Talent is also an
adornment; an adornment is also a concealment.
adornment; an adornment is also a concealment.
Niezsche - Beyond Good and Evil
60. To love mankind FOR GOD'S SAKE--this has so far been the noblest and
remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. That love to mankind,
without any redeeming intention in the background, is only an ADDITIONAL
folly and brutishness, that the inclination to this love has first to
get its proportion, its delicacy, its gram of salt and sprinkling
of ambergris from a higher inclination--whoever first perceived
and "experienced" this, however his tongue may have stammered as it
attempted to express such a delicate matter, let him for all time be
holy and respected, as the man who has so far flown highest and gone
astray in the finest fashion!
61. The philosopher, as WE free spirits understand him--as the man of
the greatest responsibility, who has the conscience for the general
development of mankind,--will use religion for his disciplining and
educating work, just as he will use the contemporary political
and economic conditions. The selecting and disciplining
influence--destructive, as well as creative and fashioning--which can be
exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to the
sort of people placed under its spell and protection. For those who are
strong and independent, destined and trained to command, in whom the
judgment and skill of a ruling race is incorporated, religion is
an additional means for overcoming resistance in the exercise of
authority--as a bond which binds rulers and subjects in common,
betraying and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter,
their inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. And in the
case of the unique natures of noble origin, if by virtue of superior
spirituality they should incline to a more retired and contemplative
life, reserving to themselves only the more refined forms of government
(over chosen disciples or members of an order), religion itself may
be used as a means for obtaining peace from the noise and trouble of
managing GROSSER affairs, and for securing immunity from the UNAVOIDABLE
filth of all political agitation. The Brahmins, for instance, understood
this fact. With the help of a religious organization, they secured to
themselves the power of nominating kings for the people, while their
sentiments prompted them to keep apart and outside, as men with a higher
and super-regal mission. At the same time religion gives inducement and
opportunity to some of the subjects to qualify themselves for future
ruling and commanding the slowly ascending ranks and classes, in which,
through fortunate marriage customs, volitional power and delight in
self-control are on the increase. To them religion offers sufficient
incentives and temptations to aspire to higher intellectuality, and to
experience the sentiments of authoritative self-control, of silence, and
of solitude. Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of
educating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary
baseness and work itself upwards to future supremacy. And finally, to
ordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and
general utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives
invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart,
ennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy,
with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of
justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all
the semi-animal poverty of their souls. Religion, together with the
religious significance of life, sheds sunshine over such perpetually
harassed men, and makes even their own aspect endurable to them, it
operates upon them as the Epicurean philosophy usually operates upon
sufferers of a higher order, in a refreshing and refining manner,
almost TURNING suffering TO ACCOUNT, and in the end even hallowing and
vindicating it. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity
and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate
themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby
to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it
difficult enough to live--this very difficulty being necessary.
