Dawn of the Day/Book 5
FIFTH BOOK
423
In the great silence.—Here is the sea, here we may forget the town. Though its bells are still ringing the Angelus—that sad and foolish, yet sweet sound at the parting of day and night—only another minute ! Now all is hushed! There lies the broad ocean, pale and glittering, but it cannot speak. The sky is glistening in its eternal mute evening glory, in red, yellow, green hues; it cannot speak either. The small cliffs and crags, projecting into the sea—as though trying to find the most lonely spot—not any of them can speak. This intense mateness which suddenly overcomes us is beautiful and awful; it makes the heart swell. Oh, for the deceit of this dumb beauty! How kindly it could speak, and how maliciously too, if only it would ! Its tied tongue and its face of passive happiness is but malice, mocking at your sympathy. Be it so! I do not feel ashamed of being the sport of such powers ! But I pity thee, oh Nature, because thou art bound to silence, though it be only thy malice which ties thy tongue ; nay, I pity thee for the sake of thy malice! Alas ! their silence deepens, and once more my heart swells within me; it is startled by a fresh truth, it is dumb also; it too sets up sneer when the month, in its rapture, calls out something; it too enjoys the sweet malice of its silence. I begin to late speaking, nay, thinking. Is not every word which I hear accompanied by the mockery of error, imagination, insanity ? Must I not laugh at my pity and mock at my own mockery? Oh sea, ohi night, ye are sad teachers! Ye teach man how to strip off his humanity. Shall he follow you? Shall he grow, like you, pale, glittering, dumb, immense, looking down reposefully upon himself?—exalted above himself?
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For whom truth exists.—is yet, the errors have been the consolatory powers; now we expect the same effects from the accepted truths, and have been waiting a pretty long time. What if the truths could not give this very thing—comfort? Would this be an objection to truthıs? What have these in common with the plights of suffering, worn, sick people, that they more than others should be of use to them? It is certainly no proof against the truth of a plant when it becomes an established fact that it nowise contributes to the recovery of sick persons. But formerly people were so deeply convinced of man being the sole purpose of Nature, that they forthwith believe that even knowledge could not disclose anything but what was salutary and useful to man; nay, there could not, there durst not be other things as well. Perhaps all this leads to the proposition that truth, as a whole and something coherent, existed only for sous who, like Aristotle, are both powerful and harmless, joyous and peaceful: just as none but these would be capable of seeking them: for the others seck remedies for themselves, however proud they may be of their intellect and its freedom, they do not seek for truth. Hence it comes that these others take so little genuine delight in science, but charge it with coldness, dryness, and inhumanity. Such is the opinion of the sick about the games of the healthy. Even the Greek gods were unable to give comfort ; when at length all the Greek world was stricken down with sickness, it soon was a reason for the destruction of their gods.
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We gods in exile.—Through mistaken opinions on their descent, their uniqueness, their mission, and through claims based on these mistaken opinions, mankind have exalted and again and again “excelled themselves": but through these same errors the world has been filled with infinite suffering, mutual persecution, suspicion, misunderstanding, and even greater individual misery. Men have turned into suffering beings in consequence of their morals; and the sum total of their purchase is a feeling of being really too good and too great for this world, and enjoying a merely transitory existence in it. is yet the “proud sufferer" is the loftiest type of mankind.
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Colour-blindness of thinkers.—In what different light the Greeks must have viewed Nature, being, as we can- not help admitting, absolutely colour-blind with regard to blue and green, mistaking the former for a deeper brown, the latter for yellow: so, for instance, they used one and the same word for the hues of dark hair, of the corn-flower, and of the Southern sea: and again, one and the same expression for the colours of the greenest herbs and the human skin, of honey and yellow resins; whence, as has been proved, their greatest artists re- produced their world only in black, white, red, and yellow—how different and how much more akin to man kind must Nature have appeared to them, since in their eyes the hues of man were predominant also in Nature, anul the latter was, as it were, floating in the colour- ocean of humanity! (Blue and green more than anything else dishumanise nature.) This deficiency accounts for the playful facility which distinguishes the Greeks in seeing in all natural processes gods and demi-gods; that is, beings of human form. But this only by way of a parable to pave the way for another supposition. Every thinker pictures his world and all things in fewer colours than really exist, and is blind to individual colours, This is not merely a deficiency. By means of this approach and simplification he fancies colourharmonies into the things which have a great charm and may greatly enrich Nature. Perhaps this has been the way in which mankind first learned to delight in the aspect of existence; this existence being first of all represented to them in one or two shades, and consequently harmonised. They practised, as it were, these few shades before they could pass on to more. And even now many an individual works himself from a partial colour-blindness into a richer faculty of sight and discernment, and thus not only discovers new pleasures, but is obliged also to abandon and lose some of the former ones.
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The embellishment of science.—Just as the view that "Nature is ugly, wild, tedious—we must embellish it (embellir la Nature)"—gave rise to the rococo horticulture, so the view that "science is ugly, dry, cheerless, difficult, wearisome—we must embellish it"—invariably gives birth to a something called philosophy. It is bent upon doing that which all art and poetry aim at— namely, first and foremost affording diversion; but it wants to do so in conformity with its hereditary pride, ill a loftier and higher mode, before the best intellects. It is no mean ambition to create for these intellects a kind of horticulture, whose principal charm, as that of the ordinary gardening, consists in the delusion of the eyes (by means of temples, perspective views, grottoes, mazes, waterfalls, to speak in similes), in exhibiting science in extracts, and in all sorts of marvelous aud sudden illuminations, infusing as much indecision, irrationality, and reverie into it as to enable us to roam in it "as in wild nature," yet without trouble and ennui. Those who have this ambition even dream of thereby rendlering religion, which with former generations served as the highest art of diversion, superfluous. All this is running its course, until one day it will attain its springtide. Even in our days hostile voices begin to clamour against philosophy, exclaiming. “Return to science, to Nature, and naturalness of science !” and thus all age may dawn which will discover the most powerful beauty in the "uncultivated, ugly" branches of science, just as since Rousseau we have discovered the sense for the beauty of mountains and deserts.
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Two kinds of moralists.—To become for the first time conscious, and fully conscious, of a law of nature (gravity, reflection of light and sound, for instance), and to explain such a law, are two different things, and concern different intellects. In the same way those moralists who perceive and exhibit human laws and habits— moralists with discriminative ears, noses, eyes—altogether differ from the interpreters of those observations, The latter must be above all ingenious and possessed of an imagination unbridled by sagacity and knowledge.
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The new passion.—Why do we dread and loathe the thought of a possible return to barbarism? Is it because it would make people less happy than they are? Certainly not! The barbarians of all ages had greater happiness than we. But our craving for knowledge is too strong to allow us to value happiness without knowledge or the happiness of a strong, fixed delusion: it is painful even to imagine such conditions. Let us not deceive ourselves. The restless pursuit of discoveries and divi- nations has grown to us as attractive and indispensable as hapless love to the lover, which he would not at any price exchange for indifference—nay, perhaps we too are hapless lovers! Knowledge in our hearts has de- veloped into a passion which does not shrink from any Sacrifice, and really fears nothing but its own extinction. We honestly believe that, in the stress and suffering of this passion, all mankind are bound to feel more exalted and comforted than of old, when they had not yet ceased being envious of the coarser comfort which follows in the train of barbarism. Perhaps mankind may even perish in this love of knowledge. Even this thought fails to daunt us! Did Christianity ever shrink from a similar thought ? Are love and death not brethren ? Indeed, we loathe barbarism; we all prefer the tion of humanity to the retrogression of knowledge. And finally, if humanity do not perish through some passion, it will perish through a weakness; which would you rather have? This is the main question. Do you wish an extinction in fire and light or in the sands ?
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Another heroism.—To do things of the worst possible odour, which we are afraid of mentioning, but which are useful and necessary, may also exemplify heroism. The Greeks were not ashamed of classing even the cleansing of a stable among the great labours of Hercules.
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The opinions of opponents.—For the purpose of estimating the natural subtlety aud weakness of even the cleverest heads, we should study their way of taking and reciprocating the opinions of their opponents, for in this the natural disposition of any intellect comes to light. The perfect sage quite unintentionally idealises his opponent and frees the latter's inconsistencies from all stains and accidentalities; only after having thus turned him into a god with shining weapons, he takes up arms against him.
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Investigator and tempter.—There is no monopoly of scientific methods. We have to deal with the things experimentally, being by turns angry with and kind to them and alternately showing them justice, passion and coldness. The one speaks to the things in his capacity of policeman, the other in that of a confessor, a third as an inquisitive traveller. They will forsee anything from them by either sympathy or violence; the one is urged on and led to insight by the reverence of their secrets, another again by indiscretion aud tricks in the explanation of secrets. We investigators, like all conquerors, discoverers, navigators, adventurers, have bold, moral principles, and are liable to being in the main considered evil.
