tackle our problem. What is the meaning of the ascetic ideal? It now
first becomes serious--vitally serious. We are now confronted with the
_real representatives of the serious_. "What is the meaning of all
seriousness?" This even more radical question is perchance already
on the tip of our tongue: a question, fairly, for physiologists, but
which we for the time being skip. In that ideal the ascetic priest
finds not only his faith, but also his will, his power, his interest.
His _right_ to existence stands and falls with that ideal. What wonder
that we here run up against a terrible opponent (on the supposition,
of course, that we are the opponents of that ideal), an opponent
fighting for his life against those who repudiate that ideal!. .. On
the other hand, it is from the outset improbable that such a biased
attitude towards our problem will do him any particular good; the
ascetic priest himself will scarcely prove the happiest champion of
his own ideal (on the same principle on which a woman usually fails
when she wishes to champion "woman")--let alone proving the most
objective critic and judge of the controversy now raised. We shall
therefore--so much is already obvious--rather have actually to help
him to defend himself properly against ourselves, than we shall have
to fear being too well beaten by him. The idea, which is the subject
of this dispute, is the value of our life from the standpoint of the
ascetic priests: this life, then (together with the whole of which it
is a part, "Nature," "the world," the whole sphere of becoming and
passing away), is placed by them in relation to an existence of quite
another character, which it excludes and to which it is opposed, unless
it _deny_ its own self: in this case, the case of an ascetic life,
life is taken as a bridge to another existence. The ascetic treats
life as a maze, in which one must walk backwards till one comes to the
place where it starts; or he treats it as an error which one may, nay
_must_, refute by action: for he demands that he should be followed;
he enforces, where he can, his valuation of existence. What does this
mean? Such a monstrous valuation is not an exceptional case, or a
curiosity recorded in human history: it is one of the most general
and persistent facts that there are. The reading from the vantage
of a distant star of the capital letters of our earthly life, would
perchance lead to the conclusion that the earth was the especially
_ascetic planet_, a den of discontented, arrogant, and repulsive
creatures, who never got rid of a deep disgust of themselves, of the
world, of all life, and did themselves as much hurt as possible out
of pleasure in hurting--presumably their one and only pleasure. Let
us consider how regularly, how universally, how practically at every
single period the ascetic priest puts in his appearance: he belongs to
no particular race; he thrives everywhere; he grows out of all classes.
Not that he perhaps bred this valuation by heredity and propagated
it--the contrary is the case. It must be a necessity of the first order
which makes this species, hostile, as it is, to _life_, always grow
again and always thrive again.--_Life_ itself must certainly _have an
interest_ in the continuance of such a type of self-contradiction. For
an ascetic life is a self-contradiction: here rules resentment without
parallel, the resentment of an insatiate instinct and ambition, that
would be master, not over some element in life, but over life itself,
over life's deepest, strongest, innermost conditions; here is an
attempt made to utilise power to dam the sources of power; here does
the green eye of jealousy turn even against physiological well-being,
especially against the expression of such well-being, beauty, joy;
while a sense of pleasure is experienced and _sought_ in abortion, in
decay, in pain, in misfortune, in ugliness, in voluntary punishment,
in the exercising, flagellation, and sacrifice of the self. All this
is in the highest degree paradoxical: we are here confronted with a
rift that _wills_ itself to be a rift, which _enjoys_ itself in this
very _suffering_, and even becomes more and more certain of itself,
more and more triumphant, in proportion as its own presupposition,
physiological vitality, _decreases_. "The triumph just in the supreme
agony ": under this extravagant emblem did the ascetic ideal fight from
of old; in this mystery of seduction, in this picture of rapture and
torture, it recognised its brightest light, its salvation, its final
victory. _Crux, nux, lux_--it has all these three in one.
12.
Granted that such an incarnate will for contradiction and unnaturalness
is induced to _philosophise_; on what will it vent its pet caprice?