62. To be sure--to make also the bad counter-reckoning against such
religions, and to bring to light their secret dangers--the cost is
always excessive and terrible when religions do NOT operate as an
educational and disciplinary medium in the hands of the philosopher, but
rule voluntarily and PARAMOUNTLY, when they wish to be the final end,
and not a means along with other means. Among men, as among all other
animals, there is a surplus of defective, diseased, degenerating,
infirm, and necessarily suffering individuals; the successful cases,
among men also, are always the exception; and in view of the fact that
man is THE ANIMAL NOT YET PROPERLY ADAPTED TO HIS ENVIRONMENT, the rare
exception. But worse still. The higher the type a man represents, the
greater is the improbability that he will SUCCEED; the accidental, the
law of irrationality in the general constitution of mankind, manifests
itself most terribly in its destructive effect on the higher orders of
men, the conditions of whose lives are delicate, diverse, and difficult
to determine. What, then, is the attitude of the two greatest religions
above-mentioned to the SURPLUS of failures in life? They endeavour
to preserve and keep alive whatever can be preserved; in fact, as the
religions FOR SUFFERERS, they take the part of these upon principle;
they are always in favour of those who suffer from life as from a
disease, and they would fain treat every other experience of life as
false and impossible. However highly we may esteem this indulgent and
preservative care (inasmuch as in applying to others, it has applied,
and applies also to the highest and usually the most suffering type of
man), the hitherto PARAMOUNT religions--to give a general appreciation
of them--are among the principal causes which have kept the type of
"man" upon a lower level--they have preserved too much THAT WHICH SHOULD
HAVE PERISHED. One has to thank them for invaluable services; and who is
sufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the contemplation
of all that the "spiritual men" of Christianity have done for Europe
hitherto! But when they had given comfort to the sufferers, courage to
the oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the helpless,
and when they had allured from society into convents and spiritual
penitentiaries the broken-hearted and distracted: what else had they
to do in order to work systematically in that fashion, and with a good
conscience, for the preservation of all the sick and suffering, which
means, in deed and in truth, to work for the DETERIORATION OF THE
EUROPEAN RACE? To REVERSE all estimates of value--THAT is what they
had to do! And to shatter the strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast
suspicion on the delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous,
manly, conquering, and imperious--all instincts which are natural to the
highest and most successful type of "man"--into uncertainty, distress
of conscience, and self-destruction; forsooth, to invert all love of the
earthly and of supremacy over the earth, into hatred of the earth and
earthly things--THAT is the task the Church imposed on itself, and
was obliged to impose, until, according to its standard of value,
"unworldliness," "unsensuousness," and "higher man" fused into one
sentiment. If one could observe the strangely painful, equally coarse
and refined comedy of European Christianity with the derisive and
impartial eye of an Epicurean god, I should think one would never cease
marvelling and laughing; does it not actually seem that some single will
has ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME
ABORTION of man? He, however, who, with opposite requirements (no longer
Epicurean) and with some divine hammer in his hand, could approach this
almost voluntary degeneration and stunting of mankind, as exemplified in
the European Christian (Pascal, for instance), would he not have to
cry aloud with rage, pity, and horror: "Oh, you bunglers, presumptuous
pitiful bunglers, what have you done! Was that a work for your hands?
How you have hacked and botched my finest stone! What have you presumed
to do! "--I should say that Christianity has hitherto been the most
portentous of presumptions. Men, not great enough, nor hard enough,
to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning MAN; men,
not sufficiently strong and far-sighted to ALLOW, with sublime
self-constraint, the obvious law of the thousandfold failures and
perishings to prevail; men, not sufficiently noble to see the radically
different grades of rank and intervals of rank that separate man from
man:--SUCH men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed
the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species
has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly,
mediocre, the European of the present day.
CHAPTER IV. APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES
63. He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously--and even
himself--only in relation to his pupils.
64. "Knowledge for its own sake"--that is the last snare laid by
morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more.
65. The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has
to be overcome on the way to it.
65A. We are most dishonourable towards our God: he is not PERMITTED to
sin.
66. The tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded, robbed,
deceived, and exploited might be the diffidence of a God among men.
67. Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense
of all others. Love to God also!
68. "I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my
pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually--the memory yields.
69. One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand
that--kills with leniency.
70. If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which
always recurs.
71. THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER. --So long as thou feelest the stars as an
"above thee," thou lackest the eye of the discerning one.
72. It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that
makes great men.
73. He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it.
73A. Many a peacock hides his tail from every eye--and calls it his
pride.
74. A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things
besides: gratitude and purity.
75. The degree and nature of a man's sensuality extends to the highest
altitudes of his spirit.
76. Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself.
77. With his principles a man seeks either to dominate, or justify,
or honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits: two men with the same
principles probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith.
78. He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself thereby, as a
despiser.
79. A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love,
betrays its sediment: its dregs come up.
