for waging war against a passion, by those who are too weak of will,
too degenerate, to impose some sort of moderation upon it; by those
natures who, to speak in metaphor (—and without metaphor), need
_la Trappe,_ or some kind of ultimatum of war, a _gulf_ set between
themselves and a passion. Only degenerates find radical methods
indispensable: weakness of will, or more strictly speaking, the
inability not to react to a stimulus, is in itself simply another form
of degeneracy. Radical and mortal hostility to sensuality, remains a
suspicious symptom: it justifies one in being suspicious of the general
state of one who goes to such extremes. Moreover, that hostility and
hatred reach their height only when such natures no longer possess
enough strength of character to adopt the radical remedy, to renounce
their inner “Satan.” Look at the whole history of the priests, the
philosophers, and the artists as well: the most poisonous diatribes
against the senses have not been said by the impotent, nor by the
ascetics; but by those impossible ascetics, by those who found it
necessary to be ascetics.
3
The spiritualisation of sensuality is called _love:_ it is a great
triumph over Christianity. Another triumph is our spiritualisation of
hostility. It consists in the fact that we are beginning to realise
very profoundly the value of having enemies: in short that with them
we are forced to do and to conclude precisely the reverse of what
we previously did and concluded. In all ages the Church wished to
annihilate its enemies: we, the immoralists and Antichrists, see our
advantage in the survival of the Church. Even in political life,
hostility has now become more spiritual,—much more cautious, much
more thoughtful, and much more moderate. Almost every party sees its
self-preservative interests in preventing the Opposition from going
to pieces; and the same applies to politics on a grand scale. A new
creation, more particularly, like the new Empire, has more need
of enemies than friends: only as a contrast does it begin to feel
necessary, only as a contrast does it _become_ necessary. And we behave
in precisely the same way to the “inner enemy”: in this quarter too we
have spiritualised enmity, in this quarter too we have understood its
value. A man is productive only in so far as he is rich in contrasted
instincts; he can remain young only on condition that his soul does
not begin to take things easy and to yearn for peace. Nothing has
grown more alien to us than that old desire—the “peace of the soul,”
which is the aim of Christianity. Nothing could make us less envious
than the moral cow and the plump happiness of a clean conscience. The
man who has renounced war has renounced a grand life. In many cases,
of course, “peace of the soul” is merely a misunderstanding,—it is
something _very different_ which has failed to find a more honest name
for itself. Without either circumlocution or prejudice I will suggest a
few cases. “Peace of the soul” may for instance be the sweet effulgence
of rich animality in the realm of morality (or religion). Or the first
presage of weariness, the first shadow that evening, every kind of
evening, is wont to cast. Or a sign that the air is moist, and that
winds are blowing up from the south. Or unconscious gratitude for a
good digestion (sometimes called “brotherly love”). Or the serenity
of the convalescent, on whose lips all things have a new taste, and
who bides his time. Or the condition which follows upon a thorough
gratification of our strongest passion, the well-being of unaccustomed
satiety. Or the senility of our will, of our desires, and of our vices.
Or laziness, coaxed by vanity into togging itself out in a moral garb.
Or the ending of a state of long suspense and of agonising uncertainty,
by a state of certainty, of even terrible certainty. Or the expression
of ripeness and mastery in the midst of a task, of a creative work, of
a production, of a thing willed, the calm breathing that denotes that
“freedom of will” has been attained. Who knows?—maybe _The Twilight
of the Idols_ is only a sort of “peace of the soul.”
4
I will formulate a principle. All naturalism in morality—that is to
say, every sound morality is ruled by a life instinct,—any one of
the laws of life is fulfilled by the definite canon “thou shalt,”
“thou shalt not,” and any sort of obstacle or hostile element in the
road of life is thus cleared away. Conversely, the morality which is
antagonistic to nature—that is to say, almost every morality that has
been taught, honoured and preached hitherto, is directed precisely
against the life-instincts,—it is a condemnation, now secret, now
blatant and impudent, of these very instincts. Inasmuch as it says “God
sees into the heart of man,” it says Nay to the profoundest and most
superior desires of life and takes God as the enemy of life. The saint
in whom God is well pleased, is the ideal eunuch. Life terminates where
the “Kingdom of God” begins.