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To see with new eyes.—Suppose that the term “beauty in art” always implied the imitation of all that is happy—and this I consider the truth—correspond- ing to the idea which an age, a people, a great self- constitutive individual form of him who is happy: what then does the so-called realism of the present artists disclose with regard to the happiness of our age? It is doubtless its style of beauty which we, in our days, understand and enjoy best of all We are consequently led to believe that our present, peculiar happiness is based on the real, on most acute senses and the true conception of the real; hence not on reality, but on the knowledge of reality. The influence of science hus already gained so much in depth and extent, that the artists of our century have quite unconsciously become the glorifiers of the scientific felicities per se.
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To make intercession.—Unpretending regions are subjects for, great landscape-painters ; remarkable and rare regions for inferior ones. For the great things in nature and humanity have to intercede in favour of all their inferior, mediocre and ambitions admirers— whereas the great man intereedes in favour of simple things.
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Not to perish unnoticed.—Our qualifications and greatness are not only once, but constantly crumbling away; the herbs that shoot up among everything aid cling to everything, kill all that is great in us—the daily, hourly disregarded wretched of our surroundings, the thousands of small roots of mean and pusillanimous feelings which grow up from our neighbourhood, our office, our society, and our daily arrangements. If we allow this small weed to escape our notice, we shall perish of it unnoticed. And if you are bent upon perishing, do se forthwith and suddenly ; in that case, perhaps, you will leave proud relies ! And not, as there is now grave cause to fear, mole-hills, covered with grass and weeds, those petty victors, humble as ever and too
wretched even for triumph. 436
Casuistical.—We have in a most painful dilemma—to which not everybody's valor and character are equal— when, as passengers of a steamer, we discover that the captain and steersman commit dangerous mistakes, and that we are their superiors in nautical knowledge—and then ask ourselves, “How now, if we stirred up a rebellion against them and made them both prisoners? Does not our superiority justify such proceedings? And again, are they not, in their turn, justified in locking us up because we corrupt obedience? ‘This is a simile for higher aud more perilous positions: and the final question at issue is, what our superiority, our faith in ourselves, warrant in sneli cases? Success? But then we must do the very thing which involves all dangers— not only dangers to ourselves, but even to the ship.
437
Privileges—He who truly owns himself, that is, who has ultimately conquered his eye, considers it his special privilege to punish, pardon, pity himself: he need not concede this privilege to anybody, though he may safely bestow it on another, on a friend, for instance; —but he knows that, in so doing, he confers a right, and that one ean only confer rights when in fall
possession of power. 438
Men and things.—Why does man not see the things? He is in the way himself: he obscures the things.
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Characteristics of happiness.—Two things are common to all sensations of happiness: a profusion of feelings and wantonness, so that, like unto the fishes, we feel surrounded by our element and float therein. True Christians will know what Christian exuberance means.
440
Never resign.—To renounce the world without knowing it, after the fashion of the nun—results in a fruitless, perhaps melancholy solitude, This is entirely unlike the solitude of the thinker’s life contemplative: when he chooses it, he has not the least intention of renouncing ; he would, on the contrary, deem it a renunciation, a melancholy destruction of his own self, were he obliged to continue in the rita practica: he foregoes the latter, because he knows it, because he knows himself. So he jumps into his water, so he gains his cheerfulness.
441
Why the immediate object grows ever mere distant to us.—The more we think of all that was and will be, the paler will grow that which is actually happening. When we live with the dead and die their deaths, what then ure our “neighbours” to us? We grow lonelier for the very reason that the whole flood of humanity is surging round us. The fire within us, which is glowing for all that is human, is ever on the increase—wherefore we look upon all that surrounds us as though it had become more indifferent, more shadowy. But our cold glance offends!
442
The rule—”The rule always seems to me more interesting than the exception.”’ Whoever feels thus is far advanced in knowledge and one of the initiated.
443
On education.—Gradually I have come to see daylight in the general deficiency of our culture and education: nobody learns, nobody strives after, nobody teaches—how to endure solitude.
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Wherein the noblest are mistaken.—We end by giving to somebody our dearest possession, or treasure—then love has nothing more to give: but the recipient will certainly not consider it his dearest possession, and consequently lack that full and complete gratitude which the donor expects to meet with.
446
Regulation concerning rank.—Where are, first and foremost, superficial thinkers; secondly, profound thinkers —who dive into the depth of a thing; thirdly, searching thinkers, who go to the bottom of a thing—which is of much greater importance than diving down into its depths; finally, such as plunge headforemost into the marsh ; which should not be considered a sign of either depth or thoroughness! These are the blessed unfathomable.
447
Master and pupil.—A teacher gives an instance of his humaneness by cautioning his pupil against himself.
448
To honour reality.—How is it possible to watch this exulting multitude without tears and assent? We nosed to think lightly of the object of their exaltation, and, had we not experienced it, should persist in our previous attitude. What may actual experiences lead us to? What are our opinions? In order not to lose ourselves and our reason we have to shun experiences. Thus Plato fled from actualities and wished to contemplate things only as pale creations of fancy ; he was full of feeling and knew how easily the waves of feeling would close over his reason. Ought therefore the sage to impress upon himself the following: “I will honor reality, but, at the same time, turn my back upon it, because I know and dread it?” Ought he to behave as the African tribes do in presence of their princes, whom they approach only backwards, thus showing their reverence along with their dread?
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The allurement of knowledge.—A peep through the gates of science acts on passionate characters as the charm of charms; they will probably become dreamers, or, at best, poets, so eager is their craving for the felicity of discernment. Does it not enter into your thoughts,— this note of sweet allurement wherewith science has announced its joyful message in a hundred words, and in the hundred and first and noblest: “Avaunt, delusion! Then the ‘woe me’ will also vanish ! and with ‘ woe me’ the woe itself be gone” (Marcus Aurelius).
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Impatience.—We find in active and thoughtful people a certain amount of impatience, which, in cases of failure, eggs them on at once to go over to the opposite province, to take a passionate interest in it, and enter upon new ventures—until wavering success drives them even thence: so they rove about, like unto reckless adventurers, through the experiences of many provinces and natures, and in the end, owing to the omniscience of men and things acquired by their travels and practice, and with a certain modification of their craving,—they will turn into powerful experts. Hence a weakness of character may prove the school of genius.
453
Moral interregnum.—Who would be able already now to describe that which, some day, will substitute moral feelings and judgments !—convinced though we may feel that these are detective in all their foundations, and that their structure does not admit of repair: their liability must diminish from day to day, provided only the liability of reason does not diminish. Our physiological and medical sciences, the social and anachoretic theories are not yet sufficiently self-reliant for the task of re-establishing the laws of life aid action: and yet it is only from them that we may take the foundation stones of new ideals (though not the new ideals themselves). Thus we live a preliminary or an after-exist once, according to our tastes or gifts, and the best we can do during this interregnum is to be as much as possible our own ‘‘reges,"” and to found small experimental States. We are experiments: let us wish to be such.
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Interlocution.—A book like this is not for perusal and reading out, but for reference, especially on our walks and travels; we have to go deeply into it, and must always be able to find our way out of it again, without finding anything familiar around ourselves.
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Primary nature.—In conformity with our present education we begin by acquiring a secondary nature, which we have when the world calls us mature, of age, efficient. A few have enough of the serpent’s nature to strip off then skins some day or other: when their primary nature has matured under their hides. But in the majority the germ withers.
456
A growing virtue.—Assertions and promises, as, for instance, those of the ancient philosophers on the oneness of virtue and felicity, or that of Christianity— “Seek ye first the kingdom of God und His righteous-ness, and all these things shall be added unto you!” —have never been made with full honesty, yet ever without an evil conscience: one used boldly to set up principles—which one longed to be true—as truth despite appearance, and in so doing felt neither religious nor moral compunctions—for it was in maioren honarem of virtue or of God that one had over-reached the truth free from any selfish intentions whatever. Many honest people even in our days act upon this standard of truthfulness; when they feel unselfish they deem it permissible to think more lightly of truth. Remember that the word “honesty” is not to be found in the code of either the Socratic or Christian virtues: it is one of the youngest virtues, not quite ripened, frequently mistaken and misconstrued, hardly conscious of itself, as yet something in embryo, which we are at liberty either to promote or to check.
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How to use the hours of danger.—Persons and conditions whose every movement signifies a danger to our possessions, honour, life, and death, and to those most dear to us, appear to us in quite a different light. Tiberius, for instance, must have pondered more deeply on the character of the Emperor Augustus and his government, and known more about it than even the wisest historian possibly could. Now we all live, comparatively speaking, in a security by far too great to make us true discerners of men; some discern for the sake of amusement, others by way of pastime, others, again, from sheer habit; but never as acutely as if they were told, Discern or perish! As long as the truths do not cut us to the quick, we maintain a certain attitude of contempt towards them; they still appear to us too much like the “winged dreams,” as though we could or could not have them—as though something in them: was at our discretion, as though we could also be roused from these truths of ours.
461
Hic Rhodus, hic salta—Our music, which can and must change into everything, because, like the demon of the seas, it has no character of its own—this music, in times past, devoted its attention to the Christian sage, and translated its ideal into sounds; why should it not also hit on those brighter, more cheerful, and universal sounds which correspond to the ideal thinker? —a music which could soar up and down at case only in the wide, floating vaults of his soul? Until lately our intrinsic has been so great, so good; nothing seemed impossible to its powers. May it therefore prove possible to experience the following three sensations at one time: loftiness, deep and warm light, and the rapture of the highest consistency.
