Dawn of the Day/Preface
PREFACE
1
In this book we meet with one who works in the bowels of the earth, boring, mining, undermining. You can watch hin, provided you have eyes for such work of the deep—proceeding slowly, prudently, gently, inexorably, without betraying the weariness which follows in the train of every long privation of light and air; you might even call him happy, in spite of his work in the dark. Does it not seem as though some faith wore leading him, some solace compensating him for his labour? As though he himself wished for a prolonged obscurity, something incomprehensible, hidden, mysterious, knowing that, in the end, he will have his own morning, his own deliverance, his own dawn of day! Yes, indeed, he will return: do not ask him what he seeks in yonder depths, he, the apparent trophonios and “subterraneous worker,” will tell you of his own accord as soon as he will have once more “become man.” One gets rid of a silent tongue after having been so long a mole and alone in the earth.
2
Indeed, my patient friends, in this late preface, whieh might well-nigh have become a necrologue, a funeral oration, I will tell you what I sought in those depths: for, you see, I have returned and—what is more—safe and sound. Do not think that I intend to invite you to the same hazardous enterprise! Or even to the same solitude! For whoever pursues a course of his own, meets nobody: this is peculiar to the “course of one’s own.” Nobody comes to his assistance; any danger, emergency, wickedness and bad weather, has to be faced alone. He has his own way—and, as is fair, experiences bitterness, and occasional annoyance at this “course of his own”: such as, for instance, the conviction that even his friends cannot make out who he is, whither he is bound; that they occasionally ask themselves: “Well? Does he really proeced?” “Does he know his way?” In those days I undertook something that might not have been to everybody’s taste: I descended into the lowest depths, I searched to the bottom, I began to examine and unearth an old faith on which for thousands of years we philosophers used to build as on the safest foundation—ever again, though, as yet, every structure collapsed. I began to undermine our faith in morals. But you do not understand me?
3
As yet we have made good and evil the least, last subjects of our meditation : it always was too dangerous a thing to do. Conscience, good reputation, hell, occa-sionally even the police, did not and do not permit ofimpartiality ; in presence of morality, as in face of allauthority, we are not allowed to think, much less to speak: we have to obey! Ever since the creation of the world, no authority was willing to be made the object of criticism : nay, to criticise morals, to take morality as a problem, as problematic: well? was that not—is that not—inmoral ? But morals have not only various horrors at their command to ward off critical hands and instruments of torture : their security rests much more in a certain art of fascination whereon they may pride themselves they know how to "inspire." They often succeed in paralysing and misleading the critical will by one sole glance—they occasionally even know how to turn it upon itself: so that, like unto the scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own heart. Morality is, of old, well versed in the diabolical art of persuasion : even in our days there is no orator who would not have recourse to it (listen to our anarchists, for instance: how morally they speak in order to per-suade! In the end they even call themselves the "good and the just"). Ever since the arts of discoursing and persuasion have prevailed on earth, morality has proved the greatest master in the art of misleading, and to us, the philosopliers, the true Circe of the philosophers. What is the cause that from the times of Plato all philosophical architects in Europe have built in vain? That everything which they themselves honestly and seriously looked upon as aere perennius threatens to collapse or has already fallen to ruins? Oh, how per-verse is the answer which, even in our days, is in readliness for this question, "Because they all have neglected the supposition, the test of the fundament, a criticism of pure reason,"—that fatal answer of Kant which snrely has not led as modern philosopliers on to a firmer and less fallacious ground (was it not strange to expect that a tool should criticise its own excellence and fitness? That the intellect itself should know its own worth, power, limits?" Was it not even absurd?). The right answer would surely have been, that all philo-sophers—even Kant—were building mder the misleading influence of morals; that they apparently aimed at cer-tainty, "trutlı," but, in reality, at "majestic moral structures: to avail ourselves once more of Kant's in-offensive Ianguage, who denotes it as his special "not very brilliant, yet well-deserving" task and work to "level" and solidate the ground for these majestic moral (Criticism of Pure Reason, ii. p. 257). Alas! he utterly failed in this task !