80. A thing that is explained ceases to concern us--What did the God
mean who gave the advice, "Know thyself! " Did it perhaps imply "Cease to
be concerned about thyself! become objective! "--And Socrates? --And the
"scientific man"?
81. It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you
should so salt your truth that it will no longer--quench thirst?
82. "Sympathy for all"--would be harshness and tyranny for THEE, my good
neighbour.
83. INSTINCT--When the house is on fire one forgets even the
dinner--Yes, but one recovers it from among the ashes.
84. Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she--forgets how to charm.
85. The same emotions are in man and woman, but in different TEMPO, on
that account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other.
86. In the background of all their personal vanity, women themselves
have still their impersonal scorn--for "woman".
87. FETTERED HEART, FREE SPIRIT--When one firmly fetters one's heart
and keeps it prisoner, one can allow one's spirit many liberties: I said
this once before But people do not believe it when I say so, unless they
know it already.
88. One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become
embarrassed.
89. Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences
them is not something dreadful also.
90. Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their
surface, precisely by that which makes others heavy--by hatred and love.
91. So cold, so icy, that one burns one's finger at the touch of him!
Every hand that lays hold of him shrinks back! --And for that very reason
many think him red-hot.
92. Who has not, at one time or another--sacrificed himself for the sake
of his good name?
93. In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely on that
account a great deal too much contempt of men.
94. The maturity of man--that means, to have reacquired the seriousness
that one had as a child at play.
95. To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end
of which one is ashamed also of one's morality.
96. One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa--blessing
it rather than in love with it.
97. What? A great man? I always see merely the play-actor of his own
ideal.
98. When one trains one's conscience, it kisses one while it bites.
99. THE DISAPPOINTED ONE SPEAKS--"I listened for the echo and I heard
only praise. "
100. We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are, we thus
relax ourselves away from our fellows.
101. A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the
animalization of God.
102. Discovering reciprocal love should really disenchant the lover with
regard to the beloved. "What! She is modest enough to love even you? Or
stupid enough? Or--or---"
103. THE DANGER IN HAPPINESS. --"Everything now turns out best for me, I
now love every fate:--who would like to be my fate? "
104. Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love,
prevents the Christians of today--burning us.
105. The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the "piety")
of the free spirit (the "pious man of knowledge") than the impia fraus.
Hence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church,
characteristic of the type "free spirit"--as ITS non-freedom.
106. By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves.
107. A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been
taken, to shut the ear even to the best counter-arguments. Occasionally,
therefore, a will to stupidity.
108. There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral
interpretation of phenomena.
109. The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates
and maligns it.
110. The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the
beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer.
111. Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been
wounded.
112. To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to
belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against
them.
113. "You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be
embarrassed before him. "
114. The immense expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness
in this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset.
115. Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman's play is
mediocre.
116. The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage
to rebaptize our badness as the best in us.
117. The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of
another, or of several other, emotions.
118. There is an innocence of admiration: it is possessed by him to whom
it has not yet occurred that he himself may be admired some day.
119. Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning
ourselves--"justifying" ourselves.
120. Sensuality often forces the growth of love too much, so that its
root remains weak, and is easily torn up.
121. It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn
author--and that he did not learn it better.
122. To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness
of heart--and the very opposite of vanity of spirit.
123. Even concubinage has been corrupted--by marriage.
124. He who exults at the stake, does not triumph over pain, but because
of the fact that he does not feel pain where he expected it. A parable.
125. When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily
to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.
126. A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great
men. --Yes, and then to get round them.
127. In the eyes of all true women science is hostile to the sense of
shame. They feel as if one wished to peep under their skin with it--or
worse still! under their dress and finery.
128. The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you
allure the senses to it.
129. The devil has the most extensive perspectives for God; on that
account he keeps so far away from him:--the devil, in effect, as the
oldest friend of knowledge.
130. What a person IS begins to betray itself when his talent
decreases,--when he ceases to show what he CAN do.
Talent is also an
adornment; an adornment is also a concealment.