462
Slow cures.—Chronic mental diseases, as well as those of the body, very rarely arise from one gross offence against physical and mental reason, but as a rule from countless unheeded minor neglects. He, for instance, whose respiration daily becomes a trifle weaker, and whose lungs, inhaling too little air, are thus deprived of their proper exercise and practice, will at last be stricken down with a chronic disease of the lungs. Such cases can only be cured by countless minor exercises of an opposite kind, and by an almost imperceptible acquisition of new habits, laying it down as a role, for instance, to take a strong and deep breath every quarter of an hour (if possible, while lying flat on the ground), A watch which strikes the quarters ought, for this purpose, to be chosen as life-companion. All such cures are slow and pettifogging; yet even he who longs to cure his soul should watch even the least conspicuous change in his habits. Many a man will ten times a day utter an angry word to his surroundings without thinking much about it, especially if after a couple of years it will have grown into, with him, a habit, ten times a day, to put his surroundings out of temper. But he can also acquire the habit of befriending them ten times.
463
On the seventh day.—”You praise this as my creation? I have only put aside that which was a burden to me! My soul is above the vanity of creators. Yon praise this as my resignation. I have only divested myself of that which was a burden to me! My soul is above the vanity of the resigned.”
464
The donor's modesty.—It is so ungenerous always to pose as the donor and benefactor, and, in so doing, to show one’s face. But to give and to bestow, and at the same time conceal one’s name and favour! Or to have no name at all, like unto nature, where this very fact is more refreshing than anything else; here at last no more to meet a donor and a giver, no more a ‘‘ gracious face.” True, you forfeit even this recreation, for you have placed a God into this nature—and now all is again fettered and oppressed! Well? Are we never allowed to be alone with ourselves? Never unwatched, unguarded, free from the leading-strings and from gifts? If another is ever around us, the noblest instances of courage and kindness are made impossible in this world. Is this obtrusiveness of heaven, this inevitable superhuman neighbour, not enough to drive one mad? But, never fear, it was but a dream! Awake !
465
At a meeting. —A: What are you gazing at? You have been standing here for ever so long.—B: Ever the old and new thing over again! The helplessness of a thing plunges me so far and so deeply into it that I finish by reaching its bottom and learning that, in reality, it is not worth so very much. At the end of all similar experiences we meet some kind of sorrow and torpor. Upon a small scale I experience this ten times a day.
466
Loss of fame.—What an advantage it is to have occasion to speak as a stranger to mankind! When depriving us of our incognito and making us renowned, the gods deprive us of “half of our virtue.”
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Alt the banquet of many—How happy we are when fed like the birds by the hands of one who distributes to the birds without closely examining them or testing their worth! Happy to live like a bird that comes and flies away and carries no name in its beak! I think it delightful to sit and partake of the banquet of many.
471
Another charity.—All that is excitable, noisy, inconsistent, nervous, forms the contrast to the great passion, which, burning in the heart as a quiet gloomy flame, gathering all that is fervent and ardent, gives to man a cold and indifferent appearance and stamps a certain impassiveness on the features. Men like these may occasionally be capable of charity,—but this charity is distinct from that of the lovers of society and admiration : it is a mild, contemplative, placid kindness ;—they, as it were, look out of the windows of their castle which is their stronghold, and consequently their prison :—the outlook into the far away, the open air, into another world, is so delightful to them!
472
Unwilling to justify ourselves.—A: But why are you unwilling to justify yourself ?—B: I might do it in this case as well as in many others; but I scorn the pleasure Which lies in justification, for I do not attach sufficient importance to these things, and I would rather have a stained reputation than give those pusillanimous people the spiteful pleasure to say, ‘‘He treats these things very seriously indeed.” Which is not true, perhaps I ought to care more for myself, and consider it a duty to rectify erroneous opinions on my person ;—I am too indifferent and too lazy with regard to myself, hence also with regard to all that is wrought through my instrumentality.
473
Where one ought to build one's house.—When you feel great and productive in solitude, society will disparage and isolate you: and vice versâ. A father’s powerful mildness :—wherever this mood overcomes you, there you shall build your house, be it in the throng or in solitude. Ubi pater sum, ibi patria.
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Growing heavy.—You do not know him. With whatever weights he may encumber himself, he will yet raise them all up with him. And you, judging from the weak flapping of your own wings, you conclude that he wants to remain below, because he burdens himself with these weights !
476
At the harvest-festival of the intellect—There is a daily accumulation and increase of experiences, events, opinions and dreams on these opinions,—a boundless, delightful wealth! Its aspect dazzles our eyes; I no longer understand how the poor in intellect can he called blessed! But sometimes I envy them when I am tired: for the administration of such a wealth is a difficult thing, and its weight frequently crushes all happiness.— Yes, if the mere sight sufficed! If we were only the misers of our knowledge !
477
Relieved from scepticism.—A: Some emerge from a general moral scepticism dismayed and weak, corroded, worm-eaten, nay, partly consumed,—I, on the other hand, bolder and healthier than ever, and with recovered instincts. Where a sharp wind blows, where the sea is going high and where considerable peril is to he faced, there I feel happy. I have not turned into a worm, although I had often to work and dig like a worm.— B: The reason is that you have divested yourself of scepticism. For you take a negative position —A: And in so doing I have again learnt to be positive.
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Pass by.—Spare him! Leave him in his solitude! Are you, then, bent upon crushing him? He is flawed like a glass into which suddenly some hot liquid was poured,—and he was such a precious glass!
479
Lore and truthfulness.—For love's sake we are dire offenders against truth and have become habitual concealers and thieves, who report more things as true than really appear to be true,—wherefore the thinker has periodically to drive away the persons whom he loves (they will not always be those who love him), so that they may show their sting and wickedness and cease to tempt him. Consequently the kindness of the thinker will have its waning and waxing moon.
450
Inevitable.—Whatever you may experience, anybody who is not well inclined towards you is sure to detect in your experience an occasion for disparaging you. You may pass through the deepest revolutions of mind and knowledge, and at last, with the melancholy smile of the reconvalescent, step out into freedom and bright stillness—some one will yet say: ‘his person looks upon his illness us upon an argument, on his impotence as on a proof for the impotence of all; he is vain enough to fall ill in order to feel the superiority of the sufferer. And supposing somebody burst his own chains and, in so doing, wounded himself: another will mockingly point at him. ‘How awkward he is!”’ he will say; “thus fares a man who is used to his chains and is fool enough to burst them asunder!”
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Two Germans.— When we compare Kant and Schopenhauer to Plato, Spinoza, Pascal, Rousseau, Goethe, regarding their souls, not their intellects, the two first-named thinkers are at a disadvantage: their thoughts do not constitute a passionate history of the soul; we anticipate no novels, crises, catastrophes, or death-struggles; their thinking is not an involuntary biography of a soul, but, in the case of Kant, that of a head; in the case of Schopenhauer, the description and reflection of a character (‘‘the invariable”) and the delight in the very reflector, that is, in an excellent intellect. Kant, when shining through his thoughts, appears an honest and an honourable man in the best sense of the word, but also an insignificant one: he lacks breadth and power; his experiences were not great, and his method of working robbed him of the leisure required for the acquisition of experience. I am not thinking, of course, of external events, but of the vicissitudes and convulsions which occur in the most solitary and quiet life which has leisure and burns with the passion for thinking. Schopenhauer has one advantage over him; he at least possessed a certain fierce ugliness of nature, hatred, craving, vanity, suspicion; he is of a somewhat more ferocious disposition, and had time and leisure for indulging in this ferocity. But he lacked “ evolution,” which was also absent from the circle of his thoughts; he had no “ history.”
482
To court our company.—Are we then too exacting when we court the company of men who have grown mild, savoury, and nutritive like chestnuts which betimes have been put into and taken out of the fire? Of men who expect little from life and prefer to look upon it as a gift and not as a merit of their own as though carried to them by the birds and bees? Of men who are too proud to feel rewarded, and too serious in their passion for knowledge and honesty to have leisure for and deference to glory? Such men we should call philosophers; and they themselves will always find a more modest appellation.
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Weariness of mankind.—A: Know thou! Yes! But always in the human form! How? Am I always to watch the same comedy, act in the same comedy, without ever being able to see the things with other eyes than these? And yet there may be innumerable species of beings whose organs are better fitted for knowledge than ours. What will mankind have come to discern at the end of all their discernment ?—their organs! Which means, perhaps, the impossibility of knowledge! Misery and disgust !—-B: This is a severe attack—reason is attacking you! But to-morrow you will again be in the midst of knowledge and, at the same time, of irrationality; I mean, of the delight in things human. Let us up and go to the sea!
