\nso as to remain in his memory: only that which never stops _hurting_\nremains in his memory.\" This is an axiom of the oldest (unfortunately\nalso the longest) psychology in the world. It might even be said that\nwherever solemnity, seriousness, mystery, and gloomy colours are now\nfound in the life of the men and of nations of the world, there is some\n_survival_ of that horror which was once the universal concomitant of\nall promises, pledges, and obligations. The past, the past with all\nits length, depth, and hardness, wafts to us its breath, and bubbles\nup in us again, when we become \"serious.\" When man thinks it necessary\nto make for himself a memory, he never accomplishes it without blood,\ntortures, and sacrifice; the most dreadful sacrifices and forfeitures\n(among them the sacrifice of the first-born), the most loathsome\nmutilation (for instance, castration), the most cruel rituals of all\nthe religious cults (for all religions are really at bottom systems\nof cruelty)--all these things originate from that instinct which\nfound in pain its most potent mnemonic. In a certain sense the whole\nof asceticism is to be ascribed to this: certain ideas have got to\nbe made inextinguishable, omnipresent, \"fixed,\" with the object of\nhypnotising the whole nervous and intellectual system through these\n\"fixed ideas\"--and the ascetic methods and modes of life are the means\nof freeing those ideas from the competition of all other ideas so as to\nmake them \"unforgettable.\" The worse memory man had, the ghastlier the\nsigns presented by his customs; the severity of the penal laws affords\nin particular a gauge of the extent of man's difficulty in conquering\nforgetfulness, and in keeping a few primal postulates of social\nintercourse ever present to the minds of those who were the slaves\nof every momentary emotion and every momentary desire. We Germans do\ncertainly not regard ourselves as an especially cruel and hard-hearted\nnation, still less as an especially casual and happy-go-lucky one;\nbut one has only to look at our old penal ordinances in order to\nrealise what a lot of trouble it takes in the world to evolve a\n\"nation of thinkers\" (I mean: _the_ European nation which exhibits at\nthis very day the maximum of reliability, seriousness, bad taste, and\npositiveness, which has on the strength of these qualities a right to\ntrain every kind of European mandarin). These Germans employed terrible\nmeans to make for themselves a memory, to enable them to master their\nrooted plebeian instincts and the brutal crudity of those instincts:\nthink of the old German punishments, for instance, stoning (as far back\nas the legend, the millstone falls on the head of the guilty man),\nbreaking on the wheel (the most original invention and speciality of\nthe German genius in the sphere of punishment), dart-throwing, tearing,\nor trampling by horses (\"quartering\"), boiling the criminal in oil or\nwine (still prevalent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), the\nhighly popular flaying (\"slicing into strips\"), cutting the flesh out\nof the breast; think also of the evil-doer being besmeared with honey,\nand then exposed to the flies in a blazing sun. It was by the help of\nsuch images and precedents that man eventually kept in his memory five\nor six \"I will nots\" with regard to which he had already given his\n_promise_, so as to be able to enjoy the advantages of society--and\nverily with the help of this kind of memory man eventually attained\n\"reason\"! Alas! reason, seriousness, mastery over the emotions, all\nthese gloomy, dismal things which are called reflection, all these\nprivileges and pageantries of humanity: how dear is the price that they\nhave exacted! How much blood and cruelty is the foundation of all \"good\nthings\"!\n\n\n4.\n\nBut how is it that that other melancholy object, the consciousness of\nsin, the whole \"bad conscience,\" came into the world? And it is here\nthat we turn back to our genealogists of morals. For the second time\nI say--or have I not said it yet?--that they are worth nothing. Just\ntheir own five-spans-long limited modern experience; no knowledge of\nthe past, and no wish to know it; still less a historic instinct, a\npower of \"second sight\" (which is what is really required in this\ncase)--and despite this to go in for the history of morals. It stands\nto reason that this must needs produce results which are removed from\nthe truth by something more than a respectful distance.\n\nHave these current genealogists of morals ever allowed themselves to\nhave even the vaguest notion, for instance, that the cardinal moral\nidea of \"ought\"[2] originates from the very material idea of \"owe\"? Or\nthat punishment developed as a retaliation absolutely independently\nof any preliminary hypothesis of the freedom or determination of the\nwill?--And this to such an extent, that a high degree of civilisation\nwas always first necessary for the animal man to begin to make those\nmuch more primitive distinctions of \"intentional,\" \"negligent,\"\n\"accidental,\" \"responsible,\" and their contraries, and apply them\nin the assessing of punishment. That idea--\"the wrong-doer deserves\npunishment _because_ he might have acted otherwise,\" in spite of the\nfact that it is nowadays so cheap, obvious, natural, and inevitable,\nand that it has had to serve as an illustration of the way in which\nthe sentiment of justice appeared on earth, is in point of fact\nan exceedingly late, and even refined form of human judgment and\ninference; the placing of this idea back at the beginning of the world\nis simply a clumsy violation of the principles of primitive psychology.\nThroughout the longest period of human history punishment was _never_\nbased on the responsibility of the evil-doer for his action, and was\nconsequently not based on the hypothesis that only the guilty should\nbe punished;--on the contrary, punishment was inflicted in those days\nfor the same reason that parents punish their children even nowadays,\nout of anger at an injury that they have suffered, an anger which vents\nitself mechanically on the author of the injury--but this anger is kept\nin bounds and modified through the idea that every injury has somewhere\nor other its _equivalent_ price, and can really be paid off, even\nthough it be by means of pain to the author. Whence is it that this\nancient deep-rooted and now perhaps ineradicable idea has drawn its\nstrength, this idea of an equivalency between injury and pain? I have\nalready revealed its origin, in the contractual relationship between\n_creditor_ and _ower_, that is as old as the existence of legal rights\nat all, and in its turn points back to the primary forms of purchase,\nsale, barter, and trade.\n\n\n5.\n\nThe realisation of these contractual relations excites, of course (as\nwould be already expected from our previous observations), a great\ndeal of suspicion and opposition towards the primitive society which\nmade or sanctioned them. In this society promises will be made; in\nthis society the object is to provide the promiser with a memory;\nin this society, so may we suspect, there will be full scope for\nhardness, cruelty, and pain: the \"ower,\" in order to induce credit\nin his promise of repayment, in order to give a guarantee of the\nearnestness and sanctity of his promise, in order to drill into his\nown conscience the duty, the solemn duty, of repayment, will, by\nvirtue of a contract with his creditor to meet the contingency of\nhis not paying, pledge something that he still possesses, something\nthat he still has in his power, for instance, his life or his wife,\nor his freedom or his body (or under certain religious conditions\neven his salvation, his soul's welfare, even his peace in the grave;\nso in Egypt, where the corpse of the ower found even in the grave no\nrest from the creditor--of course, from the Egyptian standpoint, this\npeace was a matter of particular importance). But especially has the\ncreditor the power of inflicting on the body of the ower all kinds of\npain and torture--the power, for instance, of cutting off from it an\namount that appeared proportionate to the greatness of the debt;--this\npoint of view resulted in the universal prevalence at an early date of\nprecise schemes of valuation, frequently horrible in the minuteness\nand meticulosity of their application, _legally_ sanctioned schemes of\nvaluation for individual limbs and parts of the body. I consider it as\nalready a progress, as a proof of a freer, less petty, and more Roman\nconception of law, when the Roman Code of the Twelve Tables decreed\nthat it was immaterial how much or how little the creditors in such a\ncontingency cut off, \"si plus minusve secuerunt, ne fraude esto.\" Let\nus make the logic of the whole of this equalisation process clear; it\nis strange enough. The equivalence consists in this: instead of an\nadvantage directly compensatory of his injury (that is, instead of an\nequalisation in money, lands, or some kind of chattel), the creditor\nis granted by way of repayment and compensation a certain _sensation\nof satisfaction_--the satisfaction of being able to vent, without any\ntrouble, his power on one who is powerless, the delight \"_de faire le\nmal pour le plaisir de le faire_,\" the joy in sheer violence: and this\njoy will be relished in proportion to the lowness and humbleness of\nthe creditor in the social scale, and is quite apt to have the effect\nof the most delicious dainty, and even seem the foretaste of a higher\nsocial position. Thanks to the punishment of the \"ower,\" the creditor\nparticipates in the rights of the masters. At last he too, for once in\na way, attains the edifying consciousness of being able to despise and\nill-treat a creature--as an \"inferior\"--or at any rate of _seeing_ him\nbeing despised and ill-treated, in case the actual power of punishment,\nthe administration of punishment, has already become transferred to the\n\"authorities.\" The compensation consequently consists in a claim on\ncruelty and a right to draw thereon.\n\n\n6.\n\nIt is then in _this_ sphere of the law of contract that we find the\ncradle of the whole moral world of the ideas of \"guilt,\" \"conscience,\"\n\"duty,\" the \"sacredness of duty,\"--their commencement, like the\ncommencement of all great things in the world, is thoroughly and\ncontinuously saturated with blood. And should we not add that this\nworld has never really lost a certain savour of blood and torture (not\neven in old Kant; the categorical imperative reeks of cruelty). It was\nin this sphere likewise that there first became formed that sinister\nand perhaps now indissoluble association of the ideas of \"guilt\" and\n\"suffering.\" To put the question yet again, why can suffering be a\ncompensation for \"owing\"?--Because the _infliction_ of suffering\nproduces the highest degree of happiness, because the injured party\nwill get in exchange for his loss (including his vexation at his loss)\nan extraordinary counter-pleasure: the _infliction_ of suffering--a\nreal _feast_, something that, as I have said, was all the more\nappreciated the greater the paradox created by the rank and social\nstatus of the creditor. These observations are purely conjectural; for,\napart from the painful nature of the task, it is hard to plumb such\nprofound depths: the clumsy introduction of the idea of \"revenge\" as a\nconnecting-link simply hides and obscures the view instead of rendering\nit clearer (revenge itself simply leads back again to the identical\nproblem--\"How can the infliction of suffering be a satisfaction?\").\nIn my opinion it is repugnant to the delicacy, and still more to the\nhypocrisy of tame domestic animals (that is, modern men; that is,\nourselves), to realise with all their energy the extent to which\n_cruelty_ constituted the great joy and delight of ancient man, was\nan ingredient which seasoned nearly all his pleasures, and conversely\nthe extent of the na\u00efvet\u00e9 and innocence with which he manifested his\nneed for cruelty, when he actually made as a matter of principle\n\"disinterested malice\" (or, to use Spinoza's expression, the _sympathia\nmalevolens_) into a _normal_ characteristic of man--as consequently\nsomething to which the conscience says a hearty yes. The more profound\nobserver has perhaps already had sufficient opportunity for noticing\nthis most ancient and radical joy and delight of mankind; in _Beyond\nGood and Evil_, Aph. 188 (and even earlier, in _The Dawn of Day_, Aphs.\n18, 77, 113), I have cautiously indicated the continually growing\nspiritualisation and \"deification\" of cruelty, which pervades the\nwhole history of the higher civilisation (and in the larger sense even\nconstitutes it). At any rate the time is not so long past when it was\nimpossible to conceive of royal weddings and national festivals on a\ngrand scale, without executions, tortures, or perhaps an _auto-da-f\u00e9_\",\nor similarly to conceive of an aristocratic household, without a\ncreature to serve as a butt for the cruel and malicious baiting of the\ninmates. (The reader will perhaps remember Don Quixote at the court of\nthe Duchess: we read nowadays the whole of _Don Quixote_ with a bitter\ntaste in the mouth, almost with a sensation of torture, a fact which\nwould appear very strange and very incomprehensible to the author and\nhis contemporaries--they read it with the best conscience in the world\nas the gayest of books; they almost died with laughing at it.) The\nsight of suffering does one good, the infliction of suffering does one\nmore good--this is a hard maxim, but none the less a fundamental maxim,\nold, powerful, and \"human, all-too-human\"; one, moreover, to which\nperhaps even the apes as well would subscribe: for it is said that in\ninventing bizarre cruelties they are giving abundant proof of their\nfuture humanity, to which, as it were, they are playing the prelude.\nWithout cruelty, no feast: so teaches the oldest and longest history of\nman--and in punishment too is there so much of the festive.\n\n\n7.\n\nEntertaining, as I do, these thoughts, I am, let me say in parenthesis,\nfundamentally opposed to helping our pessimists to new water for the\ndiscordant and groaning mills of their disgust with life; on the\ncontrary, it should be shown specifically that, at the time when\nmankind was not yet ashamed of its cruelty, life in the world was\nbrighter than it is nowadays when there are pessimists. The darkening\nof the heavens over man has always increased in proportion to the\ngrowth of man's shame _before man_. The tired pessimistic outlook,\nthe mistrust of the riddle of life, the icy negation of disgusted\nennui, all those are not the signs of the _most evil_ age of the human\nrace: much rather do they come first to the light of day, as the\nswamp-flowers, which they are, when the swamp to which they belong,\ncomes into existence--I mean the diseased refinement and moralisation,\nthanks to which the \"animal man\" has at last learnt to be ashamed of\nall his instincts. On the road to angelhood (not to use in this context\na harder word) man has developed that dyspeptic stomach and coated\ntongue, which have made not only the joy and innocence of the animal\nrepulsive to him, but also life itself:--so that sometimes he stands\nwith stopped nostrils before his own self, and, like Pope Innocent the\nThird, makes a black list of his own horrors (\"unclean generation,\nloathsome nutrition when in the maternal body, badness of the matter\nout of which man develops, awful stench, secretion of saliva, urine,\nand excrement\"). Nowadays, when suffering is always trotted out\nas the first argument _against_ existence, as its most sinister\nquery, it is well to remember the times when men judged on converse\nprinciples because they could not dispense with the _infliction_ of\nsuffering, and saw therein a magic of the first order, a veritable\nbait of seduction to life.\n\nPerhaps in those days (this is to solace the weaklings) pain did not\nhurt so much as it does nowadays: any physician who has treated negroes\n(granted that these are taken as representative of the prehistoric\nman) suffering from severe internal inflammations which would bring\na European, even though he had the soundest constitution, almost to\ndespair, would be in a position to come to this conclusion. Pain has\n_not_ the same effect with negroes. (The curve of human sensibilities\nto pain seems indeed to sink in an extraordinary and almost sudden\nfashion, as soon as one has passed the upper ten thousand or ten\nmillions of over-civilised humanity, and I personally have no doubt\nthat, by comparison with one painful night passed by one single\nhysterical chit of a cultured woman, the suffering of all the animals\ntaken together who have been put to the question of the knife, so as\nto give scientific answers, are simply negligible.) We may perhaps\nbe allowed to admit the possibility of the craving for cruelty not\nnecessarily having become really extinct: it only requires, in view\nof the fact that pain hurts more nowadays, a certain sublimation and\nsubtilisation, it must especially be translated to the imaginative and\npsychic plane, and be adorned with such smug euphemisms, that even the\nmost fastidious and hypocritical conscience could never grow suspicious\nof their real nature (\"Tragic pity\" is one of these euphemisms:\nanother is \"_les nostalgies de la croix_\"). What really raises one's\nindignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but\nthe senselessness of suffering; such a _senselessness_, however,\nexisted neither in Christianity, which interpreted suffering into a\nwhole mysterious salvation-apparatus, nor in the beliefs of the naive\nancient man, who only knew how to find a meaning in suffering from\nthe standpoint of the spectator, or the inflictor of the suffering.\nIn order to get the secret, undiscovered, and unwitnessed suffering\nout of the world it was almost compulsory to invent gods and a\nhierarchy of intermediate beings, in short, something which wanders\neven among secret places, sees even in the dark, and makes a point\nof never missing an interesting and painful spectacle. It was with\nthe help of such inventions that life got to learn the _tour de\nforce_, which has become part of its stock-in-trade, the _tour de\nforce_ of self-justification, of the justification of evil; nowadays\nthis would perhaps require other auxiliary devices (for instance,\nlife as a riddle, life as a problem of knowledge). \"Every evil is\njustified in the sight of which a god finds edification,\" so rang the\nlogic of primitive sentiment--and, indeed, was it only of primitive?\nThe gods conceived as friends of spectacles of cruelty--oh how far\ndoes this primeval conception extend even nowadays into our European\ncivilisation! One would perhaps like in this context to consult Luther\nand Calvin. It is at any rate certain that even the Greeks knew no\nmore piquant seasoning for the happiness of their gods than the joys\nof cruelty. What, do you think, was the mood with which Homer makes\nhis gods look down upon the fates of men? What final meaning have at\nbottom the Trojan War and similar tragic horrors? It is impossible to\nentertain any doubt on the point: they were intended as festival games\nfor the gods, and, in so far as the poet is of a more godlike breed\nthan other men, as festival games also for the poets. It was in just\nthis spirit and no other, that at a later date the moral philosophers\nof Greece conceived the eyes of God as still looking down on the moral\nstruggle, the heroism, and the self-torture of the virtuous; the\nHeracles of duty was on a stage, and was conscious of the fact; virtue\nwithout witnesses was something quite unthinkable for this nation of\nactors. Must not that philosophic invention, so audacious and so fatal,\nwhich was then absolutely new to Europe, the invention of \"free will,\"\nof the absolute spontaneity of man in good and evil, simply have been\nmade for the specific purpose of justifying the idea, that the interest\nof the gods in humanity and human virtue was _inexhaustible_?\n\nThere would never on the stage of this free-will world be a dearth of\nreally new, really novel and exciting situations, plots, catastrophes.\nA world thought out on completely deterministic lines would be easily\nguessed by the gods, and would consequently soon bore them--sufficient\nreason for these _friends of the gods_, the philosophers, not to\nascribe to their gods such a deterministic world. The whole of ancient\nhumanity is full of delicate consideration for the spectator, being as\nit is a world of thorough publicity and theatricality, which could not\nconceive of happiness without spectacles and festivals.--And, as has\nalready been said, even in great punishment there is so much which is\nfestive.\n\n\n8.\n\nThe feeling of \"ought,\" of personal obligation (to take up again\nthe train of our inquiry), has had, as we saw, its origin in the\noldest and most original personal relationship that there is, the\nrelationship between buyer and seller, creditor and ower: here it\nwas that individual confronted individual, and that individual\n_matched himself against_ individual. There has not yet been found\na grade of civilisation so low, as not to manifest some trace of\nthis relationship. Making prices, assessing values, thinking out\nequivalents, exchanging--all this preoccupied the primal thoughts\nof man to such an extent that in a certain sense it constituted\n_thinking_ itself: it was here that was trained the oldest form of\nsagacity, it was here in this sphere that we can perhaps trace the\nfirst commencement of man's pride, of his feeling of superiority over\nother animals. Perhaps our word \"Mensch\" (_manas_) still expresses\njust something of _this_ self-pride: man denoted himself as the being\nwho measures values, who values and measures, as the \"assessing\"\nanimal _par excellence_. Sale and purchase, together with their\npsychological concomitants, are older than the origins of any form of\nsocial organisation and union: it is rather from the most rudimentary\nform of individual right that the budding consciousness of exchange,\ncommerce, debt, right, obligation, compensation was first transferred\nto the rudest and most elementary of the social complexes (in their\nrelation to similar complexes), the habit of comparing force with\nforce, together with that of measuring, of calculating. His eye was\nnow focussed to this perspective; and with that ponderous consistency\ncharacteristic of ancient thought, which, though set in motion with\ndifficulty, yet proceeds inflexibly along the line on which it has\nstarted, man soon arrived at the great generalisation, \"everything has\nits price, _all_ can be paid for,\" the oldest and most naive moral\ncanon of _justice_, the beginning of all \"kindness,\" of all \"equity,\"\nof all \"goodwill,\" of all \"objectivity\" in the world. Justice in this\ninitial phase is the goodwill among people of about equal power to come\nto terms with each other, to come to an understanding again by means of\na settlement, and with regard to the less powerful, to _compel_ them\nto agree among themselves to a settlement.\n\n\n9.\n\nMeasured always by the standard of antiquity (this antiquity, moreover,\nis present or again possible at all periods), the community stands to\nits members in that important and radical relationship of creditor to\nhis \"owers.\" Man lives in a community, man enjoys the advantages of\na community (and what advantages! we occasionally underestimate them\nnowadays), man lives protected, spared, in peace and trust, secure\nfrom certain injuries and enmities, to which the man outside the\ncommunity, the \"peaceless\" man, is exposed,--a German understands the\noriginal meaning of \"Elend\" (_\u00ealend_),--secure because he has entered\ninto pledges and obligations to the community in respect of these very\ninjuries and enmities. What happens _when this is not the case_? The\ncommunity, the defrauded creditor, will get itself paid, as well as it\ncan, one can reckon on that. In this case the question of the direct\ndamage done by the offender is quite subsidiary: quite apart from\nthis the criminal[3] is above all a breaker, a breaker of word and\ncovenant _to the whole_, as regards all the advantages and amenities\nof the communal life in which up to that time he had participated. The\ncriminal is an \"ower\" who not only fails to repay the advances and\nadvantages that have been given to him, but even sets out to attack\nhis creditor: consequently he is in the future not only, as is fair,\ndeprived of all these advantages and amenities--he is in addition\nreminded of the _importance_ of those advantages. The wrath of the\ninjured creditor, of the community, puts him back in the wild and\noutlawed status from which he was previously protected: the community\nrepudiates him--and now every kind of enmity can vent itself on him.\nPunishment is in this stage of civilisation simply the copy, the mimic,\nof the normal treatment of the hated, disdained, and conquered enemy,\nwho is not only deprived of every right and protection but of every\nmercy; so we have the martial law and triumphant festival of the _v\u00e6\nvictis_! in all its mercilessness and cruelty. This shows why war\nitself (counting the sacrificial cult of war) has produced all the\nforms under which punishment has manifested itself in history.\n\n\n10.\n\nAs it grows more powerful, the community tends to take the offences of\nthe individual less seriously, because they are now regarded as being\nmuch less revolutionary and dangerous to the corporate existence: the\nevil-doer is no more outlawed and put outside the pale, the common\nwrath can no longer vent itself upon him with its old licence,--on\nthe contrary, from this very time it is against this wrath, and\nparticularly against the wrath of those directly injured, that the\nevil-doer is carefully shielded and protected by the community. As, in\nfact, the penal law develops, the following characteristics become\nmore and more clearly marked: compromise with the wrath of those\ndirectly affected by the misdeed; a consequent endeavour to localise\nthe matter and to prevent a further, or indeed a general spread of\nthe disturbance; attempts to find equivalents and to settle the whole\nmatter (compositio); above all, the will, which manifests itself with\nincreasing definiteness, to treat every offence as in a certain degree\ncapable of _being paid off_, and consequently, at any rate up to a\ncertain point, to _isolate_ the offender from his act. As the power and\nthe self-consciousness of a community increases, so proportionately\ndoes the penal law become mitigated; conversely every weakening and\njeopardising of the community revives the harshest forms of that law.\nThe creditor has always grown more humane proportionately as he has\ngrown more rich; finally the amount of injury he can endure without\nreally suffering becomes the criterion of his wealth. It is possible\nto conceive of a society blessed with so great a _consciousness of its\nown power_ as to indulge in the most aristocratic luxury of letting\nits wrong-doers go _scot-free_.--\"What do my parasites matter to me?\"\nmight society say. \"Let them live and flourish! I am strong enough for\nit.\"--The justice which began with the maxim, \"Everything can be paid\noff, everything must be paid off,\" ends with connivance at the escape\nof those who cannot pay to escape--it ends, like every good thing on\nearth, by _destroying itself_.--The self-destruction of Justice! we\nknow the pretty name it calls itself--_Grace!_ it remains, as is\nobvious, the privilege of the strongest, better still, their super-law.\n\n\n11.\n\nA deprecatory word here against the attempts, that have lately been\nmade, to find the origin of justice on quite another basis--namely,\non that of _resentment_. Let me whisper a word in the ear of the\npsychologists, if they would fain study revenge itself at close\nquarters: this plant blooms its prettiest at present among Anarchists\nand anti-Semites, a hidden flower, as it has ever been, like the\nviolet, though, forsooth, with another perfume. And as like must\nnecessarily emanate from like, it will not be a matter for surprise\nthat it is just in such circles that we see the birth of endeavours (it\nis their old birthplace--compare above, First Essay, paragraph 14),\nto sanctify _revenge_ under the name of _justice_ (as though Justice\nwere at bottom merely a _development_ of the consciousness of injury),\nand thus with the rehabilitation of revenge to reinstate generally\nand collectively all the _reactive_ emotions. I object to this last\npoint least of all. It even seems _meritorious_ when regarded from the\nstandpoint of the whole problem of biology (from which standpoint the\nvalue of these emotions has up to the present been underestimated).