131. The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that
in reality they honour and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to
express it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable: but
in fact woman is ESSENTIALLY unpeaceable, like the cat, however well she
may have assumed the peaceable demeanour.
132. One is punished best for one's virtues.
133. He who cannot find the way to HIS ideal, lives more frivolously and
shamelessly than the man without an ideal.
134. From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience,
all evidence of truth.
135. Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man; a considerable
part of it is rather an essential condition of being good.
136. The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the other seeks some
one whom he can assist: a good conversation thus originates.
137. In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes
of opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds
a mediocre man; and often, even in a mediocre artist, one finds a very
remarkable man.
138. We do the same when awake as when dreaming: we only invent and
imagine him with whom we have intercourse--and forget it immediately.
139. In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man.
140. ADVICE AS A RIDDLE. --"If the band is not to break, bite it
first--secure to make! "
141. The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself
for a God.
142. The chastest utterance I ever heard: "Dans le veritable amour c'est
l'ame qui enveloppe le corps. "
143. Our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is
most difficult to us. --Concerning the origin of many systems of morals.
144. When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally
something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a
certain virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is "the barren
animal. "
145. Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would
not have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the
SECONDARY role.
146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby
become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will
also gaze into thee.
147. From old Florentine novels--moreover, from life: Buona femmina e
mala femmina vuol bastone. --Sacchetti, Nov. 86.
148. To seduce their neighbour to a favourable opinion, and afterwards
to believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbour--who can do
this conjuring trick so well as women?
149. That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of
what was formerly considered good--the atavism of an old ideal.
150. Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the
demigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything
becomes--what? perhaps a "world"?
151. It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also have your
permission to possess it;--eh, my friends?
152. "Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise":
so say the most ancient and the most modern serpents.
153. What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
154. Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of
health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.
155. The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness.
156. Insanity in individuals is something rare--but in groups, parties,
nations, and epochs it is the rule.
157. The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one
gets successfully through many a bad night.
158. Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our
strongest impulse--the tyrant in us.
159. One MUST repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us
good or ill?
160. One no longer loves one's knowledge sufficiently after one has
communicated it.
161. Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them.
162. "Our fellow-creature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour's
neighbour":--so thinks every nation.
163. Love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a lover--his
rare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his
normal character.
164. Jesus said to his Jews: "The law was for servants;--love God as I
love him, as his Son! What have we Sons of God to do with morals! "
165. IN SIGHT OF EVERY PARTY. --A shepherd has always need of a
bell-wether--or he has himself to be a wether occasionally.
166. One may indeed lie with the mouth; but with the accompanying
grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.
167. To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame--and something
precious.
168. Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it,
certainly, but degenerated to Vice.
169. To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing
oneself.
170. In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.
171. Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like
tender hands on a Cyclops.
172. One occasionally embraces some one or other, out of love to mankind
(because one cannot embrace all); but this is what one must never
confess to the individual.
173. One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one
esteems equal or superior.
174. Ye Utilitarians--ye, too, love the UTILE only as a VEHICLE for
your inclinations,--ye, too, really find the noise of its wheels
insupportable!
175. One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.
176. The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is
counter to our vanity.
177. With regard to what "truthfulness" is, perhaps nobody has ever been
sufficiently truthful.
178. One does not believe in the follies of clever men: what a
forfeiture of the rights of man!
179. The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very
indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile "reformed. "
180. There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a
cause.
181. It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed.
182. The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be
returned.
183. "I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can
no longer believe in you. "
184. There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of
wickedness.
185. "I dislike him. "--Why? --"I am not a match for him. "--Did any one
ever answer so?