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Going our own way.—When we take the decisive step, choosing to pursue our own course, a secret is suddenly revealed to us: whosoever has been friendly and intimate with us,—all have hitherto fancied themselves superior to us and are offended. The best among them are lenient and wait patiently until we shall again find the “right course,""—they evidently know it.— Others rail at us and behave as though we had become temporarily insane, or spitefully point out a seductor, The ill-inclined declare us to be vain fools and endeavour to blacken our motives; and the worst see in us their worst enemy, one who is thirsting after revenge for long years of subjection,—and are afraid of us. What are we to do? I should deem it advisable to begin our sovereignty by promising to all our acquaintances in advance a whole year’s amnesty for sins of every kind.
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Distant perspectives.—A: But why this solitude ?— B: I bear no grudge against anybody. But when I am alone I seem to see my friends in a clearer and rosier light than when I am in their company; and when I loved and understood music best, I lived far from it. It seems that I am in need of distant perspectives to think well of things.
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Gold and hunger.—Now and then we meet a man whose every touch changes all things into gold. But a certain evil day he will discover that he himself has to starve. All things around him are brilliant, magnificent, unapproachable in their ideal beauty, and now he longs for things which he cannot possibly transform into gold,— and how intense is his longing! Like a famished person longs for a meal!—What will he seize?
487
Blush of shame.—See here the noble steed, scraping the ground, snorting, longing for a ride and loving its known rider,—but, oh shame, his rider cannot mount to-day, he is tired! Such is the blush of shame of the weary thinker before his own philosophy.
488
Against the waste of lore.—Do we not blush when we surprise ourselves in a violent aversion? Well, then we ought also to blush in strong affections, on account of the injustice which they imply. Nay, even more: there are people who feel choked and oppressed when somebody bestows on them the benefit of his love to such an extent as thereby to deprive others of a share of his affection; when the sound of his voice reveals to us that we are singled out, preferred ! Alas, I am not grateful for this preference | I detect within myself a resentful feeling against him who wishes thus to distinguish me: he shall not love me at the expense of others. For I myself have to look for a way to endure myself within me. And often my heart is full to overflowing. To such a man one ought not to give anything of which others are in need, yea, sorely in need.
489
Friends in need.—We sometimes notice that one of our friends sympathises more with others than with us, that his delicacy is troubled by his consciousness thereof, and his selfishness no match for his consciousness: in such a case we must facilitate matters for him and estrange him by some offence or other. We should not likewise when we indulge in a mode of thinking which would be detrimental to him: our love for him ought to urge us to ease his conscience for giving us up by means of some injustice which we take upon ourselves.
490
Those paltry truths!—*You know all this, but you have never gone through it,—I do not accept your evidence. Those ‘paltry truths'!—you deem them paltry because you have not paid for them at the price of your blood!’’ But are they actually great because we have paid too dearly for them? And blood is always too high & price! “Do you think so? How penurious you are of blood!"
491
Even therefore solitude!—A: So you wish to return into your desert?—B: I am not brisk, I have to wait for myself—it will be late by the time the water from the fount of my own soul gushes forth, and often I have to thirst longer than suits my patience, Therefore I go into the desert—in order not to drink from everybody's cistern. Among many my life is the same as that of many others and my thoughts are not my own; after a while it always seems to me as though they wished to banish me from myself and rob my soul—and I grow angry with and am afraid of everybody. Then I am in need of the desert to become good again.
492
South-leeward.—A: I am a puzzle to myself! Only yesterday my feelings were so wild and yet so warm, so sunny—and exceedingly bright! And to-day! Every- thing is calm, wide, mournful, dark, like the lagoon of Venice. I have no wish, and draw a deep breath. and yet my heart revolts against this ‘‘not wishing for anything ’’—so the billows fluctuate in the ocean of my sadness.—B: You describe a slight, agreeable complaint. The next blast from the North-East will blow it away !—A: Why?
493
On our own tree.—No thinker’s thoughts give me so much delight as my own: which, certainly, is no argument in favour of their value, but I should be a fool to disregard fruits which are most tasteful to me because they accidentally grow on my own tree! And once I was such a fool. Others experience the contrary: which also is no argument in favour of the value of their thoughts and certainly no argument against their value.
494
Last argument of the brave.—There are snakes in this grove.—Very well, I shall go into the thicket and kill them.—But, in so doing, you run the risk of falling their victim, and they will not even be yours.—Never mind me!
495
Our teachers.—In our youth we take our teachers and guides from our times and from those circles which we accidentally come across; we are recklessly confident that our age is sure to have teachers who are more suited to us than to anybody else, and that we are bound to find them without having to seek very far. For this childishness we have to pay a heavy ransom in later years: we have to expiate our teachers in ourselves. Then perhaps we begin to look for the proper guides, throughout the whole world, the prehistoric times included—but it may be too late. And in the worst case we discover that they lived when we were young—and that, at that time, we missed our opportunity.
496
The evil principle.—Plato delightfully described how the philosophic thinker is bound to pass for the paragon of depravity in the midst of every existing society: for as a critic of all customs he is the antagonist of the moral man, and, unless he succeed in becoming the legislator of new customs, he lives on in the memory of men as the “evil principle.” From this we may conjecture to what extent the city of Athens, although pretty liberal and very fond of innovatious, abused the reputation of Plato in his lifetime: no wonder that he— who, as he himself has told us, was filled with a “political craving ’—made three different attempts in Sicily, where, at that time, a united Mediterranean State of the Greeks seemed to be preparing. In this State and with its aid Plato intended to do for all the Greeks that which, in later years, Mahomet did for his Arabs: to prescribe greater and minor customs and especially to regulate every man’s daily mode of life. His ideas were practicable, as practicable as those of Mahomet proved to be: since others, by far more incredible, those of Christianity, were proved true. A few chances less and a few more—and the world would have lived to see the Platonisation of the South of Europe; and suppose this state had continued to our days, we should then probably be worshipping Plato as the “ good principle.” But he lacked success: wherefore his traditional character is that of a dreamer and Utopian—the stronger epithets passed away with ancient Athens.
497
The purifying eye.—We have every reason to speak of ‘‘genius"’ in men—Plato, Spinoza and Goethe. for instance—whose intellects appear but loosely linked to their character and temper, like unto winged beings which are apt to separate from them and then soar aloft, far above them. On the other hand, those very men who were never able to shake themselves free from the trammels of their temper, and knew how to give it the most intellectual, lofty, universal, nay, occasionally cosmic expression (Schopenhauer, for instance), have been very fond of speaking of their “ genius.’’ These geniuses were unable to soar beyond themselves, but they believed that, in whatever direction they would fly, they would everywhere find, recover themselves—this is their “ greatness’ and can be greatness! The others who by rights deserve this name, have the pure and purifying eye, which seems to have grown apart from their temper and character, but which, shackled by them and mostly in mild opposition to them, looks down upon the world as a God whom it loves. But even these do not acquire such an eye at once: they need practice and a preparatory school of sight, and he who is fortunate enough will at the proper time also meet with a teacher of pure sight.
498
Never demand.—You do not know him! True, he easily and readily submits to men and things, and is kind to both; his only wish is to be left alone—but only in as much as men and things do not demand submission. Any demand makes him proud, shy and warlike.
499
The evil—“None but the solitary are evil,” thus spike Diderot: and forthwith Rousseau felt deeply offended. He consequently admitted to himself that Diderot was right. In fact, every evil craving has in the fall swing of society and social life to put itself under such great restraint, to put on so many masks, so often to rest on the Procrustean-bed of virtue, that we have every reason to speak of a martyrdom of evil. All this disappears in solitude. The evil man is more so in solitude:—hence he is also most beautiful in the eye of him who sees everywhere nothing but a play.
500
Against the grain.—A thinker may for years compel himself to think against the grain: that is, not follow up the thoughts which spring up in his heart, but those to which his office, the established division of time, an arbitrary kind of industry seem to bind him over. At last, however, he will fall ill; for this apparently moral self-command destroys his nervous system as thoroughly as regular debauchery does.
501
Mortal souls.—The most useful acquisition to knowledge is perhaps the abandonment of the belief in the immortality of the soul. Henceforth humanity is at liberty to wait and need no longer precipitate itself and toss off half-tested ideas as it had to do of old. For in those times the eternal welfare of the poor ‘immortal soul”? depended on the extent of knowledge acquired throughout their short life; they had to make up their minds from one day to another ;—"knowledge " was a matter of horrible importance. We have recovered courage for errors, endeavours, provisional acceptance — it is all not so very important!—and for this very reason individuals and races are now enabled to fix their eyes on tasks of such vastness as in years gone by would have been considered madness and defiance to heaven and hell. We are allowed to experiment upon ourselves. Yes, mankind has a right to do so. The greatest sacrifices have not yet been offered up to knowledge—nay, in olden times it would have been a sacrilege and a sacrifice of eternal salvation even to surmise ideas such as in our days precede our actions.
502
503
Friendship.—The objection to a philosophic — life, viz., that it makes us unprofitable to our friends, would never have arisen in 2 modern mind: it is antique, Antiquity has deeply and fully experienced and excogitated friendship, and almost buried it in its own grave. This is its advantage over us: in return we have idealised sexual love. All great qualifications of the ancients were supported by the premise that man was standing side by side to man and that woman was not allowed to claim, being the nearest, highest, nay, sole object. of his love—as passion teaches us to feel. Perhaps our trees do not grow so high owing to the ivy and vine that cling round them.