\nAnd that to which I alone call attention, is the circumstance that\nit is the spirit of revenge itself, from which develops this new\nnuance of scientific equity (for the benefit of hate, envy, mistrust,\njealousy, suspicion, rancour, revenge). This scientific \"equity\"\nstops immediately and makes way for the accents of deadly enmity and\nprejudice, so soon as another group of emotions comes on the scene,\nwhich in my opinion are of a much higher biological value than these\nreactions, and consequently have a paramount claim to the valuation\nand appreciation of science: I mean the really _active_ emotions, such\nas personal and material ambition, and so forth. (E. D\u00fchring, _Value\nof Life; Course of Philosophy_, and _passim_.) So much against this\ntendency in general: but as for the particular maxim of D\u00fchring's,\nthat the home of Justice is to be found in the sphere of the reactive\nfeelings, our love of truth compels us drastically to invert his own\nproposition and to oppose to him this other maxim: the _last_ sphere\nconquered by the spirit of justice is the sphere of the feeling of\nreaction! When it really comes about that the just man remains just\neven as regards his injurer (and not merely cold, moderate, reserved,\nindifferent: being just is always a _positive_ state); when, in spite\nof the strong provocation of personal insult, contempt, and calumny,\nthe lofty and clear objectivity of the just and judging eye (whose\nglance is as profound as it is gentle) is untroubled, why then we have\na piece of perfection, a past master of the world--something, in fact,\nwhich it would not be wise to expect, and which should not at any\nrate be too easily _believed_. Speaking generally, there is no doubt\nbut that even the justest individual only requires a little dose of\nhostility, malice, or innuendo to drive the blood into his brain and\nthe fairness _from_ it. The active man, the attacking, aggressive man\nis always a hundred degrees nearer to justice than the man who merely\nreacts; he certainly has no need to adopt the tactics, necessary in the\ncase of the reacting man, of making false and biassed valuations of his\nobject. It is, in point of fact, for this reason that the aggressive\nman has at all times enjoyed the stronger, bolder, more aristocratic,\nand also _freer_ outlook, the _better_ conscience. On the other hand,\nwe already surmise who it really is that has on his conscience the\ninvention of the \"bad conscience,\"--the resentful man! Finally, let man\nlook at himself in history. In what sphere up to the present has the\nwhole administration of law, the actual need of law, found its earthly\nhome? Perchance in the sphere of the reacting man? Not for a minute:\nrather in that of the active, strong, spontaneous, aggressive man? I\ndeliberately defy the above-mentioned agitator (who himself makes this\nself-confession, \"the creed of revenge has run through all my works\nand endeavours like the red thread of Justice\"), and say, that judged\nhistorically law in the world represents the very war _against_ the\nreactive feelings, the very war waged on those feelings by the powers\nof activity and aggression, which devote some of their strength to\ndamming and keeping within bounds this effervescence of hysterical\nreactivity, and to forcing it to some compromise. Everywhere where\njustice is practised and justice is maintained, it is to be observed\nthat the stronger power, when confronted with the weaker powers which\nare inferior to it (whether they be groups, or individuals), searches\nfor weapons to put an end to the senseless fury of resentment, while\nit carries on its object, partly by taking the victim of resentment\nout of the clutches of revenge, partly by substituting for revenge a\ncampaign of its own against the enemies of peace and order, partly\nby finding, suggesting, and occasionally enforcing settlements,\npartly by standardising certain equivalents for injuries, to which\nequivalents the element of resentment is henceforth finally referred.\nThe most drastic measure, however, taken and effectuated by the supreme\npower, to combat the preponderance of the feelings of spite and\nvindictiveness--it takes this measure as soon as it is at all strong\nenough to do so--is the foundation of _law_, the imperative declaration\nof what in its eyes is to be regarded as just and lawful, and what\nunjust and unlawful: and while, after the foundation of law, the\nsupreme power treats the aggressive and arbitrary acts of individuals,\nor of whole groups, as a violation of law, and a revolt against\nitself, it distracts the feelings of its subjects from the immediate\ninjury inflicted by such a violation, and thus eventually attains the\nvery opposite result to that always desired by revenge, which sees\nand recognises nothing but the standpoint of the injured party. From\nhenceforth the eye becomes trained to a more and more _impersonal_\nvaluation of the deed, even the eye of the injured party himself\n(though this is in the final stage of all, as has been previously\nremarked)--on this principle \"right\" and \"wrong\" first manifest\nthemselves after the foundation of law (and not, as D\u00fchring maintains,\nonly after the act of violation). To talk of intrinsic right and\nintrinsic wrong is absolutely non-sensical; intrinsically, an injury,\nan oppression, an exploitation, an annihilation can be nothing wrong,\ninasmuch as life is _essentially_ (that is, in its cardinal functions)\nsomething which functions by injuring, oppressing, exploiting, and\nannihilating, and is absolutely inconceivable without such a character.\nIt is necessary to make an even more serious confession:--viewed from\nthe most advanced biological standpoint, conditions of legality can be\nonly _exceptional conditions_, in that they are partial restrictions\nof the real life-will, which makes for power, and in that they are\nsubordinated to the life-will's general end as particular means,\nthat is, as means to create _larger_ units of strength. A legal\norganisation, conceived of as sovereign and universal, not as a weapon\nin a fight of complexes of power, but as a weapon _against_ fighting,\ngenerally something after the style of D\u00fchring's communistic model\nof treating every will as equal with every other will, would be a\nprinciple _hostile to life_, a destroyer and dissolver of man, an\noutrage on the future of man, a symptom of fatigue, a secret cut to\nNothingness.--\n\n\n12.\n\nA word more on the origin and end of punishment--two problems which\nare or ought to be kept distinct, but which unfortunately are usually\nlumped into one. And what tactics have our moral genealogists employed\nup to the present in these cases? Their inveterate na\u00efvet\u00e9. They find\nout some \"end\" in the punishment, for instance, revenge and deterrence,\nand then in all their innocence set this end at the beginning, as the\n_causa fiendi_ of the punishment, and--they have done the trick. But\nthe patching up of a history of the origin of law is the last use to\nwhich the \"End in Law\"[4] ought to be put. Perhaps there is no more\npregnant principle for any kind of history than the following, which,\ndifficult though it is to master, _should_ none the less be _mastered_\nin every detail.--The origin of the existence of a thing and its final\nutility, its practical application and incorporation in a system of\nends, are _toto c\u0153lo_ opposed to each other--everything, anything,\nwhich exists and which prevails anywhere, will always be put to new\npurposes by a force superior to itself, will be commandeered afresh,\nwill be turned and transformed to new uses; all \"happening\" in the\norganic world consists of _overpowering_ and dominating, and again all\noverpowering and domination is a new interpretation and adjustment,\nwhich must necessarily obscure or absolutely extinguish the subsisting\n\"meaning\" and \"end.\" The most perfect comprehension of the utility\nof any physiological organ (or also of a legal institution, social\ncustom, political habit, form in art or in religious worship) does not\nfor a minute imply any simultaneous comprehension of its origin: this\nmay seem uncomfortable and unpalatable to the older men,--for it has\nbeen the immemorial belief that understanding the final cause or the\nutility of a thing, a form, an institution, means also understanding\nthe reason for its origin: to give an example of this logic, the eye\nwas made to see, the hand was made to grasp. So even punishment was\nconceived as invented with a view to punishing. But all ends and all\nutilities are only _signs_ that a Will to Power has mastered a less\npowerful force, has impressed thereon out of its own self the meaning\nof a function; and the whole history of a \"Thing,\" an organ, a custom,\ncan on the same principle be regarded as a continuous \"sign-chain\"\nof perpetually new interpretations and adjustments, whose causes, so\nfar from needing to have even a mutual connection, sometimes follow\nand alternate with each other absolutely haphazard. Similarly, the\nevolution of a \"thing,\" of a custom, is anything but its _progressus_\nto an end, still less a logical and direct _progressus_ attained\nwith the minimum expenditure of energy and cost: it is rather the\nsuccession of processes of subjugation, more or less profound, more\nor less mutually independent, which operate on the thing itself; it\nis, further, the resistance which in each case invariably displayed\nthis subjugation, the Protean wriggles by way of defence and reaction,\nand, further, the results of successful counter-efforts. The form is\nfluid, but the meaning is even more so--even inside every individual\norganism the case is the same: with every genuine growth of the whole,\nthe \"function\" of the individual organs becomes shifted,--in certain\ncases a partial perishing of these organs, a diminution of their\nnumbers (for instance, through annihilation of the connecting members),\ncan be a symptom of growing strength and perfection. What I mean is\nthis: even partial _loss of utility_, decay, and degeneration, loss of\nfunction and purpose, in a word, death, appertain to the conditions\nof the genuine _progressus_; which always appears in the shape of\na will and way to _greater_ power, and is always realised at the\nexpense of innumerable smaller powers. The magnitude of a \"progress\"\nis gauged by the greatness of the sacrifice that it requires: humanity\nas a mass sacrificed to the prosperity of the one _stronger_ species\nof Man--that _would be_ a progress. I emphasise all the more this\ncardinal characteristic of the historic method, for the reason that in\nits essence it runs counter to predominant instincts and prevailing\ntaste, which much prefer to put up with absolute casualness, even with\nthe mechanical senselessness of all phenomena, than with the theory\nof a power-will, in exhaustive play throughout all phenomena. The\ndemocratic idiosyncrasy against everything which rules and wishes to\nrule, the modern _misarchism_ (to coin a bad word for a bad thing),\nhas gradually but so thoroughly transformed itself into the guise of\nintellectualism, the most abstract intellectualism, that even nowadays\nit penetrates and _has the right_ to penetrate step by step into the\nmost exact and apparently the most objective sciences: this tendency\nhas, in fact, in my view already dominated the whole of physiology\nand biology, and to their detriment, as is obvious, in so far as\nit has spirited away a radical idea, the idea of true _activity_.\nThe tyranny of this idiosyncrasy, however, results in the theory\nof \"adaptation\" being pushed forward into the van of the argument,\nexploited; adaptation--that means to say, a second-class activity, a\nmere capacity for \"reacting\"; in fact, life itself has been defined\n(by Herbert Spencer) as an increasingly effective internal adaptation\nto external circumstances. This definition, however, fails to realise\nthe real essence of life, its will to power. It fails to appreciate the\nparamount superiority enjoyed by those plastic forces of spontaneity,\naggression, and encroachment with their new interpretations and\ntendencies, to the operation of which adaptation is only a natural\ncorollary: consequently the sovereign office of the highest\nfunctionaries in the organism itself (among which the life-will appears\nas an active and formative principle) is repudiated. One remembers\nHuxley's reproach to Spencer of his \"administrative Nihilism\": but it\nis a case of something much _more_ than \"administration.\"\n\n\n13.\n\nTo return to our subject, namely _punishment_, we must make\nconsequently a double distinction: first, the relatively permanent\n_element_, the custom, the act, the \"drama,\" a certain rigid sequence\nof methods of procedure; on the other hand, the fluid element, the\nmeaning, the end, the expectation which is attached to the operation of\nsuch procedure. At this point we immediately assume, _per analogiam_\n(in accordance with the theory of the historic method, which we have\nelaborated above), that the procedure itself is something older and\nearlier than its utilisation in punishment, that this utilisation was\n_introduced_ and interpreted into the procedure (which had existed\nfor a long time, but whose employment had another meaning), in short,\nthat the case is _different_ from that hitherto supposed by our _na\u00eff_\ngenealogists of morals and of law, who thought that the procedure was\n_invented_ for the purpose of punishment, in the same way that the hand\nhad been previously thought to have been invented for the purpose of\ngrasping. With regard to the other element in _punishment_, its fluid\nelement, its meaning, the idea of punishment in a very late stage of\ncivilisation (for instance, contemporary Europe) is not content with\nmanifesting merely one meaning, but manifests a whole synthesis \"of\nmeanings.\" The past general history of punishment, the history of its\nemployment for the most diverse ends, crystallises eventually into\na kind of unity, which is difficult to analyse into its parts, and\nwhich, it is necessary to emphasise, absolutely defies definition.\n(It is nowadays impossible to say definitely _the precise reason_\nfor punishment: all ideas, in which a whole process is promiscuously\ncomprehended, elude definition; it is only that which has no history,\nwhich can be defined.) At an earlier stage, on the contrary, that\nsynthesis of meanings appears much less rigid and much more elastic; we\ncan realise how in each individual case the elements of the synthesis\nchange their value and their position, so that now one element and\nnow another stands out and predominates over the others, nay, in\ncertain cases one element (perhaps the end of deterrence) seems to\neliminate all the rest. At any rate, so as to give some idea of the\nuncertain, supplementary, and accidental nature of the meaning of\npunishment and of the manner in which one identical procedure can\nbe employed and adapted for the most diametrically opposed objects,\nI will at this point give a scheme that has suggested itself to\nme, a scheme itself based on comparatively small and accidental\nmaterial.--Punishment, as rendering the criminal harmless and incapable\nof further injury.--Punishment, as compensation for the injury\nsustained by the injured party, in any form whatsoever (including\nthe form of sentimental compensation).--Punishment, as an isolation\nof that which disturbs the equilibrium, so as to prevent the further\nspreading of the disturbance.--Punishment as a means of inspiring\nfear of those who determine and execute the punishment.--Punishment\nas a kind of compensation for advantages which the wrong-doer has\nup to that time enjoyed (for example, when he is utilised as a\nslave in the mines).--Punishment, as the elimination of an element\nof decay (sometimes of a whole branch, as according to the Chinese\nlaws, consequently as a means to the purification of the race, or\nthe preservation of a social type).---Punishment as a festival, as\nthe violent oppression and humiliation of an enemy that has at last\nbeen subdued.--Punishment as a mnemonic, whether for him who suffers\nthe punishment--the so-called \"correction,\" or for the witnesses of\nits administration. Punishment, as the payment of a fee stipulated\nfor by the power which protects the evil-doer from the excesses of\nrevenge.--Punishment, as a compromise with the natural phenomenon\nof revenge, in so far as revenge is still maintained and claimed\nas a privilege by the stronger races.--Punishment as a declaration\nand measure of war against an enemy of peace, of law, of order,\nof authority, who is fought by society with the weapons which war\nprovides, as a spirit dangerous to the community, as a breaker of the\ncontract on which the community is based, as a rebel, a traitor, and a\nbreaker of the peace.\n\n\n14.\n\nThis list is certainly not complete; it is obvious that punishment\nis overloaded with utilities of all kinds. This makes it all the\nmore permissible to eliminate one supposed utility, which passes, at\nany rate in the popular mind, for its most essential utility, and\nwhich is just what even now provides the strongest support for that\nfaith in punishment which is nowadays for many reasons tottering.\nPunishment is supposed to have the value of exciting in the guilty\nthe consciousness of guilt; in punishment is sought the proper\ninstrumentum of that psychic reaction which becomes known as a \"bad\nconscience,\" \"remorse.\" But this theory is even, from the point of\nview of the present, a violation of reality and psychology: and how\nmuch more so is the case when we have to deal with the longest period\nof man's history, his primitive history! Genuine remorse is certainly\nextremely rare among wrong-doers and the victims of punishment; prisons\nand houses of correction are not _the_ soil on which this worm of\nremorse pullulates for choice--this is the unanimous opinion of all\nconscientious observers, who in many cases arrive at such a judgment\nwith enough reluctance and against their own personal wishes. Speaking\ngenerally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it\nsharpens the consciousness of alienation, it strengthens the power of\nresistance. When it happens that it breaks the man's energy and brings\nabout a piteous prostration and abjectness, such a result is certainly\neven less salutary than the average effect of punishment, which is\ncharacterised by a harsh and sinister doggedness. The thought of those\n_prehistoric_ millennia brings us to the unhesitating conclusion,\nthat it was simply through punishment that the evolution of the\nconsciousness of guilt was most forcibly retarded--at any rate in the\nvictims of the punishing power. In particular, let us not underestimate\nthe extent to which, by the very sight of the judicial and executive\nprocedure, the wrong-doer is himself prevented from feeling that his\ndeed, the character of his act, is _intrinsically_ reprehensible: for\nhe sees clearly the same kind of acts practised in the service of\njustice, and then called good, and practised with a good conscience;\nacts such as espionage, trickery, bribery, trapping, the whole\nintriguing and insidious art of the policeman and the informer--the\nwhole system, in fact, manifested in the different kinds of punishment\n(a system not excused by passion, but based on principle), of robbing,\noppressing, insulting, imprisoning, racking, murdering.--All this\nhe sees treated by his judges, not as acts meriting censure and\ncondemnation _in themselves_, but only in a particular context and\napplication. It was not on this soil that grew the \"bad conscience,\"\nthat most sinister and interesting plant of our earthly vegetation--\nin point of fact, throughout a most lengthy period, no suggestion of\nhaving to do with a \"guilty man\" manifested itself in the consciousness\nof the man who judged and punished. One had merely to deal with an\nauthor of an injury, an irresponsible piece of fate. And the man\nhimself, on whom the punishment subsequently fell like a piece of fate,\nwas occasioned no more of an \"inner pain\" than would be occasioned by\nthe sudden approach of some uncalculated event, some terrible natural\ncatastrophe, a rushing, crushing avalanche against which there is no\nresistance.\n\n\n15.\n\nThis truth came insidiously enough to the consciousness of Spinoza (to\nthe disgust of his commentators, who (like Kuno Fischer, for instance)\ngive themselves no end of _trouble_ to misunderstand him on this\npoint), when one afternoon (as he sat raking up who knows what memory)\nhe indulged in the question of what was really left for him personally\nof the celebrated _morsus conscienti\u00e6_--Spinoza, who had relegated\n\"good and evil\" to the sphere of human imagination, and indignantly\ndefended the honour of his \"free\" God against those blasphemers who\naffirmed that God did everything _sub ratione boni_ (\"but this was\ntantamount to subordinating God to fate, and would really be the\ngreatest of all absurdities\"). For Spinoza the world had returned\nagain to that innocence in which it lay before the discovery of the\nbad conscience: what, then, had happened to the _morsus conscienti\u00e6_?\n\"The antithesis of _gaudium_,\" said he at last to himself,--\"A sadness\naccompanied by the recollection of a past event which has turned out\ncontrary to all expectation\" (_Eth_. III., Propos. XVIII. Schol.\ni. ii.). Evil-doers have throughout thousands of years felt when\novertaken by punishment _exactly like Spinoza_, on the subject of\ntheir \"offence\": \"here is something which went wrong contrary to my\nanticipation,\" not \"I ought not to have done this.\"--They submitted\nthemselves to punishment, just as one submits one's self to a disease,\nto a misfortune, or to death, with that stubborn and resigned fatalism\nwhich gives the Russians, for instance, even nowadays, the advantage\nover us Westerners, in the handling of life. If at that period there\nwas a critique of action, the criterion was prudence: the real _effect_\nof punishment is unquestionably chiefly to be found in a sharpening\nof the sense of prudence, in a lengthening of the memory, in a will\nto adopt more of a policy of caution, suspicion, and secrecy; in the\nrecognition that there are many things which are unquestionably beyond\none's capacity; in a kind of improvement in self-criticism. The broad\neffects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the\nincrease of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery\nof the desires: so it is that punishment _tames_ man, but does not make\nhim \"better\"--it would be more correct even to go so far as to assert\nthe contrary (\"Injury makes a man cunning,\" says a popular proverb: so\nfar as it makes him cunning, it makes him also bad. Fortunately, it\noften enough makes him stupid).\n\n\n16.\n\nAt this juncture I cannot avoid trying to give a tentative and\nprovisional expression to my own hypothesis concerning the origin of\nthe bad conscience: it is difficult to make it fully appreciated,\nand it requires continuous meditation, attention, and digestion. I\nregard the bad conscience as the serious illness which man was bound\nto contract under the stress of the most radical change which he has\never experienced--that change, when he found himself finally imprisoned\nwithin the pale of society and of peace.\n\nJust like the plight of the water-animals, when they were compelled\neither to become land-animals or to perish, so was the plight of these\nhalf-animals, perfectly adapted as they were to the savage life of war,\nprowling, and adventure--suddenly all their instincts were rendered\nworthless and \"switched off.\" Henceforward they had to walk on their\nfeet--\"carry themselves,\" whereas heretofore they had been carried by\nthe water: a terrible heaviness oppressed them. They found themselves\nclumsy in obeying the simplest directions, confronted with this new\nand unknown world they had no longer their old guides--the regulative\ninstincts that had led them unconsciously to safety--they were reduced,\nwere those unhappy creatures, to thinking, inferring, calculating,\nputting together causes and results, reduced to that poorest and most\nerratic organ of theirs, their \"consciousness.\" I do not believe\nthere was ever in the world such a feeling of misery, such a leaden\ndiscomfort--further, those old instincts had not immediately ceased\ntheir demands! Only it was difficult and rarely possible to gratify\nthem: speaking broadly, they were compelled to satisfy themselves by\nnew and, as it were, hole-and-corner methods. All instincts which\ndo not find a vent without, _turn inwards_--this is what I mean by\nthe growing \"internalisation\" of man: consequently we have the first\ngrowth in man, of what subsequently was called his soul. The whole\ninner world, originally as thin as if it had been stretched between\ntwo layers of skin, burst apart and expanded proportionately, and\nobtained depth, breadth, and height, when man's external outlet\nbecame _obstructed_. These terrible bulwarks, with which the social\norganisation protected itself against the old instincts of freedom\n(punishments belong pre-eminently to these bulwarks), brought it\nabout that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man became\nturned backwards against man himself. Enmity, cruelty, the delight\nin persecution, in surprises, change, destruction--the turning all\nthese instincts against their own possessors: this is the origin of\nthe \"bad conscience.\" It was man, who, lacking external enemies and\nobstacles, and imprisoned as he was in the oppressive narrowness and\nmonotony of custom, in his own impatience lacerated, persecuted,\ngnawed, frightened, and ill-treated himself; it was this animal in the\nhands of the tamer, which beat itself against the bars of its cage; it\nwas this being who, pining and yearning for that desert home of which\nit had been deprived, was compelled to create out of its own self, an\nadventure, a torture-chamber, a hazardous and perilous desert--it was\nthis fool, this homesick and desperate prisoner--who invented the \"bad\nconscience.\" But thereby he introduced that most grave and sinister\nillness, from which mankind has not yet recovered, the suffering of\nman from the disease called man, as the result of a violent breaking\nfrom his animal past, the result, as it were, of a spasmodic plunge\ninto a new environment and new conditions of existence, the result of\na declaration of war against the old instincts, which up to that time\nhad been the staple of his power, his joy, his formidableness. Let\nus immediately add that this fact of an animal ego turning against\nitself, taking part against itself, produced in the world so novel,\nprofound, unheard-of, problematic, inconsistent, and _pregnant_ a\nphenomenon, that the aspect of the world was radically altered thereby.\nIn sooth, only divine spectators could have appreciated the drama\nthat then began, and whose end baffles conjecture as yet--a drama too\nsubtle, too wonderful, too paradoxical to warrant its undergoing a\nnon-sensical and unheeded performance on some random grotesque planet!\nHenceforth man is to be counted as one of the most unexpected and\nsensational lucky shots in the game of the \"big baby\" of Heracleitus,\nwhether he be called Zeus or Chance--he awakens on his behalf the\ninterest, excitement, hope, almost the confidence, of his being the\nharbinger and forerunner of something, of man being no end, but only a\nstage, an interlude, a bridge, a great promise.\n\n\n17.\n\nIt is primarily involved in this hypothesis of the origin of the bad\nconscience, that that alteration was no gradual and no voluntary\nalteration, and that it did not manifest itself as an organic\nadaptation to new conditions, but as a break, a jump, a necessity, an\ninevitable fate, against which there was no resistance and never a\nspark of resentment. And secondarily, that the fitting of a hitherto\nunchecked and amorphous population into a fixed form, starting as\nit had done in an act of violence, could only be accomplished by\nacts of violence and nothing else--that the oldest \"State\" appeared\nconsequently as a ghastly tyranny, a grinding ruthless piece of\nmachinery, which went on working, till this raw material of a\nsemi-animal populace was not only thoroughly kneaded and elastic, but\nalso _moulded_. I used the word \"State\": my meaning is self-evident,\nnamely, a herd of blonde beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and\nmasters, which with all its warlike organisation and all its organising\npower pounces with its terrible claws on a population, in numbers\npossibly tremendously superior, but as yet formless, as yet nomad.\nSuch is the origin of the \"State.\" That fantastic theory that makes it\nbegin with a contract is, I think, disposed of. He who can command,\nhe who is a master by \"nature,\" he who comes on the scene forceful\nin deed and gesture--what has he to do with contracts? Such beings\ndefy calculation, they come like fate, without cause, reason, notice,\nexcuse, they are there like the lightning is there, too terrible, too\nsudden, too convincing, too \"different,\" to be personally even hated.\nTheir work is an instinctive creating and impressing of forms, they\nare the most involuntary, unconscious artists that there are:--their\nappearance produces instantaneously a scheme of sovereignty which is\nlive, in which the functions are partitioned and apportioned, in which\nabove all no part is received or finds a place, until pregnant with\na \"meaning\" in regard to the whole. They are ignorant of the meaning\nof guilt, responsibility, consideration, are these born organisers;\nin them predominates that terrible artist-egoism, that gleams like\nbrass, and that knows itself justified to all eternity, in its work,\neven as a mother in her child. It is not in _them_ that there grew\nthe bad conscience, that is elementary--but it would not have grown\n_without_ them, repulsive growth as it was, it would be missing, had\nnot a tremendous quantity of freedom been expelled from the world by\nthe stress of their hammer-strokes, their artist violence, or been at\nany rate made invisible and, as it were, _latent_. This _instinct of\nfreedom_ forced into being latent--it is already clear--this instinct\nof freedom forced back, trodden back, imprisoned within itself, and\nfinally only able to find vent and relief in itself; this, only this,\nis the beginning of the \"bad conscience.\"\n\n\n18.\n\nBeware of thinking lightly of this phenomenon, by reason of its initial\npainful ugliness. At bottom it is the same active force which is at\nwork on a more grandiose scale in those potent artists and organisers,\nand builds states, which here, internally, on a smaller and pettier\nscale and with a retrogressive tendency, makes itself a bad science in\nthe \"labyrinth of the breast,\" to use Goethe's phrase, and which builds\nnegative ideals; it is, I repeat, that identical _instinct of freedom_\n(to use my own language, the will to power): only the material, on\nwhich this force with all its constructive and tyrannous nature is\nlet loose, is here man himself, his whole old animal self--and not as\nin the case of that more grandiose and sensational phenomenon, the\n_other_ man, _other_ men. This secret self-tyranny, this cruelty of\nthe artist, this delight in giving a form to one's self as a piece of\ndifficult, refractory, and suffering material, in burning in a will, a\ncritique, a contradiction, a contempt, a negation; this sinister and\nghastly labour of love on the part of a soul, whose will is cloven\nin two within itself, which makes itself suffer from delight in the\ninfliction of suffering; this wholly _active_ bad conscience has\nfinally (as one already anticipates)--true fountainhead as it is of\nidealism and imagination--produced an abundance of novel and amazing\nbeauty and affirmation, and perhaps has really been the first to\ngive birth to beauty at all. What would beauty be, forsooth, if its\ncontradiction had not first been presented to consciousness, if the\nugly had not first said to itself, \"I am ugly\"? At any rate, after this\nhint the problem of how far idealism and beauty can be traced in such\nopposite ideas as \"_selflessness_,\" _self-denial_, _self-sacrifice_,\nbecomes less problematical; and indubitably in future we shall\ncertainly know the real and original character of the _delight_\nexperienced by the self-less, the self-denying, the self-sacrificing:\nthis delight is a phase of cruelty.