CHAPTER V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS
186. The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as subtle,
belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the "Science of Morals"
belonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and coarse-fingered:--an
interesting contrast, which sometimes becomes incarnate and obvious
in the very person of a moralist. Indeed, the expression, "Science
of Morals" is, in respect to what is designated thereby, far too
presumptuous and counter to GOOD taste,--which is always a foretaste of
more modest expressions. One ought to avow with the utmost fairness WHAT
is still necessary here for a long time, WHAT is alone proper for the
present: namely, the collection of material, the comprehensive survey
and classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of worth,
and distinctions of worth, which live, grow, propagate, and perish--and
perhaps attempts to give a clear idea of the recurring and more common
forms of these living crystallizations--as preparation for a THEORY OF
TYPES of morality. To be sure, people have not hitherto been so modest.
All the philosophers, with a pedantic and ridiculous seriousness,
demanded of themselves something very much higher, more pretentious, and
ceremonious, when they concerned themselves with morality as a science:
they wanted to GIVE A BASIC to morality--and every philosopher hitherto
has believed that he has given it a basis; morality itself, however, has
been regarded as something "given. " How far from their awkward pride
was the seemingly insignificant problem--left in dust and decay--of a
description of forms of morality, notwithstanding that the finest hands
and senses could hardly be fine enough for it! It was precisely owing to
moral philosophers' knowing the moral facts imperfectly, in an arbitrary
epitome, or an accidental abridgement--perhaps as the morality of
their environment, their position, their church, their Zeitgeist, their
climate and zone--it was precisely because they were badly instructed
with regard to nations, eras, and past ages, and were by no means eager
to know about these matters, that they did not even come in sight of the
real problems of morals--problems which only disclose themselves by
a comparison of MANY kinds of morality. In every "Science of Morals"
hitherto, strange as it may sound, the problem of morality itself
has been OMITTED: there has been no suspicion that there was anything
problematic there! That which philosophers called "giving a basis to
morality," and endeavoured to realize, has, when seen in a right light,
proved merely a learned form of good FAITH in prevailing morality, a new
means of its EXPRESSION, consequently just a matter-of-fact within the
sphere of a definite morality, yea, in its ultimate motive, a sort of
denial that it is LAWFUL for this morality to be called in question--and
in any case the reverse of the testing, analyzing, doubting, and
vivisecting of this very faith. Hear, for instance, with what
innocence--almost worthy of honour--Schopenhauer represents his own
task, and draw your conclusions concerning the scientificness of a
"Science" whose latest master still talks in the strain of children and
old wives: "The principle," he says (page 136 of the Grundprobleme der
Ethik), [Footnote: Pages 54-55 of Schopenhauer's Basis of Morality,
translated by Arthur B. Bullock, M. A. (1903). ] "the axiom about the
purport of which all moralists are PRACTICALLY agreed: neminem laede,
immo omnes quantum potes juva--is REALLY the proposition which all moral
teachers strive to establish, . . . the REAL basis of ethics which
has been sought, like the philosopher's stone, for centuries. "--The
difficulty of establishing the proposition referred to may indeed be
great--it is well known that Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his
efforts; and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and
sentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is Will
to Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist,
ACTUALLY--played the flute. . . daily after dinner: one may read about
the matter in his biography. A question by the way: a pessimist, a
repudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES A HALT at morality--who
assents to morality, and plays the flute to laede-neminem morals, what?
Is that really--a pessimist?
187. Apart from the value of such assertions as "there is a categorical
imperative in us," one can always ask: What does such an assertion
indicate about him who makes it? There are systems of morals which are
meant to justify their author in the eyes of other people; other systems
of morals are meant to tranquilize him, and make him self-satisfied;
with other systems he wants to crucify and humble himself, with others
he wishes to take revenge, with others to conceal himself, with others
to glorify himself and gave superiority and distinction,--this system of
morals helps its author to forget, that system makes him, or something
of him, forgotten, many a moralist would like to exercise power and
creative arbitrariness over mankind, many another, perhaps, Kant
especially, gives us to understand by his morals that "what is estimable
in me, is that I know how to obey--and with you it SHALL not be
otherwise than with me! " In short, systems of morals are only a
SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS.