5
Admitting that you have understood the villainy of such a mutiny
against life as that which has become almost sacrosanct in Christian
morality, you have fortunately understood something besides; and that
is the futility, the fictitiousness, the absurdity and the falseness
of such a mutiny. For the condemnation of life by a living creature is
after all but the symptom of a definite kind of life: the question as
to whether the condemnation is justified or the reverse is not even
raised. In order even to approach the problem of the value of life,
a man would need to be placed outside life, and moreover know it as
well as one, as many, as all in fact, who have lived it These are
reasons enough to prove to us that this problem is an inaccessible one
to us. When we speak of values, we speak under the inspiration, and
through the optics of life: life itself urges us to determine values:
life itself values through us when we determine values. From which it
follows that even that morality which is antagonistic to life, and
which conceives God as the opposite and the condemnation of life, is
only a valuation of life—of what life? of what kind of life? But I
have already answered this question: it is the valuation of declining,
of enfeebled, of exhausted and of condemned life. Morality, as it has
been understood hitherto—as it was finally formulated by Schopenhauer
in the words “The Denial of the Will to Life,” is the instinct of
degeneration itself, which converts itself into an imperative: it says:
“Perish!” It is the death sentence of men who are already doomed.
6
Let us at last consider how exceedingly simple it is on our part to
say: “Man should be thus and thus!” Reality shows us a marvellous
wealth of types, and a luxuriant variety of forms and changes: and yet
the first wretch of a moral loafer that comes along cries “No! Man
should be different!” He even knows what man should be like, does this
sanctimonious prig: he draws his own face on the wall and declares:
“_ecce homo!_” But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the
individual and says “thus and thus shouldst thou be!” he still makes
an ass of himself. The individual in his past and future is a piece of
fate, one law the more, one necessity the more for all that is to come
and is to be. To say to him “change thyself,” is tantamount to saying
that everything should change, even backwards as well. Truly these have
been consistent moralists, they wished man to be different, _i.e._,
virtuous; they wished him to be after their own image,—that is to say
sanctimonious humbugs. And to this end they denied the world! No slight
form of insanity! No modest form of immodesty! Morality, in so far it
condemns _per se,_ and _not_ out of any aim, consideration or motive of
life, is a specific error, for which no one should feel any mercy, a
degenerate idiosyncrasy, that has done an unutterable amount of harm.
We others, we immoralists, on the contrary, have opened our hearts
wide to all kinds of comprehension, understanding and approbation.[1]
We do not deny readily, we glory in saying yea to things. Our eyes
have opened ever wider and wider to that economy which still employs
and knows how to use to its own advantage all that which the sacred
craziness of priests and the morbid reason in priests, rejects; to
that economy in the law of life which draws its own advantage even out
of the repulsive race of bigots, the priests and the virtuous,—what
advantage?—But we ourselves, we immoralists, are the reply to this
question.
[1] _Cf._ Spinoza, who says in the _Tractatus politico_ (1677), Chap.
I, § 4: _“Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non tugert,
negue detestari, sed intelligere”_ (“I have carefully endeavoured not
to deride, or deplore, or detest human actions, but to understand
them.”).—TR.
THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS
1
_The error of the confusion of cause and effect.—_There is no more
dangerous error than to confound the effect with the cause: I call
this error the intrinsic perversion of reason. Nevertheless this error
is one of the most ancient and most recent habits of mankind. In one
part of the world it has even been canonised; and it bears the name of
“Religion” and “Morality.” Every postulate formulated by religion and
morality contains it. Priests and the promulgators of moral laws are the
promoters of this perversion of reason.—Let me give you an example.