On that which has been felt with the greatest certainty to be true,
to be real; it will look for _error_ in those very places where the
life instinct fixes truth with the greatest positiveness. It will, for
instance, after the example of the ascetics of the Vedanta Philosophy,
reduce matter to an illusion, and similarly treat pain, multiplicity,
the whole logical contrast of "_Subject_" and "_Object_"--errors,
nothing but errors! To renounce the belief in one's own ego, to
deny to one's self one's own "reality"--what a triumph! and here
already we have a much higher kind of triumph, which is not merely
a triumph over the senses, over the palpable, but an infliction of
violence and cruelty on _reason_; and this ecstasy culminates in the
ascetic self-contempt, the ascetic scorn of one's own reason making
this decree: _there is_ a domain of truth and of life, but reason is
specially _excluded_ therefrom.. .. By the bye, even in the Kantian
idea of "the intellegible character of things" there remains a trace
of that schism, so dear to the heart of the ascetic, that schism
which likes to turn reason against reason; in fact, "intelligible
character" means in Kant a kind of quality in things of which the
intellect comprehends this much, that for it, the intellect, it is
_absolutely incomprehensible_. After all, let us, in our character
of knowers, not be ungrateful towards such determined reversals of
the ordinary perspectives and values, with which the mind had for
too long raged against itself with an apparently futile sacrilege!
In the same way the very seeing of another vista, the very _wishing_
to see another vista, is no little training and preparation of the
intellect for its eternal "_Objectivity_"--objectivity being understood
not as "contemplation without interest" (for that is inconceivable
and non-sensical), but as the ability to have the pros and cons _in
one's power_ and to switch them on and off, so as to get to know how
to utilise, for the advancement of knowledge, the _difference_ in
the perspective and in the emotional interpretations. But let us,
forsooth, my philosophic colleagues, henceforward guard ourselves more
carefully against this mythology of dangerous ancient ideas, which has
set up a "pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge";
let us guard ourselves from the tentacles of such contradictory ideas
as "pure reason," "absolute spirituality," "knowledge-in-itself":--in
these theories an eye that cannot be thought of is required to think,
an eye which ex hypothesi has no direction at all, an eye in which
the active and interpreting functions are cramped, are absent; those
functions, I say, by means of which "abstract" seeing first became
seeing something; in these theories consequently the absurd and the
non-sensical is always demanded of the eye. There is only a seeing
from a perspective, only a "knowing" from a perspective, and the more
emotions we express over a thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we
train on the same thing, the more complete will be our "idea" of that
thing, our "objectivity." But the elimination of the will altogether,
the switching off of the emotions all and sundry, granted that we could
do so, what! would not that be called intellectual castration?
13.
But let us turn back. Such a self-contradiction, as apparently
manifests itself among the ascetics, "Life turned against Life,"
is--this much is absolutely obvious--from the physiological and not now
from the psychological standpoint, simply nonsense. It can only be an
apparent contradiction; it must be a kind of provisional expression, an
explanation, a formula, an adjustment, a psychological misunderstanding
of something, whose real nature could not be understood for a long
time, and whose _real essence_ could not be described; a mere word
jammed into an old _gap_ of human knowledge. To put briefly the
facts against its being real: _the ascetic ideal springs from the
prophylactic and self-preservative instincts which mark a decadent
life_, which seeks by every means in its power to maintain its position
and fight for its existence; it points to a partial physiological
depression and exhaustion, against which the most profound and intact
life-instincts fight ceaselessly with new weapons and discoveries. The
ascetic ideal is such a weapon: its position is consequently exactly
the reverse of that which the worshippers of the ideal imagine--life
struggles in it and through it with death and against death; the
ascetic ideal is a dodge for the _preservation_ of life. An important
fact is brought out in the extent to which, as history teaches, this
ideal could rule and exercise power over man, especially in all those
places where the civilisation and taming of man was completed: that
fact is, the diseased state of man up to the present, at any rate, of
the man who has been tamed, the physiological struggle of man with
death (more precisely, with the disgust with life, with exhaustion,
with the wish for the "end"). The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish
for an existence of another kind, an existence on another plane,--he
is, in fact, the highest point of this wish, its official ecstasy and