--So much provisionally for the\norigin of \"altruism\" as a _moral_ value, and the marking out the ground\nfrom which this value has grown: it is only the bad conscience, only\nthe will for self-abuse, that provides the necessary conditions for the\nexistence of altruism as a _value_.\n\n\n19.\n\nUndoubtedly the bad conscience is an illness, but an illness like\npregnancy is an illness. If we search out the conditions under which\nthis illness reaches its most terrible and sublime zenith, we shall see\nwhat really first brought about its entry into the world. But to do\nthis we must take a long breath, and we must first of all go back once\nagain to an earlier point of view. The relation at civil law of the\nower to his creditor (which has already been discussed in detail), has\nbeen interpreted once again (and indeed in a manner which historically\nis exceedingly remarkable and suspicious) into a relationship, which\nis perhaps more incomprehensible to us moderns than to any other era;\nthat is, into the relationship of the _existing_ generation to its\n_ancestors_. Within the original tribal association--we are talking of\nprimitive times--each living generation recognises a legal obligation\ntowards the earlier generation, and particularly towards the earliest,\nwhich founded the family (and this is something much more than a mere\nsentimental obligation, the existence of which, during the longest\nperiod of man's history, is by no means indisputable). There prevails\nin them the conviction that it is only thanks to sacrifices and efforts\nof their ancestors, that the race _persists_ at all--and that this\nhas to be _paid back_ to them by sacrifices and services. Thus is\nrecognised the _owing_ of a debt, which accumulates continually by\nreason of these ancestors never ceasing in their subsequent life as\npotent spirits to secure by their power new privileges and advantages\nto the race. Gratis, perchance? But there is no gratis for that raw\nand \"mean-souled\" age. What return can be made?--Sacrifice (at first,\nnourishment, in its crudest sense), festivals, temples, tributes of\nveneration, above all, obedience--since all customs are, _qu\u00e2_ works of\nthe ancestors, equally their precepts and commands--are the ancestors\never given enough? This suspicion remains and grows: from time to time\nit extorts a great wholesale ransom, something monstrous in the way of\nrepayment of the creditor (the notorious sacrifice of the first-born,\nfor example, blood, human blood in any case). The _fear_ of ancestors\nand their power, the consciousness of owing debts to them, necessarily\nincreases, according to this kind of logic, in the exact proportion\nthat the race itself increases, that the race itself becomes more\nvictorious, more independent, more honoured, more feared. This, and not\nthe contrary, is the fact. Each step towards race decay, all disastrous\nevents, all symptoms of degeneration, of approaching disintegration,\nalways _diminish_ the fear of the founders' spirit, and whittle away\nthe idea of his sagacity, providence, and potent presence. Conceive\nthis crude kind of logic carried to its climax: it follows that the\nancestors of the _most powerful_ races must, through the growing fear\nthat they exercise on the imaginations, grow themselves into monstrous\ndimensions, and become relegated to the gloom of a divine mystery that\ntranscends imagination--the ancestor becomes at last necessarily\ntransfigured into a _god_. Perhaps this is the very origin of the gods,\nthat is, an origin from _fear_! And those who feel bound to add, \"but\nfrom piety also,\" will have difficulty in maintaining this theory,\nwith regard to the primeval and longest period of the human race. And\nof course this is even more the case as regards the _middle_ period,\nthe formative period of the aristocratic races--the aristocratic\nraces which have given back with interest to their founders, the\nancestors (heroes, gods), all those qualities which in the meanwhile\nhave appeared in themselves, that is, the aristocratic qualities. We\nwill later on glance again at the ennobling and promotion of the gods\n(which of course is totally distinct from their \"sanctification\"): let\nus now provisionally follow to its end the course of the whole of this\ndevelopment of the consciousness of \"owing.\"\n\n\n20.\n\nAccording to the teaching of history, the consciousness of owing\ndebts to the deity by no means came to an end with the decay of the\nclan organisation of society; just as mankind has inherited the\nideas of \"good\" and \"bad\" from the race-nobility (together with its\nfundamental tendency towards establishing social distinctions), so\nwith the heritage of the racial and tribal gods it has also inherited\nthe incubus of debts as yet unpaid and the desire to discharge them.\nThe transition is effected by those large populations of slaves and\nbondsmen, who, whether through compulsion or through submission and\n\"_mimicry,_\" have accommodated themselves to the religion of their\nmasters; through this channel these inherited tendencies inundate\nthe world. The feeling of owing a debt to the deity has grown\ncontinuously for several centuries, always in the same proportion in\nwhich the idea of God and the consciousness of God have grown and\nbecome exalted among mankind. (The whole history of ethnic fights,\nvictories, reconciliations, amalgamations, everything, in fact, which\nprecedes the eventual classing of all the social elements in each great\nrace-synthesis, are mirrored in the hotch-potch genealogy of their\ngods, in the legends of their fights, victories, and reconciliations.\nProgress towards universal empires invariably means progress towards\nuniversal deities; despotism, with its subjugation of the independent\nnobility, always paves the way for some system or other of monotheism.)\nThe appearance of the Christian god, as the record god up to this time,\nhas for that very reason brought equally into the world the record\namount of guilt consciousness. Granted that we have gradually started\non the _reverse_ movement, there is no little probability in the\ndeduction, based on the continuous decay in the belief in the Christian\ngod, to the effect that there also already exists a considerable\ndecay in the human consciousness of owing (ought); in fact, we cannot\nshut our eyes to the prospect of the complete and eventual triumph of\natheism freeing mankind from all this feeling of obligation to their\norigin, their _causa prima_. Atheism and a kind of second innocence\ncomplement and supplement each other.\n\n\n21.\n\nSo much for my rough and preliminary sketch of the interrelation of\nthe ideas \"ought\" (owe) and \"duty\" with the postulates of religion. I\nhave intentionally shelved up to the present the actual moralisation\nof these ideas (their being pushed back into the conscience, or more\nprecisely the interweaving of the _bad_ conscience with the idea of\nGod), and at the end of the last paragraph used language to the effect\nthat this moralisation did not exist, and that consequently these ideas\nhad necessarily come to an end, by reason of what had happened to their\nhypothesis, the credence in our \"creditor,\" in God. The actual facts\ndiffer terribly from this theory. It is with the moralisation of the\nideas \"ought\" and \"duty,\" and with their being pushed back into the\n_bad_ conscience, that comes the first actual attempt to _reverse_ the\ndirection of the development we have just described, or at any rate\nto arrest its evolution; it is just at this juncture that the very\nhope of an eventual redemption _has to_ put itself once for all into\nthe prison of pessimism, it is at this juncture that the eye _has to_\nrecoil and rebound in despair from off an adamantine impossibility,\nit is at this juncture that the ideas \"guilt\" and \"duty\" have to turn\nbackwards--turn backwards against _whom_? There is no doubt about\nit; primarily against the \"ower,\" in whom the bad conscience now\nestablishes itself, eats, extends, and grows like a polypus throughout\nits length and breadth, all with such virulence, that at last, with\nthe impossibility of paying the debt, there becomes conceived the\nidea of the impossibility of paying the penalty, the thought of its\ninexpiability (the idea of \"eternal punishment\")--finally, too, it\nturns against the \"creditor,\" whether found in the _causa prima_ of\nman, the origin of the human race, its sire, who henceforth becomes\nburdened with a curse (\"Adam,\" \"original sin,\" \"determination of the\nwill\"), or in Nature from whose womb man springs, and on whom the\nresponsibility for the principle of evil is now cast (\"Diabolisation of\nNature\"), or in existence generally, on this logic an absolute _white\nelephant_, with which mankind is landed (the Nihilistic flight from\nlife, the demand for Nothingness, or for the opposite of existence, for\nsome other existence, Buddhism and the like)--till suddenly we stand\nbefore that paradoxical and awful expedient, through which a tortured\nhumanity has found a temporary alleviation, that stroke of genius\ncalled Christianity:--God personally immolating himself for the debt of\nman, God paying himself personally out of a pound of his own flesh, God\nas the one being who can deliver man from what man had become unable to\ndeliver himself--the creditor playing scapegoat for his debtor, from\n_love_ (can you believe it?), from love of his debtor!...\n\n\n22.\n\nThe reader will already have conjectured what took place on the stage\nand behind the scenes of this drama. That will for self-torture, that\ninverted cruelty of the animal man, who, turned subjective and scared\ninto introspection (encaged as he was in \"the State,\" as part of his\ntaming process), invented the bad conscience so as to hurt himself,\nafter the _natural_ outlet for this will to hurt, became blocked--in\nother words, this man of the bad conscience exploited the religious\nhypothesis so as to carry his martyrdom to the ghastliest pitch of\nagonised intensity. Owing something to _God_: this thought becomes his\ninstrument of torture. He apprehends in God the most extreme antitheses\nthat he can find to his own characteristic and ineradicable animal\ninstincts, he himself gives a new interpretation to these animal\ninstincts as being against what he \"owes\" to God (as enmity, rebellion,\nand revolt against the \"Lord,\" the \"Father,\" the \"Sire,\" the \"Beginning\nof the world\"), he places himself between the horns of the dilemma,\n\"God\" and \"Devil.\" Every negation which he is inclined to utter to\nhimself, to the nature, naturalness, and reality of his being, he\nwhips into an ejaculation of \"yes,\" uttering it as something existing,\nliving, efficient, as being God, as the holiness of God, the judgment\nof God, as the hangmanship of God, as transcendence, as eternity, as\nunending torment, as hell, as infinity of punishment and guilt. This is\na kind of madness of the will in the sphere of psychological cruelty\nwhich is absolutely unparalleled:--man's _will_ to find himself guilty\nand blameworthy to the point of inexpiability, his _will_ to think of\nhimself as punished, without the punishment ever being able to balance\nthe guilt, his _will_ to infect and to poison the fundamental basis\nof the universe with the problem of punishment and guilt, in order to\ncut off once and for all any escape out of this labyrinth of \"fixed\nideas,\" his will for rearing an ideal--that of the \"holy God\"--face to\nface with which he can have tangible proof of his own un-worthiness.\nAlas for this mad melancholy beast man! What phantasies invade it,\nwhat paroxysms of perversity, hysterical senselessness, and _mental\nbestiality_ break out immediately, at the very slightest check on its\nbeing the beast of action. All this is excessively interesting, but\nat the same time tainted with a black, gloomy, enervating melancholy,\nso that a forcible veto must be invoked against looking too long into\nthese abysses. Here is _disease_, undubitably, the most ghastly disease\nthat has as yet played havoc among men: and he who can still hear (but\nman turns now deaf ears to such sounds), how in this night of torment\nand nonsense there has rung out the cry of _love_, the cry of the most\npassionate ecstasy, of redemption in _love_, he turns away gripped by\nan invincible horror--in man there is so much that is ghastly--too long\nhas the world been a mad-house.\n\n\n23.\n\nLet this suffice once for all concerning the origin of the \"holy God.\"\nThe fact that _in itself_ the conception of gods is not bound to\nlead necessarily to this degradation of the imagination (a temporary\nrepresentation of whose vagaries we felt bound give), the fact that\nthere exist nobler methods of utilising the invention of gods than in\nthis self-crucifixion and self-degradation of man, in which the last\ntwo thousand years of Europe have been past masters--these facts can\nfortunately be still perceived from every glance that we cast at the\nGrecian gods, these mirrors of noble and grandiose men, in which the\n_animal_ in man felt itself deified, and did _not_ devour itself in\nsubjective frenzy. These Greeks long utilised their gods as simple\nbuffers against the \"bad conscience\"--so that they could continue\nto enjoy their freedom of soul: this, of course, is diametrically\nopposed to Christianity's theory of its god. They went _very far_ on\nthis principle, did these splendid and lion-hearted children; and\nthere is no lesser authority than that of the Homeric Zeus for making\nthem realise occasionally that they are taking life too casually.\n\"Wonderful,\" says he on one occasion--it has to do with the case of\n\u00c6gistheus, a _very_ bad case indeed--\n\n    \"Wonderful how they grumble, the mortals against the immortals,\n    _Only from us_, they presume, _comes evil_, but in their folly,\n    Fashion they, spite of fate, the doom of their own disaster.\"\n\nYet the reader will note and observe that this Olympian spectator and\njudge is far from being angry with them and thinking evil of them on\nthis score. \"How _foolish_ they are,\" so thinks he of the misdeeds\nof mortals--and \"folly,\" \"imprudence,\" \"a little brain disturbance,\"\nand nothing more, are what the Greeks, even of the strongest, bravest\nperiod, have admitted to be the ground of much that is evil and\nfatal.--Folly, _not_ sin, do you understand?... But even this brain\ndisturbance was a problem--\"Come, how is it even possible? How could it\nhave really got in brains like ours, the brains of men of aristocratic\nancestry, of men of fortune, of men of good natural endowments, of\nmen of the best society, of men of nobility and virtue?\" This was the\nquestion that for century on century the aristocratic Greek put to\nhimself when confronted with every (to him incomprehensible) outrage\nand sacrilege with which one of his peers had polluted himself. \"It\nmust be that a god had infatuated him,\" he would say at last, nodding\nhis head.--This solution is _typical_ of the Greeks, ... accordingly\nthe gods in those times subserved the functions of justifying man to a\ncertain extent even in evil--in those days they took upon themselves\nnot the punishment, but, what is more noble, the guilt.\n\n\n24.\n\nI conclude with three queries, as you will see. \"Is an ideal actually\nset up here, or is one pulled down?\" I am perhaps asked.... But have\nye sufficiently asked yourselves how dear a payment has the setting up\nof every ideal in the world exacted? To achieve that consummation how\nmuch truth must always be traduced and misunderstood, how many lies\nmust be sanctified, how much conscience has got to be disturbed, how\nmany pounds of \"God\" have got to be sacrificed every time? To enable\na sanctuary to be set up _a sanctuary has got to be destroyed_: that\nis a law--show me an instance where it has not been fulfilled!...\nWe modern men, we inherit the immemorial tradition of vivisecting\nthe conscience, and practising cruelty to our animal selves. That is\nthe sphere of our most protracted training, perhaps of our artistic\nprowess, at any rate of our dilettantism and our perverted taste. Man\nhas for too long regarded his natural proclivities with an \"evil eye,\"\nso that eventually they have become in his system affiliated to a\nbad conscience. A converse endeavour would be intrinsically feasible\n--but who is strong enough to attempt it?--namely, to affiliate to\nthe \"bad conscience\" all those _unnatural_ proclivities, all those\ntranscendental aspirations, contrary to sense, instinct, nature, and\nanimalism--in short, all past and present ideals, which are all ideals\nopposed to life, and traducing the world. To whom is one to turn\nnowadays with _such_ hopes and pretensions?--It is just the _good_\nmen that we should thus bring about our ears; and in addition, as\nstands to reason, the indolent, the hedgers, the vain, the hysterical,\nthe tired.... What is more offensive or more thoroughly calculated\nto alienate, than giving any hint of the exalted severity with which\nwe treat ourselves? And again how conciliatory, how full of love\ndoes all the world show itself towards us so soon as we do as all\nthe world docs, and \"let ourselves go\" like all the world. For such\na consummation we need spirits of _different_ calibre than seems\nreally feasible in this age; spirits rendered potent through wars and\nvictories, to whom conquest, adventure, danger, even pain, have become\na need; for such a consummation we need habituation to sharp, rare air,\nto winter wanderings, to literal and metaphorical ice and mountains; we\neven need a kind of sublime malice, a supreme and most self-conscious\ninsolence of knowledge, which is the appanage of great health; we need\n(to summarise the awful truth) just this _great health_!\n\nIs this even feasible to-day?... But some day, in a stronger age\nthan this rotting and introspective present, must he in sooth come\nto us, even the _redeemer_ of great love and scorn, the creative\nspirit, rebounding by the impetus of his own force back again away\nfrom every transcendental plane and dimension, he whose solitude\nis misunderstanded (sic) of the people, as though it were a flight\n_from_ reality;--while actually it is only his diving, burrowing, and\npenetrating _into_ reality, so that when he comes again to the light\nhe can at once bring about by these means the _redemption_ of this\nreality; its redemption from the curse which the old ideal has laid\nupon it. This man of the future, who in this wise will redeem us from\nthe old ideal, as he will from that ideal's necessary corollary of\ngreat nausea, will to nothingness, and Nihilism; this tocsin of noon\nand of the great verdict, which renders the will again free, who gives\nback to the world its goal and to man his hope, this Antichrist and\nAntinihilist, this conqueror of God and of Nothingness--_he must one\nday come_.\n\n\n25.\n\nBut what am I talking of? Enough! Enough? At this juncture I have\nonly one proper course, silence: otherwise tresspass on a domain open\nalone to one who is younger than I, one stronger, more \"_future_\" than\nI--open alone to _Zarathustra, Zarathustra the godless._\n\n\n[1] The German is: \"_Sittlichkeit der Sitte_.\" H. B. S.\n\n[2] The German world \"_schuld_\" means both debt and guilt. Cp. the\nEnglish \"owe\" and \"ought,\" by which I occasionally render the double\nmeaning.--H. B. S.\n\n[3] German: \"_Verbrecher_.\"--H.B.S.\n\n[4] An allusion to _Der Zweck im Recht_, by the great German jurist,\nProfessor Ihering.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD ESSAY.\n\n\nWHAT IS THE MEANING OF ASCETIC IDEALS?\n\n\n\"Careless, mocking, forceful--so does wisdom wish us: she is a woman,\nand never loves any one but a warrior.\" Thus Spake Zarathustra.\n\n\n1.\n\nWhat is the meaning of ascetic ideals? In artists, nothing, or too\nmuch; in philosophers and scholars, a kind of \"flair\" and instinct for\nthe conditions most favourable to advanced intellectualism; in women,\nat best an _additional_ seductive fascination, a little _morbidezza_\non a fine piece of flesh, the angelhood of a fat, pretty animal; in\nphysiological failures and whiners (in the _majority_ of mortals),\nan attempt to pose as \"too good\" for this world, a holy form of\ndebauchery, their chief weapon in the battle with lingering pain and\nennui; in priests, the actual priestly faith, their best engine of\npower, and also the supreme authority for power; in saints, finally\na pretext for hibernation, their _novissima glori\u00e6 cupido_, their\npeace in nothingness (\"God\"), their form of madness.\n\nBut in the very fact that the ascetic ideal has meant so much to\nman, lies expressed the fundamental feature of man's will, his\n_horror vacui: he needs a goal_--and he will sooner will nothingness\nthan not will at all.--Am I not understood?--Have I not been\nunderstood?--\"Certainly not, sir?\"--Well, let us begin at the beginning.\n\n\n2.\n\nWhat is the meaning of ascetic ideals? Or, to take an individual\ncase in regard to which I have often been consulted, what is the\nmeaning, for example, of an artist like Richard Wagner paying homage\nto chastity in his old age? He had always done so, of course, in a\ncertain sense, but it was not till quite the end, that he did so in\nan ascetic sense. What is the meaning of this \"change of attitude,\"\nthis radical revolution in his attitude--for that was what it was?\nWagner veered thereby straight round into his own opposite. What is\nthe meaning of an artist veering round into his own opposite? At\nthis point (granted that we do not mind stopping a little over this\nquestion), we immediately call to mind the best, strongest, gayest,\nand boldest period, that there perhaps ever was in Wagner's life: that\nwas the period, when he was genuinely and deeply occupied with the\nidea of \"Luther's Wedding.\" Who knows what chance is responsible for\nour now having the _Meistersingers_ instead of this wedding music?\nAnd how much in the latter is perhaps just an echo of the former? But\nthere is no doubt but that the theme would have dealt with the praise\nof chastity. And certainly it would also have dealt with the praise\nof sensuality, and even so, it would seem quite in order, and even\nso, it would have been equally Wagnerian. For there is no necessary\nantithesis between chastity and sensuality: every good marriage, every\nauthentic heart-felt love transcends this antithesis. Wagner would, it\nseems to me, have done well to have brought this _pleasing_ reality\nhome once again to his Germans, by means of a bold and graceful \"Luther\nComedy,\" for there were and are among the Germans many revilers of\nsensuality; and perhaps Luther's greatest merit lies just in the fact\nof his having had the courage of his _sensuality_ (it used to be\ncalled, prettily enough, \"evangelistic freedom \"). But even in those\ncases where that antithesis between chastity and sensuality does exist,\nthere has fortunately been for some time no necessity for it to be in\nany way a tragic antithesis. This should, at any rate, be the case with\nall beings who are sound in mind and body, who are far from reckoning\ntheir delicate balance between \"animal\" and \"angel,\" as being on the\nface of it one of the principles opposed to existence--the most subtle\nand brilliant spirits, such as Goethe, such as Hafiz,> have even seen\nin this a _further_ charm of life. Such \"conflicts\" actually allure\none to life. On the other hand, it is only too clear that when once\nthese ruined swine are reduced to worshipping chastity--and there\nare such swine--they only see and worship in it the antithesis to\nthemselves, the antithesis to ruined swine. Oh what a tragic grunting\nand eagerness! You can just think of it--they worship that painful\nand superfluous contrast, which Richard Wagner in his latter days\nundoubtedly wished to set to music, and to place on the stage! \"_For\nwhat purpose, forsooth?_\" as we may reasonably ask. What did the swine\nmatter to him; what do they matter to us?\n\n\n3.\n\nAt this point it is impossible to beg the further question of what he\nreally had to do with that manly (ah, so unmanly) country bumpkin,\nthat poor devil and natural, Parsifal, whom he eventually made a\nCatholic by such fraudulent devices. What? Was this Parsifal really\nmeant _seriously_? One might be tempted to suppose the contrary, even\nto wish it--that the Wagnerian Parsifal was meant joyously, like a\nconcluding play of a trilogy or satyric drama, in which Wagner the\ntragedian wished to take farewell of us, of himself, above all of\ntragedy, and to do so in a manner that should be quite fitting and\nworthy, that is, with an excess of the most extreme and flippant parody\nof the tragic itself, of the ghastly earthly seriousness and earthly\nwoe of old--a parody of that _most crude phase_ in the unnaturalness\nof the ascetic ideal, that had at length been overcome. That, as I\nhave said, would have been quite worthy of a great tragedian; who like\nevery artist first attains the supreme pinnacle of his greatness when\nhe can look _down_ into himself and his art, when he can _laugh_ at\nhimself. Is Wagner's Parsifal his secret laugh of superiority over\nhimself, the triumph of that supreme artistic freedom and artistic\ntranscendency which he has at length attained. We might, I repeat,\nwish it were so, for what can Parsifal, _taken seriously_, amount to?\nIs it really necessary to see in it (according to an expression once\nused against me) the product of an insane hate of knowledge, mind,\nand flesh? A curse on flesh and spirit in one breath of hate? An\napostasy and reversion to the morbid Christian and obscurantist ideals?\nAnd finally a self-negation and self-elimination on the part of an\nartist, who till then had devoted all the strength of his will to the\ncontrary, namely, the _highest_ artistic expression of soul and body.\nAnd not only of his art; of his life as well. Just remember with what\nenthusiasm Wagner followed in the footsteps of Feuerbach. Feuerbach's\nmotto of \"healthy sensuality\" rang in the ears of Wagner during the\nthirties and forties of the century, as it did in the ears of many\nGermans (they dubbed themselves \"_Young_ Germans\"), like the word of\nredemption. Did he eventually _change his mind_ on the subject? For it\nseems at any rate that he eventually wished to _change his teaching_\non that subject ... and not only is that the case with the Parsifal\ntrumpets on the stage: in the melancholy, cramped, and embarrassed\nlucubrations of his later years, there are a hundred places in which\nthere are manifestations of a secret wish and will, a despondent,\nuncertain, unavowed will to preach actual retrogression, conversion,\nChristianity, medi\u00e6valism, and to say to his disciples, \"All is vanity!\nSeek salvation elsewhere!\" Even the \"blood of the Redeemer\" is once\ninvoked.\n\n\n4.\n\nLet me speak out my mind in a case like this, which has many painful\nelements--and it is a typical case: it is certainly best to separate\nan artist from his work so completely that he cannot be taken as\nseriously as his work. He is after all merely the presupposition of\nhis work, the womb, the soil, in certain cases the dung and manure,\non which and out of which it grows--and consequently, in most cases,\nsomething that must be forgotten if the work itself is to be enjoyed.\nThe insight into the _origin_ of a work is a matter for psychologists\nand vivisectors, but never either in the present or the future for the\n\u00e6sthetes, the artists. The author and creator of Parsifal was as little\nspared the necessity of sinking and living himself into the terrible\ndepths and foundations of medi\u00e6val soul-contrasts, the necessity of a\nmalignant abstraction from all intellectual elevation, severity, and\ndiscipline, the necessity of a kind of mental perversity (if the reader\nwill pardon me such a word), as little as a pregnant woman is spared\nthe horrors and marvels of pregnancy, which, as I have said, must\nbe forgotten if the child is to be enjoyed. We must guard ourselves\nagainst the confusion, into which an artist himself would fall only\ntoo easily (to employ the English terminology) out of psychological\n\"contiguity\"; as though the artist himself actually were the object\nwhich he is able to represent, imagine, and express. In point of fact,\nthe position is that even if he conceived he were such an object, he\nwould certainly not represent, conceive, express it. Homer would not\nhave created an Achilles, nor Goethe a Faust, if Homer had been an\nAchilles or if Goethe had been a Faust. A complete and perfect artist\nis to all eternity separated from the \"real,\" from the actual; on the\nother hand, it will be appreciated that he can at times get tired to\nthe point of despair of this eternal \"unreality\" and falseness of his\ninnermost being--and that he then sometimes attempts to trespass on\nto the most forbidden ground, on reality, and attempts to have real\n_existence_. With what success? The success will be guessed--it is the\n_typical velleity_ of the artist; the same velleity to which Wagner\nfell a victim in his old age, and for which he had to pay so dearly and\nso fatally (he lost thereby his most valuable friends). But after all,\nquite apart from this velleity, who would not wish emphatically for\nWagner's own sake that he had taken farewell of us and of his art in a\n_different_ manner, not with a _Parsifal_, but in more victorious, more\nself-confident, more Wagnerian style--a style less misleading, a style\nless ambiguous with regard to his whole meaning, less Schopenhauerian,\nless Nihilistic?...\n\n\n5.\n\nWhat, then, is the meaning of ascetic ideals? In the case of an artist\nwe are getting to understand their meaning: _Nothing at all_ ... or so\nmuch that it is as good as nothing at all. Indeed, what is the use of\nthem? Our artists have for a long time past not taken up a sufficiently\nindependent attitude, either in the world or against it, to warrant\ntheir valuations and the changes in these valuations exciting interest.