Everybody knows the book of the famous Cornaro, in which he recommends
his slender diet as the recipe for a long, happy and also virtuous
life. Few books have been so widely read, and to this day many thousand
copies of it are still printed annually in England. I do not doubt that
there is scarcely a single book (the Bible of course excepted) that
has worked more mischief, shortened more lives, than this well-meant
curiosity. The reason of this is the confusion of effect and cause.
This worthy Italian saw the cause of his long life in his diet: whereas
the prerequisites of long life, which are exceptional slowness of
molecular change, and a low rate of expenditure in energy, were the
cause of his meagre diet He was not at liberty to eat a small or a
great amount. His frugality was not the result of free choice, he would
have been ill had he eaten more. He who does not happen to be a carp,
however, is not only wise to eat well, but is also compelled to do so.
A scholar of the present day, with his rapid consumption of nervous
energy, would soon go to the dogs on Cornaro’s diet. _Crede experto._—
2
The most general principle lying at the root of every religion and
morality, is this: “Do this and that and avoid this and that—and
thou wilt be happy. Otherwise——.” Every morality and every
religion is this Imperative—I call it the great original sin of
reason,—_immortal unreason._ In my mouth this principle is converted
into its opposite—first example of my “Transvaluation of all Values”:
a well-constituted man, a man who is one of “Nature’s lucky strokes,”
_must_ perform certain actions and instinctively fear other actions;
he introduces the element of order, of which he is the physiological
manifestation, into his relations with men and things. In a formula:
his virtue is the consequence of his good constitution. Longevity
and plentiful offspring are not the reward of virtue, virtue itself
is on the contrary that retardation of the metabolic process which,
among other things, results in a long life and in plentiful offspring,
in short in _Cornarism._ The Church and morality say: “A race, a
people perish through vice and luxury.” My reinstated reason says:
when a people are going to the dogs, when they are degenerating
physiologically, vice and luxury (that is to say, the need of ever
stronger and more frequent stimuli such as all exhausted natures are
acquainted with) are bound to result. Such and such a young man grows
pale and withered prematurely. His friends say this or that illness
is the cause of it I say: the fact that he became ill, the fact that
he did not resist illness, was in itself already the outcome of
impoverished life, of hereditary exhaustion. The newspaper reader says:
such and such a party by committing such an error will meet its death.
My superior politics say: a party that can make such mistakes, is in
its last agony—it no longer possesses any certainty of instinct. Every
mistake is in every sense the sequel to degeneration of the instincts,
to disintegration of the will. This is almost the definition of evil,
Everything valuable is instinct—and consequently easy, necessary,
free. Exertion is an objection, the god is characteristically different
from the hero (in my language: light feet are the first attribute of
divinity).
3
_The error of false causality._ In all ages men have believed that
they knew what a cause was: but whence did we derive this knowledge,
or more accurately, this faith in the fact that we know? Out of the
realm of the famous “inner facts of consciousness,” not one of which
has yet proved itself to be a fact We believed ourselves to be causes
even in the action of the will; we thought that in this matter at
least we caught causality red-handed. No one doubted that all the
_antecedentia_ of an action were to be sought in consciousness, and
could be discovered there—as “motive”—if only they were sought.
Otherwise we should not be free to perform them, we should not have
been responsible for them. Finally who would have questioned that a
thought is caused? that the ego causes the thought? Of these three
“facts of inner consciousness” by means of which causality seemed to
be guaranteed, the first and most convincing is that of the will as
cause; the conception of consciousness (“spirit”) as a cause, and
subsequently that of the ego (the “subject”) as a cause, were merely
born afterwards, once the causality of the will stood established
as “given,” as a fact of experience. Meanwhile we have come to our
senses. To-day we no longer believe a word of all this. The “inner
world” is full of phantoms and will-o’-the-wisps: the will is one of
these. The will no longer actuates, consequently it no longer explains
anything—all it does is to accompany processes; it may even be absent.