504
To reconcile.—Should it be the task of philosophy to reconcile that which the child has learnt to that which the man has recognised? Should philosophy be indeed the tusk of youths because they stand midway between the child and the man and have the intermediate inclinations ? It almost appears to be so if we consider at what stages of life the philosophers nowadays usually draw their conceptions: when it is too late for faith and too early for knowledge.
505
The practical.—We thinkers must first establish the relish of all things and, if necessary, decree it. The practical people finally receive it from us, their dependence on us is incredible and offers the most ridiculous spectacle of the world, little though they know it, and proudly though they like to overlook us practical people: nay, they would even undervalue their practical life, if we were to slight it: whereto, at times, a slightly vindictive feeling might incite us.
506
The necessary desiccation of all that is good—What ! Are we to conceive a work in the spirit of the age which has produced it? But our delight, surprise and information are greater when we do not conceive it in this spirit. Have you not noticed that every good, new work has its least value as long as it is exposed to the damp air of its age—for the very reason that it is infected with the odour of the market, of opposition, of modern opinions, and of all that is perishable from this day to the morrow? Later on it dries up, its “temporariness" dies; then only it obtains its deep lustre and its perfume, nay, if circumstances are accordingly, its calm eye of eternity.
507
Against the tyranny of truth—Even if we were mad enough to consider all our opinions to be true, we should not wish only them to exist. I do not know why we should ask for an autocracy and omnipotence of truth ; enough, that it has a great power. But truth must be able to fight and face opponents, and we must be able periodically to rest from it in untruth ; else truth will grow uninteresting, powerless and stale, and end by making us thus.
508
Not to take a thing pathetically.—Neither the things which we do to benefit ourselves nor those which we do to please ourselves, shall fetch us any moral praise, either from others or from ourselves. Among the educated classes it is in such cases considered the right thing not to take the things pathetically and to refrain from all pathetic feelings: the man who has adopted this line has retrieved naiveté.
509
510
To escape one's virtues—What of a thinker who does not occasionally know how to escape his own virtues ? Is he not supposed to be more than a moral being ?
511
The temptress.—Honesty is the great temptress of all fanatics. That which seemed to tempt Luther in the shape of the devil or a beautiful woman, and which he warded off in that uncouth way of his, was probably nothing else than honesty, and perchance, in rarer cases, even truth.
512
Bold to the things.—He who, in conformity to his character, is considerate and timid to persons but bold to the things, is afraid of new and more intimate acquaintances, and limits his old ones: for the purpose of making his incognito and arbitrariness coalesce with truth.
513
Tamits and beauty.—Do you seek lovers of a fine culture? Then you will also have to be contented with limited views and sights, as when you are on the looking for beautiful countries. There certainly are such panoramatic persons; they are indeed like the panoramatic regions, instructive and marvellous: but not beautiful.
514
To the stronger.—Ye stronger md arrogant intellects, we ask you but for one thing: do not throw another burden on our shoulders, but take some of our burden upon yours, since you, forsooth, are the stronger! But you delight in doing the reverse: for you wish to soar, wherefore we have to carry your burden in addition to ours: that is, we have to crawl.
515
Enhancement of beauty—Why is beauty enhanced by the advance of civilisation? Because civilised minds are less responsive to the three occasions for ugliness: first, ecstasies in their wildest outbursts ; secondly, utmost bodily exertions; thirdly, the compulsion to inspire fear by the very sight, which is so important and frequent with the lower and imperilled stages of culture, that it even prescribes gestures and ceremonials, and makes a point of ugliness.
516
Not to run one’s demon into the neighbour.—Let us in our age at least persist in the belief that benevolence and beneficence are characteristics of a good man; but let us add “provided he be first of all benevolent and beneficent to himself!" For, if he is not—if he shuns, hates, injures himself—he, surely, is not a good man. Then he seeks in others protection against himself; may these others beware how they fare ill through him, however kindly disposed he may appear to them. But to shun and hate the ego and live only for others —this was, as yet, both thoughtlessly and confidently called “unselfish” and consequently “good.”
517
Alluring into lore.—We ought to fear a man who hates himself; for we shall fall victims to his anger and revenge. Let us therefore endeavour to allure him into self-love.
518
Resignation.—What is resignation? It is the most comfortable position of a patient who, after having for a long while tossed about amid tormenting pains in order to find it, grew weary—and thus found it.
519
Being deceived.—Whenever you wish to act, you will have to close the door upon doubt—thus spake a man of action.—And you are not afraid of thus becoming the dupe? replied a lover of contemplation.
520
Eternal exequies.—One might fancy to hear a continuous funeral oration beyond the confines of history: we have ever been and are burying all that we love best, our thoughts and hopes, obtaining in exchange pride, gloria mundi, that is, the pomp of the funeral oration. This is to make reparations for everything. Even in our days the funeral orator is the greatest public benefactor.
521
Eweeptional vanity.—You man has one great equality, which is a source of congratulation to him: his glance scornfully glides past the rest of his character—which comprises almost his full character. But he recovers from himself when proceeding as though to his sanctuary; even the road to it appears to him an ascent on broad, soft steps:—and is it therefore that you call him vain, ye cruel ones?
522
528
Parentheses—At any manifestation of human action we are at liberty to ask, What is it to conceal? From what purpose is it to divert the eye? What prejudice does it wish to arouse? And, in addition, How far goes the subtlety of this simulation? And wherein is the doer mistaken?
524
Jealousy of the lonely hearts.—There is this difference between social and solitary natures (provided they are in both cases endowed with intellect): the former are contented, or almost contented with anything whatever, from the very moment that their intellects have found an impartible, favourable version of it—this will reconcile them to the devil in person. But the lonely souls have their silent rapture, their speechless agony about a thing; they loathe the ingenious, brilliant display of their innermost problems as sincerely as they loathe seeing the woman they love too gaudily dressed: they watch her with mournful eyes, as though with a dawning suspicion that she was desirous of pleasing others. Such is the jealousy which all lonely thinkers and passionate dreamers display with regard to the “esprit.”
525
526
Unwilling to be a symbolum—I pity princes: they are not at liberty even temporarily to strip off their high rank, and so they come to know people in a very uncomfortable position of dissimulation ; the continued compulsion to signify something, actually ends by turning them into solemn ciphers. Thus fare all those who make it a point to be symboli.
527
The obscure ones.—Have you never met those people who check and restrain even their enraptured hearts and prefer to grow mute rather than lose the modesty of moderation? And have you also never met those uneasy souls, yet often so good natured, who do not wish to be known, and again and again efface their traces in the sand? Nay, who deceive others as well as themselves, in order to abide in their obscurity ?
528
Rare discretion.—In many instances it is a sure token of humanity, to refuse to criticise and to think about any other.
529
Whereby men and nations gain lustre—How many genuine, individual actions are omitted, only because, before doing them, we conceive or suspect that they might be misconstrued ; thus the very actions that have an intrinsic value of their own, both good and evil. The more highly, therefore, an age, a people value the individuals, and the more we concede to them both right and ascendency, the more will actions like these venture to light—and so, in the end, a lustre of honesty, of genuineness in good and evil, will spread over whole ages and nations, so that they—is the Greeks, for illstance—like some stars, continue to shed light for thousand of years after their fall.
530
Digressions of the thinker.—Many in their general mode of thinking are stern and inflexible, sometimes even cruel towards themselves, whereas, individually, they are gentle and flexible; they will with well-meaning hesitation ten times revolve & matter in their minds, but ultimately they continue their strict course. They are like streams meandering past solitary hermitages; there are stations in their course where the stream plays hide and seek with itself, creating a short idyl, with islets, trees, grottoes and waterfalls; and then it rushes on, past rocks, forcing its way through the hardest stone.
531
Different conceptions of art.—From the time of our living a retired social life, consuming and consumed, in deep prolific thoughts and only in them, we expect from art either nothing at all or something quite different than we formerly did—in fact, we change our taste. For, in former times, we wished just for one moment to dive through the gate of art into the element in which we now permanently live; at that time we in so doing fancied ourselves into the rapturous thought of possession, and now we really possess. Indeed, flinging away temporarily what we now have, and finding ourselves poor, a child, beggar, or fool, may now occasionally fill us with delight.
582
”Lore equalises.”—Love wishes to save the other to whom it devotes itself any alien feeling; hence it excels in disguise and simulation, it is constantly deceiving and feigns an equality which does not really exist. And this is done so instinctively that women who love deny this simulation and continuous tender fraud, and boldly assert that love equalises (viz., that it performs a miracle!). This process is simple enough if the one person allows himself to be loved and does not think it necessary to simulate, but rather leaves this to the other who loves. But histrionic art never offers a more intricate and impenetrable example than in the case of both being passionately in love with each other; in this case either of them surrenders and endeavors to conform to the other and equal him and only him; and finally both are at a loss what to imitate, what to simulate, and what to feign. The beautiful frenzy of this spectacle is too good for this world and too subtle for human eves.
