questions a subject of study has an immense field of labour before him.
All kinds of passions must be thought about singly, and followed singly
throughout periods, peoples, great and insignificant individuals; all
their rationality, all their valuations and elucidations of things,
ought to come to light! Hitherto all that has given colour to existence
has lacked a history: where would one find a history of love, of
avarice, of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty? Even a
comparative history of law, as also of punishment, has hitherto been
completely lacking. Have the different divisions of the day, the
consequences of a regular appointment of the times for labour, feast,
and repose, ever been made the object of investigation? Do we know the
moral effects of the alimentary substances? Is there a philosophy of
nutrition? (The ever-recurring outcry for and against vegetarianism
proves that as yet there is no such philosophy!) Have the experiences
with regard to communal living, for example, in monasteries, been
collected? Has the dialectic of marriage and friendship been set forth?
The customs of the learned, of trades-people, of artists, and of
mechanics—have they already found their thinkers? There is so much to
think of thereon! All that up till now has been considered as the
"conditions of existence," of human beings, and all reason, passion and
superstition in this consideration—have they been investigated to the
end? The observation alone of the different degrees of development which
the human impulses have attained, and could yet attain, according to the
different moral climates, would furnish too much work for the most
laborious; whole generations, and regular co-operating generations of
the learned, would be needed in order to exhaust the points of view and
the material here furnished. The same is true of the determining of the
reasons for the differences of the moral climates ("_on what account_
does this sun of a fundamental moral judgment and standard of highest
value shine here—and that sun there?"). And there is again a new labour
which points out the erroneousness of all these reasons, and determines
the entire essence of the moral judgments hitherto made. Supposing all
these labours to be accomplished, the most critical of all questions
would then come into the foreground: whether science is in a position to
_furnish_ goals for human action, after it has proved that it can take
them away and annihilate them—and then would be the time for a process
of experimenting in which every kind of heroism could satisfy itself, an
experimenting for centuries, which would put into the shade all the
great labours and sacrifices of previous history. Science has not
hitherto built its Cyclopic structures; for that also the time will
come.
8.
_Unconscious Virtues._—All qualities in a man of which he is
conscious—and especially when he presumes that they are visible and
evident to his environment also—are subject to quite other laws of
development than those qualities which are unknown to him, or
imperfectly known, which by their subtlety can also conceal themselves
from the subtlest observer, and hide as it were behind nothing,—as in
the case of the delicate sculptures on the scales of reptiles (it would
be an error to suppose them an adornment or a defence—for one sees them
only with the microscope; consequently, with an eye artificially
strengthened to an extent of vision which similar animals, to which they
might perhaps have meant adornment or defence, do not possess!) Our
visible moral qualities, and especially our moral qualities _believed to
be_ visible, follow their own course,—and our invisible qualities of
similar name, which in relation to others neither serve for adornment
nor defence, _also follow their own course_: quite a different course
probably, and with lines and refinements, and sculptures, which might
perhaps give pleasure to a God with a divine microscope. We have, for
example, our diligence, our ambition, our acuteness: all the world knows
about them,—and besides, we have probably once more _our_ diligence,
_our_ ambition, _our_ acuteness; but for these—our reptile scales—the
microscope has not yet been invented!—And here the adherents of
instinctive morality will say, "Bravo! He at least regards unconscious
virtues as possible—that suffices us!"—Oh, ye unexacting creatures!
9.
_Our Eruptions._—Numberless things which humanity acquired in its
earlier stages, but so weakly and embryonically that it could not be
noticed that they were acquired, are thrust suddenly into light long
afterwards, perhaps after the lapse of centuries: they have in the
interval become strong and mature. In some ages this or that talent,
this or that virtue seems to be entirely lacking, as it is in some men;
but let us wait only for the grandchildren and grandchildren's children,
if we have time to wait,—they bring the interior of their grandfathers
into the sun, that interior of which the grandfathers themselves were
unconscious. The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of his father; the
latter understands himself better since he has got his son. We have all
hidden gardens and plantations in us; and by another simile, we are all
growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of eruption:—how near or
how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not even the good God.
10.