The so-called “motive” is another error. It is merely a ripple on
the surface of consciousness, a side issue of the action, which is
much more likely to conceal than to reveal the _antecedentia_ of the
latter. And as for the ego! It has become legendary, fictional, a
play upon words: it has ceased utterly and completely from thinking,
feeling, and willing! What is the result of it all? There are no such
things as spiritual causes. The whole of popular experience on this
subject went to the devil! That is the result of it all. For we had
blissfully abused that experience, we had built the world upon it as a
world of causes, as a world of will, as a world of spirit. The most
antiquated and most traditional psychology has been at work here, it
has done nothing else: all phenomena were deeds in the light of this
psychology, and all deeds were the result of will; according to it the
world was a complex mechanism of agents, an agent (a “subject”) lay
at the root of all things. Man projected his three “inner facts of
consciousness,” the will, the spirit, and the ego in which he believed
most firmly, outside himself. He first deduced the concept Being out
of the concept Ego, he supposed “things” to exist as he did himself,
according to his notion of the ego as cause. Was it to be wondered at
that later on he always found in things only that which he had laid
in them?—The thing itself, I repeat, the concept thing was merely a
reflex of the belief in the ego as cause. And even your atom, my dear
good Mechanists and Physicists, what an amount of error, of rudimentary
psychology still adheres to it!—Not to speak of the “thing-in-itself,”
of the _horrendum pudendum_ of the metaphysicians! The error of spirit
regarded as a cause, confounded with reality! And made the measure of
reality! And called _God!_
4
_The Error of imaginary Causes._ Starting out from dreamland, we
find that to any definite sensation, like that produced by a distant
cannon shot for instance, we are wont to ascribe a cause after the
fact (very often quite a little romance in which the dreamer himself
is, of course, the hero). Meanwhile the sensation becomes protracted
like a sort of continuous echo, until, as it were, the instinct of
causality allows it to come to the front rank, no longer however as a
chance occurrence, but as a thing which has some meaning. The cannon
shot presents itself in a _causal_ manner, by means of an apparent
reversal in the order of time. That which occurs last, the motivation,
is experienced first, often with a hundred details which flash past
like lightning, and the shot is the _result._ What has happened? The
ideas suggested by a particular state of our senses, are misinterpreted
as the cause of that state. As a matter of fact we proceed in precisely
the same manner when we are awake. The greater number of our general
sensations—every kind of obstacle, pressure, tension, explosion in
the interplay of the organs, and more particularly the condition of
the _nervus sympathies_—stimulate our instinct of causality: we will
have a reason which will account for our feeling thus or thus,—for
feeling ill or well. We are never satisfied by merely ascertaining
the fact that we feel thus or thus: we admit this fact—we become
conscious of it—only when we have attributed it to some kind of
motivation. Memory, which, in such circumstances unconsciously becomes
active, adduces former conditions of a like kind, together with the
causal interpretations with which they are associated,—but not their
real cause. The belief that the ideas, the accompanying processes
of consciousness, have been the causes, is certainly produced by
the agency of memory. And in this way we become _accustomed_ to a
particular interpretation of causes which, truth to tell, actually
hinders and even utterly prevents the investigation of the proper
cause.
5
_The Psychological Explanation of the above Fact._ To trace something
unfamiliar back to something familiar, is at once a relief, a comfort
and a satisfaction, while it also produces a feeling of power. The
unfamiliar involves danger, anxiety and care,—the fundamental instinct
is to get rid of these painful circumstances. First principle: any
explanation is better than none at all. Since, at bottom, it is
only a question of shaking one’s self free from certain oppressive
ideas, the means employed to this end are not selected with overmuch
punctiliousness: the first idea by means of which the unfamiliar is
revealed as familiar, produces a feeling of such comfort that it is
“held to be true.” The proof of happiness (“of power”) as the criterion
of truth. The instinct of causality is therefore conditioned and
stimulated by the feeling of fear. Whenever possible, the question
“why?” should not only educe the cause as cause, but rather a certain
kind of cause—a comforting, liberating and reassuring cause. The first
result of this need is that something known or already experienced, and
recorded in the memory, is posited as the cause. The new factor, that
which has not been experienced and which is unfamiliar, is excluded
from the sphere of causes. Not only do we try to find a certain kind
of explanation as the cause, but those kinds of explanations are
selected and preferred which dissipate most rapidly the sensation of
strangeness, novelty and unfamiliarity,—in fact the most ordinary
explanations. And the result is that a certain manner of postulating
causes tends to predominate ever more and more, becomes concentrated
into a system, and finally reigns supreme, to the complete exclusion
of all other causes and explanations. The banker thinks immediately of
business, the Christian of “sin,” and the girl of her love affair.