\nAt all times they have played the valet of some morality, philosophy,\nor religion, quite apart from the fact that unfortunately they\nhave often enough been the inordinately supple courtiers of their\nclients and patrons, and the inquisitive toadies of the powers that\nare existing, or even of the new powers to come. To put it at the\nlowest, they always need a rampart, a support, an already constituted\nauthority: artists never stand by themselves, standing alone is opposed\nto their deepest instincts. So, for example, did _Richard Wagner_\ntake, \"when the time had come,\" the philosopher Schopenhauer for his\ncovering man in front, for his rampart. Who would consider it even\nthinkable, that he would have had the _courage_ for an ascetic ideal,\nwithout the support afforded him by the philosophy of Schopenhauer,\nwithout the authority of Schopenhauer, which _dominated_ Europe in the\nseventies? (This is without consideration of the question whether an\nartist without the milk[1] of an orthodoxy would have been possible at\nall.) This brings us to the more serious question: What is the meaning\nof a real _philosopher_ paying homage to the ascetic ideal, a really\nself-dependent intellect like Schopenhauer, a man and knight with a\nglance of bronze, who has the courage to be himself, who knows how to\nstand alone without first waiting for men who cover him in front, and\nthe nods of his superiors? Let us now consider at once the remarkable\nattitude of Schopenhauer towards _art_, an attitude which has even a\nfascination for certain types. For that is obviously the reason why\nRichard Wagner _all at once_ went over to Schopenhauer (persuaded\nthereto, as one knows, by a poet, Herwegh), went over so completely\nthat there ensued the cleavage of a complete theoretic contradiction\nbetween his earlier and his later \u00e6sthetic faiths--the earlier, for\nexample, being expressed in _Opera and Drama_, the later in the\nwritings which he published from 1870 onwards. In particular, Wagner\nfrom that time onwards (and this is the volte-face which alienates us\nthe most) had no scruples about changing his judgment concerning the\nvalue and position of music itself. What did he care if up to that time\nhe had made of music a means, a medium, a \"woman,\" that in order to\nthrive needed an end, a man--that is, the drama? He suddenly realised\nthat _more_ could be effected by the novelty of the Schopenhauerian\ntheory in _majorem music\u00e6 gloriam_--that is to say, by means of the\n_sovereignty_ of music, as Schopenhauer understood it; music abstracted\nfrom and opposed to all the other arts, music as the independent\nart-in-itself, _not_ like the other arts, affording reflections of the\nphenomenal world, but rather the language of the will itself, speaking\nstraight out of the \"abyss\" as its most personal, original, and direct\nmanifestation. This extraordinary rise in the value of music (a rise\nwhich seemed to grow out of the Schopenhauerian philosophy) was at\nonce accompanied by an unprecedented rise in the estimation in which\nthe musician himself was held: he became now an oracle, a priest, nay,\nmore than a priest, a kind of mouthpiece for the \"intrinsic essence\nof things,\" a telephone from the other world--from henceforward\nhe talked not only music, did this ventriloquist of God, he talked\nmetaphysic; what wonder that one day he eventually talked _ascetic\nideals_.\n\n\n6.\n\nSchopenhauer has made use of the Kantian treatment of the \u00e6sthetic\nproblem--though he certainly did not regard it with the Kantian eyes.\nKant thought that he showed honour to art when he favoured and placed\nin the foreground those of the predicates of the beautiful, which\nconstitute the honour of knowledge: impersonality and universality.\nThis is not the place to discuss whether this was not a complete\nmistake; all that I wish to emphasise is that Kant, just like other\nphilosophers, instead of envisaging the \u00e6sthetic problem from the\nstandpoint of the experiences of the artist (the creator), has only\nconsidered art and beauty from the standpoint of the spectator, and\nhas thereby imperceptibly imported the spectator himself into the idea\nof the \"beautiful\"! But if only the philosophers of the beautiful had\nsufficient knowledge of this \"spectator\"!--Knowledge of him as a great\nfact of personality, as a great experience, as a wealth of strong and\nmost individual events, desires, surprises, and raptures in the sphere\nof beauty! But, as I feared, the contrary was always the case. And so\nwe get from our philosophers, from the very beginning, definitions\non which the lack of a subtler personal experience squats like a fat\nworm of crass error, as it does on Kant's famous definition of the\nbeautiful. \"That is beautiful,\" says Kant, \"which pleases without\ninteresting.\" Without interesting! Compare this definition with this\nother one, made by a real \"spectator\" and \"artist\"--by Stendhal, who\nonce called the beautiful _une promesse de bonheur_. Here, at any rate,\nthe one point which Kant makes prominent in the \u00e6sthetic position is\nrepudiated and eliminated--_le d\u00e9sint\u00e9ressement_. Who is right, Kant\nor Stendhal? When, forsooth, our \u00e6sthetes never get tired of throwing\ninto the scales in Kant's favour the fact that under the magic of\nbeauty men can look at even naked female statues \"without interest,\"\nwe can certainly laugh a little at their expense:--in regard to this\nticklish point the experiences of _artists_ are more \"interesting,\"\nand at any rate Pygmalion was not necessarily an \"un\u00e6sthetic man.\" Let\nus think all the better of the innocence of our \u00e6sthetes, reflected\nas it is in such arguments; let us, for instance, count to Kant's\nhonour the country-parson na\u00efvet\u00e9 of his doctrine concerning the\npeculiar character of the sense of touch! And here we come back to\nSchopenhauer, who stood in much closer neighbourhood to the arts\nthan did Kant, and yet never escaped outside the pale of the Kantian\ndefinition; how was that? The circumstance is marvellous enough: he\ninterprets the expression, \"without interest,\" in the most personal\nfashion, out of an experience which must in his case have been part and\nparcel of his regular routine. On few subjects does Schopenhauer speak\nwith such certainty as on the working of \u00e6sthetic contemplation: he\nsays of it that it simply counteracts sexual interest, like lupulin\nand camphor; he never gets tired of glorifying this escape from\nthe \"Life-will\" as the great advantage and utility of the \u00e6sthetic\nstate. In fact, one is tempted to ask if his fundamental conception\nof Will and Idea, the thought that there can only exist freedom from\nthe \"will\" by means of \"idea,\" did not originate in a generalisation\nfrom this sexual experience. (In all questions concerning the\nSchopenhauerian philosophy, one should, by the bye, never lose sight of\nthe consideration that it is the conception of a youth of twenty-six,\nso that it participates not only in what is peculiar to Schopenhauer's\nlife, but in what is peculiar to that special period of his life.)\nLet us listen, for instance, to one of the most expressive among the\ncountless passages which he has written in honour of the \u00e6sthetic\nstate (_World as Will and Idea_, i. 231); let us listen to the tone,\nthe suffering, the happiness, the gratitude, with which such words\nare uttered: \"This is the painless state which Epicurus praised as\nthe highest good and as the state of the gods; we are during that\nmoment freed from the vile pressure of the will, we celebrate the\nSabbath of the will's hard labour, the wheel of Ixion stands still.\"\nWhat vehemence of language! What images of anguish and protracted\nrevulsion! How almost pathological is that temporal antithesis between\n\"that moment\" and everything else, the \"wheel of Ixion,\" \"the hard\nlabour of the will,\" \"the vile pressure of the will.\" But granted\nthat Schopenhauer was a hundred times right for himself personally,\nhow does that help our insight into the nature of the beautiful?\nSchopenhauer has described one effect of the beautiful,--the calming\nof the will,--but is this effect really normal? As has been mentioned,\nStendhal, an equally sensual but more happily constituted nature than\nSchopenhauer, gives prominence to another effect of the \"beautiful.\"\n\"The beautiful promises happiness.\" To him it is just the excitement\nof the \"will\"(the \"interest\") by the beauty that seems the essential\nfact. And does not Schopenhauer ultimately lay himself open to the\nobjection, that he is quite wrong in regarding himself as a Kantian on\nthis point, that he has absolutely failed to understand in a Kantian\nsense the Kantian definition of the beautiful--;that the beautiful\npleased him as well by means of an interest, by means, in fact, of the\nstrongest and most personal interest of all, that: of the victim of\ntorture who escapes from his torture?--And to come back again to our\nfirst question, \"What is the meaning of a philosopher paying homage to\nascetic ideals?\" We get now, at any rate, a first hint; he wishes to\nescape _from a torture_.\n\n\n7.\n\nLet us beware of making dismal faces at the word \"torture\"--there is\ncertainly in this case enough to deduct, enough to discount--there is\neven something to laugh at. For we must certainly not underestimate\nthe fact that Schopenhauer, who in practice treated sexuality as\na personal enemy (including its tool, woman, that \"_instrumentum\ndiaboli_\"), needed enemies to keep him in a good humour; that he loved\ngrim, bitter, blackish-green words; that he raged for the sake of\nraging, out of passion; that he would have grown ill, would have become\na _pessimist_ (for he was not a pessimist, however much he wished to\nbe), without his enemies, without Hegel, woman, sensuality, and the\nwhole \"will for existence\" \"keeping on.\" Without them Schopenhauer\nwould not have \"kept on,\" that is a safe wager; he would have run away:\nbut his enemies held him fast, his enemies always enticed him back\nagain to existence, his wrath was just as theirs' was to the ancient\nCynics, his balm, his recreation, his recompense, his _remedium_\nagainst disgust, his _happiness_. So much with regard to what is most\npersonal in the case of Schopenhauer; on the other hand, there is\nstill much which is typical in him--and only now we come back to our\nproblem. It is an accepted and indisputable fact, so long as there\nare philosophers in the world and wherever philosophers have existed\n(from India to England, to take the opposite poles of philosophic\nability), that there exists a real irritation and rancour on the part\nof philosophers towards sensuality. Schopenhauer is merely the most\neloquent, and if one has the ear for it, also the most fascinating\nand enchanting outburst. There similarly exists a real philosophic\nbias and affection for the whole ascetic ideal; there should be no\nillusions on this score. Both these feelings, as has been said, belong\nto the type; if a philosopher lacks both of them, then he is--you may\nbe certain of it--never anything but a \"pseudo.\" What does this mean?\nFor this state of affairs must first be, interpreted: in itself it\nstands there stupid, to all eternity, like any \"Thing-in-itself.\" Every\nanimal, including la b\u00eate philosophe, strives instinctively after an\n_optimum_ of favourable conditions, under which he can let his whole\nstrength have play, and achieves his maximum consciousness of power;\nwith equal instinctiveness, and with a fine perceptive flair which is\nsuperior to any reason, every animal shudders mortally at every kind\nof disturbance and hindrance which obstructs or could obstruct his way\nto that optimum (it is not his way to happiness of which I am talking,\nbut his way to power, to action, the most powerful action, and in\npoint of fact in many cases his way to unhappiness). Similarly, the\nphilosopher shudders mortally at <b>marriage</b>, together with all\nthat could persuade him to it--marriage as a fatal hindrance on the\nway to the _optimum_. Up to the present what great philosophers have\nbeen married? Heracleitus, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant,\nSchopenhauer--they were not married, and, further, one cannot _imagine_\nthem as married. A married philosopher belongs to _comedy_, that is\nmy rule; as for that exception of a Socrates--the malicious Socrates\nmarried himself, it seems, _ironice_, just to prove this _very_ rule.\nEvery philosopher would say, as Buddha said, when the birth of a son\nwas announced to him: \"R\u00e2houla has been born to me, a fetter has been\nforged for me\" (R\u00e2houla means here \"a little demon\"); there must come\nan hour of reflection to every \"free spirit\" (granted that he has had\npreviously an hour of thoughtlessness), just as one came once to the\nsame Buddha: \"Narrowly cramped,\" he reflected, \"is life in the house;\nit is a place of uncleanness; freedom is found in leaving the house.\"\nBecause he thought like this, he left the house. So many bridges to\nindependence are shown in the ascetic idea], that the philosopher\ncannot refrain from exultation and clapping of hands when he hears\nthe history of all those resolute ones, who on one day uttered a nay\nto all servitude and went into some _desert_; even granting that they\nwere only strong asses, and the absolute opposite of strong minds.\nWhat, then, does the ascetic ideal mean in a philosopher? This is my\nanswer--it will have been guessed long ago: when he sees this ideal\nthe philosopher smiles because he sees therein an _optimum_ of the\nconditions of the highest and boldest intellectuality; he does not\nthereby deny \"existence,\" he rather affirms thereby _his_ existence\nand _only_ his existence, and this perhaps to the point of not being\nfar off the blasphemous wish, _pereat mundus, fiat philosophia, fiat\nphilosophus, fiam!_\n\n\n8.\n\nThese philosophers, you see, are by no means uncorrupted witnesses and\njudges of the _value_ of the ascetic ideal. They think _of themselves_\n--what is the \"saint\" to them? They think of that which to them\npersonally is most indispensable; of freedom from compulsion,\ndisturbance, noise: freedom from business, duties, cares; of clear\nhead; of the dance, spring, and flight of thoughts; of good air--rare,\nclear, free, dry, as is the air on the heights, in which every animal\ncreature becomes more intellectual and gains wings; they think of\npeace in every cellar; all the hounds neatly chained; no baying of\nenmity and uncouth rancour; no remorse of wounded ambition; quiet\nand submissive internal organs, busy as mills, but unnoticed; the\nheart alien, transcendent, future, posthumous--to summarise, they\nmean by the ascetic ideal the joyous asceticism of a deified and\nnewly fledged animal, sweeping over life rather than resting. We know\nwhat are the three great catch-words of the ascetic ideal: poverty,\nhumility, chastity; and now just look closely at the life of all\nthe great fruitful inventive spirits--you will always find again\nand again these three qualities up to a certain extent. _Not_ for a\nminute, as is self-evident, as though, perchance, they were part of\ntheir virtues--what has this type of man to do with virtues?--but as\nthe most essential and natural conditions of their _best_ existence,\ntheir _finest_ fruitfulness. In this connection it is quite possible\nthat their predominant intellectualism had first to curb an unruly and\nirritable pride, or an insolent sensualism, or that it had all its\nwork cut out to maintain its wish for the \"desert\" against perhaps\nan inclination to luxury and dilettantism, or similarly against an\nextravagant liberality of heart and hand. But their intellect did\neffect all this, simply because it was the _dominant_ instinct, which\ncarried through its orders in the case of all the other instincts.\nIt effects it still; if it ceased to do so, it would simply not be\ndominant. But there is not one iota of \"virtue\" in all this. Further,\nthe _desert_, of which I just spoke, in which the strong, independent,\nand well-equipped spirits retreat into their hermitage--oh, how\ndifferent is it from the cultured classes' dream of a desert! In\ncertain cases, in fact, the cultured classes themselves are the desert.\nAnd it is certain that all the actors of the intellect would not endure\nthis desert for a minute. It is nothing like romantic and Syrian enough\nfor them, nothing like enough of a stage desert! Here as well there\nare plenty of asses, but at this point the resemblance ceases. But a\ndesert nowadays is something like this--perhaps a deliberate obscurity;\na getting-out-of the way of one's self; a fear of noise, admiration,\npapers, influence; a little office, a daily task, something that hides\nrather than brings to light; sometimes associating with harmless,\ncheerful beasts and fowls, the sight of which refreshes; a mountain for\ncompany, but not a dead one, one with _eyes_ (that is, with lakes);\nin certain cases even a room in a crowded hotel where one can reckon\non not being recognised, and on being able to talk with impunity to\nevery one: here is the desert--oh, it is lonely enough, believe me!\nI grant that when Heracleitus retreated to the courts and cloisters\nof the colossal temple of Artemis, that \"wilderness\" was worthier;\nwhy do we _lack_ such temples? (perchance we do not lack them: I just\nthink of my splendid study in the _Piazza di San Marco_, in spring, of\ncourse, and in the morning, between ten and twelve). But that which\nHeracleitus shunned is still just what we too avoid nowadays: the\nnoise and democratic babble of the Ephesians, their politics, their\nnews from the \"empire\" (I mean, of course, Persia), their market-trade\nin \"the things of to-day \"--for there is one thing from which we\nphilosophers especially need a rest--from the things of \"to-day.\" We\nhonour the silent, the cold, the noble, the far, the past, everything,\nin fact, at the sight of which the soul is not bound to brace itself up\nand defend itself--something with which one can speak without _speaking\naloud_. Just listen now to the tone a spirit has when it speaks; every\nspirit has its own tone and loves its own tone. That thing yonder, for\ninstance, is bound to be an agitator, that is, a hollow head, a hollow\nmug: whatever may go into him, everything comes back from him dull and\nthick, heavy with the echo of the great void. That spirit yonder nearly\nalways speaks hoarse: has he, perchance, _thought_ himself hoarse?\nIt may be so--ask the physiologists--but he who thinks in _words_,\nthinks as a speaker and not as a thinker (it shows that he does not\nthink of objects or think objectively, but only of his relations\nwith objects--that, in point of fact, he only thinks of himself and\nhis audience). This third one speaks aggressively, he comes too near\nour body, his breath blows on us--we shut our mouth involuntarily,\nalthough he speaks to us through a book: the tone of his style supplies\nthe reason--he has no time, he has small faith in himself, he finds\nexpression now or never. But a spirit who is sure of himself speaks\nsoftly; he seeks secrecy, he lets himself be awaited, A philosopher\nis recognised by the fact that he shuns three brilliant and noisy\nthings--fame, princes, and women: which is not to say that they do not\ncome to him. He shuns every glaring light: therefore he shuns his time\nand its \"daylight.\" Therein he is as a shadow; the deeper sinks the\nsun, the greater grows the shadow. As for his humility, he endures, as\nhe endures darkness, a certain dependence and obscurity: further, he is\nafraid of the shock of lightning, he shudders at the insecurity of a\ntree which is too isolated and too exposed, on which every storm vents\nits temper, every temper its storm. His \"maternal\" instinct, his secret\nlove for that which grows in him, guides him into states where he is\nrelieved from the necessity of taking care of _himself_, in the same\nway in which the \"_mother_\" instinct in woman has thoroughly maintained\nup to the present woman's dependent position. After all, they demand\nlittle enough, do these philosophers, their favourite motto is, \"He\nwho possesses is possessed.\" All this is _not_, as I must say again\nand again, to be attributed to a virtue, to a meritorious wish for\nmoderation and simplicity; but because their supreme lord so demands\nof them, demands wisely and inexorably; their lord who is eager only\nfor one thing, for which alone he musters, and for which alone he\nhoards everything--time, strength, love, interest. This kind of man\nlikes not to be disturbed by enmity, he likes not to be disturbed by\nfriendship, it is a type which forgets or despises easily. It strikes\nhim as bad form to play the martyr, \"to _suffer_ for truth\"--he leaves\nall that to the ambitious and to the stage-heroes of the intellect,\nand to all those, in fact, who have time enough for such luxuries\n(they themselves, the philosophers, have something _to do_ for truth).\nThey make a sparing use of big words; they are said to be adverse to\nthe word \"truth\" itself: it has a \"high falutin'\" ring. Finally, as\nfar as the chastity of philosophers is concerned, the fruitfulness\nof this type of mind is manifestly in another sphere than that of\nchildren; perchance in some other sphere, too, they have the survival\nof their name, their little immortality (philosophers in ancient\nIndia would express themselves with still greater boldness: \"Of what\nuse is posterity to him whose soul is the world?\"). In this attitude\nthere is not a trace of chastity, by reason of any ascetic scruple or\nhatred of the flesh, any more than it is chastity for an athlete or a\njockey to abstain from women; it is rather the will of the dominant\ninstinct, at any rate, during the period of their advanced philosophic\npregnancy. Every artist knows the harm done by sexual intercourse\non occasions of great mental strain and preparation; as far as the\nstrongest artists and those with the surest instincts are concerned,\nthis is not necessarily a case of experience--hard experience--but it\nis simply their \"maternal\" instinct which, in order to benefit the\ngrowing work, disposes recklessly (beyond all its normal stocks and\nsupplies) of the _vigour_ of its _animal_ life; the greater power then\n_absorbs_ the lesser. Let us now apply this interpretation to gauge\ncorrectly the case of Schopenhauer, which we have already mentioned: in\nhis case, the sight of the beautiful acted manifestly like a resolving\nirritant on the chief power of his nature (the power of contemplation\nand of intense penetration); so that this strength exploded and became\nsuddenly master of his consciousness. But this by no means excludes\nthe possibility of that particular sweetness and fulness, which is\npeculiar to the \u00e6sthetic state, springing directly from the ingredient\nof sensuality (just as that \"idealism\" which is peculiar to girls at\npuberty originates in the same source)--it may be, consequently, that\nsensuality is not removed by the approach of the \u00e6sthetic state, as\nSchopenhauer believed, but merely becomes transfigured, and ceases to\nenter into the consciousness as sexual excitement. (I shall return once\nagain to this point in connection with the more delicate problems of\nthe _physiology of the \u00e6sthetic_, a subject which up to the present has\nbeen singularly untouched and unelucidated.)\n\n\n9.\n\nA certain asceticism, a grimly gay whole-hearted renunciation, is, as\nwe have seen, one of the most favourable conditions for the highest\nintellectualism, and, consequently, for the most natural corollaries\nof such intellectualism: we shall therefore be proof against any\nsurprise at the philosophers in particular always treating the ascetic\nideal with a certain amount of predilection. A serious historical\ninvestigation shows the bond between the ascetic ideal and philosophy\nto be still much tighter and still much stronger. It may be said that\nit was only in the _leading strings_ of this ideal that philosophy\nreally learnt to make its first steps and baby paces--alas how\nclumsily, alas how crossly, alas how ready to tumble down and lie on\nits stomach was this shy little darling of a brat with its bandy legs!\nThe early history of philosophy is like that of all good things;--for a\nlong time they had not the courage to be themselves, they kept always\nlooking round to see if no one would come to their help; further, they\nwere afraid of all who looked at them. Just enumerate in order the\nparticular tendencies and virtues of the philosopher--his tendency to\ndoubt, his tendency to deny, his tendency to wait (to be \"ephectic\"),\nhis tendency to analyse, search, explore, dare, his tendency to compare\nand to equalise, his will to be neutral and objective, his will for\neverything which is \"_sine ira et studio_\":--has it yet been realised\nthat for quite a lengthy period these tendencies went counter to the\nfirst claims of morality and conscience? (To say nothing at all of\n_Reason_, which even Luther chose to call _Frau Kl\u00fcglin_,[2] the sly\nwhore.) Has it been yet appreciated that a philosopher, in the event\nof his _arriving_ at self-consciousness, must needs feel himself an\nincarnate \"nitimur in vetitum\"--and consequently guard himself against\n\"his own sensations,\" against self-consciousness? It is, I repeat, just\nthe same with all good things, on which we now pride ourselves; even\njudged by the standard of the ancient Greeks, our whole modern life,\nin so far as it is not weakness, but power and the consciousness of\npower, appears pure \"Hybris\" and godlessness: for the things which are\nthe very reverse of those which we honour to-day, have had for a long\ntime conscience on their side, and God as their guardian. \"Hybris\"\nis our whole attitude to nature nowadays, our violation of nature\nwith the help of machinery, and all the unscrupulous ingenuity of our\nscientists and engineers. \"Hybris\" is our attitude to God, that is, to\nsome alleged teleological and ethical spider behind the meshes of the\ngreat trap of the causal web. Like Charles the Bold in his war with\nLouis the Eleventh, we may say, \"je combats l'universelle araign\u00e9e\";\n\"Hybris\" is our attitude to ourselves--for we experiment with ourselves\nin a way that we would not allow with any animal, and with pleasure\nand curiosity open our soul in our living body: what matters now to\nus the \"salvation\" of the soul? We heal ourselves afterwards: being\nill is instructive, we doubt it not, even more instructive than being\nwell--inoculators of disease seem to us to-day even more necessary\nthan any medicine-men and \"saviours.\" There is no doubt we do violence\nto ourselves nowadays, we crackers of the soul's kernel, we incarnate\nriddles, who are ever asking riddles, as though life were naught else\nthan the cracking of a nut; and even thereby must we necessarily become\nday by day more and more worthy to be asked questions and worthy to ask\nthem, even thereby do we perchance also become worthier to--live?\n\n... All good things were once bad things; from every original sin has\ngrown an original virtue. Marriage, for example, seemed for a long time\na sin against the rights of the community; a man formerly paid a fine\nfor the insolence of claiming one woman to himself (to this phase\nbelongs, for instance, the _jus prim\u00e6 noctis_, to-day still in Cambodia\nthe privilege of the priest, that guardian of the \"good old customs\").\n\nThe soft, benevolent, yielding, sympathetic feelings--eventually valued\nso highly that they almost became \"intrinsic values,\" were for a very\nlong time actually despised by their possessors: gentleness was then\na subject for shame, just as hardness is now (compare _Beyond Good\nand Evil_, Aph. 260). The submission to law: oh, with what qualms of\nconscience was it that the noble races throughout the world renounced\nthe _vendetta_ and gave the law power over themselves! Law was long a\n_vetitum_, a blasphemy, an innovation; it was introduced with force,\nlike a force, to which men only submitted with a sense of personal\nshame. Every tiny step forward in the world was formerly made at\nthe cost of mental and physical torture. Nowadays the whole of this\npoint of view--\"that not only stepping forward, nay, stepping at all,\nmovement, change, all needed their countless martyrs,\" rings in our\nears quite strangely. I have put it forward in the _Dawn of Day_, Aph.\n18. \"Nothing is purchased more dearly,\" says the same book a little\nlater, \"than the modicum of human reason and freedom which is now our\npride. But that pride is the reason why it is now almost impossible\nfor us to feel in sympathy with those immense periods of the 'Morality\nof Custom,' which lie at the beginning of the 'world's history,'\nconstituting as they do the real decisive historical principle which\nhas fixed the character of humanity; those periods, I repeat, when\nthroughout the world suffering passed for virtue, cruelty for virtue,\ndeceit for virtue, revenge for virtue, repudiation of the reason for\nvirtue; and when, conversely, well-being passed current for danger, the\ndesire for knowledge for danger, pity for danger, peace for danger,\nbeing pitied for shame, work for shame, madness for divinity, and\n_change_ for immorality and incarnate corruption!\"\n\n\n10.\n\nThere is in the same book, Aph. 12, an explanation of the _burden_\nof unpopularity under which the earliest race of contemplative men\nhad to live--despised almost as widely as they were first feared!\nContemplation first appeared on earth in a disguised shape, in an\nambiguous form, with an evil heart and often with an uneasy head:\nthere is no doubt about it. The inactive, brooding, unwarlike element\nin the instincts of contemplative men long invested them with a cloud\nof suspicion: the only way to combat this was to excite a definite\n_fear_. And the old Brahmans, for example, knew to a nicety how to do\nthis! The oldest philosophers were well versed in giving to their very\nexistence and appearance, meaning, firmness, background, by reason\nwhereof men learnt to _fear_ them; considered more precisely, they\ndid this from an even more fundamental need, the need of inspiring\nin themselves fear and self-reverence. For they found even in their\nown souls all the valuations turned _against_ themselves; they had\nto fight down every kind of suspicion and antagonism against \"the\nphilosophic element in themselves.