188. In contrast to laisser-aller, every system of morals is a sort of
tyranny against "nature" and also against "reason", that is, however, no
objection, unless one should again decree by some system of morals, that
all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful What is
essential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a
long constraint. In order to understand Stoicism, or Port Royal,
or Puritanism, one should remember the constraint under which every
language has attained to strength and freedom--the metrical constraint,
the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. How much trouble have the poets and
orators of every nation given themselves! --not excepting some of
the prose writers of today, in whose ear dwells an inexorable
conscientiousness--"for the sake of a folly," as utilitarian bunglers
say, and thereby deem themselves wise--"from submission to arbitrary
laws," as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves "free," even
free-spirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything
of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly
certainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself,
or in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in
conduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary
law, and in all seriousness, it is not at all improbable that precisely
this is "nature" and "natural"--and not laisser-aller! Every artist
knows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his
"most natural" condition, the free arranging, locating, disposing,
and constructing in the moments of "inspiration"--and how strictly and
delicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which, by their very rigidness
and precision, defy all formulation by means of ideas (even the most
stable idea has, in comparison therewith, something floating, manifold,
and ambiguous in it). The essential thing "in heaven and in earth" is,
apparently (to repeat it once more), that there should be long OBEDIENCE
in the same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in
the long run, something which has made life worth living; for instance,
virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality--anything whatever
that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine. The long bondage of
the spirit, the distrustful constraint in the communicability of
ideas, the discipline which the thinker imposed on himself to think
in accordance with the rules of a church or a court, or conformable
to Aristotelian premises, the persistent spiritual will to interpret
everything that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every
occurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian God:--all this
violence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and unreasonableness,
has proved itself the disciplinary means whereby the European spirit has
attained its strength, its remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility;
granted also that much irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be
stifled, suffocated, and spoilt in the process (for here, as everywhere,
"nature" shows herself as she is, in all her extravagant and INDIFFERENT
magnificence, which is shocking, but nevertheless noble). That
for centuries European thinkers only thought in order to prove
something--nowadays, on the contrary, we are suspicious of every thinker
who "wishes to prove something"--that it was always settled beforehand
what WAS TO BE the result of their strictest thinking, as it was perhaps
in the Asiatic astrology of former times, or as it is still at the
present day in the innocent, Christian-moral explanation of immediate
personal events "for the glory of God," or "for the good of the
soul":--this tyranny, this arbitrariness, this severe and magnificent
stupidity, has EDUCATED the spirit; slavery, both in the coarser and
the finer sense, is apparently an indispensable means even of spiritual
education and discipline. One may look at every system of morals in this
light: it is "nature" therein which teaches to hate the laisser-aller,
the too great freedom, and implants the need for limited horizons, for
immediate duties--it teaches the NARROWING OF PERSPECTIVES, and thus, in
a certain sense, that stupidity is a condition of life and development.
"Thou must obey some one, and for a long time; OTHERWISE thou wilt come
to grief, and lose all respect for thyself"--this seems to me to be the
moral imperative of nature, which is certainly neither "categorical,"
as old Kant wished (consequently the "otherwise"), nor does it address
itself to the individual (what does nature care for the individual! ),
but to nations, races, ages, and ranks; above all, however, to the
animal "man" generally, to MANKIND.
189. Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle: it was a
master stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and begloom Sunday to such
an extent that the Englishman unconsciously hankers for his week--and
work-day again:--as a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated
FAST, such as is also frequently found in the ancient world (although,
as is appropriate in southern nations, not precisely with respect
to work). Many kinds of fasts are necessary; and wherever powerful
influences and habits prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary
days are appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn to
hunger anew. Viewed from a higher standpoint, whole generations and
epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism,
seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during
which an impulse learns to humble and submit itself--at the same time
also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself; certain philosophical sects likewise
admit of a similar interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst
of Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with
Aphrodisiacal odours). --Here also is a hint for the explanation of the
paradox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period of European
history, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments,
that the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amour-passion).