533
We beginners.— How many things does an actor divine and see when watching another at play! He notices at once when a muscle fails in some gesture ; he distinguishes those small made-up tricks which have been severally and coolly practised before the glass, and refuse to amalgamate with the whole; he feels when the actor is surprised on the stage by his own invention, and when he spoils it in the surprise. How differently again does a painter watch a person moving before him! His eye will at once see many additional things in order to complete the present appearance and to make it thoroughly effective; in his mind he tries several illuminations of the same object, he divides the whole effect by an additional contrast. Would that we had the eyes of this actor and this painter for the province of the human soul!
534
The small doses.— If we wish a change to be as radical is possible, we have to apply the remedy in small doses, but unremittingly, for long periods. Can a great action he accomplished in a trice? Let us therefore guard against precipitately and forcibly exchanging the state of morals, with which we are familiar, for a new valuation—we even wish to continue to live in the former for many, many years to come-—until probably, at some very remote period, we notice that the new valuation has become the predominant power within us, and that its small doses, with which in future we have to grow familiar, have imparted a new nature to us. We now begin even to understand this, that the last attempt of a great change of valuations, and that too with regard to political matters—the “great revolution”—was nothing more than a pathetic and bloody quackery, which, by menus of sudden crises, knew how to fill credulous Europe with the hope of sudden recovery, and thereby has made all political invalids impatient and dangerous up to these very days.
535
Truth needs power.—Truth is, in itself, no power at all, despite all that the flattering enlighteners will say to the contrary. On the contrary, it has to draw power over to its side, or to side with power, else it will again and again go to ruin. This has been proved enough and more than enough.
536
The thumb-screw.—It is revolting to observe how cruelly everybody brings his few miserable private virtues to the notice of his neighbour who perhaps does not possess them, and whom he teases and worries with them, Let us therefore deal humanely with the “sense of honesty,” although we may possess in this ‘sense of honesty” a thumb-screw wherewith to worry to death all the presumptuous egotists, who even now wish to thrust their faith upon the whole world :—we have experienced it in ourselves.
537
Mastery.—We have attained mastery, when we neither mistake nor hesitate in the achievement.
538
Moral insanity of genius—In a certain class of intellects we observe a painful, partially horrible spectacle ; their most productive hours, their soaring aloft and into the far distance, seem out of harmony with their general constitution, and somehow or other to exceed their power, so that each time there remains a deficiency, and in the long run the faultiness of the machinery which manifests itself with intensely intellectual natures such as those of which we are speaking, in various moral and intellectual symptoms more usually than in bodily distress. Thus that inconceivably timid, vain, odious, envious, tight-laced and tight-lacing nature which suddenly springs forth in them, that too personal and strained element in characters like Rousseau and Schopenhauer may well be the outcome of a periodical heart-disease ; and this, in its turn, the consequence of a nervous complaint which again may ultimately be the outcome of—. As long as genius dwells within us, we are bold, nay, frantic and heedless of life, health and honor; we fly swiftly through the day, freer than an eagle, and safer in darkness than an owl. But all at once it leaves us, and, at the same moment, a feeling of utter despondency overcomes us; we are puzzles to ourselves, we suffer from every experience and nonexperience, we feel as if surrounded by bare rocks facing a storm, and at the same time as wretched, childish souls, who are afraid of a rustle and a shadow. Three-fourths of all evil committed in the world are due to faint-heartedhess ; and this is, above all, a psychological process.
539
Do you know what you want?—Have you ever been troubled by the fear lest you might be unfit for discovering that which is true? By the fear lest your senses might be too dull and even your delicacy of sight by far too blunt ? If only you could see how much volition is ruling your sight? How yesterday, for instance, you wished to see more than another did, while to-day you wish to see it in a different light; how, from the very first, yon longed to find an agreement with or the opposite of that which others before you fancied to have found. Oh, for these shameful cravings! How often you look out for that which is efficacious, for that which is soothing, because just then you happen to be tired! Always full of secret predetermination of what nature truth should be, so that you, indeed you, may accept it! Or do you think that to-day because you are frozen and dry as a bright winter morning, and nothing weighs on your mind, you have a keener sight? Does it not require ardour and enthusiasm to do justice to a creation of fancy? And this, indeed, is called sight ! As if you could treat creations of fancy in any way differently from men. In this intercourse we find the same morality, the same honesty of purpose, the same secret thought, the same slackness, the same timidity, your whole lovable and hateful self! Your bodily exhaustion will give pale colours to the things, your fever-heat will shape them into monsters! Does not your morning light up the things otherwise than your evening? Are you not afraid of finding in the care of every knowledge your own phantom as the veil which hides truth from your sight ? Is it not an awful comedy wherein you so rashly wish to take a part?
540
Study.— Michelangelo looked upon Raphael's genius as acquired by study, upon his own as a gift of nature: learning as opposed to talent. Which, with all due deference to the great pedant, is pedantic. What else is talent but a name for an older piece of learning, experience, practice, appropriation, incorporation, from the times of our forefathers or even an earlier stage? And again; he who learns endows himself, only learning is not quite easy and not merely depends on our readiness; we must be able to learn. In an artist jealousy often prevents this, or that pride which at the perception of anything heterogenous at once puts forth its claws and takes up a state of defence instead of that of scholar-like submission. Both Raphael and Goethe lacked either, wherefore they were great learners and not mere exploiters of those metallic veins which were left as remnants of the shifting history of their ancestors. Raphael vanishes from our sight as student in the midst of the appropriation of that which his great rival denoted as his “nature”: he, the noblest of thieves, daily carried off a portion of it; but before he had filled his own genius with all the genius of Michelangelo he died, and the last series of his works, as the commencement of a new plan of study, is less perfect and good, for the very reason that death interrupted the great student in his most difficult task, and took away the justifying final goal which he had in view.
541
How we should turn to stone.—By slowly, very slowly growing hard like precious stones, and at last lie still: a joy to all eternity.
542
543
Let us not make passion an argument in favour of truth.—Oh, ye good-hearted and noble enthusiasts, I know you! You want to be right in our eyes as well as in yours, and especially in yours !—and an irritable and subtle evil conscience so often incites and urges you on against your very enthusiasm. How ingenious you then grow in the outwitting and soothing of this conscience! How much you hate the honest, simple, clean souls ; how eagerly you shun the innocent glances! That better knowledge whose representatives they are, and whose voice you hear but too distinctly in your own hearts, how it questions your belief, how you try to denounce it as a bad habit, as the disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of your own intellectual health. You go so far as to hate criticism, science, reason! You have to falsify history to make it bear witness in your favour; you have to deny virtues lest they obscure those of your idols and ideals. Coloured pictures, where arguments are wanted! Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists! Ambrosian nights! You know well how to illuminate and to darken— indeed, to darken by means of light! And indeed when your passion wallows up, a moment will arrive when you will say to yourselves, Now I have conquered a good conscience, now I am generous, courageous, self-denying, noble; now I am honest! How you long for these moments when your passion will give to you full, unlimited rights and, as it were, innocence ; when in battle, ecstasy, courage, hope, you will be beside yourselves and beyond all doubts; when you decree “he who is not beside himself as we are cannot in the least know what and where truth is," How you long to find all sharers of your belief in this state—which is that of intellectual viciousness —and to light your flames by their conflagration! Oh, for your martyrdom, your triumph of the canonised lie! Must you needs inflict such grief upon yourselves? Must you?
544
How philosophy is pursued in on days.—I know quite well that our philosophising youths, women and artists, expect from philosophy the very contrary of that which the Greeks derived from it. What does he who hears not the constant exultation resounding in every speech and rejoinder of a Platonic dialogue, the exultation over the new invention of rational thinking, know about Plato, about ancient philosophy? At that time the souls became filled with enthusiasm while pursuing the severe and sober sport of ideas, generalisation, refutation, contraction—with that enthusiasm which, perhaps, also the old, great, severe, and sober contrapuntists in music have known. At that time there still lingered on the tongues of Greece that other, older and formerly omnipotent taste wherefrom the new taste detached itself so magically that the “divine art” of dialectics was praised by faltering voices as though In a frenzy of love. But that old-world system was speculation within the bonds of morality, with nothing but established opinions and established facts, and no reasons but those of authority, so that thinking was copying, and all enjoyment of speech and dialogue consisted in the form. Wherever the intrinsic value is deemed eternal and of universal worth, there is but one great charm, that of variable forms, that is, of fashion. Even in the poets, ever since the time of Homer, and afterwards in the sculptors, the Greek enjoyed the counterpart to originality. It was Socrates who discovered the contrary charm, that of cause and effect, of reason and sequence, and we modern people are so much accustomed to and educated in the necessity of logics that we take it as the normal taste, and cannot help making it as such objectionable to the covetous and conceited ones. That which stands out in bold relief is a matter of delight to these latter: their subtler ambition is but too ready to accept the belief that their souls are exceptions, not dialectic and rational beings, but—well, “intuitive beings," endowed with the “inner sense’’ or with the ‘‘intellectual intuition.” But above all they want to be “artistic natures,” with genius in their heads und a demon in their bodies, and consequently also with special rights in this world and the world to come, especially with the divine prerogative of being incomprehensible. Such as these are pursuing philosophy nowadays! I fear they may one day discover that they have made a mistake—what these require is religion.