passion: but it is the very _power_ of this wish which is the fetter
that binds him here; it is just that which makes him into a tool that
must labour to create more favourable conditions for earthly existence,
for existence on the human plane--it is with this very power that he
keeps the whole herd of failures, distortions, abortions, unfortunates,
_sufferers from themselves_ of every kind, fast to existence, while
he as the herdsman goes instinctively on in front. You understand
me already: this ascetic priest, this apparent enemy of life, this
denier--he actually belongs to the really great _conservative_ and
_affirmative_ forces of life.... What does it come from, this diseased
state? For man is more diseased, more uncertain, more changeable,
more unstable than any other animal, there is no doubt of it--he is
the diseased animal: what does it spring from? Certainly he has also
dared, innovated, braved more, challenged fate more than all the other
animals put together; he, the great experimenter with himself, the
unsatisfied, the insatiate, who struggles for the supreme mastery with
beast, Nature, and gods, he, the as yet ever uncompelled, the ever
future, who finds no more any rest from his own aggressive strength,
goaded inexorably on by the spur of the future dug into the flesh of
the present:--how should not so brave and rich an animal also be the
most endangered, the animal with the longest and deepest sickness
among all sick animals?... Man is sick of it, oft enough there are
whole epidemics of this satiety (as about 1348, the time of the Dance
of Death): but even this very nausea, this tiredness, this disgust
with himself, all this is discharged from him with such force that
it is immediately made into a new fetter. His "nay," which he utters
to life, brings to light as though by magic an abundance of graceful
"yeas"; even when he _wounds_ himself, this master of destruction, of
self-destruction, it is subsequently the wound itself that forces him
to live.
14.
The more normal is this sickliness in man--and we cannot dispute
this normality--the higher honour should be paid to the rare cases
of psychical and physical powerfulness, the _windfalls_ of humanity,
and the more strictly should the sound be guarded from that worst of
air, the air of the sick-room. Is that done? The sick are the greatest
danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to
the strong, but from the weakest. Is that known? Broadly considered,
it is not for a minute the fear of man, whose diminution should be
wished for; for this fear forces the strong to be strong, to be at
times terrible--it preserves in its integrity the sound type of man.
What is to be feared, what does work with a fatality found in no other
fate, is not the great fear of, but the great _nausea_ with, man; and
equally so the great pity for man. Supposing that both these things
were one day to espouse each other, then inevitably the maximum of
monstrousness would immediately come into the world--the "last will"
of man, his will for nothingness, Nihilism. And, in sooth, the way is
well paved thereto. He who not only has his nose to smell with, but
also has eyes and ears, he sniffs almost wherever he goes to-day an
air something like that of a mad-house, the air of a hospital--I am
speaking, as stands to reason, of the cultured areas of mankind, of
every kind of "Europe" that there is in fact in the world. The _sick_
are the great danger of man, _not_ the evil, _not_ the "beasts of
prey." They who are from the outset botched, oppressed, broken, those
are they, the weakest are they, who most undermine the life beneath the
feet of man, who instil the most dangerous venom and scepticism into
our trust in life, in man, in ourselves. Where shall we escape from
it, from that covert look (from which we carry away a deep sadness),
from that averted look of him who is misborn from the beginning, that
look which betrays what such a man says to himself--that look which is
a groan?" Would that I were something else," so groans this look, "but
there is no hope. I am what I am: how could I get away from myself?
And, verily--_I am sick of myself!_" On such a soil of self-contempt,
a veritable swamp soil, grows that weed, that poisonous growth, and
all so tiny, so hidden, so ignoble, so sugary. Here teem the worms
of revenge and vindictiveness; here the air reeks of things secret
and unmentionable; here is ever spun the net of the most malignant
conspiracy--the conspiracy of the sufferers against the sound and the
victorious; here is the sight of the victorious _hated_. And what
lying so as not to acknowledge this hate as hate! What a show of big
words and attitudes, what an art of "righteous" calumniation! These
abortions! what a noble eloquence gushes from their lips! What an
amount of sugary, slimy, humble submission oozes in their eyes! What do
they really want? At any rate to _represent_ righteousness ness, love,
wisdom, superiority, that is the ambition of these "lowest ones," these
sick ones! And how clever does such an ambition make them! You cannot,
in fact, but admire the counterfeiter dexterity with which the stamp
of virtue, even the ring, the golden ring of virtue, is here imitated.