\" Being men of a terrible age,\nthey did this with terrible means: cruelty to themselves, ingenious\nself-mortification--this was the chief method of these ambitious\nhermits and intellectual revolutionaries, who were obliged to force\ndown the gods and the traditions of their own soul, so as to enable\nthemselves to _believe_ in their own revolution. I remember the famous\nstory of the King Vicvamitra, who, as the result of a thousand years\nof self-martyrdom, reached such a consciousness of power and such a\nconfidence in himself that he undertook to build a _new heaven_: the\nsinister symbol of the oldest and newest history of philosophy in the\nwhole world. Every one who has ever built anywhere a \"_new heaven_\"\nfirst found the power thereto in his _own hell_.. .. Let us compress\nthe facts into a short formula. The philosophic spirit had, in order\nto be _possible_ to any extent at all, to masquerade and disguise\nitself as one of the _previously fixed_ types of the contemplative\nman, to disguise itself as priest, wizard, soothsayer, as a religious\nman generally: the _ascetic ideal_ has for a long time served the\nphilosopher as a superficial form, as a condition which enabled him\nto exist. .. . To be able to be a philosopher he had to exemplify the\nideal; to exemplify it, he was bound to _believe_ in it. The peculiarly\netherealised abstraction of philosophers, with their negation of the\nworld, their enmity to life, their disbelief in the senses, which has\nbeen maintained up to the most recent time, and has almost thereby come\nto be accepted as the ideal _philosophic attitude_--this abstraction\nis the result of those enforced conditions under which philosophy\ncame into existence, and continued to exist; inasmuch as for quite\na very long time philosophy would have been _absolutely impossible_\nin the world without an ascetic cloak and dress, without an ascetic\nself-misunderstanding. Expressed plainly and palpably, the _ascetic\npriest_ has taken the repulsive and sinister form of the caterpillar,\nbeneath which and behind which alone philosophy could live and slink\nabout.. ..\n\nHas all that really changed? Has that flamboyant and dangerous winged\ncreature, that \"spirit\" which that caterpillar concealed within itself,\nhas it, I say, thanks to a sunnier, warmer, lighter world, really\nand finally flung off its hood and escaped into the light? Can we\nto-day point to enough pride, enough daring, enough courage, enough\nself-confidence, enough mental will, enough will for responsibility,\nenough freedom of the will, to enable the philosopher to be now in the\nworld really--_possible_?\n\n\n11.\n\nAnd now, after we have caught sight of the _ascetic priest_, let us\ntackle our problem. What is the meaning of the ascetic ideal? It now\nfirst becomes serious--vitally serious. We are now confronted with the\n_real representatives of the serious_. \"What is the meaning of all\nseriousness?\" This even more radical question is perchance already\non the tip of our tongue: a question, fairly, for physiologists, but\nwhich we for the time being skip. In that ideal the ascetic priest\nfinds not only his faith, but also his will, his power, his interest.\nHis _right_ to existence stands and falls with that ideal. What wonder\nthat we here run up against a terrible opponent (on the supposition,\nof course, that we are the opponents of that ideal), an opponent\nfighting for his life against those who repudiate that ideal!. .. On\nthe other hand, it is from the outset improbable that such a biased\nattitude towards our problem will do him any particular good; the\nascetic priest himself will scarcely prove the happiest champion of\nhis own ideal (on the same principle on which a woman usually fails\nwhen she wishes to champion \"woman\")--let alone proving the most\nobjective critic and judge of the controversy now raised. We shall\ntherefore--so much is already obvious--rather have actually to help\nhim to defend himself properly against ourselves, than we shall have\nto fear being too well beaten by him. The idea, which is the subject\nof this dispute, is the value of our life from the standpoint of the\nascetic priests: this life, then (together with the whole of which it\nis a part, \"Nature,\" \"the world,\" the whole sphere of becoming and\npassing away), is placed by them in relation to an existence of quite\nanother character, which it excludes and to which it is opposed, unless\nit _deny_ its own self: in this case, the case of an ascetic life,\nlife is taken as a bridge to another existence. The ascetic treats\nlife as a maze, in which one must walk backwards till one comes to the\nplace where it starts; or he treats it as an error which one may, nay\n_must_, refute by action: for he demands that he should be followed;\nhe enforces, where he can, his valuation of existence. What does this\nmean? Such a monstrous valuation is not an exceptional case, or a\ncuriosity recorded in human history: it is one of the most general\nand persistent facts that there are. The reading from the vantage\nof a distant star of the capital letters of our earthly life, would\nperchance lead to the conclusion that the earth was the especially\n_ascetic planet_, a den of discontented, arrogant, and repulsive\ncreatures, who never got rid of a deep disgust of themselves, of the\nworld, of all life, and did themselves as much hurt as possible out\nof pleasure in hurting--presumably their one and only pleasure. Let\nus consider how regularly, how universally, how practically at every\nsingle period the ascetic priest puts in his appearance: he belongs to\nno particular race; he thrives everywhere; he grows out of all classes.\nNot that he perhaps bred this valuation by heredity and propagated\nit--the contrary is the case. It must be a necessity of the first order\nwhich makes this species, hostile, as it is, to _life_, always grow\nagain and always thrive again.--_Life_ itself must certainly _have an\ninterest_ in the continuance of such a type of self-contradiction. For\nan ascetic life is a self-contradiction: here rules resentment without\nparallel, the resentment of an insatiate instinct and ambition, that\nwould be master, not over some element in life, but over life itself,\nover life's deepest, strongest, innermost conditions; here is an\nattempt made to utilise power to dam the sources of power; here does\nthe green eye of jealousy turn even against physiological well-being,\nespecially against the expression of such well-being, beauty, joy;\nwhile a sense of pleasure is experienced and _sought_ in abortion, in\ndecay, in pain, in misfortune, in ugliness, in voluntary punishment,\nin the exercising, flagellation, and sacrifice of the self. All this\nis in the highest degree paradoxical: we are here confronted with a\nrift that _wills_ itself to be a rift, which _enjoys_ itself in this\nvery _suffering_, and even becomes more and more certain of itself,\nmore and more triumphant, in proportion as its own presupposition,\nphysiological vitality, _decreases_. \"The triumph just in the supreme\nagony \": under this extravagant emblem did the ascetic ideal fight from\nof old; in this mystery of seduction, in this picture of rapture and\ntorture, it recognised its brightest light, its salvation, its final\nvictory. _Crux, nux, lux_--it has all these three in one.\n\n\n12.\n\nGranted that such an incarnate will for contradiction and unnaturalness\nis induced to _philosophise_; on what will it vent its pet caprice?\nOn that which has been felt with the greatest certainty to be true,\nto be real; it will look for _error_ in those very places where the\nlife instinct fixes truth with the greatest positiveness. It will, for\ninstance, after the example of the ascetics of the Vedanta Philosophy,\nreduce matter to an illusion, and similarly treat pain, multiplicity,\nthe whole logical contrast of \"_Subject_\" and \"_Object_\"--errors,\nnothing but errors! To renounce the belief in one's own ego, to\ndeny to one's self one's own \"reality\"--what a triumph! and here\nalready we have a much higher kind of triumph, which is not merely\na triumph over the senses, over the palpable, but an infliction of\nviolence and cruelty on _reason_; and this ecstasy culminates in the\nascetic self-contempt, the ascetic scorn of one's own reason making\nthis decree: _there is_ a domain of truth and of life, but reason is\nspecially _excluded_ therefrom.. .. By the bye, even in the Kantian\nidea of \"the intellegible character of things\" there remains a trace\nof that schism, so dear to the heart of the ascetic, that schism\nwhich likes to turn reason against reason; in fact, \"intelligible\ncharacter\" means in Kant a kind of quality in things of which the\nintellect comprehends this much, that for it, the intellect, it is\n_absolutely incomprehensible_. After all, let us, in our character\nof knowers, not be ungrateful towards such determined reversals of\nthe ordinary perspectives and values, with which the mind had for\ntoo long raged against itself with an apparently futile sacrilege!\nIn the same way the very seeing of another vista, the very _wishing_\nto see another vista, is no little training and preparation of the\nintellect for its eternal \"_Objectivity_\"--objectivity being understood\nnot as \"contemplation without interest\" (for that is inconceivable\nand non-sensical), but as the ability to have the pros and cons _in\none's power_ and to switch them on and off, so as to get to know how\nto utilise, for the advancement of knowledge, the _difference_ in\nthe perspective and in the emotional interpretations. But let us,\nforsooth, my philosophic colleagues, henceforward guard ourselves more\ncarefully against this mythology of dangerous ancient ideas, which has\nset up a \"pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge\";\nlet us guard ourselves from the tentacles of such contradictory ideas\nas \"pure reason,\" \"absolute spirituality,\" \"knowledge-in-itself\":--in\nthese theories an eye that cannot be thought of is required to think,\nan eye which ex hypothesi has no direction at all, an eye in which\nthe active and interpreting functions are cramped, are absent; those\nfunctions, I say, by means of which \"abstract\" seeing first became\nseeing something; in these theories consequently the absurd and the\nnon-sensical is always demanded of the eye. There is only a seeing\nfrom a perspective, only a \"knowing\" from a perspective, and the more\nemotions we express over a thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we\ntrain on the same thing, the more complete will be our \"idea\" of that\nthing, our \"objectivity.\" But the elimination of the will altogether,\nthe switching off of the emotions all and sundry, granted that we could\ndo so, what! would not that be called intellectual castration?\n\n\n13.\n\nBut let us turn back. Such a self-contradiction, as apparently\nmanifests itself among the ascetics, \"Life turned against Life,\"\nis--this much is absolutely obvious--from the physiological and not now\nfrom the psychological standpoint, simply nonsense. It can only be an\napparent contradiction; it must be a kind of provisional expression, an\nexplanation, a formula, an adjustment, a psychological misunderstanding\nof something, whose real nature could not be understood for a long\ntime, and whose _real essence_ could not be described; a mere word\njammed into an old _gap_ of human knowledge. To put briefly the\nfacts against its being real: _the ascetic ideal springs from the\nprophylactic and self-preservative instincts which mark a decadent\nlife_, which seeks by every means in its power to maintain its position\nand fight for its existence; it points to a partial physiological\ndepression and exhaustion, against which the most profound and intact\nlife-instincts fight ceaselessly with new weapons and discoveries. The\nascetic ideal is such a weapon: its position is consequently exactly\nthe reverse of that which the worshippers of the ideal imagine--life\nstruggles in it and through it with death and against death; the\nascetic ideal is a dodge for the _preservation_ of life. An important\nfact is brought out in the extent to which, as history teaches, this\nideal could rule and exercise power over man, especially in all those\nplaces where the civilisation and taming of man was completed: that\nfact is, the diseased state of man up to the present, at any rate, of\nthe man who has been tamed, the physiological struggle of man with\ndeath (more precisely, with the disgust with life, with exhaustion,\nwith the wish for the \"end\"). The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish\nfor an existence of another kind, an existence on another plane,--he\nis, in fact, the highest point of this wish, its official ecstasy and\npassion: but it is the very _power_ of this wish which is the fetter\nthat binds him here; it is just that which makes him into a tool that\nmust labour to create more favourable conditions for earthly existence,\nfor existence on the human plane--it is with this very power that he\nkeeps the whole herd of failures, distortions, abortions, unfortunates,\n_sufferers from themselves_ of every kind, fast to existence, while\nhe as the herdsman goes instinctively on in front. You understand\nme already: this ascetic priest, this apparent enemy of life, this\ndenier--he actually belongs to the really great _conservative_ and\n_affirmative_ forces of life.... What does it come from, this diseased\nstate? For man is more diseased, more uncertain, more changeable,\nmore unstable than any other animal, there is no doubt of it--he is\nthe diseased animal: what does it spring from? Certainly he has also\ndared, innovated, braved more, challenged fate more than all the other\nanimals put together; he, the great experimenter with himself, the\nunsatisfied, the insatiate, who struggles for the supreme mastery with\nbeast, Nature, and gods, he, the as yet ever uncompelled, the ever\nfuture, who finds no more any rest from his own aggressive strength,\ngoaded inexorably on by the spur of the future dug into the flesh of\nthe present:--how should not so brave and rich an animal also be the\nmost endangered, the animal with the longest and deepest sickness\namong all sick animals?... Man is sick of it, oft enough there are\nwhole epidemics of this satiety (as about 1348, the time of the Dance\nof Death): but even this very nausea, this tiredness, this disgust\nwith himself, all this is discharged from him with such force that\nit is immediately made into a new fetter. His \"nay,\" which he utters\nto life, brings to light as though by magic an abundance of graceful\n\"yeas\"; even when he _wounds_ himself, this master of destruction, of\nself-destruction, it is subsequently the wound itself that forces him\nto live.\n\n\n14.\n\nThe more normal is this sickliness in man--and we cannot dispute\nthis normality--the higher honour should be paid to the rare cases\nof psychical and physical powerfulness, the _windfalls_ of humanity,\nand the more strictly should the sound be guarded from that worst of\nair, the air of the sick-room. Is that done? The sick are the greatest\ndanger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to\nthe strong, but from the weakest. Is that known? Broadly considered,\nit is not for a minute the fear of man, whose diminution should be\nwished for; for this fear forces the strong to be strong, to be at\ntimes terrible--it preserves in its integrity the sound type of man.\nWhat is to be feared, what does work with a fatality found in no other\nfate, is not the great fear of, but the great _nausea_ with, man; and\nequally so the great pity for man. Supposing that both these things\nwere one day to espouse each other, then inevitably the maximum of\nmonstrousness would immediately come into the world--the \"last will\"\nof man, his will for nothingness, Nihilism. And, in sooth, the way is\nwell paved thereto. He who not only has his nose to smell with, but\nalso has eyes and ears, he sniffs almost wherever he goes to-day an\nair something like that of a mad-house, the air of a hospital--I am\nspeaking, as stands to reason, of the cultured areas of mankind, of\nevery kind of \"Europe\" that there is in fact in the world. The _sick_\nare the great danger of man, _not_ the evil, _not_ the \"beasts of\nprey.\" They who are from the outset botched, oppressed, broken, those\nare they, the weakest are they, who most undermine the life beneath the\nfeet of man, who instil the most dangerous venom and scepticism into\nour trust in life, in man, in ourselves. Where shall we escape from\nit, from that covert look (from which we carry away a deep sadness),\nfrom that averted look of him who is misborn from the beginning, that\nlook which betrays what such a man says to himself--that look which is\na groan?\" Would that I were something else,\" so groans this look, \"but\nthere is no hope. I am what I am: how could I get away from myself?\nAnd, verily--_I am sick of myself!_\" On such a soil of self-contempt,\na veritable swamp soil, grows that weed, that poisonous growth, and\nall so tiny, so hidden, so ignoble, so sugary. Here teem the worms\nof revenge and vindictiveness; here the air reeks of things secret\nand unmentionable; here is ever spun the net of the most malignant\nconspiracy--the conspiracy of the sufferers against the sound and the\nvictorious; here is the sight of the victorious _hated_. And what\nlying so as not to acknowledge this hate as hate! What a show of big\nwords and attitudes, what an art of \"righteous\" calumniation! These\nabortions! what a noble eloquence gushes from their lips! What an\namount of sugary, slimy, humble submission oozes in their eyes! What do\nthey really want? At any rate to _represent_ righteousness ness, love,\nwisdom, superiority, that is the ambition of these \"lowest ones,\" these\nsick ones! And how clever does such an ambition make them! You cannot,\nin fact, but admire the counterfeiter dexterity with which the stamp\nof virtue, even the ring, the golden ring of virtue, is here imitated.\nThey have taken a lease of virtue absolutely for themselves, have these\nweaklings and wretched invalids, there is no doubt of it; \"We alone are\nthe good, the righteous,\" so do they speak, \"we alone are the _homines\nbon\u00e6 voluntatis_.\" They stalk about in our midst as living reproaches,\nas warnings to us--as though health, fitness, strength, pride, the\nsensation of power, were really vicious things in themselves, for\nwhich one would have some day to do penance, bitter penance. Oh, how\nthey themselves are ready in their hearts to exact penance, how they\nthirst after being _hangmen_!\n\nAmong them is an abundance of revengeful ones disguised as judges,\nwho ever mouth the word righteousness like a venomous spittle--with\nmouth, I say, always pursed, always ready to spit at everything,\nwhich does not wear a discontented look, but is of good cheer as it\ngoes on its way. Among them, again, is that most loathsome species\nof the vain, the lying abortions, who make a point of representing\n\"beautiful souls,\" and perchance of bringing to the market as \"purity\nof heart\" their distorted sensualism swathed in verses and other\nbandages; the species of \"self-comforters\" and masturbators of their\nown souls. The sick man's will to represent _some_ form or other of\nsuperiority, his instinct for crooked paths, which lead to a tyranny\nover the healthy--where can it not be found, this will to power of\nthe very weakest? The sick woman especially: no one surpasses her\nin refinements for ruling, oppressing, tyrannising. The sick woman,\nmoreover, spares nothing living, nothing dead; she grubs up again the\nmost buried things (the Bogos say, \"Woman is a hyena\"). Look into\nthe background of every family, of every body, of every community:\neverywhere the fight of the sick against the healthy--a silent fight\nfor the most part with minute poisoned powders, with pin-pricks, with\nspiteful grimaces of patience, but also at times with that diseased\npharisaism of _pure_ pantomime, which plays for choice the r\u00f4le of\n\"righteous indignation.\" Right into the hallowed chambers of knowledge\ncan it make itself heard, can this hoarse yelping of sick hounds, this\nrabid lying and frenzy of such \"noble\" Pharisees (I remind readers, who\nhave ears, once more of that Berlin apostle of revenge, Eugen D\u00fchring,\nwho makes the most disreputable and revolting use in all present-day\nGermany of moral refuse; D\u00fchring, the paramount moral blusterer that\nthere is to-day, even among his own kidney, the Anti-Semites). They\nare all men of resentment, are these physiological distortions and\nworm-riddled objects, a whole quivering kingdom of burrowing revenge,\nindefatigable and insatiable in its outbursts against the happy, and\nequally so in disguises for revenge, in pretexts for revenge: when\nwill they really reach their final, fondest, most sublime triumph of\nrevenge? At that time, doubtless, when they succeed in pushing their\nown misery, in fact, all misery, _into the consciousness_ of the happy;\nso that the latter begin one day to be ashamed of their happiness,\nand perchance say to themselves when they meet, \"It is a shame to be\nhappy! _there is too much misery!_\" ... But there could not possibly\nbe a greater and more fatal misunderstanding than that of the happy,\nthe fit, the strong in body and soul, beginning in this way to doubt\ntheir right to happiness. Away with this \"perverse world\"! Away with\nthis shameful soddenness of sentiment! Preventing the sick making the\nhealthy sick--for that is what such a soddenness comes to--this ought\nto be our supreme object in the world--but for this it is above all\nessential that the healthy should remain _separated_ from the sick,\nthat they should even guard themselves from the look of the sick, that\nthey should not even associate with the sick. Or may it, perchance,\nbe their mission to be nurses or doctors? But they could not mistake\nand disown their mission more grossly--the higher must not degrade\nitself to be the tool of the lower, the pathos of distance must to all\neternity keep their missions also separate. The right of the happy to\nexistence, the right of bells with a full tone over the discordant\ncracked bells, is verily a thousand times greater: they alone are the\n_sureties_ of the future, they alone are _bound_ to man's future. What\nthey can, what they must do, that can the sick never do, should never\ndo! but if _they are to_ be enabled to do what _only_ they must do,\nhow can they possibly be free to play the doctor, the comforter, the\n\"Saviour\" of the sick?... And therefore good air! good air! and away,\nat any rate, from the neighbourhood of all the madhouses and hospitals\nof civilisation! And therefore good company, _our own_ company, or\nsolitude, if it must be so! but away, at any rate, from the evil fumes\nof internal corruption and the secret worm-eaten state of the sick!\nthat, forsooth, my friends, we may defend ourselves, at any rate for\nstill a time, against the two worst plagues that could have been\nreserved for us--against the _great nausea with man_! against the_\ngreat pity for man_!\n\n\n15.\n\nIf you have understood in all their depths--and I demand that you\nshould _grasp them profoundly_ and understand them profoundly--the\nreasons for the impossibility of its being the business of the healthy\nto nurse the sick, to make the sick healthy, it follows that you have\ngrasped this further necessity--the necessity of doctors and nurses\n_who themselves are sick_. And now we have and hold with both our hands\nthe essence of the ascetic priest. The ascetic priest must be accepted\nby us as the predestined saviour, herdsman, and champion of the sick\nherd: thereby do we first understand his awful historic mission. The\n_lordship over sufferers_ is his kingdom, to that points his instinct,\nin that he finds his own special art, his master-skill, his kind of\nhappiness. He must himself be sick, he must be kith and kin to the\nsick and the abortions so as to understand them, so as to arrive at an\nunderstanding with them; but he must also be strong, even more master\nof himself than of others, impregnable, forsooth, in his will for\npower, so as to acquire the trust and the awe of the weak, so that he\ncan be their hold, bulwark, prop, compulsion, overseer, tyrant, god.\nHe has to protect them, protect his herds--_against_ whom? Against\nthe healthy, doubtless also against the envy towards the healthy. He\nmust be the natural adversary and _scorner_ of every rough, stormy,\nreinless, hard, violently-predatory health and power. The priest is\nthe first form of the more delicate animal that scorns more easily\nthan it hates. He will not be spared the waging of war with the beasts\nof prey, a war of guile (of \"spirit\") rather than of force, as is\nself-evident--he will in certain cases find it necessary to conjure up\nout of himself, or at any rate to represent practically a new type of\nthe beast of prey--a new animal monstrosity in which the polar bear,\nthe supple, cold, crouching panther, and, not least important, the fox,\nare joined together in a trinity as fascinating as it is fearsome.\nIf necessity exacts it, then will he come on the scene with bearish\nseriousness, venerable, wise, cold, full of treacherous superiority, as\nthe herald and mouthpiece of mysterious powers, sometimes going among\neven the other kind of beasts of prey, determined as he is to sow on\ntheir soil, wherever he can, suffering, discord, self-contradiction,\nand only too sure of his art, always to be lord of _sufferers_ at all\ntimes. He brings with him, doubtless, salve and balsam; but before he\ncan play the physician he must first wound; so, while he soothes the\npain which the wound makes, _he at the same time poisons the wound_.\nWell versed is he in this above all things, is this wizard and wild\nbeast tamer, in whose vicinity everything healthy must needs become\nill, and everything ill must needs become tame. He protects, in sooth,\nhis sick herd well enough, does this strange herdsman; he protects\nthem also against themselves, against the sparks (even in the centre\nof the herd) of wickedness, knavery, malice, and all the other ills\nthat the plaguey and the sick are heir to; he fights with cunning,\nhardness, and stealth against anarchy and against the ever imminent\nbreak-up inside the herd, where _resentment_, that most dangerous\nblasting-stuff and explosive, ever accumulates and accumulates. Getting\nrid of this blasting-stuff in such a way that it does not blow up the\nherd and the herdsman, that is his real feat, his supreme utility;\nif you wish to comprise in the shortest formula the value of the\npriestly life, it would be correct to say the priest is the _diverter\nof the course of resentment_. Every sufferer, in fact, searches\ninstinctively for a cause of his suffering; to put it more exactly,\na doer,--to put it still more precisely, a sentient _responsible_\ndoer,--in brief, something living, on which, either actually or in\n_effigie_, he can on any pretext vent his emotions. For the venting\nof emotions is the sufferer's greatest attempt at alleviation, that\nis to say, _stupefaction_, his mechanically desired narcotic against\npain of any kind. It is in this phenomenon alone that is found,\naccording to my judgment, the real physiological cause of resentment,\nrevenge, and their family is to be found--that is, in a demand for the\n_deadening of pain through emotion_: this cause is generally, but in\nmy view very erroneously, looked for in the defensive parry of a bare\nprotective principle of reaction, of a \"reflex movement\" in the case\nof any sudden hurt and danger, after the manner that a decapitated\nfrog still moves in order to get away from a corrosive acid. But the\ndifference is fundamental. In one case the object is to prevent being\nhurt any more; in the other case the object is to _deaden_ a racking,\ninsidious, nearly unbearable pain by a more violent emotion of any\nkind whatsoever, and at any rate for the time being to drive it out of\nthe consciousness--for this purpose an emotion is needed, as wild an\nemotion as possible, and to excite that emotion some excuse or other\nis needed. \"It must be somebody's fault that I feel bad\"--this kind of\nreasoning is peculiar to all invalids, and is but the more pronounced,\nthe more ignorant they remain of the real cause of their feeling bad,\nthe physiological cause (the cause may lie in a disease of the _nervus\nsympathicus_, or in an excessive secretion of bile, or in a want of\nsulphate and phosphate of potash in the blood, or in pressure in the\nbowels which stops the circulation of the blood, or in degeneration of\nthe ovaries, and so forth). Ail sufferers have an awful resourcefulness\nand ingenuity in finding excuses for painful emotions; they even\nenjoy their jealousy, their broodings over base actions and apparent\ninjuries, they burrow through the intestines of their past and present\nin their search for obscure mysteries, wherein they will be at liberty\nto wallow in a torturing suspicion and get drunk on the venom of their\nown malice--they tear open the oldest wounds, they make themselves\nbleed from the scars which have long been healed, they make evil-doers\nout of friends, wife, child, and everything which is nearest to them.\n\"I suffer: it must be somebody's fault\"--so thinks every sick sheep.\nBut his herdsman, the ascetic priest, says to him, \"Quite so, my sheep,\nit must be the fault of some one; but thou thyself art that some one,\nit is all the fault of thyself alone--_it is the fault of thyself alone\nagainst thyself_\": that is bold enough, false enough, but one thing is\nat least attained; thereby, as I have said, the course of resentment\nis--_diverted_.\n\n\n16.\n\nYou can see now what the remedial instinct of life has at least _tried_\nto effect, according to my conception, through the ascetic priest,\nand the purpose for which he had to employ a temporary tyranny of\nsuch paradoxical and anomalous ideas as \"guilt,\" \"sin,\" \"sinfulness,\"\n\"corruption,\" \"damnation.\" What was done was to make the sick\n_harmless_ up to a certain point, to destroy the incurable by means of\nthemselves, to turn the milder cases severely on to themselves, to give\ntheir resentment a backward direction (\"man needs but one thing\"), and\nto _exploit_ similarly the bad instincts of all sufferers with a view\nto self-discipline, self-surveillance, self-mastery. It is obvious that\nthere can be no question at all in the case of a \"medication\" of this\nkind, a mere emotional medication, of any real _healing_ of the sick in\nthe physiological sense; it cannot even for a moment be asserted that\nin this connection the instinct of life has taken healing as its goal\nand purpose. On the one hand, a kind of congestion and organisation of\nthe sick (the word \"Church\" is the most popular name for it): on the\nother, a kind of provisional safeguarding of the comparatively healthy,\nthe more perfect specimens, the cleavage of a _rift_ between healthy\nand sick--for a long time that was all! and it was much! it was very\nmuch!