545
But we do not believe you.—You would like to pose as discerners of men, but you shall not pass as such. Do you fancy that we do not notice that you pretend to be more experienced, deeper, more passionate, more perfect than you really are, as decidedly as we notice in you painter a presumptuousness even in the way of using his brash ; in you musician by the way he introduces his theme a desire to set it off for higher than it really is? Have you ever experienced it yourselves a history, wild commotions, earthquakes, deep, long sadness, fleeting happiness? Have you been foolish with great and little fools? Have you really borne the weal and woe of good people? And also the woe and peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then speak of morality, but not otherwise !
546
Slave and idealist.—The follower of Epictetus would probably not suit the taste of those who are now striving after the ideal. The constant tension of one’s nature ; the indefatigable inward glance; the reserved, cautious, incommunicativeness of the eye if ever it gazed on the outer world: and, to crown it all, his silence or laconic speech ; all these are characteristics of the severest fortitude—what would our idealists, who above all are desirous of expansion, care for all this? Besides, he is not fanatical, he loathes the display and vainglory of our idealists; his arrogance, great as it is, is not bent upon disturbing others, it allows a certain gentle approach and does not wish to mar anybody's good humour—nay, it can even smile. So much antique humanness is exemplified in this ideal. But the most beautiful feature of it is that it is altogether free from the fear of God, that it strictly believes in reason, that it is no preacher of penitence. Epictetus was a slave; his ideal man is without vocation, and may exist in any vocation, but he will first and foremost be found in the lowest social strata as the silent, self-sufficient man in the midst of a general enslavement who practises self-defence against the outside world and is constantly living in a state of supreme fortitude. He differs from the Christian inasmuch as the latter lives in hope, in the promise of “unspeakable glories”; as he allows himself to be presented, expecting and accepting the best things from divine love and grace, and not from himself; while Epictetus neither hopes nor allows his best treasure to be given to him—he possesses it, he bravely upholds it, he disputes it to the whole world if they mean to deprive him thereof. Christianity was made for another class of ancient slaves, for those who have a weak will and reason, hence, for the majority of slaves.
547
The tyrants of the intellect.—In our days the advancement of science is no longer thwarted by the casual fact that man attains an age of about seventy years, as was the case for too long a time. Formerly a man wanted to attain the sum total of knowledge during this short period, and according to this general desire people valued the methods of knowledge. The minor individual questions and experiments were considered contemptible; people wanted the shortest cut, believing that since everything in the world seemed adapted to man, even the acquirement of knowledge was regulated in conformity with the limits of human life. To solve everything with one blow, with one word—this was the secret wish. The task was pictured in the metaphor of the Gordian knot or the egg of Columbus ; no one doubted but that it was possible to reach the goal, even of knowledge, in the manner of Alexander or Columbus, and to satisfy all questions by one answer, “There is a mystery to be solved,” appeared to be the goal of life in the eyes of the philosopher; first of all the mystery had to be discovered and the problem of the world to be compressed into the simplest enigmatical form. The unbounded ambition and delight of being the “unraveller of the world” filled the dreams of the thinker, nothing seemed to him worth any trouble but the means of bringing everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Hence philosophy was a kind of last struggle for the tyrannical sway of the intellect. The fact that such a sway was reserved for some very happy, noble, ingenious, bold, powerful person—a peerless one—was doubted by nobody, and several, at last even Schopenhauer, fancied them selves to be this one peerless person. Whence it follows that, on the whole, science up to lately has been in a somewhat backward state, owing to the moral weakness of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to he pursued with a loftier and more generous feeling. “Do not mind me,” is written over the door of the future thinker.
548
The triumph over power.—If we consider all that has hitherto been worshipped as ‘‘superhuman intellect,” as “genius,” we arrive at the sad conclusion that the whole intellectuality of mankind must needs have been extremely low and wretched ; it required very little brains to feel at once considerably superior to theirs! Alas for the cheap glory of “genius.” How quickly has its throne been raised, its worship grown into a custom! We are still on our knees before power—according to the old slave-custom —and yet, when the degree of venerability will have to be fixed, only the degree of rationality in power will be decisive; we have to investigate to what extent power has indeed been overcome by something higher, of which it is now the tool and instrument. But as yet there is an absolute lack of eyes for such investigations ; nay, in most cases the estimation of genius is even considered a crime. And thus perhaps the most beautiful still takes place in the dark and, after bursting into bloom, soon fades into perpetual night. I mean the spectacle of that power which does not dispose of genius with a view to works, but to itself as a work, that is, with a view to its own mastery, to the purification of its imagination, to order and selection in the flow of its tasks and ideas. As yet the great man is still invisible in the greatest thing which claims worship, invisible like a distant star; his triumph over power continues to be without eyes, hence also without song and poets. As yet the order of greatness has not been settled for the sum total of human history.
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Knowledge and beauty.—When people, as they still continue to do, reserve their worship and their sensation of happiness, as it were, for works of fancy and semblance, we should not wonder if they feel chilled and dulled by the reverse of fancy and semblance, The rapture which is caused by even the most trifling certain final step and progress of insight and is to so many and so abundantly supplied by the present science—this rapture, at present, is not believed in by all those who are used to be enraptured only by leaving reality and plunging into the depths of a semblance. They consider reality as ugly, but they altogether forget that the knowledge of even the ugliest reality is beautiful, and that the frequent discerner of many things is in the end very far from considering the main items of reality, the discovery of which always inspired him with happiness, as ugly. Is there anything ‘beautiful in itself’? The happiness of the discerners enhances the beauty of the world, steeping all things existing in a summer light ; discernment not only clothes the things in its own beauty, but in the long run even sinks its beauty into the things. May future ages bear witness for the truth of this assertion! In the meantime we still recall an old experience: two men as utterly different as Plato and Aristotle agreed with regard to the constituents of supreme happiness, (not only their own or that of humanity, but, in itself, even that of the gods with supreme felicity; they found it in knowledge, in the activity of a well-trained, inventive reason not in ‘intuition,” as the German semi- and out-and-out theologians ; nor in visions, as the mystics ; or in work, as all practical men do), Descartes and Spinoza held similar opinions. What great delight all these must have felt in knowledge! And how great a danger it implied for their honesty, lest they might thereby become panegyrists of the things!
551
About future virtues.—How is it that the more conceivable the world has grown, the more all kinds of ceremonies have decreased? Is it that fear was so much the fundamental element of that awe which overcame us at everything unknown, mysterious, and taught us to fall on our knees before the inconceivable and pray for mercy? And may not the world, for the very reason that we have grown bolder, have lost some of its former charms? May not our own dignity and ceremoniousness, our own formidableness, have diminished together with our timorousness? Perhaps we think less of the world and ourselves since we more boldly think about it and ourselves? Perhaps there may be a future when this bold mode of thinking will have reached such a pitch that it feels itself as the summit of pride above men and. things—when the wise man, being at the same time the boldest, sees himself, and, above all, existence furthest below himself? Mankind has hitherto been wanting in this kind of courage which is akin to extravagant generosity. Oh that the poets would again be such as they used to be: seers, foretelling us something of our contingencies! Now that the real and the past are being and have to be taken more and more from them—for the time of innocent false-coining is at an end! Did they wish to make us anticipate future virtues? or virtues that will never be met on earth, though they might exist somewhere in the work ?— purple-glowing stars and whole galaxies of the beautiful ? Where are you, ye astronomers of the ideal?
552
The ideal selfishness—Is there a state more blessed than that of pregnancy? To do everything we do in the silent belief that it must needs benefit that which is generating in us? That it must raise its mysterious worth, the thought of which fills us with ecstasy? Then we refrain from much without having to put ourselves under great restraint; we suppress an angry word, we grasp the hand forgivingly: the child shall spring from all that is mild and good, We shrink from our own harshness and abruptness: as though it might instil a drop of evil into the life-chalice of the beloved unknown, Everything is veiled, mysterious; we know nothing about the process; we wait and try to be ready. Moreover, there prevails in us a pure and purifying feeling of deep irresponsibility, similar to that sensation which a spectator experiences before a drawn curtain: it is growing, it is coming to light; it is not for us to determine either its worth or its hour. We are solely thrown back upon every indirect, blessed, and restraining influence. ‘‘A greater than we are is coming to life,”’ such is our secret hope: for him we prepare everything, that he may successfully come to light: not only all that is useful, but also the crowning love of our souls. In this blessed anticipation we shall live, and are able to live! Whether that which we expect be a thought, a deed, we have to every essential achievement no other relation but that of pregnancy, and ought to cast the arrogant talk about “will’ and “shall” into the winds! This is the true, ideal selfishness: ever to provide and watch and restrain the soul, that our productiveness may come to a beautiful issue. Thus, in this indirect way to provide and watch for the profit of all; and the mood, wherein we live, this proud and gentle mood, is some soothing oil which spreads far around even over restless souls. But the present ones are odd! Let us therefore also be odd and not blame the others for having to be so. And even when the results are dangerous and evil, we must not show less deference to that, which is generating, than worldly justice, which does not allow the judge and hangman to lay hold on a woman with child.