190. There is something in the morality of Plato which does not really
belong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy, one might
say, in spite of him: namely, Socratism, for which he himself was
too noble. "No one desires to injure himself, hence all evil is done
unwittingly. The evil man inflicts injury on himself; he would not do
so, however, if he knew that evil is evil. The evil man, therefore, is
only evil through error; if one free him from error one will necessarily
make him--good. "--This mode of reasoning savours of the POPULACE, who
perceive only the unpleasant consequences of evil-doing, and practically
judge that "it is STUPID to do wrong"; while they accept "good" as
identical with "useful and pleasant," without further thought. As
regards every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it
has the same origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err. --Plato
did all he could to interpret something refined and noble into the
tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret himself into them--he,
the most daring of all interpreters, who lifted the entire Socrates out
of the street, as a popular theme and song, to exhibit him in endless
and impossible modifications--namely, in all his own disguises and
multiplicities. In jest, and in Homeric language as well, what is the
Platonic Socrates, if not--[Greek words inserted here. ]
191. The old theological problem of "Faith" and "Knowledge," or more
plainly, of instinct and reason--the question whether, in respect to the
valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality,
which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to
a "Why," that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility--it
is always the old moral problem that first appeared in the person of
Socrates, and had divided men's minds long before Christianity. Socrates
himself, following, of course, the taste of his talent--that of a
surpassing dialectician--took first the side of reason; and, in fact,
what did he do all his life but laugh at the awkward incapacity of the
noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could
never give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions?
In the end, however, though silently and secretly, he laughed also
at himself: with his finer conscience and introspection, he found
in himself the same difficulty and incapacity. "But why"--he said
to himself--"should one on that account separate oneself from the
instincts! One must set them right, and the reason ALSO--one must follow
the instincts, but at the same time persuade the reason to support them
with good arguments. " This was the real FALSENESS of that great and
mysterious ironist; he brought his conscience up to the point that he
was satisfied with a kind of self-outwitting: in fact, he perceived
the irrationality in the moral judgment. --Plato, more innocent in such
matters, and without the craftiness of the plebeian, wished to prove to
himself, at the expenditure of all his strength--the greatest strength
a philosopher had ever expended--that reason and instinct lead
spontaneously to one goal, to the good, to "God"; and since Plato, all
theologians and philosophers have followed the same path--which means
that in matters of morality, instinct (or as Christians call it,
"Faith," or as I call it, "the herd") has hitherto triumphed. Unless
one should make an exception in the case of Descartes, the father of
rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who
recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a tool, and
Descartes was superficial.
192. Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in
its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest
processes of all "knowledge and cognizance": there, as here, the
premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to "belief,"
and the lack of distrust and patience are first developed--our senses
learn late, and never learn completely, to be subtle, reliable, and
cautious organs of knowledge. Our eyes find it easier on a given
occasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon
the divergence and novelty of an impression: the latter requires more
force, more "morality. " It is difficult and painful for the ear to
listen to anything new; we hear strange music badly. When we hear
another language spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds
into words with which we are more familiar and conversant--it was thus,
for example, that the Germans modified the spoken word ARCUBALISTA into
ARMBRUST (cross-bow). Our senses are also hostile and averse to the
new; and generally, even in the "simplest" processes of sensation, the
emotions DOMINATE--such as fear, love, hatred, and the passive emotion
of indolence. --As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words
(not to speak of syllables) of a page--he rather takes about five out
of every twenty words at random, and "guesses" the probably appropriate
sense to them--just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely
in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so
much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the
most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we fabricate the
greater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate
any event, EXCEPT as "inventors" thereof. All this goes to prove
that from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have
been--ACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it more politely and
hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly--one is much more of an artist
than one is aware of. --In an animated conversation, I often see the face
of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined
before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to
be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the
STRENGTH of my visual faculty--the delicacy of the play of the muscles
and of the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me.
Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all.