_A Species of Atavism._—I like best to think of the rare men of an age
as suddenly emerging aftershoots of past cultures, and of their
persistent strength: like the atavism of a people and its
civilisation:—there is thus still something in them to _think of_! They
now seem strange, rare, and extraordinary: and he who feels these forces
in himself has to foster them in face of a different, opposing world; he
has to defend them, honour them, and rear them to maturity: and he
either becomes a great man thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person,
unless he should altogether break down betimes. Formerly these rare
qualities were usual, and were consequently regarded as common: they did
not distinguish people. Perhaps they were demanded and presupposed; it
was impossible to become great with them, for indeed there was also no
danger of becoming insane and solitary with them.—It is principally in
the _old-established_ families and castes of a people that such
after-effects of old impulses present themselves, while there is no
probability of such atavism where races, habits, and valuations change
too rapidly. For the _tempo_ of the evolutional forces in peoples
implies just as much as in music; for our case an _andante_ of evolution
is absolutely necessary, as the _tempo_ of a passionate and slow
spirit:—and the spirit of conserving families is certainly of _that_
sort.
11.
_Consciousness._—Consciousness is the last and latest development of the
organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least powerful of
these developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out of consciousness,
which, "in spite of fate," as Homer says, cause an animal or a man to
break down earlier than might be necessary. If the conserving bond of
the instincts were not very much more powerful, it would not generally
serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and dreaming with open eyes,
by superficiality and credulity, in short, just by consciousness,
mankind would necessarily have broken down: or rather, without the
former there would long ago have been nothing more of the latter! Before
a function is fully formed and matured, it is a danger to the organism:
all the better if it be then thoroughly tyrannised over! Consciousness
is thus thoroughly tyrannised over—and not least by the pride in it! It
is thought that here is _the quintessence_ of man; that which is
enduring, eternal, ultimate, and most original in him! Consciousness is
regarded as a fixed, given magnitude! Its growth and intermittences are
denied! It is accepted as the "unity of the organism"!—This ludicrous
overvaluation and misconception of consciousness, has as its result the
great utility, that a too rapid maturing of it has thereby been
_hindered_. Because men believed that they already possessed
consciousness, they gave themselves very little trouble to acquire
it—and even now it is not otherwise! It is still an entirely new
_problem_ just dawning on the human eye and hardly yet plainly
recognisable: _to embody knowledge in ourselves_ and make it
instinctive,—a problem which is only seen by those who have grasped the
fact that hitherto our _errors_ alone have been embodied in us, and that
all our consciousness is relative to errors!
12.
_The Goal of Science._—What? The ultimate goal of science is to create
the most pleasure possible to man, and the least possible pain? But what
if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who _wants_
the greatest possible amount of the one _must_ also have the greatest
possible amount of the other,—that he who wants to experience the
"heavenly high jubilation,"[7] must also be ready to be "sorrowful unto
death"?(ref. same footnote) And it is so, perhaps! The Stoics at least
believed it was so, and they were consistent when they wished to have
the least possible pleasure, in order to have the least possible pain
from life. (When one uses the expression: "The virtuous man is the
happiest," it is as much the sign-board of the school for the masses, as
a casuistic subtlety for the subtle.) At present also ye have still the
choice: either the _least possible pain_, in short painlessness—and
after all, socialists and politicians of all parties could not
honourably promise more to their people,—or the _greatest possible
amount of pain_, as the price of the growth of a fullness of refined
delights and enjoyments rarely tasted hitherto! If ye decide for the
former, if ye therefore want to depress and minimise man's capacity for
pain, well, ye must also depress and minimise his _capacity for
enjoyment_. In fact, one can further the one as well as the other goal
_by science_! Perhaps science is as yet best known by its capacity for
depriving man of enjoyment, and making him colder, more statuesque, and
more Stoical. But it might also turn out to be the _great
pain-bringer_!—And then, perhaps, its counteracting force would be
discovered simultaneously, its immense capacity for making new sidereal
worlds of enjoyment beam forth!
13.