—as we have to admit. With such an enthusiastic purpose Kant was the true son of his century, which, if ever any, may be called the century of enthusiasm : and its true son he fortunately continued to be also with regard to its more valuable manifestations with that sound sensuality, for instance, which he has translated into his theory of knowledge). Even he had been stung by the moral tarantula—Rousseau—even he fostered in his heart of hearts that idea of moral fanaticism, the verifier of which, Robespierre, another of Rousseau's diseiples, felt and professed to be "de fonder sur la terre l'empire de la sagesse, de la justice et de la vertu" (speech of June 7, 1794). On the other hand, with one's heart filled with such a truly French fanaticism, one could not set to work in a less French, deeper, more thorough, more German way—if the epithet "German" is pernissible in this sense—than Kant has done; for the purpose of making room for his "moral realm," lie was compelled to create a world which could not be proved, a logical "world to come,"—for this very purpose he needed his Criticism of Pure Reason! In other words, he would not have needed it, had he not considered one thing more important than all other things: to make the modern realm "unassailable," or rather "unintelligible" to reason—so strongly did he feel convinced of the assail-ableness of a moral order of things by reason. For, as regards nature and history, and the utter imnorality of nature and history, Kant was a pessimist, as every true Germany of old; he believed in morals, not because they are verified by nature and history, but in spite of their being constantly contradicted by nature and history. In order better to understand this "in spite of," we may perhaps recall to mind a similar train of thought in Luther, that other great pessimist who, with all his Lutheran boldness, urged it home to his friends: "Ifwe could conceive by force of reason how it is possible that God, who shows so much wrath and malice, can, at the same time, be merciful and just, should we then stand in need of faith?” Nothing has ever impressed the German mind more deeply, nothing has “tempted" it more, than that most dangerous conclusion of all, which, in the opinion of every true Roman, is an insult to the intellect: credo quia absurdum est; with this conclusion the German logic makes its first appearance in the history of the Christian dogma ; but even in our days, after a lapse of one thousand years, we modern Germans, late Germans in every respect, surmise some truth, sone possibility of truth, at the bottom of that famous, truly dialectic principle, by means of which Hegel secured to the German intellect the victory over Europe—"Contradiction moves the world; all things contradict themselves." We are true pessimists, even in respect of logies.
4
The logical valuations, however, are not the lowest and deepest to which our bold suspicion descends: the faith in reason, which balances the value of these judgments, is, as faith, a moral phenomenon. Should German pessimism yet have to take its final step? Should it once more have to draw up in a terrible way its "crado" alongside with its "absurdum"? And if this book is pessimist even in respect of morals, above the faith in morals—should it not, for this very reason, be a German book? For, in fact, it implies a contradiction, and is not afraid of it: in it we break with the faith in morals—why ? In obedience to morality ? Or what name shall we give to that which passes therein? We should prefer more modest names. But it is past all doubt that even to us a "thou shalt" is still speaking, even we still obey a stern law above us—and this is the last moral precept which impresses itself even upon us, which even we obey: in this respect, if in any, we are still conscientious people: viz., we do not wish to return to that which we consider outlived and decayed, to something "not worth believing," be it called God, virtue, truth, justice, charity, we do not approve of any deceptive bridges to old ideals; we are radically hostile to all that wants to mediate and to amalgamate with us; hostile to any actual religion and Christianity; hostile to all the vague, romantic, and patriotic feelings, hostile also to the love of pleasure and want of principle of the artists who would fain persuade us to worship when we no longer believe—for we are artists; hostile, in short, to this whole European Pessimism (or Idealism, if you prefer this name), which is ever "elevating" and, consequently, "degrading." Yet, as such conscientious people we immortalists and atheists of this day still feel subject to the German honesty and piety of thousands of years' standing, though as their most doubtful and last descendants; nay, in a certain sense, as their heirs, as executors of their most will, a pessimist will, as aforesaid, which is not afraid of denying itself, because it delights in taking a negative position. We ourselves are—suppose you want a formula—the con-summate self-dissolution of morals.
5
Last not least: Why should we so loudly and so eagerly proclaim what we are, wish, and do not wish? Let us view it in a colder, more distant, wiser and loftier light; let us proclaim it, as though to oneselves, in so soft a voice that all the world overhears it—that everybody hears us! Let is, above all, proclaim it slowly. This preface appears late, but not too late; what really do fire or six years matter? A book and a problem like these are in no hurry whatever: moreover we two— I as well as my book—are friends of the "lento." I have not been philologist in vain, perhaps I still am, that is, a teacher of slow reading. I even write slowly. It is not only my habit, but even my fancy—perhaps a malicious fancy —to write nothing else but what may drive everybody to despair who is "pressed for time." For philology is that venerable art which expects from its admirer one thing above all: to step aside, take his leisure, grow silent, slow—as the goldsmith's art which has to perform only fine, cautious work, and attains nothing, unless attaining it lento. For this reason philology is now more than ever required; for this reason it is the chief attraction and stimulus in the midst of an age of "work," that is, of haste, of unbecoming and excessive precipitation which is intent upon "despatching" everything at once, even every book old and new. As to itself, it will not so speedily dismiss everything; it teaches to read well, that is, slowly, deeply, attentively and cautiously, with secret thoughts, doors ajar, delicate fingers and eyes. My patient friends, this book only invites perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!
Ruta, near Genoa.
Autumn, 1886.