553
On round-about ways.—Whither is this philosophy bound with all its round-about ways? Does it do more than translating as it were into reason a steady and strong craving—a craving for the mild sun, bright and bracing air, southern plants, sea-breezes, occasional food of meat, eggs, and fruit, hot water as beverage, quiet rambles for whole days, little talking, rare and cautions reading, solitary dwelling, clean, simple, and almost soldier-like habits—in short, for all things which are most tasteful and most salubrious especially to me? A philosophy which in the main is the craving for a personal dict? A craving which longs for my air, my height, my temperature, my kind of health, by the round-about way of my head? There are many other and certainly many loftier sublimities of philosophy, and not only such as are gloomier and more pretentious than mine—perhaps they are, taking them altogether, nothing but intellectual circumscriptions of the same kind of personal cravings ? Meanwhile, I look with a new eye upon the quiet and lonely flight of a butterfly high on the rocky banks of the sea where many good plants we growing: it flies about, unconcerned about the fact that it will live but the life of one more day, and that the night will be too cold for its winged frailty. For it, too, a philosophy might be found, though it may not be my own.
554
Progress.—When we praise progress we only praise the movement and those who do not leave us rooted to the spot, which, under circumstances, is certainly doing much, especially if we live among Egyptians. But in versatile Europe, where movement, as they say, “is a matter of course“—alas! if ice only understood something about it—I praise progress and those who are progressing, that is, those who always leave themselves behind and who do not in the least mind whether others follow them or not. ‘‘Wherever I pause I find myself alone: why should I pause? The desert is so wide!” This is the mode of reasoning of such a progressist.
555
The least important are important enough.—We ought to avoid events when we feel convinced that the least important leave a lasting impression on us—and this we cannot avoid. The thinker must needs have within himself un average canon of all those things which he wishes to experience.
556
The four noble virtues.—Honest towards ourselves and all who we friendly to us; valiant in face of our enemy; generous to the vanquished; polite—always in all cases: so the four cardinal virtues wish us to be.
557
Marching against an enemy.—How acceptable sound bad music and bad motives when we march against an enemy !
558
Not to veil one’s virtues.—I love the men who are transparent like water, and who, to borrow the language of Pope, “do not hide from view the turbid bottom of their stream.” But even they are possessed of a certain vanity, though it be of a rare and more sublimated kind: some wish us to see only the mad and slight the transparence of the water which enables us to see to the bottom. None less than Gautama Buddha has given rise to the vanity of those few by the formula: “Let your sins shine before men and veil your virtues.” But this means to afford an unpleasant spectacle to the world—it offends against good taste.
559
Nothing in excess.—How often is the individual encouraged to set up a goal beyond his power in order to attain at least that which lies within the reach of his abilities and strenuous efforts? But is it really desirable that he should do so? Must not the best in particular who act up to this maxim, and their best actions assume an exaggerated and distorted appearance on account of their being overstrained? And will not a grey mist of failure envelope the world owing to the fact that we see everywhere struggling athletes, prodigious gestures, but nowhere a conqueror crowned With victory?
560
What is at our option?—We may be the gardeners of our inclinations, and—which the majority ignore—as richly and advantageously cultivate the germs of anger, pity, inquisitiveness, vanity, as we trail a beautiful fruit along the wall. We may do so with a gardener’s good or bad taste, in the French, English, Dutch, or Chinese style; we may also give full scope to Nature, only here and there applying some embellishment and adornment; finally, we may even without any knowledge and advise allow the plants to grow according to their natural growth and limits, and fight out their contest amongst themselves—nay, we may persist in taking delight in such a wilderness, though it may be difficult to do so. All this is at our option; but only few know this. Do not the majority believe in themselves as in perfect, complete facts? Have not great philosophers put their seals on this prejudice by means of the doctrine of the invariability of character?
561
To let also our happiness shine.—Just as the painters are utterly unable to reproduce the deep, brilliant hue of the sky, and are compelled to take all colours required for their landscapes a few shades deeper than Nature has them; just as they, by means of this trick, succeed in approaching the brilliant and harmonious tints in Nature, so also the poets and philosophers can express the bright radiance of happiness and must try to find an expedient; by picturing all things a few shades darker than they really are their light, in which they excel, produces almost the same effect as the sunlight and resembles the light of true happiness. The pessimist who gives to all things the darkest and gloomiest shades only avails himself of flames and lightning, celestial glories, and all that has a glaring, illuminative power and dazzles the eyes; to him light only serves the purpose of increasing the dismay and making us anticipate in the things greater horrors than they really have.
562
The settled and the free.—Only in the Netherworld we yet a glimpse of the gloomy background of all the adventurer’s bliss which forms an eternal halo round Ulysses and his kin, vying in brilliancy with the phosphorescence of the sea—of that background which we nevermore forget: the mother of Ulysses died of grief and yearning for her child. The one is driven from place to place, and the other's, the tender settler’s, heart is breaking: this is the old, old story. Grief breaks the heart of those who live to see that they whom they love best desert their views, their faith— this is part of the sadness wrought by the free intellects—of which they are occasionally aware. Then perhaps they, like unto Ulysses, will have to step down to the dead in order to soothe their sorrow and relieve their affection.
563
The delusion of the amoral constitution of things.— There is no eternal necessity commanding that every transgression should be atoned and paid for—the belief that there was such a necessity was a terrible delusion, useful only in its least part; a similar delusion is the belief that everything is guilt which is felt as such. Not the things, but the opinions on things imaginary have been a source of endless trouble to mankind.
564
565
Dignity and ignorance.—When we begin to understand we grow polite, happy, ingenious; and when we have sufficiently learnt and trained our eyes and ears, our souls show greater suppleness and charm. But we understand so little and are so inadequately taught, wherefore we rarely happen to embrace the thing which is apt to make us lovable ; on the contrary, we stiffly and indifferently pass by the eities, mature and history, at the same time thinking very highly of this stiff aid indifferent bearing, as though it evinced superiority. Nay, our ignorance and intellectual love of knowledge have altogether acquired the habit of flaunting about as dignity and character.
566
A cheap mode of life.—The cheapest aid most unsophisticated mode of life is certainly that of the thinker; for, to begin by mentioning the most important feature, he first and foremost stands in need of those very things which others slight and abandon. Secondly: he is easily pleased and does not ask for any expensive spices of pleasure; his task is not arduous, but as it were southern; his days and nights are not wasted by remorse; he moves, eats, drinks and sleeps in proportion as his intellect grows calmer, stronger and clearer ; he rejoices in his body and has no reason to fear it; he does not stand in need of society, unless for the purpose of from time to time more tenderly to embrace his solitude; he finds in the dead compensation for the living and even reparation for friends: that is, in the best who ever lived. Let us consider whether it is the opposite desires and habits that lave made life expensive and consequently arduous, often even unbearable. In another sense, however, the thinker's life is more expensive, for nothing seems good enough for him; and it would indeed be intolerable to be deprived of the best.
567
In the fiell.—”We ought to take the things more cheerfully than they deserve; especially since, for a very long period, we have taken them more seriously than they deserved." Thus speaks the brave soldier of knowledge.
568
569
To the lonely souls.—If, in our soliloquies as well as in public life, we are regardless of the honour of others, we are mean people.
570
Losses.—Some losses impart to the soul a sublimity which makes her refrain from wailing and silently wander about as though in the shade of high, dark cypresses.
571
Field-dispensary of the soul.—Which is the strongest remedy? Victory!
572
Life shall comfort us.—When we, after the fashion of the thinker, indulge in soaring thoughts and surging feelings, allowing even our nightly dreams to float therein, we expect from life comfort and seclusion, while others wish to rest from life when they consign themselves to meditation.
573
574
Never forget.—The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
575
We aeronauts of the intellect.—All those bold birds which sour into far and farthest space will somewhere or other surely find themselves able to proceed on their flight, and perch down on a mast or narrow ledge, and be grateful for this wretched accommodation. But who would infer herefrom that there was not a immense free space in front of them, that they had flown as far as they could possibly fly? All our great teachers and predecessors have, in the end, come to a standstill, and it is not the noblest or most graceful movement with which the weary pause: the same thing will happen to me and to you. But what does this matter to me or to you? Other birds will fly further! Our insight and credulity vie with them in soaring far out and on high; they rise straight above our heads and its impotence, and from thence will survey the distant horizon, seeing the crowds of birds, much more powerful than we are, flying before them, striving whither we have striven, and where all is sea and nothing but sea! And whither then are we bound? Do we want to cross the sea? Whither does this powerful desire urge us, which we value more highly than any delight ? Why just in this direction, thither where the suns of humanity have always perished? Will they perhaps, one day, relate of us that we also soared westward, hoping to reach India—but that it was our fate to be wrecked on the rock of eternity? Or, my brethren? Or?