They have taken a lease of virtue absolutely for themselves, have these
weaklings and wretched invalids, there is no doubt of it; "We alone are
the good, the righteous," so do they speak, "we alone are the _homines
bonæ voluntatis_." They stalk about in our midst as living reproaches,
as warnings to us--as though health, fitness, strength, pride, the
sensation of power, were really vicious things in themselves, for
which one would have some day to do penance, bitter penance. Oh, how
they themselves are ready in their hearts to exact penance, how they
thirst after being _hangmen_!
Among them is an abundance of revengeful ones disguised as judges,
who ever mouth the word righteousness like a venomous spittle--with
mouth, I say, always pursed, always ready to spit at everything,
which does not wear a discontented look, but is of good cheer as it
goes on its way. Among them, again, is that most loathsome species
of the vain, the lying abortions, who make a point of representing
"beautiful souls," and perchance of bringing to the market as "purity
of heart" their distorted sensualism swathed in verses and other
bandages; the species of "self-comforters" and masturbators of their
own souls. The sick man's will to represent _some_ form or other of
superiority, his instinct for crooked paths, which lead to a tyranny
over the healthy--where can it not be found, this will to power of
the very weakest? The sick woman especially: no one surpasses her
in refinements for ruling, oppressing, tyrannising. The sick woman,
moreover, spares nothing living, nothing dead; she grubs up again the
most buried things (the Bogos say, "Woman is a hyena"). Look into
the background of every family, of every body, of every community:
everywhere the fight of the sick against the healthy--a silent fight
for the most part with minute poisoned powders, with pin-pricks, with
spiteful grimaces of patience, but also at times with that diseased
pharisaism of _pure_ pantomime, which plays for choice the rôle of
"righteous indignation." Right into the hallowed chambers of knowledge
can it make itself heard, can this hoarse yelping of sick hounds, this
rabid lying and frenzy of such "noble" Pharisees (I remind readers, who
have ears, once more of that Berlin apostle of revenge, Eugen Dühring,
who makes the most disreputable and revolting use in all present-day
Germany of moral refuse; Dühring, the paramount moral blusterer that
there is to-day, even among his own kidney, the Anti-Semites). They
are all men of resentment, are these physiological distortions and
worm-riddled objects, a whole quivering kingdom of burrowing revenge,
indefatigable and insatiable in its outbursts against the happy, and
equally so in disguises for revenge, in pretexts for revenge: when
will they really reach their final, fondest, most sublime triumph of
revenge? At that time, doubtless, when they succeed in pushing their
own misery, in fact, all misery, _into the consciousness_ of the happy;
so that the latter begin one day to be ashamed of their happiness,
and perchance say to themselves when they meet, "It is a shame to be
happy! _there is too much misery!_" ... But there could not possibly
be a greater and more fatal misunderstanding than that of the happy,
the fit, the strong in body and soul, beginning in this way to doubt
their right to happiness. Away with this "perverse world"! Away with
this shameful soddenness of sentiment! Preventing the sick making the
healthy sick--for that is what such a soddenness comes to--this ought
to be our supreme object in the world--but for this it is above all
essential that the healthy should remain _separated_ from the sick,
that they should even guard themselves from the look of the sick, that
they should not even associate with the sick. Or may it, perchance,
be their mission to be nurses or doctors? But they could not mistake
and disown their mission more grossly--the higher must not degrade
itself to be the tool of the lower, the pathos of distance must to all
eternity keep their missions also separate. The right of the happy to
existence, the right of bells with a full tone over the discordant
cracked bells, is verily a thousand times greater: they alone are the
_sureties_ of the future, they alone are _bound_ to man's future. What
they can, what they must do, that can the sick never do, should never
do! but if _they are to_ be enabled to do what _only_ they must do,
how can they possibly be free to play the doctor, the comforter, the
"Saviour" of the sick?... And therefore good air! good air! and away,
at any rate, from the neighbourhood of all the madhouses and hospitals
of civilisation! And therefore good company, _our own_ company, or
solitude, if it must be so! but away, at any rate, from the evil fumes
of internal corruption and the secret worm-eaten state of the sick!
that, forsooth, my friends, we may defend ourselves, at any rate for
still a time, against the two worst plagues that could have been
reserved for us--against the _great nausea with man_! against the_
great pity for man_!
15.