\n\nI am proceeding, as you see, in this essay, from an hypothesis which,\nas far as such readers as I want are concerned, does not require to be\nproved; the hypothesis that \"sinfulness\" in man is not an actual fact,\nbut rather merely the interpretation of a fact, of a physiological\ndiscomfort,--a discomfort seen through a moral religious perspective\nwhich is no longer binding upon us. The fact, therefore, that any one\nfeels \"guilty,\" \"sinful,\" is certainly not yet any proof that he is\nright in feeling so, any more than any one is healthy simply because\nhe feels healthy. Remember the celebrated witch-ordeals: in those days\nthe most acute and humane judges had no doubt but that in these cases\nthey were confronted with guilt,--the \"witches\"_ themselves had no\ndoubt on the point_,--and yet the guilt was lacking. Let me elaborate\nthis hypothesis: I do not for a minute accept the very \"pain in the\nsoul\" as a real fact, but only as an explanation (a casual explanation)\nof facts that could not hitherto be precisely formulated; I regard\nit therefore as something as yet absolutely in the air and devoid of\nscientific cogency--just a nice fat word in the place of a lean note\nof interrogation. When any one fails to get rid of his \"pain in the\nsoul,\" the cause is, speaking crudely, to be found _not_ in his \"soul\"\nbut more probably in his stomach (speaking crudely, I repeat, but by\nno means wishing thereby that you should listen to me or understand\nme in a crude spirit). A strong and well-constituted man digests his\nexperiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his\nmeats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow. If he fails to\n\"relieve himself\" of an experience, this kind of indigestion is quite\nas much physiological as the other indigestion--and indeed, in more\nways than one, simply one of the results of the other. You can adopt\nsuch a theory, and yet _entre nous_ be nevertheless the strongest\nopponent of all materialism.\n\n\n17.\n\nBut is he really a _physician_, this ascetic priest? We already\nunderstand why we are scarcely allowed to call him a physician, however\nmuch he likes to feel a \"saviour\" and let himself be worshipped as a\nsaviour.[3] It is only the actual suffering, the discomfort of the\nsufferer, which he combats, _not_ its cause, not the actual state of\nsickness--this needs must constitute our most radical objection to\npriestly medication. But just once put yourself into that point of\nview, of which the priests have a monopoly, you will find it hard to\nexhaust your amazement, at what from that standpoint he has completely\nseen, sought, and found. The _mitigation_ of suffering, every kind of\n\"consoling\"--all this manifests itself as his very genius: with what\ningenuity has he interpreted his mission of consoler, with what aplomb\nand audacity has he chosen weapons necessary for the part. Christianity\nin particular should be dubbed a great treasure-chamber of ingenious\nconsolations,--such a store of refreshing, soothing, deadening drugs\nhas it accumulated within itself; so many of the most dangerous and\ndaring expedients has it hazarded; with such subtlety, refinement,\nOriental refinement, has it divined what emotional stimulants can\nconquer, at any rate for a time, the deep depression, the leaden\nfatigue, the black melancholy of physiological cripples--for, speaking\ngenerally, all religions are mainly concerned with fighting a certain\nfatigue and heaviness that has infected everything. You can regard it\nas _prima facie_ probable that in certain places in the world there\nwas almost bound to prevail from time to time among large masses of\nthe population a _sense of physiological depression_, which, however,\nowing to their lack of physiological knowledge, did not appear to their\nconsciousness as such, so that consequently its \"cause\" and its _cure_\ncan only be sought and essayed in the science of moral psychology\n(this, in fact, is my most general formula for what is generally called\na \"_religion_\"). Such a feeling of depression can have the most diverse\norigins; it may be the result of the crossing of too heterogeneous\nraces (or of classes--genealogical and racial differences are also\nbrought out in the classes: the European \"Weltschmerz,\" the \"Pessimism\"\nof the nineteenth century, is really the result of an absurd and sudden\nclass-mixture); it may be brought about by a mistaken emigration--a\nrace falling into a climate for which its power of adaptation is\ninsufficient (the case of the Indians in India); it may be the effect\nof old age and fatigue (the Parisian pessimism from 1850 onwards); it\nmay be a wrong diet (the alcoholism of the Middle Ages, the nonsense\nof vegetarianism--which, however, have in their favour the authority\nof Sir Christopher in Shakespeare); it may be blood-deterioration,\nmalaria, syphilis, and the like (German depression after the Thirty\nYears' War, which infected half Germany with evil diseases, and\nthereby paved the way for German servility, for German pusillanimity).\nIn such a case there is invariably recourse to a _war_ on a grand scale\nwith the feeling of depression; let us inform ourselves briefly on its\nmost important practices and phases (I leave on one side, as stands to\nreason, the actual _philosophic_ war against the feeling of depression\nwhich is usually simultaneous--it is interesting enough, but too\nabsurd, too practically negligible, too full of cobwebs, too much of a\nhole-and-corner affair, especially when pain is proved to be a mistake,\non the _na\u00eff_ hypothesis that pain must needs _vanish_ when the mistake\nunderlying it is recognised--but behold! it does anything but vanish\n...). That dominant depression is _primarily fought_ by weapons which\nreduce the consciousness of life itself to the lowest degree. Wherever\npossible, no more wishes, no more wants; shun everything which produces\nemotion, which produces \"blood\" (eating no salt, the fakir hygiene);\nno love; no hate; equanimity; no revenge; no getting rich; no work;\nbegging; as far as possible, no woman, or as little woman as possible;\nas far as the intellect is concerned, Pascal's principle, \"_il faut\ns'ab\u00eatir._\" To put the result in ethical and psychological language,\n\"self-annihilation,\" \"sanctification\"; to put it in physiological\nlanguage, \"hypnotism\"--the attempt to find some approximate human\nequivalent for what _hibernation_ is for certain animals, for what\n_\u00e6stivation_ is for many tropical plants, a minimum of assimilation\nand metabolism in which life just manages to subsist without really\ncoming into the consciousness. An amazing amount of human energy\nhas been devoted to this object--perhaps uselessly? There cannot be\nthe slightest doubt but that such _sportsmen_ of \"saintliness,\" in\nwhom at times nearly every nation has abounded, have really found a\ngenuine relief from that which they have combated with such a rigorous\n_training_--in countless cases they really escaped by the help of their\nsystem of hypnotism _away_ from deep physiological depression; their\nmethod is consequently counted among the most universal ethnological\nfacts. Similarly it is improper to consider such a plan for starving\nthe physical element and the desires, as in itself a symptom of\ninsanity (as a clumsy species of roast-beef-eating \"freethinkers\" and\nSir Christophers are fain to do); all the more certain is it that their\nmethod can and does pave the way to all kinds of mental disturbances,\nfor instance, \"inner lights\" (as far as the case of the Hesychasts of\nMount Athos), auditory and visual hallucinations, voluptuous ecstasies\nand effervescences of sensualism (the history of St. Theresa). The\nexplanation of such events given by the victims is always the acme of\nfanatical falsehood; this is self-evident. Note well, however, the tone\nof implicit gratitude that rings in the very _will_ for an explanation\nof such a character. The supreme state, salvation itself, that final\ngoal of universal hypnosis and peace, is always regarded by them as\nthe mystery of mysteries, which even the most supreme symbols are\ninadequate to express; it is regarded as an entry and homecoming to the\nessence of things, as a liberation from all illusions, as \"knowledge,\"\nas \"truth,\" as \"being\" as an escape from every end, every wish, every\naction, as something even beyond Good and Evil.\n\n\"Good and Evil,\" quoth the Buddhists, \"both are fetters. The perfect\nman is master of them both.\"\n\n\"The done and the undone,\" quoth the disciple of the Vedanta, \"do\nhim no hurt; the good and the evil he shakes from off him, sage that\nhe is; his kingdom suffers no more from any act; good and evil, he\ngoes beyond them both.\"--An absolutely Indian conception, as much\nBrahmanist as Buddhist. Neither in the Indian nor in the Christian\ndoctrine is this \"Redemption\" regarded as attainable by means of\nvirtue and moral improvement, however high they may place the value of\nthe hypnotic efficiency of virtue: keep clear on this point--indeed\nit simply corresponds with the facts. The fact that they remained\n_true_ on this point is perhaps to be regarded as the best specimen\nof realism in the three great religions, absolutely soaked as they\nare with morality, with this one exception. \"For those who know,\nthere is no duty.\" \"Redemption is not attained by the acquisition of\nvirtues; for redemption consists in being one with Brahman, who is\nincapable of acquiring any perfection; and equally little does it\nconsist in the _giving up of faults_, for the Brahman, unity with whom\nis what constitutes redemption, is eternally pure\" (these passages\nare from the Commentaries of the Cankara, quoted from the first real\nEuropean _expert_ of the Indian philosophy, my friend Paul Deussen).\nWe wish, therefore, to pay honour to the idea of \"redemption\" in\nthe great religions, but it is somewhat hard to remain serious in\nview of the appreciation meted out to the _deep sleep_ by these\nexhausted pessimists who are too tired even to dream--to the deep\nsleep considered, that is, as already a fusing into Brahman, as the\nattainment of the _unio mystica_ with God. \"When he has completely gone\nto sleep,\" says on this point the oldest and most venerable \"script,\"\n\"and come to perfect rest, so that he sees no more any vision, then,\noh dear one, is he united with Being, he has entered into his own\nself--encircled by the Self with its absolute knowledge, he has no\nmore any consciousness of that which is without or of that which is\nwithin. Day and night cross not these bridges, nor age, nor death,\nnor suffering, nor good deeds, nor evil deeds.\" \"In deep sleep,\" say\nsimilarly the believers in this deepest of the three great religions,\n\"does the soul lift itself from out this body of ours, enters the\nsupreme light and stands out therein in its true shape: therein is it\nthe supreme spirit itself, which travels about, while it jests and\nplays and enjoys itself, whether with women, or chariots, or friends;\nthere do its thoughts turn no more back to this appanage of a body,\nto which the 'prana' (the vital breath) is harnessed like a beast of\nburden to the cart.\" None the less we will take care to realise (as\nwe did when discussing \"redemption\") that in spite of all its pomps\nof Oriental extravagance this simply expresses the same criticism on\nlife as did the clear, cold, Greekly cold, but yet suffering Epicurus.\nThe hypnotic sensation of nothingness, the peace of deepest sleep,\nan\u00e6sthesia in short\u2013\u2013that is what passes with the sufferers and the\nabsolutely depressed for, forsooth, their supreme good, their value\nof values; that is what <b>must</b> be treasured by them as something\npositive, be felt by them as the essence of _the_ Positive (according\nto the same logic of the feelings, nothingness is in all pessimistic\nreligions called God).\n\n\n18.\n\nSuch a hypnotic deadening of sensibility and susceptibility to pain,\nwhich presupposes somewhat rare powers, especially courage, contempt\nof opinion, intellectual stoicism, is less frequent than another\nand certainly easier _training_ which is tried against states of\ndepression. I mean _mechanical activity_. It is indisputable that a\nsuffering existence can be thereby considerably alleviated. This fact\nis called to-day by the somewhat ignoble title of the \"Blessing of\nwork.\" The alleviation consists in the attention of the sufferer being\nabsolutely diverted from suffering, in the incessant monopoly of the\nconsciousness by action, so that consequently there is little room left\nfor suffering\u2013\u2013for _narrow_ is it, this chamber of human consciousness!\nMechanical activity and its corollaries, such as absolute regularity,\npunctilious unreasoning obedience, the chronic routine of life, the\ncomplete occupation of time, a certain liberty to be impersonal, nay, a\ntraining in \"impersonality,\" self-forgetfulness, \"_incuria sui_\"\u2013\u2013with\nwhat thoroughness and expert subtlety have all these methods been\nexploited by the ascetic priest in his war with pain!\n\nWhen he has to tackle sufferers of the lower orders, slaves, or\nprisoners (or women, who for the most part are a compound of\nlabour-slave and prisoner), all he has to do is to juggle a little\nwith the names, and to rechristen, so as to make them see henceforth\na benefit, a comparative happiness, in objects which they hated--the\nslave's discontent with his lot was at any rate not invented by the\npriests. An even more popular means of fighting depression is the\nordaining of a _little joy_, which is easily accessible and can be made\ninto a rule; this medication is frequently used in conjunction with\nthe former ones. The most frequent form in which joy is prescribed\nas a cure is the joy in _producing_ joy (such as doing good, giving\npresents, alleviating, helping, exhorting, comforting, praising,\ntreating with distinction); together with the prescription of \"love\nyour neighbour.\" The ascetic priest prescribes, though in the most\ncautious doses, what is practically a stimulation of the strongest\nand most life-assertive impulse--the Will for Power. The happiness\ninvolved in the \"smallest superiority\" which is the concomitant of all\nbenefiting, helping, extolling, making one's self useful, is the most\nample consolation, of which, if they are well-advised, physiological\ndistortions avail themselves: in other cases they hurt each other, and\nnaturally in obedience to the same radical instinct. An investigation\nof the origin of Christianity in the Roman world shows that\nco-operative unions for poverty, sickness, and burial sprang up in the\nlowest stratum of contemporary society, amid which the chief antidote\nagainst depression, the little joy experienced in mutual benefits,\nwas deliberately fostered. Perchance this was then a novelty, a real\ndiscovery? This conjuring up of the will for co-operation, for family\norganisation, for communal life, for \"_C\u0153nacula_\" necessarily brought\nthe Will for Power, which had been already infinitesimally stimulated,\nto a new and much fuller manifestation. The herd organisation is a\ngenuine advance and triumph in the fight with depression. With the\ngrowth of the community there matures even to individuals a new\ninterest, which often enough takes him out of the more personal\nelement in his discontent, his aversion to himself, the \"_despectus\nsui_\" of Geulincx. All sick and diseased people strive instinctively\nafter a herd-organisation, out of a desire to shake off their sense of\noppressive discomfort and weakness; the ascetic priest divines this\ninstinct and promotes it; wherever a herd exists it is the instinct\nof weakness which has wished for the herd, and the cleverness of the\npriests which has organised it, for, mark this: by an equally natural\nnecessity the strong strive as much for _isolation_ as the weak for\n_union_: when the former bind themselves it is only with a view to an\naggressive joint action and joint satisfaction of their Will for Power,\nmuch against the wishes of their individual consciences; the latter,\non the contrary, range themselves together with positive _delight_ in\nsuch a muster--their instincts are as much gratified thereby as the\ninstincts of the \"born master\" (that is, the solitary beast-of-prey\nspecies of man) are disturbed and wounded to the quick by organisation.\nThere is always lurking beneath every oligarchy--such is the\nuniversal lesson of history--the desire for tyranny. Every oligarchy\nis continually quivering with the tension of the effort required by\neach individual to keep mastering this desire. (Such, _e.g._, was\nthe Greek; Plato shows it in a hundred places, Plato, who knew his\ncontemporaries--and _himself_.)\n\n\n19.\n\nThe methods employed by the ascetic priest, which we have already\nlearnt to know--stifling of all vitality, mechanical energy, the\nlittle joy, and especially the method of \"love your neighbour\"\nherd-organisation, the awaking of the communal consciousness of power,\nto such a pitch that the individual's disgust with himself becomes\neclipsed by his delight in the thriving of the community--these are,\naccording to modern standards, the \"innocent\" methods employed in\nthe fight with depression; let us turn now to the more interesting\ntopic of the \"guilty\" methods. The guilty methods spell one thing:\nto produce _emotional excess_--which is used as the most efficacious\nan\u00e6sthetic against their depressing state of protracted pain; this\nis why priestly ingenuity has proved quite inexhaustible in thinking\nout this one question: \"_By what means_ can you produce an emotional\nexcess?\" This sounds harsh: it is manifest that it would sound nicer\nand would grate on one's ears less, if I were to say, forsooth: \"The\nascetic priest made use at all times of the enthusiasm contained in all\nstrong emotions.\" But what is the good of still soothing the delicate\nears of our modern effeminates? What is the good _on our side_ of\nbudging one single inch before their verbal Pecksniffianism. For us\npsychologists to do that would be at once _practical Pecksniffianism_,\napart from the fact of its nauseating us. The _good taste_ (others\nmight say, the righteousness) of a psychologist nowadays consists, if\nat all, in combating the shamefully moralised language with which all\nmodern judgments on men and things are smeared. For, do not deceive\nyourself: what constitutes the chief characteristic of modern souls and\nof modern books is not the lying, but the _innocence_ which is part\nand parcel of their intellectual dishonesty. The inevitable running up\nagainst this \"innocence\" everywhere constitutes the most distasteful\nfeature of the somewhat dangerous business which a modern psychologist\nhas to undertake: it is a part of our great danger--it is a road which\nperhaps leads us straight to the great nausea--I know quite well the\npurpose which all modern books will and can serve (granted that they\nlast, which I am not afraid of, and granted equally that there is to\nbe at some future day a generation with a more rigid, more severe,\nand _healthier_ taste)--the _function_ which all modernity generally\nwill serve with posterity: that of an emetic,--and this by reason of\nits moral sugariness and falsity, its ingrained feminism, which it is\npleased to call \"Idealism,\" and at any rate believes to be idealism.\nOur cultured men of to-day, our \"good\" men, do not lie--that is true;\nbut it does _not_ redound to their honour! The real lie, the genuine,\ndetermined, \"honest\" lie (on whose value you can listen to Plato) would\nprove too tough and strong an article for them by a long way; it would\nbe asking them to do what people have been forbidden to ask them to do,\nto open their eyes to their own selves, and to learn to distinguish\nbetween \"true\" and \"false\" in their own selves. The dishonest lie alone\nsuits them: everything which feels a good man is perfectly incapable of\nany other attitude to anything than that of a dishonourable liar, an\nabsolute liar, but none the less an innocent liar, a blue-eyed liar, a\nvirtuous liar. These \"good men,\" they are all now tainted with morality\nthrough and through, and as far as honour is concerned they are\ndisgraced and corrupted for all eternity. Which of them _could stand_ a\nfurther truth \"about man\"? or, put more tangibly, which of them could\nput up with a true biography? One or two instances: Lord Byron composed\na most personal autobiography, but Thomas Moore was \"too good\" for it;\nhe burnt his friend's papers. Dr. Gwinner, Schopenhauer's executor, is\nsaid to have done the same; for Schopenhauer as well wrote much about\nhimself, and perhaps also against himself: (\u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f11\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd). The virtuous\nAmerican Thayer, Beethoven's biographer, suddenly stopped his work: he\nhad come to a certain point in that honourable and simple life, and\ncould stand it no longer. Moral: What sensible man nowadays writes one\nhonest word about himself? He must already belong to the Order of Holy\nFoolhardiness. We are promised an autobiography of Richard Wagner; who\ndoubts but that it would be a _clever_ autobiography? Think, forsooth,\nof the grotesque horror which the Catholic priest Janssen aroused in\nGermany with his inconceivably square and harmless pictures of the\nGerman Reformation; what wouldn't people do if some real psychologist\nwere to tell us about a genuine Luther, tell us, not with the moralist\nsimplicity of a country priest or the sweet and cautious modesty of a\nProtestant historian, but say with the fearlessness of a Taine, that\nsprings from force of character and not from a prudent toleration of\nforce. (The Germans, by the bye, have already produced the classic\nspecimen of this toleration--they may well be allowed to reckon him as\none of their own, in Leopold Ranke, that born classical advocate of\nevery _causa fortior_, that cleverest of all the clever opportunists.)\n\n\n20.\n\nBut you will soon understand me.--Putting it shortly, there is reason\nenough, is there not, for us psychologists nowadays never getting from\na certain mistrust of out _own selves_? Probably even we ourselves are\nstill \"too good\" for our work, probably, whatever contempt we feel\nfor this popular craze for morality, we ourselves are perhaps none\nthe less its victims, prey, and slaves; probably it infects even us.\nOf what was that diplomat warning us, when he said to his colleagues:\n\"Let us especially mistrust our first impulses, gentlemen! _they are\nalmost always good_\"? So should nowadays every psychologist talk to\nhis colleagues. And thus we get back to our problem, which in point\nof fact does require from us a certain severity, a certain mistrust\nespecially against \"first impulses.\" The ascetic ideal in the service\nof projected emotional excess:--he who remembers the previous essay\nwill already partially anticipate the essential meaning compressed\ninto these above ten words. The thorough unswitching of the human\nsoul, the plunging of it into terror, frost, ardour, rapture, so as\nto free it, as through some lightning shock, from all the smallness\nand pettiness of unhappiness, depression, and discomfort: what ways\nlead to _this_ goal? And which of these ways does so most safely?...\nAt bottom all great emotions have this power, provided that they find\na sudden outlet--emotions such as rage, fear, lust, revenge, hope,\ntriumph, despair, cruelty; and, in sooth, the ascetic priest has had\nno scruples in taking into his service the whole pack of hounds that\nrage in the human kennel, unleashing now these and now those, with the\nsame constant object of waking man out of his protracted melancholy,\nof chasing away, at any rate for a time, his dull pain, his shrinking\nmisery, but always under the sanction of a religious interpretation\nand justification. This emotional excess has subsequently to be _paid\nfor_, this is self-evident--it makes the ill more ill--and therefore\nthis kind of remedy for pain is according to modern standards a\n\"guilty\" kind.\n\nThe dictates of fairness, however, require that we should all the\nmore emphasise the fact that this remedy is applied with _a good\nconscience_, that the ascetic priest has prescribed it in the most\nimplicit belief in its utility and indispensability;--often enough\nalmost collapsing in the presence of the pain which he created;--that\nwe should similarly emphasise the fact that the violent physiological\nrevenges of such excesses, even perhaps the mental disturbances, are\nnot absolutely inconsistent with the general tenor of this kind of\nremedy; this remedy, which, as we have shown previously, is _not_ for\nthe purpose of healing diseases, but of fighting the unhappiness of\nthat depression, the alleviation and deadening of which was its object.\nThe object was consequently achieved. The keynote by which the ascetic\npriest was enabled to get every kind of agonising and ecstatic music\nto play on the fibres of the human soul--was, as every one knows, the\nexploitation of the feeling of \"_guilt_.\" I have already indicated in\nthe previous essay the origin of this feeling--as a piece of animal\npsychology and nothing else: we were thus confronted with the\nfeeling of \"guilt,\" in its crude state, as it were. It was first in\nthe hands of the priest, real artist that he was in the feeling of\nguilt, that it took shape--oh, what a shape! \"Sin\"--for that is the\nname of the new priestly version of the animal \"bad-conscience\" (the\ninverted cruelty)--has up to the present been the greatest event in the\nhistory of the diseased soul: in \"sin\" we find the most perilous and\nfatal masterpiece of religious interpretation. Imagine man, suffering\nfrom himself, some way or other but at any rate physiologically,\nperhaps like an animal shut up in a cage, not clear as to the why and\nthe wherefore! imagine him in his desire for reasons--reasons bring\nrelief--in his desire again for remedies, narcotics at last, consulting\none, who knows even the occult--and see, lo and behold, he gets a hint\nfrom his wizard, the ascetic priest, his _first_ hint on the \"cause\" of\nhis trouble: he must search for it in _himself_, in his guiltiness, in\na piece of the past, he must understand his very suffering as a _state\nof punishment_. He has heard, he has understood, has the unfortunate:\nhe is now in the plight of a hen round which a line has been drawn. He\nnever gets out of the circle of lines. The sick man has been turned\ninto \"the sinner\"--and now for a few thousand years we never get away\nfrom the sight of this new invalid, of \"a sinner\"--shall we ever get\naway from it?--wherever we just look, everywhere the hypnotic gaze of\nthe sinner always moving in one direction (in the direction of guilt,\nthe _only_ cause of suffering); everywhere the evil conscience, this\n\"_greuliche thier_,\"[4] to use Luther's language; everywhere rumination\nover the past, a distorted view of action, the gaze of the \"green-eyed\nmonster\" turned on all action; everywhere the wilful misunderstanding\nof suffering, its transvaluation into feelings of guilt, fear of\nretribution; everywhere the scourge, the hairy shirt, the starving\nbody, contrition; everywhere the sinner breaking himself on the ghastly\nwheel of a restless and morbidly eager conscience; everywhere mute\npain, extreme fear, the agony of a tortured heart, the spasms of an\nunknown happiness, the shriek for \"redemption.\" In point of fact,\nthanks to this system of procedure, the old depression, dullness,\nand fatigue were absolutely conquered, life itself became _very_\ninteresting again, awake, eternally awake, sleepless, glowing, burnt\naway, exhausted and yet not tired--such was the figure cut by man,\n\"the sinner,\" who was initiated into these mysteries. This grand old\nwizard of an ascetic priest fighting with depression--he had clearly\ntriumphed, _his_ kingdom had come: men no longer grumbled at pain, men\n_panted_ after pain: \"_More pain!_ More pain!\" So for centuries on end\nshrieked the demand of his acolytes and initiates. Every emotional\nexcess which hurt; everything which broke, overthrew, crushed,\ntransported, ravished; the mystery of torture-chambers, the ingenuity\nof hell itself--all this was now discovered, divined, exploited, all\nthis was at the service of the wizard, all this served to promote the\ntriumph of his ideal, the ascetic ideal. \"_My kingdom is not of this\nworld_,\" quoth he, both at the beginning and at the end: had he still\nthe right to talk like that?--Goethe has maintained that there are only\nthirty-six tragic situations: we would infer from that, did we not know\notherwise, that Goethe was no ascetic priest. He--knows more.\n\n\n21.\n\nSo far as all _this_ kind of priestly medicine-mongering, the \"guilty\"\nkind, is concerned, every word of criticism is superfluous. As for the\nsuggestion that emotional excess of the type, which in these cases\nthe ascetic priest is fain to order to his sick patients (under the\nmost sacred euphemism, as is obvious, and equally impregnated with\nthe sanctity of his purpose), has ever really been of use to any sick\nman, who, forsooth, would feel inclined to maintain a proposition of\nthat character? At any rate, some understanding should be come to as\nto the expression \"be of use.\" If you only wish to express that such a\nsystem of treatment has _reformed_ man, I do not gainsay it: I merely\nadd that \"reformed\" conveys to my mind as much as \"tamed,\" \"weakened,\"\n\"discouraged,\" \"refined,\" \"daintified,\" \"emasculated\" (and thus it\nmeans almost as much as injured). But when you have to deal principally\nwith sick, depressed, and oppressed creatures, such a system, even\ngranted that it makes the ill \"better,\" under any circumstances also\nmakes them more _ill_: ask the mad-doctors the invariable result of a\nmethodical application of penance-torture, contrition, and salvation\necstasies. Similarly ask history. In every body politic where the\nascetic priest has established this treatment of the sick, disease has\non every occasion spread with sinister speed throughout its length\nand breadth. What was always the \"result\"? A shattered nervous system,\nin addition to the existing malady, and this in the greatest as in the\nsmallest, in the individuals as in masses. We find, in consequence of\nthe penance and redemption-training, awful epileptic epidemics, the\ngreatest known to history, such as the St. Vitus and St. John dances\nof the Middle Ages; we find, as another phase of its after-effect,\nfrightful mutilations and chronic depressions, by means of which the\ntemperament of a nation or a city (Geneva, Bale) is turned once for\nall into its opposite;--this _training_, again, is responsible for\nthe witch-hysteria, a phenomenon analogous to somnambulism (eight\ngreat epidemic outbursts of this only between 1564 and 1605);--we\nfind similarly in its train those delirious death-cravings of large\nmasses, whose awful \"shriek,\" \"_evviva la morte!