6
_The whole Domain of Morality and Religion may be classified under the
Rubric “Imaginary Causes.”_ The “explanation” of general unpleasant
sensations. These sensations are dependent upon certain creatures who
are hostile to us (evil spirits: the most famous example of this—the
mistaking of hysterical women for witches). These sensations are
dependent upon actions which are reprehensible (the feeling of “sin,”
“sinfulness” is a manner of accounting for a certain physiological
disorder—people always find reasons for being dissatisfied with
themselves). These sensations depend upon punishment, upon compensation
for something which we ought not to have done, which we ought not
to have been (this idea was generalised in a more impudent form by
Schopenhauer, into that principle in which morality appears in its real
colours,—that is to say, as a veritable poisoner and slanderer of
life: “all great suffering, whether mental or physical, reveals what
we deserve: for it could not visit us if we did not deserve it,” “The
World as Will and Idea,” vol. 2, p. 666). These sensations are the
outcome of ill-considered actions, having evil consequences, (—the
passions, the senses, postulated as causes, as guilty. By means of
other calamities distressing physiological conditions are interpreted
as “merited”).—The “explanation” of pleasant sensations. These
sensations are dependent upon a trust in God. They may depend upon
our consciousness of having done one or two good actions (a so-called
“good conscience” is a physiological condition, which may be the
outcome of good digestion). They may depend upon the happy issue of
certain undertakings (—an ingenuous mistake: the happy issue of an
undertaking certainly does not give a hypochondriac or a Pascal any
general sensation of pleasure). They may depend upon faith, love and
hope,—the Christian virtues. As a matter of fact all these pretended
explanations are but the results of certain states, and as it were
translations of feelings of pleasure and pain into a false dialect: a
man is in a condition of hopefulness because the dominant physiological
sensation of his being is again one of strength and wealth; he trusts
in God because the feeling of abundance and power gives him a peaceful
state of mind. Morality and religion are completely and utterly parts
of the psychology of error: in every particular case cause and effect
are confounded; as truth is confounded with the effect of that which is
believed to be true; or a certain state of consciousness is confounded
with the chain of causes which brought it about.
7
_The Error of Free-Will._ At present we no longer have any mercy upon
the concept “free-will”: we know only too well what it is—the most
egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of
making mankind “responsible” in a theological manner,—that is to
say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians. I will now explain
to you only the psychology of the whole process of inculcating the
sense of responsibility. Wherever men try to trace responsibility
home to anyone, it is the instinct of punishment and of the desire
to judge which is active. Becoming is robbed of its innocence when
any particular condition of things is traced to a will, to intentions
and to responsible actions. The doctrine of the will was invented
principally for the purpose of punishment,—that is to say, with
the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology,
or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its
originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities,
wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments—or
the right for God to do so. Men were thought of as “free” in order that
they might be judged and punished—in order that they might be held
guilty: consequently every action had to be regarded as voluntary,
and the origin of every action had to be imagined as lying in
consciousness(—in this way the most fundamentally fraudulent character
of psychology was established as the very principle of psychology
itself). Now that we have entered upon the opposite movement, now that
we immoralists are trying with all our power to eliminate the concepts
of guilt and punishment from the world once more, and to cleanse
psychology, history, nature and all social institutions and customs
of all signs of those two concepts, we recognise no more radical
opponents than the theologians, who with their notion of “a moral order
of things,” still continue to pollute the innocence of Becoming with
punishment and guilt Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman.
8