_The Theory of the Sense of Power._—We exercise our power over others by
doing them good or by doing them ill—that is all we care for! _Doing
ill_ to those on whom we have to make our power felt; for pain is a far
more sensitive means for that purpose than pleasure:—pain always asks
concerning the cause, while pleasure is inclined to keep within itself
and not look backward. _Doing good_ and being kind to those who are in
any way already dependent on us (that is, who are accustomed to think of
us as their _raison d'être_); we want to increase their power, because
we thus increase our own; or we want to show them the advantage there is
in being in our power,—they thus become more contented with their
position, and more hostile to the enemies of _our_ power and readier to
contend with them. If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill,
it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake
our life in the cause, as martyrs for the sake of our church, it is a
sacrifice to _our_ longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving
our sense of power. He who under these circumstances feels that he "is
in possession of truth," how many possessions does he not let go, in
order to preserve this feeling! What does he not throw overboard, in
order to keep himself "up,"—that is to say, _above_ the others who lack
the "truth"! Certainly the condition we are in when we do ill is seldom
so pleasant, so purely pleasant, as that in which we practise
kindness,—it is an indication that we still lack power, or it betrays
ill-humour at this defect in us; it brings with it new dangers and
uncertainties as to the power we already possess, and clouds our horizon
by the prospect of revenge, scorn, punishment and failure. Perhaps only
those most susceptible to the sense of power, and eager for it, will
prefer to impress the seal of power on the resisting individual,—those
to whom the sight of the already subjugated person as the object of
benevolence is a burden and a tedium. It is a question how a person is
accustomed to _season_ his life; it is a matter of taste whether a
person would rather have the slow or the sudden, the safe or the
dangerous and daring increase of power,—he seeks this or that seasoning
always according to his temperament. An easy booty is something
contemptible to proud natures; they have an agreeable sensation only at
the sight of men of unbroken spirit who could be enemies to them, and
similarly, also, at the sight of all not easily accessible possession;
they are often hard toward the sufferer, for he is not worthy of their
effort or their pride,—but they show themselves so much the more
courteous towards their _equals_, with whom strife and struggle would in
any case be full of honour, _if_ at any time an occasion for it should
present itself. It is under the agreeable feelings of _this_ perspective
that the members of the knightly caste have habituated themselves to
exquisite courtesy toward one another.—Pity is the most pleasant feeling
in those who have not much pride, and have no prospect of great
conquests: the easy booty—and that is what every sufferer is—is for them
an enchanting thing. Pity is said to be the virtue of the gay lady.
14.
_What is called Love._—The lust of property and love: what different
associations each of these ideas evoke!—and yet it might be the same
impulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint
of those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained something
of repose, and who are now apprehensive for the safety of their
"possession"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of the
unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as "good." Our love of
our neighbour,—is it not a striving after new _property_? And similarly
our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the striving after
novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old, the securely
possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the finest landscape in
which we live for three months is no longer certain of our love, and any
kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness: the possession for
the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our pleasure in
ourselves seeks to maintain itself, by always transforming something new
_into ourselves_,—that is just possessing. To become satiated with a
possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves. (One can also
suffer from excess,—even the desire to cast away, to share out, can
assume the honourable name of "love.") When we see any one suffering, we
willingly utilise the opportunity then afforded to take possession of
him; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for example, does this; he also
calls the desire for new possession awakened in him, by the name of
"love," and has enjoyment in it, as in a new acquisition suggesting
itself to him. The love of the sexes, however, betrays itself most
plainly as the striving after possession: the lover wants the
unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed for by him; he wants
just as absolute power over her soul as over her body; he wants to be
loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as what is highest
and most to be desired. When one considers that this means precisely to
_exclude_ all the world from a precious possession, a happiness, and an
enjoyment; when one considers that the lover has in view the
impoverishment and privation of all other rivals, and would like to
become the dragon of his golden hoard, as the most inconsiderate and
selfish of all "conquerors" and exploiters; when one considers finally
that to the lover himself, the whole world besides appears indifferent,
colourless, and worthless, and that he is ready to make every sacrifice,
disturb every arrangement, and put every other interest behind his
own,—one is verily surprised that this ferocious lust of property and
injustice of sexual love should have been glorified and deified to such
an extent at all times; yea, that out of this love the conception of
love as the antithesis of egoism should have been derived, when it is
perhaps precisely the most unqualified expression of egoism. Here,
evidently, the non-possessors and desirers have determined the usage of
language,—there were, of course, always too many of them. Those who have
been favoured with much possession and satiety, have, to be sure,
dropped a word now and then about the "raging demon," as, for instance,
the most lovable and most beloved of all the Athenians—Sophocles; but
Eros always laughed at such revilers,—they were always his greatest
favourites.—There is, of course, here and there on this terrestrial
sphere a kind of sequel to love, in which that covetous longing of two
persons for one another has yielded to a new desire and covetousness, to
a _common_, higher thirst for a superior ideal standing above them: but
who knows this love? Who has experienced it? Its right name is
_friendship_.