_\" was heard over the\nwhole of Europe, now interrupted by voluptuous variations and anon by\na rage for destruction, just as the same emotional sequence with the\nsame intermittencies and sudden changes is now universally observed\nin every case where the ascetic doctrine of sin scores once more a\ngreat success (religious neurosis _appears_ as a manifestation of the\ndevil, there is no doubt of it. What is it? _Qu\u00e6ritur_). Speaking\ngenerally, the ascetic ideal and its sublime-moral cult, this most\ningenious, reckless, and perilous systematisation of all methods of\nemotional excess, is writ large in a dreadful and unforgettable fashion\non the whole history of man, and unfortunately not only on history.\nI was scarcely able to put forward any other element which attacked\nthe health and race efficiency of Europeans with more destructive\npower than did this ideal; it can be dubbed,without exaggeration,\n_the real fatality_ in the history of the health of the European man.\nAt the most you can merely draw a comparison with the specifically\nGerman influence: I mean the alcohol poisoning of Europe, which up\nto the present has kept pace exactly with the political and racial\npre\u2013dominance of the Germans (where they inoculated their blood,\nthere too did they inoculate their vice). Third in the series comes\nsyphilis--_magno sed proximo intervallo_.\n\n\n22.\n\nThe ascetic priest has, wherever he has obtained the mastery, corrupted\nthe health of the soul, he has consequently also corrupted _taste in\nartibus et litteris_--he corrupts it still. \"Consequently?\" I hope I\nshall be granted this \"consequently \"; at any rate, I am not going to\nprove it first. One solitary indication, it concerns the arch-book of\nChristian literature, their real model, their \"book-in-itself.\" In the\nvery midst of the Gr\u00e6co-Roman splendour, which was also a splendour\nof books, face to face with an ancient world of writings which had\nnot yet fallen into decay and ruin, at a time when certain books were\nstill to be read, to possess which we would give nowadays half our\nliterature in exchange, at that time the simplicity and vanity of\nChristian agitators (they are generally called Fathers of the Church)\ndared to declare: \"We too have our classical literature, we _do not\nneed that of the Greeks_\"--and meanwhile they proudly pointed to their\nbooks of legends, their letters of apostles, and their apologetic\ntractlets, just in the same way that to-day the English \"Salvation\nArmy\" wages its fight against Shakespeare and other \"heathens\" with\nan analogous literature. You already guess it, I do not like the \"New\nTestament\"; it almost upsets me that I stand so isolated in my taste\nso far as concerns this valued, this over-valued Scripture; the taste\nof two thousand years is _against_ me; but what boots it! \"Here I\nstand! I cannot help myself\"[5]--I have the courage of my bad taste.\nThe Old Testament--yes, that is something quite different, all honour\nto the Old Testament! I find therein great men, an heroic landscape,\nand one of the rarest phenomena in the world, the incomparable na\u00efvet\u00e9\n_of the strong heart_; further still, I find a people. In the New, on\nthe contrary, just a hostel of petty sects, pure rococo of the soul,\ntwisting angles and fancy touches, nothing but conventicle air, not to\nforget an occasional whiff of bucolic sweetness which appertains to the\nepoch (_and_ the Roman province) and is less Jewish than Hellenistic.\nMeekness and braggadocio cheek by jowl; an emotional garrulousness\nthat almost deafens; passionate hysteria, but no passion; painful\npantomime; here manifestly every one lacked good breeding. How dare any\none make so much fuss about their little failings as do these pious\nlittle fellows! No one cares a straw about it--let alone God. Finally\nthey actually wish to have \"the crown of eternal life,\" do all these\nlittle provincials! In return for what, in sooth? For what end? It is\nimpossible to carry insolence any further. An immortal Peter! who could\nstand _him_! They have an ambition which makes one laugh: the _thing_\ndishes up cut and dried his most personal life, his melancholies, and\ncommon-or-garden troubles, as though the Universe itself were under\nan obligation to bother itself about them, for it never gets tired of\nwrapping up God Himself in the petty misery in which its troubles are\ninvolved. And how about the atrocious form of this chronic hobnobbing\nwith God? This Jewish, and not merely Jewish, slobbering and clawing\nimportunacy towards God!--There exist little despised \"heathen nations\"\nin East Asia, from whom these first Christians could have learnt\nsomething worth learning, a little tact in worshiping; these nations\ndo not allow themselves to say aloud the name of their God. This seems\nto me delicate enough, it is certain that it is _too_ delicate, and\nnot only for primitive Christians; to take a contrast, just recollect\nLuther, the most \"eloquent\" and insolent peasant whom Germany has had,\nthink of the Lutherian tone, in which he felt quite the most in his\nelement during his _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eates_ with God. Luther's opposition to the\nmedi\u00e6val saints of the Church (in particular, against \"that devil's\nhog, the Pope\"), was, there is no doubt, at bottom the opposition of\na boor, who was offended at the _good etiquette_ of the Church, that\nworship-etiquette of the sacerdotal code, which only admits to the\nholy of holies the initiated and the silent, and shuts the door against\nthe boors. These definitely were not to be allowed a hearing in this\nplanet--but Luther the peasant simply wished it otherwise; as it was,\nit was not German enough for him. He personally wished himself to talk\ndirect, to talk personally, to talk \"straight from the shoulder\" with\nhis God. Well, he's done it. The ascetic ideal, you will guess, was at\nno time and in no place, a school of good taste, still less of good\nmanners--at the best it was a school for sacerdotal manners: that is,\nit contains in itself something which was a deadly enemy to all good\nmanners. Lack of measure, opposition to measure, it is itself a \"_non\nplus ultra_.\"\n\n\n23.\n\nThe ascetic ideal has corrupted not only health and taste, there are\nalso third, fourth, fifth, and sixth things which it has corrupted--I\nshall take care not to go through the catalogue (when should I get to\nthe end?). I have here to expose not what this ideal effected; but\nrather only what it _means_, on what it is based, what lies lurking\nbehind it and under it, that of which it is the provisional expression,\nan obscure expression bristling with queries and misunderstandings.\nAnd with _this_ object only in view I presumed \"not to spare\" my\nreaders a glance at the awfulness of its results, a glance at its\nfatal results; I did this to prepare them for the final and most\nawful aspect presented to me by the question of the significance of\nthat ideal. What is the significance of the _power_ of that ideal,\nthe monstrousness of its power? Why is it given such an amount of\nscope? Why is not a better resistance offered against it? The ascetic\nideal expresses one will: where is the opposition will, in which an\nopposition ideal expresses itself? The ascetic ideal has an aim--\nthis goal is, putting it generally, that all the other interests of\nhuman life should, measured by its standard, appear petty and narrow;\nit explains epochs, nations, men, in reference to this one end; it\nforbids any other interpretation, any other end; it repudiates, denies,\naffirms, confirms, only in the sense of its own interpretation (and was\nthere ever a more thoroughly elaborated system of interpretation?);\nit subjects itself to no power, rather does it believe in its own\nprecedence over every power--it believes that nothing powerful exists\nin the world that has not first got to receive from \"it\" a meaning,\na right to exist, a value, as being an instrument in its work, a\nway and means to its end, to one end. Where is the _counterpart_ of\nthis complete system of will, end, and interpretation? Why is the\ncounterpart lacking? Where is the other \"one aim\"? But I am told it\nis not lacking, that not only has it fought a long and fortunate fight\nwith that ideal, but that further it has already won the mastery over\nthat ideal in all essentials: let our whole modern _science_ attest\nthis--that modern science, which, like the genuine reality-philosophy\nwhich it is, manifestly believes in itself alone, manifestly has the\ncourage to be itself, the will to be itself, and has got on well\nenough without God, another world, and negative virtues.\n\nWith all their noisy agitator-babble, however, they effect nothing with\nme; these trumpeters of reality are bad musicians, their voices do\nnot come from the deeps with sufficient audibility, they are not the\nmouthpiece for the abyss of scientific knowledge--for to-day scientific\nknowledge is an abyss--the word \"science,\" in such trumpeter-mouths,\nis a prostitution, an abuse, an impertinence. The truth is just the\nopposite from what is maintained in the ascetic theory. Science has\nto-day absolutely no belief in itself, let alone in an ideal superior\nto itself, and wherever science still consists of passion, love,\nardour, suffering, it is not the opposition to that ascetic ideal, but\nrather the _incarnation of its latest and noblest form_. Does that ring\nstrange? There are enough brave and decent working people, even among\nthe learned men of to-day, who like their little corner, and who, just\nbecause they are pleased so to do, become at times indecently loud with\ntheir demand, that people to-day should be quite content, especially\nin science--for in science there is so much useful work to do. I do\nnot deny it--there is nothing I should like less than to spoil the\ndelight of these honest workers in their handiwork; for I rejoice in\ntheir work. But the fact of science requiring hard work, the fact of\nits having contented workers, is absolutely no proof of science as a\nwhole having to-day one end, one will, one ideal, one passion for a\ngreat faith; the contrary, as I have said, is the case. When science\nis not the latest manifestation of the ascetic ideal--but these are\ncases of such rarity, selectness, and exquisiteness, as to preclude the\ngeneral judgment being affected thereby--science is a _hiding-place_\nfor every kind of cowardice, disbelief, remorse, _despectio sui_, bad\nconscience--it is the very _anxiety_ that springs from having no ideal,\nthe suffering from the _lack_ of a great love, the discontent with an\nenforced moderation. Oh, what does all science not cover to-day? How\nmuch, at any rate, does it not try to cover? The diligence of our best\nscholars, their senseless industry, their burning the candle of their\nbrain at both ends--their very mastery in their handiwork--how often is\nthe real meaning of all that to prevent themselves continuing to see a\ncertain thing? Science as a self-an\u00e6sthetic: _do you know that_? You\nwound them--every one who consorts with scholars experiences this--you\nwound them sometimes to the quick through just a harmless word; when\nyou think you are paying them a compliment you embitter them beyond all\nbounds, simply because you didn't have the _finesse_ to infer the real\nkind of customers you had to tackle, the _sufferer_ kind (who won't own\nup even to themselves what they really are), the dazed and unconscious\nkind who have only one fear--_coming to consciousness_.\n\n\n24.\n\nAnd now look at the other side, at those rare cases, of which I spoke,\nthe most supreme idealists to be found nowadays among philosophers and\nscholars. Have we, perchance, found in them the sought-for _opponents_\nof the ascetic ideal, its _anti-idealists_? In fact, they _believe_\nthemselves to be such, these \"unbelievers\" (for they are all of them\nthat): it seems that this idea is their last remnant of faith, the idea\nof being opponents of this ideal, so earnest are they on this subject,\nso passionate in word and gesture;--but does it follow that what\nthey believe must necessarily be _true_? We \"knowers\" have grown by\ndegrees suspicious of all kinds of believers, our suspicion has step by\nstep habituated us to draw just the opposite conclusions to what people\nhave drawn before; that is to say, wherever the strength of a belief\nis particularly prominent to draw the conclusion of the difficulty of\nproving what is believed, the conclusion of its actual _improbability_.\nWe do not again deny that \"faith produces salvation\": _for that very\nreason_ we do deny that faith _proves_ anything,--a strong faith, which\nproduces happiness, causes suspicion of the object of that faith, it\ndoes not establish its \"truth,\" it does establish a certain probability\nof--_illusion_. What is now the position in these cases? These\nsolitaries and deniers of to-day; these fanatics in one thing, in their\nclaim to intellectual cleanness; these hard, stern, continent, heroic\nspirits, who constitute the glory of our time; all these pale atheists,\nanti-Christians, immoralists, Nihilists; these sceptics, \"ephectics,\"\nand \"hectics\" of the intellect (in a certain sense they are the\nlatter, both collectively and individually); these supreme idealists\nof knowledge, in whom alone nowadays the intellectual conscience\ndwells and is alive--in point of fact they believe themselves as far\naway as possible from the ascetic ideal, do these \"free, very free\nspirits\": and yet, if I may reveal what they themselves cannot see--for\nthey stand too near themselves: this ideal is simply _their_ ideal,\nthey represent it nowadays and perhaps no one else, they themselves\nare its most spiritualised product, its most advanced picket of\nskirmishers and scouts, its most insidious delicate and elusive form\nof seduction.--If I am in any way a reader of riddles, then I will\nbe one with this sentence: for some time past there have been no\nfree spirits; _for they still believe in truth_. When the Christian\nCrusaders in the East came into collision with that invincible order\nof assassins, that order of free spirits _par excellence_, whose\nlowest grade lives in a state of discipline such as no order of monks\nhas ever attained, then in some way or other they managed to get an\ninkling of that symbol and tally-word, that was reserved for the\nhighest grade alone as their _secretum_, \"Nothing is true, everything\nis allowed,\"--in sooth, that was _freedom_ of thought, thereby was\n_taking leave_ of the very belief in truth. Has indeed any European,\nany Christian freethinker, ever yet wandered into this proposition\nand its labyrinthine consequences? Does he know _from experience_ the\nMinotauros of this den.--I doubt it--nay, I know otherwise. Nothing\nis more really alien to these \"mono-fanatics,\" these _so-called_\n\"free spirits,\" than freedom and unfettering in that sense; in no\nrespect are they more closely tied, the absolute fanaticism of their\nbelief in truth is unparalleled. I know all this perhaps too much from\nexperience at close quarters--that dignified philosophic abstinence\nto which a belief like that binds its adherents, that stoicism of\nthe intellect, which eventually vetoes negation as rigidly as it does\naffirmation, that wish for standing still in front of the actual,\nthe _factum brutum_, that fatalism in \"_petits faits_\" (ce petit\nfaitalism, as I call it), in which French Science now attempts a kind\nof moral superiority over German, this renunciation of interpretation\ngenerally (that is, of forcing, doctoring, abridging, omitting,\nsuppressing, inventing, falsifying, and all the other _essential_\nattributes of interpretation)--all this, considered broadly, expresses\nthe asceticism of virtue, quite as efficiently as does any repudiation\nof the senses (it is at bottom only a _modus_ of that repudiation.)\nBut what forces it into that unqualified will for truth is the faith\n_in the ascetic ideal itself_, even though it take the form of its\nunconscious imperatives,--make no mistake about it, it is the faith,\nI repeat, in a _metaphysical_ value, an _intrinsic_ value of truth,\nof a character which is only warranted and guaranteed in this ideal\n(it stands and falls with that ideal). Judged strictly, there does\nnot exist a science without its \"hypotheses,\" the thought of such a\nscience is inconceivable, illogical: a philosophy, a faith, must always\nexist first to enable science to gain thereby a direction, a meaning,\na limit and method, a _right_ to existence. (He who holds a contrary\nopinion on the subject--he, for example, who takes it upon himself to\nestablish philosophy \"upon a strictly scientific basis\"--has first got\nto \"turn up-side-down\" not only philosophy but also truth itself--the\ngravest insult which could possibly be offered to two such respectable\nfemales!) Yes, there is no doubt about it--and here I quote my _Joyful\nWisdom_, cp. Book V. Aph. 344: \"The man who is truthful in that\ndaring and extreme fashion, which is the presupposition of the faith\nin science, _asserts thereby a different world_ from that of life,\nnature, and history; and in so far as he asserts the existence of that\ndifferent world, come, must he not similarly repudiate its counterpart,\nthis world, _our_ world? The belief on which our faith in science is\nbased has remained to this day a metaphysical belief--even we knowers\nof to-day, we godless foes of metaphysics, we too take our fire from\nthat conflagration which was kindled by a thousand-year-old faith,\nfrom that Christian belief, which was also Plato's belief, the belief\nthat God is truth, that truth is _divine_.... But what if this belief\nbecomes more and more incredible, what if nothing proves itself to\nbe divine, unless it be error, blindness, lies--what if God, Himself\nproved Himself to be our _oldest lie_?\"--It is necessary to stop at\nthis point and to consider the situation carefully. Science itself now\n_needs_ a justification (which is not for a minute to say that there\nis such a justification). Turn in this context to the most ancient and\nthe most modern philosophers: they all fail to realise the extent of\nthe need of a justification on the part of the Will for Truth--here\nis a gap in every philosophy--what is it caused by? Because up to the\npresent the ascetic ideal dominated all philosophy, because Truth was\nfixed as Being, as God, as the Supreme Court of Appeal, because Truth\nwas not allowed to be a problem. Do you understand this \"allowed\"?\nFrom the minute that the belief in the God of the ascetic ideal is\nrepudiated, there exists _a new problem_: the problem of the value of\ntruth. The Will for Truth needed a critique--let us define by these\nwords our own task---the value of truth is tentatively _to be called\nin question_.... (If this seems too laconically expressed, I recommend\nthe reader to peruse again that passage from the _Joyful Wisdom_ which\nbears the title, \"How far we also are still pious,\" Aph. 344, and best\nof all the whole fifth book of that work, as well as the Preface to\n_The Dawn of Day_.)\n\n\n25.\n\nNo! You can't get round me with science, when I search for the natural\nantagonists of the ascetic ideal, when I put the question: \"_Where_\nis the opposed will in which the _opponent ideal_ expresses itself?\"\nScience is not, by a long way, independent enough to fulfil this\nfunction; in every department science needs an ideal value, a power\nwhich creates values, and in whose _service_ it _can believe_ in itself\n--science itself never creates values. Its relation to the ascetic\nideal is not in itself antagonistic; speaking roughly, it rather\nrepresents the progressive force in the inner evolution of that ideal.\nTested more exactly, its opposition and antagonism are concerned not\nwith the ideal itself, but only with that ideal's outworks, its outer\ngarb, its masquerade, with its temporary hardening, stiffening, and\ndogmatising--it makes the life in the ideal free once more, while it\nrepudiates its superficial elements. These two phenomena, science and\nthe ascetic ideal, both rest on the same basis\u2013\u2013I have already made\nthis clear\u2013\u2013the basis, I say, oft the same over-appreciation of truth\n(more accurately the same belief in the _impossibility_ of valuing and\nof criticising truth), and consequently they are _necessarily_ allies,\nso that, in the event of their being attacked, they must always be\nattacked and called into question together. A valuation of the ascetic\nideal inevitably entails a valuation of science as well; lose no time\nin seeing this clearly, and be sharp to catch it! (_Art_, I am speaking\nprovisionally, for I will treat it on some other occasion in greater\ndetail,\u2013\u2013art, I repeat, in which lying is sanctified and the _will for\ndeception_ has good conscience on its side, is much more fundamentally\nopposed to the ascetic ideal than is science: Plato's instinct felt\nthis\u2013\u2013Plato, the greatest enemy of art which Europe has produced up\nto the present. Plato _versus_ Homer, that is the complete, the true\nantagonism\u2013\u2013on the one side, the whole\u2013hearted \"transcendental,\" the\ngreat defamer of life; on the other, its involuntary panegyrist, the\n_golden_ nature. An artistic subservience to the service of the ascetic\nideal is consequently the most absolute artistic _corruption_ that\nthere can be, though unfortunately it is one of the most frequent\nphases, for nothing is more corruptible than an artist.) Considered\nphysiologically, moreover, science rests on the same, basis as\ndoes the ascetic ideal: a certain _impoverishment of life_ is the\npresupposition of the latter as of the former\u2013\u2013add, frigidity of the\nemotions, slackening of the _tempo_, the substitution of dialectic for\ninstinct, _seriousness_ impressed on mien and gesture (seriousness,\nthat most unmistakable sign of strenuous metabolism, of struggling,\ntoiling life). Consider the periods in a nation in which the learned\nman comes into prominence; they are the periods of exhaustion, often\nof sunset, of decay--the effervescing strength, the confidence in\nlife, the confidence in the future are no more. The preponderance of\nthe mandarins never signifies any good, any more than does the advent\nof democracy, or arbitration instead of war, equal rights for women,\nthe religion of pity, and all the other symptoms of declining life.\n(Science handled as a problem! what is the meaning of science?--upon\nthis point the Preface to the _Birth of Tragedy_.) No! this \"modern\nscience\"--mark you this well--is at times the _best_ ally for the\nascetic ideal, and for the very reason that it is the ally which is\nmost unconscious, most automatic, most secret, and most subterranean!\nThey have been playing into each other's hands up to the present, have\nthese \"poor in spirit\" and the scientific opponents of that ideal (take\ncare, by the bye, not to think that these opponents are the antithesis\nof this ideal, that they are the _rich_ in spirit--that they are _not_;\nI have called them the _hectic_ in spirit). As for these celebrated\nvictories of science; there is no doubt that they are _victories_--but\nvictories over what? There was not for a single minute any victory\namong their list over the ascetic ideal, rather was it made stronger,\nthat is to say, more elusive, more abstract, more insidious, from\nthe fact that a wall, an outwork, that had got built on to the main\nfortress and disfigured its appearance, should from time to time be\nruthlessly destroyed and broken down by science. Does any one seriously\nsuggest that the downfall of the theological astronomy signified the\ndownfall of that ideal?--Has, perchance, man grown _less in need_ of a\ntranscendental solution of his riddle of existence, because since that\ntime this existence has become more random, casual, and superfluous in\nthe _visible_ order of the universe? Has there not been since the time\nof Copernicus an unbroken progress in the self-belittling of man and\nhis _will_ for belittling himself? Alas, his belief in his dignity, his\nuniquenesses irreplaceableness in the scheme of existence, is gone--he\nhas become animal, literal, unqualified, and unmitigated animal, he\nwho in his earlier belief was almost God (\"child of God,\" \"demi-God\").\nSince Copernicus man seems to have fallen on to a steep plane--he rolls\nfaster and faster away from the centre--whither? into nothingness?\ninto the \"thrilling sensation of his own nothingness\"--Well! this\nwould be the straight way--to the old ideal?--All science (and by no\nmeans only astronomy, with regard to the humiliating and deteriorating\neffect of which Kant has made a remarkable confession, \"it annihilates\nmy own importance\"), all science, natural as much as _unnatural_--by\nunnatural I mean the self-critique of reason--nowadays sets out to\ntalk man out of his present opinion of himself, as though that opinion\nhad been nothing but a bizarre piece of conceit; you might go so far\nas to say that science finds its peculiar pride, its peculiar bitter\nform of stoical ataraxia, in preserving man's _contempt of himself_,\nthat state which it took so much trouble to bring about, as man's final\nand most serious claim to self-appreciation (rightly so, in point\nof fact, for he who despises is always \"one who has not forgotten\nhow to appreciate\"). But does all this involve any real effort to\n_counteract_ the ascetic ideal? Is it really seriously suggested that\nKant's _victory_ over the theological dogmatism about \"God,\" \"Soul,\"\n\"Freedom,\" \"Immortality,\" has damaged that ideal in any way (as the\ntheologians have imagined to be the case for a long time past)?\u2013\u2013\nAnd in this connection it does not concern us for a single minute,\nif Kant himself intended any such consummation. It is certain that\nfrom the time of Kant every type of transcendentalist is playing a\nwinning game\u2013\u2013they are emancipated from the theologians; what luck!\u2013\u2013he\nhas revealed to them that secret art, by which they can now pursue\ntheir \"heart's desire\" on their own responsibility, and with all the\nrespectability of science. Similarly, who can grumble at the agnostics,\nreverers, as they are, of the unknown and the absolute mystery, if they\nnow worship _their very query_ as God? (Xaver Doudan talks somewhere\nof the _ravages_ which _l'habitude d'admirer l'inintelligible au lieu\nde rester tout simplement dans l'inconnu_ has produced\u2013\u2013the ancients,\nhe thinks, must have been exempt from those ravages.) Supposing that\neverything, \"known\" to man, fails to satisfy his desires, and on the\ncontrary contradicts and horrifies them, what a divine way out of all\nthis to be able to look for the responsibility, not in the \"desiring\"\nbut in \"knowing\"!\u2013\u2013\"There is no knowledge. _Consequently_\u2013\u2013there is\na God\"; what a novel _elegantia syllogism_i! what a triumph for the\nascetic ideal!\n\n\n26.\n\nOr, perchance, does the whole of modern history show in its demeanour\ngreater confidence in life, greater confidence in its ideals? Its\nloftiest pretension is now to be a _mirror_; it repudiates all\nteleology; it will have no more \"proving\"; it disdains to play the\njudge, and thereby shows its good taste\u2013\u2013it asserts as little as it\ndenies, it fixes, it \"describes.\" All this is to a high degree ascetic,\nbut at the same time it is to a much greater degree _nihilistic_; make\nno mistake about this! You see in the historian a gloomy, hard, but\ndetermined gaze,\u2013\u2013an eye that _looks out_ as an isolated North Pole\nexplorer looks out (perhaps so as not to look within, so as not to look\nback?)\u2013\u2013there is snow\u2013\u2013here is life silenced, the last crows which\ncaw here are called \"whither?\" \"Vanity,\" \"Nada\"\u2013\u2013here nothing more\nflourishes and grows, at the most the metapolitics of St. Petersburg\nand the \"pity\" of Tolstoi. But as for that other school of historians,\na perhaps still more \"modern\" school, a voluptuous and lascivious\nschool which ogles life and the ascetic ideal with equal fervour,\nwhich uses the word \"artist\" as a glove, and has nowadays established\na \"corner\" for itself, in all the praise given to contemplation; oh,\nwhat a thirst do these sweet intellectuals excite even for ascetics\nand winter landscapes! Nay! The devil take these \"contemplative\" folk!\nHow much liefer would I wander with those historical Nihilists through\nthe gloomiest, grey, cold mist!\u2013\u2013nay, I shall not mind listening\n(supposing I have to choose) to one who is completely unhistorical\nand anti-historical (a man, like D\u00fchring for instance, over whose\nperiods a hitherto shy and unavowed species of \"beautiful souls\" has\ngrown intoxicated in contemporary Germany, _the species anarchistica_\nwithin the educated proletariate). The \"contemplative\" are a hundred\ntimes worse\u2013\u2013I never knew anything which produced such intense\nnausea as one of those \"objective\" _chairs_,[6] one of those scented\nmannikins-about-town of history, a thing half-priest, half-satyr (Renan\n_parfum_), which betrays by the high, shrill falsetto of his applause\nwhat he lacks and where he lacks it, who betrays where in this case\nthe Fates have plied their ghastly shears, alas! in too surgeon-like\na fashion! This is distasteful to me, and irritates my patience; let\nhim keep patient at such sights who has nothing to lose thereby,\u2013\u2013such\na sight enrages me, such spectators embitter me against the \"play,\"\neven more than does the play itself (history itself, you understand);\nAnacreontic moods imperceptibly come over me. This Nature, who gave\nto the steer its horn, to the lion its \u03c7\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc \u1f40\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, for what purpose\ndid Nature give me my foot?\u2013\u2013To kick, by St. Anacreon, and not merely\nto run away! To trample on all the worm-eaten \"chairs,\" the cowardly\ncontemplators, the lascivious eunuchs of history, the flirters with\nascetic ideals, the righteous hypocrites of impotence! All reverence\non my part to the ascetic ideal, _in so far as it is honourable_! So\nlong as it believes in itself and plays no pranks on us! But I like\nnot all these coquettish bugs who have an insatiate ambition to smell\nof the infinite, until eventually the infinite smells of bugs; I like\nnot the whited sepulchres with their stagey reproduction of life;\nI like not the tired and the used up who wrap themselves in wisdom\nand look \"objective\"; I like not the agitators dressed up as heroes,\nwho hide their dummy-heads behind the stalking-horse of an ideal; I\nlike not the ambitious artists who would fain play the ascetic and\nthe priest, and are at bottom nothing but tragic clowns; I like not,\nagain, these newest speculators in idealism, the Anti-Semites, who\nnowadays roll their eyes in the patent Christian-Aryan-man-of-honour\nfashion, and by an abuse of moralist attitudes and agitation dodges, so\ncheap as to exhaust any patience, strive to excite all the blockhead\nelements in the populace (the invariable success of _every_ kind of\nintellectual charlatanism in present-day Germany hangs together with\nthe almost indisputable and already quite palpable desolation of the\nGerman mind, whose cause I look for in a too exclusive diet, of papers,\npolitics, beer, and Wagnerian music, not forgetting the condition\nprecedent of this diet, the national exclusiveness and vanity, the\nstrong but narrow principle, \"Germany, Germany above everything,\"[7]\nand finally the _paralysis agitans_ of \"modern ideas\"). Europe\nnowadays is, above all, wealthy and ingenious in means of excitement;\nit apparently has no more crying necessity than _stimulantia_ and\nalcohol. Hence the enormous counterfeiting of ideals, those most fiery\nspirits of the mind; hence too the repulsive, evil-smelling, perjured,\npseudo\u2013alcoholic air everywhere. I should like to know how many cargoes\nof imitation idealism, of hero-costumes and high falutin' clap-trap,\nhow many casks of sweetened pity liqueur (Firm: _la religion de la\nsouffrance_), how many crutches of righteous indignation for the help\nof these flat-footed intellects, how many _comedians_ of the Christian\nmoral ideal would need to-day to be exported from Europe, to enable\nits air to smell pure again. It is obvious that, in regard to this\nover-production, a new _trade_ possibility lies open; it is obvious\nthat there is a new business to be done in little ideal idols and\nobedient \"idealists\"--don't pass over this tip! Who has sufficient\ncourage? We have in _our hands_ the possibility of idealising the whole\nearth. But what am I talking about courage? we only need one thing\nhere--a hand, a free, a very free hand.\n\n\n27.\n\nEnough! enough! let us leave these curiosities and complexities of\nthe modern spirit, which excite as much laughter as disgust. Our\nproblem can certainly do without them, the problem of _meaning_ of\nthe ascetic ideal--what has it got to do with yesterday or to-day?\nthose things shall be handled by me more thoroughly and severely in\nanother connection (under the title \"A Contribution to the History of\nEuropean Nihilism,\" I refer for this to a work which I am preparing:\n_The Will to Power, an Attempt at a Transvaluation of All Values_).\nThe only reason why I come to allude to it here is this: the ascetic\nideal has at times, even in the most intellectual sphere, only one\nreal kind of enemies and _damagers_: these are the comedians of this\nideal--for they awake mistrust. Everywhere otherwise, where the mind\nis at work seriously, powerfully, and without counterfeiting, it\ndispenses altogether now with an ideal (the popular expression for this\nabstinence is \"Atheism\")--_with the exception of the will for truth_.\nBut this will, this _remnant_ of an ideal, is, if you will believe me,\nthat ideal itself in its severest and cleverest formulation, esoteric\nthrough and through, stripped of all outworks, and consequently not so\nmuch its remnant as its _kernel_. Unqualified honest atheism (and its\nair only do we breathe, we, the most intellectual men of this age) is\n_not_ opposed to that ideal, to the extent that it appears to be; it is\nrather one of the final phases of its evolution, one of its syllogisms\nand pieces of inherent logic--it is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of\na two-thousand-year training in truth, which finally forbids itself\n_the lie of the belief in God_. (The same course of development in\nIndia--quite independently, and consequently of some demonstrative\nvalue--the same ideal driving to the same conclusion the decisive point\nreached five hundred years before the European era, or more precisely\nat the time of Buddha--it started in the Sankhyam philosophy, and then\nthis was popularised through Buddha, and made into a religion.)\n\n_What_, I put the question with all strictness, has really _triumphed_\nover the Christian God? The answer stands in my _Joyful Wisdom_, Aph.\n357: \"the Christian morality itself, the idea of truth, taken as it was\nwith increasing seriousness, the confessor-subtlety of the Christian\nconscience translated and sublimated into the scientific conscience\ninto intellectual cleanness at any price. Regarding Nature as though\nit were a proof of the goodness and guardianship of God; interpreting\nhistory in honour of a divine reason, as a constant proof of a moral\norder of the world and a moral teleology; explaining our own personal\nexperiences, as pious men have for long enough explained them, as\nthough every arrangement, every nod, every single thing were invented\nand sent out of love for the salvation of the soul; all this is now\ndone away with, all this has the conscience _against_ it, and is\nregarded by every subtler conscience as disreputable, dishonourable,\nas lying, feminism, weakness, cowardice--by means of this severity,\nif by means of anything at all, are we, in sooth, _good Europeans_\nand heirs of Europe's longest and bravest self-mastery.\". .. All\ngreat things go to ruin by reason of themselves, by reason of an act\nof self-dissolution: so wills the law of life, the law of necessary\n\"self-mastery\" even in the essence of life--ever is the law-giver\nfinally exposed to the cry, \"_patere legem quam ipse tulisti_\"; in\nthus wise did Christianity _go to ruin as a dogma_, through its own\nmorality; in thus wise must Christianity go again to ruin to-day as\na morality--we are standing on the threshold of this event. After\nChristian truthfulness has drawn one conclusion after the other, it\nfinally draws its _strongest conclusion_, its conclusion against\nitself; this, however, happens, when it puts the question, \"_what is\nthe meaning of every will for truth?_\" And here again do I touch on my\nproblem, on our problem, my unknown friends (for as yet _I know_ of no\nfriends): what sense has our whole being, if it does not mean that in\nour own selves that will for truth has come to its own consciousness\n_as a problem_?---By reason of this attainment of self-consciousness\non the part of the will for truth, morality from henceforward--there\nis no doubt about it--goes _to pieces_: this is that great hundred-act\nplay that is reserved for the next two centuries of Europe, the most\nterrible, the most mysterious, and perhaps also the most hopeful of all\nplays.\n\n\n28.\n\nIf you except the ascetic ideal, man, the animal man had no meaning.\nHis existence on earth contained no end; \"What is the purpose of man\nat all?\" was a question without an answer; the _will_ for man and the\nworld was lacking; behind every great human destiny rang as a refrain\na still greater \"Vanity!\" The ascetic ideal simply means this: that\nsomething _was lacking_, that a tremendous _void_ encircled man--he did\nnot know how to justify himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself,\nhe _suffered_ from the problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in\nother ways, he was in the main a _diseased_ animal; but his problem\nwas not suffering itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying\nquestion, \"_To what purpose_ do we suffer?\" Man, the bravest animal\nand the one most inured to suffering, does _not_ repudiate suffering in\nitself: he _wills_ it, he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown\na meaning for it, a _purpose_ of suffering. _Not_ suffering, but the\nsenselessness of suffering was the curse which till then lay spread\nover humanity--_and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning!_ It was up\ntill then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning;\nthe ascetic ideal was in that connection the _\"faute de mieux\" par\nexcellence_ that existed at that time. In that ideal suffering _found\nan explanation_; the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all\nsuicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation--there is no doubt about\nit--brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more\nvenomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering\nunder the perspective of _guilt_; but in spite of all that--man was\n_saved_ thereby, he had a _meaning_, and from henceforth was no more\nlike a leaf in the wind, a shuttle-cock of chance, of nonsense, he\ncould now \"will\" something--absolutely immaterial to what end, to what\npurpose, with what means he wished: _the will itself was saved_. It\nis absolutely impossible to disguise _what_ in point of fact is made\nclear by every complete will that has taken its direction from the\nascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal,\nand more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason\nitself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right\naway from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even\ndesiring--all this means--let us have the courage to grasp it--a will\nfor Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most\nfundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains _a will_!--and\nto say at the end that which I said at the beginning--man will wish\n_Nothingness_ rather than not wish _at all_.\n\n\n\n[1] An allusion to the celebrated monologue in William Tell.\n\n[2] Mistress Sly.--Tr.\n\n[3] In the German text \"Heiland.\" This has the double meaning of\n\"healer\" and \"saviour.\"--H. B. S.\n\n[4] \"Horrible beast.\"\n\n[5] \"Here I stand! I cannot help myself. God help me! Amen\"--were\nLuther's words before the Reichstag at Worms.--H. B. S.\n\n[6] E.g. Lectureships.\n\n[7] An allusion to the well-known patriotic song.--H. B. S.\n\n\n\n\nPEOPLES AND COUNTRIES. Translated by J. M. KENNEDY.\n\n\n[The following twenty-seven fragments were intended by Nietzsche to\nform a supplement to Chapter VIII. of _Beyond Good and Evil_, dealing\nwith Peoples and Countries.]\n\n\n1.\n\nThe Europeans now imagine themselves as representing, in the main, the\nhighest types of men on earth.\n\n\n2.\n\nA characteristic of Europeans: inconsistency between word and deed;\nthe Oriental is true to himself in daily life. How the European has\nestablished colonies is explained by his nature, which resembles that\nof a beast of prey.\n\nThis inconsistency is explained by the fact that Christianity has\nabandoned the class from which it sprang.\n\nThis is the difference between us and the Hellenes: their morals grew\nup among the governing castes. Thucydides' morals are the same as those\nthat exploded everywhere with Plato.\n\nAttempts towards honesty at the Renaissance, for example: always for\nthe benefit of the arts. Michael Angelo's conception of God as the\n\"Tyrant of the World\" was an honest one.\n\n\n3.\n\nI rate Michael Angelo higher than Raphael, because, through all the\nChristian clouds and prejudices of his time, he saw the ideal of a\nculture _nobler_ than the Christo-Raphaelian: whilst Raphael truly\nand modestly glorified only the values handed down to him, and did\nnot carry within himself any inquiring, yearning instincts. Michael\nAngelo, on the other hand, saw and felt the problem of the law-giver of\nnew values: the problem of the conqueror made perfect, who first had\nto subdue the \"hero within himself,\" the man exalted to his highest\npedestal, master even of his pity, who mercilessly shatters and\nannihilates everything that does not bear his own stamp, shining in\nOlympian divinity. Michael Angelo was naturally only at certain moments\nso high and so far beyond his age and Christian Europe: for the most\npart he adopted a condescending attitude towards the eternal feminine\nin Christianity; it would seem, indeed, that in the end he broke down\nbefore her, and gave up the ideal of his most inspired hours. It was\nan ideal which only a man in the strongest and highest vigour of life\ncould bear; but not a man advanced in years! Indeed, he would have had\nto demolish Christianity with his ideal! But he was not thinker and\nphilosopher enough for that Perhaps Leonardo da Vinci alone of those\nartists had a really super-Christian outlook. He knows the East, the\n\"land of dawn,\" within himself as well as without himself. There is\nsomething super-European and silent in him: a characteristic of every\none who has seen too wide a circle of things good and bad.\n\n\n4.\n\nHow much we have learnt and learnt anew in fifty years! The whole\nRomantic School with its belief in \"the people\" is refuted! No Homeric\npoetry as \"popular\" poetry! No deification of the great powers of\nNature! No deduction from language-relationship to race-relationship!\nNo \"intellectual contemplations\" of the supernatural! No truth\nenshrouded in religion!\n\nThe problem of truthfulness is quite a new one. I am astonished. From\nthis standpoint we regard such natures as Bismarck as culpable out of\ncarelessness, such as Richard Wagner out of want of modesty; we would\ncondemn Plato for his _pia fraus_, Kant for the derivation of his\nCategorical Imperative, his own belief certainly not having come to him\nfrom this source.\n\nFinally, even doubt turns against itself: doubt in doubt. And the\nquestion as to the _value_ of truthfulness and its extent lies _there_.\n\n\n5.\n\nWhat I observe with pleasure in the German is his Mephistophelian\nnature; but, to tell the truth, one must have a higher conception of\nMephistopheles than Goethe had, who found it necessary to _diminish_\nhis Mephistopheles in order to magnify his \"inner Faust.\" The true\nGerman Mephistopheles is much more dangerous, bold, wicked, and\ncunning, and consequently more open-hearted: remember the nature\nof Frederick the Great, or of that much greater Frederick, the\nHohenstaufen, Frederick II.\n\nThe real German Mephistopheles crosses the Alps, and believes that\neverything there belongs to him. Then he recovers himself, like\nWinckelmann, like Mozart. He looks upon Faust and Hamlet as\ncaricatures, invented to be laughed at, and upon Luther also. Goethe\nhad his good German moments, when he laughed inwardly at all these\nthings. But then he fell back again into his cloudy moods.\n\n\n6.\n\nPerhaps the Germans have only grown up in a wrong climate! There is\nsomething in them that might be Hellenic!--something that is awakened\nwhen they are brought into touch with the South--Winckelmann, Goethe,\nMozart. We should not forget, however, that we are still young. Luther\nis still our last event; our last book is still the Bible. The Germans\nhave never yet \"moralised.\" Also, the very food of the Germans was\ntheir doom: its consequence, Philistinism.\n\n\n7.\n\nThe Germans are a dangerous people: they are experts at inventing\nintoxicants. Gothic, rococo (according to Semper), the historical sense\nand exoticism, Hegel, Richard Wagner--Leibniz, too (dangerous at the\npresent day)--(they even idealised the serving soul as the virtue of\nscholars and soldiers, also as the simple mind). The Germans may well\nbe the most composite people on earth.\n\n\"The people of the Middle,\" the inventors of porcelain, and of a kind\nof Chinese breed of Privy Councillor.\n\n\n8.\n\nThe smallness and baseness of the German soul were not and are not\nconsequences of the system of small states; for it is well known that\nthe inhabitants of much smaller states were proud and independent:\nand it is not a large state _per se_ that makes souls freer and more\nmanly. The man whose soul obeys the slavish command: \"Thou shalt and\nmust kneel!\" in whose body there is an involuntary bowing and scraping\nto titles, orders, gracious glances from above--well, such a man\nin an \"Empire\" will only bow all the more deeply and lick the dust\nmore fervently in the presence of the greater sovereign than in the\npresence of the lesser: this cannot be doubted. We can still see in the\nlower classes of Italians that aristocratic self-sufficiency; manly\ndiscipline and self-confidence still form a part of the long history\nof their country: these are virtues which once manifested themselves\nbefore their eyes. A poor Venetian gondolier makes a far better figure\nthan a Privy Councillor from Berlin, and is even a better man in the\nend--any one can see this. Just ask the women.\n\n\n9.\n\nMost artists, even some of the greatest (including the historians) have\nup to the present belonged to the serving classes (whether they serve\npeople of high position or princes or women or \"the masses\"), not to\nspeak of their dependence upon the Church and upon moral law. Thus\nRubens portrayed the nobility of his age; but only according to their\nvague conception of taste, not according to his own measure of beauty\non the whole, therefore, against his own taste. Van Dyck was nobler in\nthis respect: who in all those whom he painted added a certain amount\nof what he himself most highly valued: he did not descend from himself,\nbut rather lifted up others to himself when he \"rendered.\"\n\nThe slavish humility of the artist to his public (as Sebastian Bach has\ntestified in undying and outrageous words in the dedication of his High\nMass) is perhaps more difficult to perceive in music; but it is all the\nmore deeply engrained. A hearing would be refused me if I endeavoured\nto impart my views on this subject. Chopin possesses distinction, like\nVan Dyck. The disposition of Beethoven is that of a proud peasant;\nof Haydn, that of a proud servant. Mendelssohn, too, possesses\ndistinction--like Goethe, in the most natural way in the world.\n\n\n10.\n\nWe could at any time have counted on the fingers of one hand those\nGerman learned men who possessed wit: the remainder have understanding,\nand a few of them, happily, that famous \"childlike character\"\nwhich divines.... It is our privilege: with this \"divination\" German\nscience has discovered some things which we can hardly conceive of, and\nwhich, after all, do not exist, perhaps. It is only the Jews among the\nGermans who do not \"divine\" like them.\n\n\n11.\n\nAs Frenchmen reflect the politeness and _esprit_ of French society,\nso do Germans reflect something of the deep, pensive earnestness of\ntheir mystics and musicians, and also of their silly childishness. The\nItalian exhibits a great deal of republican distinction and art, and\ncan show himself to be noble and proud without vanity.\n\n\n12.\n\nA larger number of the higher and better-endowed men will, I hope, have\nin the end so much self-restraint as to be able to get rid of their bad\ntaste for affectation and sentimental darkness, and to turn against\nRichard Wagner as much as against Schopenhauer. These two Germans are\nleading us to ruin; they flatter our dangerous qualities. A stronger\nfuture is prepared for us in Goethe, Beethoven, and Bismarck than in\nthese racial aberrations. We have had no philosophers yet.\n\n\n13.\n\nThe peasant is the commonest type of noblesse, for he is dependent upon\nhimself most of all. Peasant blood is still the best blood in Germany\n--for example, Luther, Niebuhr, Bismarck.\n\nBismarck a Slav. Let any one look upon the face of Germans. Everything\nthat had manly, exuberant blood in it went abroad. Over the smug\npopulace remaining, the slave-souled people, there came an improvement\nfrom abroad, especially by a mixture of Slavonic blood.\n\nThe Brandenburg nobility and the Prussian nobility in general (and the\npeasant of certain North German districts), comprise at present the\nmost manly natures in Germany.\n\nThat the manliest men shall rule: this is only the natural order of\nthings.\n\n\n14.\n\nThe future of German culture rests with the sons of the Prussian\nofficers.\n\n\n15.\n\nThere has always been a want of wit in Germany, and mediocre heads\nattain there to the highest honours, because even they are rare. What\nis most highly prized is diligence and perseverance and a certain\ncold-blooded, critical outlook, and, for the sake of such qualities,\nGerman scholarship and the German military system have become paramount\nin Europe.\n\n\n16.\n\nParliaments may be very useful to a strong and versatile statesman:\nhe has something there to rely upon (every such thing must, however,\nbe able to resist!)--upon which he can throw a great deal of\nresponsibility. On the whole, however, I could wish that the counting\nmania and the superstitious belief in majorities were not established\nin Germany, as with the Latin races, and that one could finally invent\nsomething new even in politics! It is senseless and dangerous to let\nthe custom of universal suffrage--which is still but a short time under\ncultivation, and could easily be uprooted--take a deeper root: whilst,\nof course, its introduction was merely an expedient to steer clear of\ntemporary difficulties.\n\n\n17.\n\nCan any one interest himself in this German Empire? Where is the new\nthought? Is it only a new combination of power? All the worse, if it\ndoes not know its own mind. Peace and laisser aller are not types of\npolitics for which I have any respect. Ruling, and helping the highest\nthoughts to victory--the only things that can make me interested in\nGermany. England's small-mindedness is the great danger now on earth.\nI observe more inclination towards greatness in the feelings of the\nRussian Nihilists than in those of the English Utilitarians. We require\nan intergrowth of the German and Slav races, and we require, too, the\ncleverest financiers, the Jews, for us to become masters of the world.\n\n(a) The sense of reality.\n\n(b) A giving-up of the English principle of the people's right of\nrepresentation. We require the representation of the great interests.\n\n(c) We require an unconditional union with Russia, together with a\nmutual plan of action which shall not permit any English schemata to\nobtain the mastery in Russia. No American future!\n\n(d) A national system of politics is untenable, and embarrassment by\nChristian views is a very great evil. In Europe all sensible people are\nsceptics, whether they say so or not.\n\n\n18.\n\nI see over and beyond all these national wars, new \"empires,\" and\nwhatever else lies in the foreground. What I am concerned with--for I\nsee it preparing itself slowly and hesitatingly--is the United Europe.\nIt was the only real work, the one impulse in the souls, of all the\nbroad-minded and deep-thinking men of this century--this preparation\nof a new synthesis, and the tentative effort to anticipate the future\nof \"the European.\" Only in their weaker moments, or when they grew\nold, did they fall back again into the national narrowness of the\n\"Fatherlanders\"--then they were once more \"patriots.\" I am thinking\nof men like Napoleon, Heinrich Heine, Goethe, Beethoven, Stendhal,\nSchopenhauer. Perhaps Richard Wagner likewise belongs to their number,\nconcerning whom, as a successful type of German obscurity, nothing can\nbe said without some such \"perhaps.\"\n\nBut to the help of such minds as feel the need of a new unity there\ncomes a great explanatory economic fact: the small States of Europe--I\nrefer to all our present kingdoms and \"empires\"--will in a short time\nbecome economically untenable, owing to the mad, uncontrolled struggle\nfor the possession of local and international trade. Money is even\nnow compelling European nations to amalgamate into one Power. In\norder, however, that Europe may enter into the battle for the mastery\nof the world with good prospects of victory (it is easy to perceive\nagainst whom this battle will be waged), she must probably \"come to\nan understanding\" with England. The English colonies are needed for\nthis struggle, just as much as modern Germany, to play her new r\u00f4le of\nbroker and middleman, requires the colonial possessions of Holland.\nFor no one any longer believes that England alone is strong enough to\ncontinue to act her old part for fifty years more; the impossibility\nof shutting out _homines novi_ from the government will ruin her, and\nher continual change of political parties is a fatal obstacle to the\ncarrying out of any tasks which require to be spread out over a long\nperiod of time. A man must to-day be a soldier first and foremost that\nhe may not afterwards lose his credit as a merchant. Enough; here,\nas in other matters, the coming century will be found following in\nthe footsteps of Napoleon--the first man, and the man of greatest\ninitiative and advanced views, of modern times. For the tasks of the\nnext century, the methods of popular representation and parliaments are\nthe most inappropriate imaginable.\n\n\n19.\n\nThe condition of Europe in the next century will once again lead to the\nbreeding of manly virtues, because men will live in continual danger.\nUniversal military service is already the curious antidote which we\npossess for the effeminacy of democratic ideas, and it has grown up out\nof the struggle of the nations. (Nation--men who speak one language\nand read the same newspapers. These men now call themselves \"nations,\"\nand would far too readily trace their descent from the same source and\nthrough the same history; which, however, even with the assistance of\nthe most malignant lying in the past, they have not succeeded in\ndoing.)\n\n\n20.\n\nWhat quagmires and mendacity must there be about if it is possible,\nin the modern European hotch-potch, to raise questions of \"race\"! (It\nbeing premised that the origin of such writers is not in Horneo and\nBorneo.)\n\n\n21.\n\nMaxim: To associate with no man who takes any part in the mendacious\nrace swindle.\n\n\n22.\n\nWith the freedom of travel now existing, groups of men of the same\nkindred can join together and establish communal habits and customs.\nThe overcoming of \"nations.\"\n\n\n23.\n\nTo make Europe a centre of culture, national stupidities should not\nmake us blind to the fact that in the higher regions there is already a\ncontinuous reciprocal dependence. France and German philosophy. Richard\nWagner and Paris (1830-50). Goethe and Greece. All things are impelled\ntowards, a synthesis of the European past in the highest types of mind.\n\n\n24.\n\nMankind has still much before it--how, generally speaking, could\nthe ideal be taken from the past? Perhaps merely in relation to the\npresent, which latter is possibly a lower region.\n\n\n25.\n\nThis is our distrust, which recurs again and again; our care, which\nnever lets us sleep; our question, which no one listens to or wishes\nto listen to; our Sphinx, near which there is more than one precipice:\nwe believe that the men of present-day Europe are deceived in regard\nto the things which we love best, and a pitiless demon (no, not\npitiless, only indifferent and puerile)--plays with our hearts and\ntheir enthusiasm, as it may perhaps have already played with everything\nthat lived and loved; I believe that everything which we Europeans\nof to-day are in the habit of admiring as the values of all these\nrespected things called \"humanity,\" \"mankind,\" \"sympathy,\" \"pity,\" may\nbe of some value as the debilitation and moderating of certain powerful\nand dangerous primitive impulses. Nevertheless, in the long run all\nthese things are nothing else than the belittlement of the entire type\n\"man,\" his mediocrisation, if in such a desperate situation I may make\nuse of such a desperate expression. I think that the commedia umana for\nan epicurean spectator-god must consist in this: that the Europeans, by\nvirtue of their growing morality, believe in all their innocence and\nvanity that they are rising higher and higher, whereas the truth is\nthat they are sinking lower and lower--i.e. through the cultivation of\nall the virtues which are useful to a herd, and through the repression\nof the other and contrary virtues which give rise to a new, higher,\nstronger, masterful race of men--the first-named virtues merely develop\nthe herd-animal in man and stabilitate the animal \"man,\" for until now\nman has been \"the animal as yet unstabilitated.\"\n\n\n26.\n\nGenius and Epoch.--Heroism is no form of selfishness, for one is\nshipwrecked by it.... The direction of power is often conditioned by\nthe state of the period in which the great man happens to be born; and\nthis fact brings about the superstition that he is the expression of\nhis time. But this same power could be applied in several different\nways; and between him and his time there is always this difference:\nthat public opinion always worships the herd instinct,--_i.e._ the\ninstinct of the weak,--while he, the strong man, rights for strong\nideals.\n\n\n27.\n\nThe fate now overhanging Europe is simply this: that it is exactly\nher strongest sons that come rarely and late to the spring-time of\ntheir existence; that, as a rule, when they are already in their early\nyouth they perish, saddened, disgusted, darkened in mind, just because\nthey have already, with the entire passion of their strength, drained\nto the dregs the cup of disillusionment, which in our days means the\ncup of knowledge, and they would not have been the strongest had\nthey not also been the most disillusionised. For that is the test of\ntheir power--they must first of all rise out of the illness of their\nepoch to reach their own health. A late spring-time is their mark of\ndistinction; also, let us add, late merriment, late folly, the late\nexuberance of joy! For this is the danger of to-day: everything that we\nloved when we were young has betrayed us. Our last love--the love which\nmakes us acknowledge her, our love for Truth--let us take care that\nshe, too, does not betray us!","title":"The Genealogy of Morals: The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":55347}