15.
_Out of the Distance._—This mountain makes the whole district which it
dominates charming in every way, and full of significance: after we have
said this to ourselves for the hundredth time, we are so irrationally
and so gratefully disposed towards it, as the giver of this charm, that
we fancy it must itself be the most charming thing in the district—and
so we climb it, and are undeceived. All of a sudden, it itself, and the
whole landscape around and under us, is as it were disenchanted; we had
forgotten that many a greatness, like many a goodness, wants only to be
seen at a certain distance, and entirely from below, not from above,—it
is thus only that _it operates_. Perhaps you know men in your
neighbourhood who can only look at themselves from a certain distance to
find themselves at all endurable, or attractive and enlivening; they are
to be dissuaded from self-knowledge.
16.
_Across the Plank._—One must be able to dissimulate in intercourse with
persons who are ashamed of their feelings; they experience a sudden
aversion towards anyone who surprises them in a state of tender, or
enthusiastic and high-running feeling, as if he had seen their secrets.
If one wants to be kind to them in such moments one should make them
laugh, or say some kind of cold, playful wickedness:—their feeling
thereby congeals, and they are again self-possessed. But I give the
moral before the story.—We were once on a time so near one another in
the course of our lives, that nothing more seemed to hinder our
friendship and fraternity, and there was merely a small plank between
us. While you were just about to step on it, I asked you: "Do you want
to come across the plank to me?" But then you did not want to come any
longer; and when I again entreated, you were silent. Since then
mountains and torrents, and whatever separates and alienates, have
interposed between us, and even if we wanted to come to one another, we
could no longer do so! When, however, you now remember that small plank,
you have no longer words,—but merely sobs and amazement.
17.
_Motivation of Poverty._—We cannot, to be sure, by any artifice make a
rich and richly-flowing virtue out of a poor one, but we can gracefully
enough reinterpret its poverty into necessity, so that its aspect no
longer gives pain to us, and we do not make any reproachful faces at
fate on account of it. It is thus that the wise gardener does, who puts
the tiny streamlet of his garden into the arms of a fountain-nymph, and
thus motivates the poverty:—and who would not like him need the nymphs!
18.
_Ancient Pride._—The ancient savour of nobility is lacking in us,
because the ancient slave is lacking in our sentiment. A Greek of noble
descent found such immense intermediate stages, and such a distance
betwixt his elevation and that ultimate baseness, that he could hardly
even see the slave plainly: even Plato no longer saw him entirely. It is
otherwise with us, accustomed as we are to the _doctrine_ of the
equality of men, although not to the equality itself. A being who has
not the free disposal of himself and has not got leisure,—that is not
regarded by us as anything contemptible; there is perhaps too much of
this kind of slavishness in each of us, in accordance with the
conditions of our social order and activity, which are fundamentally
different from those of the ancients.—The Greek philosopher went through
life with the secret feeling that there were many more slaves than
people supposed—that is to say, that every one was a slave who was not a
philosopher. His pride was puffed up when he considered that even the
mightiest of the earth were thus to be looked upon as slaves. This pride
is also unfamiliar to us, and impossible; the word "slave" has not its
full force for us even in simile.
19.
_Evil._—Test the life of the best and most productive men and nations,
and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly heavenward
can dispense with bad weather and tempests: whether disfavour and
opposition from without, whether every kind of hatred, jealousy,
stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to
the _favouring_ circumstances without which a great growth even in
virtue is hardly possible? The poison by which the weaker nature is
destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual—and he does not call
it poison.
20.
_Dignity of Folly._—Several millenniums further on in the path of the
last century!—and in everything that man does the highest prudence will
be exhibited: but just thereby prudence will have lost all its dignity.
It will then, sure enough, be necessary to be prudent, but it will also
be so usual and common, that a more fastidious taste will feel this
necessity as _vulgarity_. And just as a tyranny of truth and science
would be in a position to raise the value of falsehood, a tyranny of
prudence could force into prominence a new species of nobleness. To be
noble—that might then mean, perhaps, to be capable of follies.
21.