_good_, not in respect of the results they have for himself, but in
respect of the results which we expect therefrom for ourselves and for
society:—we have all along had very little unselfishness, very little
"non-egoism" in our praise of the virtues! For otherwise it could not
but have been seen that the virtues (such as diligence, obedience,
chastity, piety, justice) are mostly _injurious_ to their possessors, as
impulses which rule in them too vehemently and ardently, and do not want
to be kept in co-ordination with the other impulses by the reason. If
you have a virtue, an actual, perfect virtue (and not merely a kind of
impulse towards virtue!)—you are its _victim_! But your neighbour
praises your virtue precisely on that account! One praises the diligent
man though he injures his sight, or the originality and freshness of his
spirit, by his diligence; the youth is honoured and regretted who has
"worn himself out by work," because one passes the judgment that "for
society as a whole the loss of the best individual is only a small
sacrifice! A pity that this sacrifice should be necessary! A much
greater pity, it is true, if the individual should think differently,
and regard his preservation and development as more important than his
work in the service of society!" And so one regrets this youth, not on
his own account, but because a devoted _instrument_, regardless of
self—a so-called "good man," has been lost to society by his death.
Perhaps one further considers the question, whether it would not have
been more advantageous for the interests of society if he had laboured
with less disregard of himself, and had preserved himself
longer,—indeed, one readily admits an advantage therefrom, but one
esteems the other advantage, namely, that a _sacrifice_ has been made,
and that the disposition of the sacrificial animal has once more been
_obviously_ endorsed—as higher and more enduring. It is accordingly, on
the one part, the instrumental character in the virtues which is praised
when the virtues are praised, and on the other part, the blind, ruling
impulse in every virtue, which refuses to let itself be kept within
bounds by the general advantage to the individual; in short, what is
praised is the unreason in the virtues, in consequence of which the
individual allows himself to be transformed into a function of the
whole. The praise of the virtues is the praise of something which is
privately injurious to the individual; it is praise of impulses which
deprive man of his noblest self-love, and the power to take the best
care of himself. To be sure, for the teaching and embodying of virtuous
habits a series of effects of virtue are displayed, which make it appear
that virtue and private advantage are closely related,—and there is in
fact such a relationship! Blindly furious diligence, for example, the
typical virtue of an instrument, is represented as the way to riches and
honour, and as the most beneficial antidote to tedium and passion: but
people are silent concerning its danger, its greatest dangerousness.
Education proceeds in this manner throughout: it endeavours, by a series
of enticements and advantages, to determine the individual to a certain
mode of thinking and acting, which, when it has become habit, impulse
and passion, rules in him and over him, _in opposition to his ultimate
advantage_, but "for the general good." How often do I see that blindly
furious diligence does indeed create riches and honours, but at the same
time deprives the organs of the refinement by virtue of which alone an
enjoyment of riches and honours is possible; so that really the main
expedient for combating tedium and passion, simultaneously blunts the
senses and makes the spirit refractory towards new stimuli! (The busiest
of all ages—our age—does not know how to make anything out of its great
diligence and wealth, except always more and more wealth, and more and
more diligence; there is even more genius needed for laying out wealth
than for acquiring it!—Well, we shall have our "grandchildren"!) If the
education succeeds, every virtue of the individual is a public utility,
and a private disadvantage in respect to the highest private
end,—probably some psycho-æsthetic stunting, or even premature
dissolution. One should consider successively from the same standpoint
the virtues of obedience, chastity, piety, and justice. The praise of
the unselfish, self-sacrificing, virtuous person—he, consequently, who
does not expend his whole energy and reason for _his own_ conservation,
development, elevation, furtherance and augmentation of power, but lives
as regards himself unassumingly and thoughtlessly, perhaps even
indifferently or ironically,—this praise has in any case not originated
out of the spirit of unselfishness! The "neighbour" praises
unselfishness because _he profits by it_! If the neighbour were
"unselfishly" disposed himself, he would reject that destruction of
power, that injury for _his_ advantage, he would thwart such
inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his
unselfishness just by _not giving it a good name_! The fundamental
contradiction in that morality which at present stands in high honour is
here indicated: the _motives_ to such a morality are in antithesis to
its _principle_! That with which this morality wishes to prove itself,
refutes it out of its criterion of what is moral! The maxim, "Thou shalt
renounce thyself and offer thyself as a sacrifice," in order not to be
inconsistent with its own morality, could only be decreed by a being who
himself renounced his own advantage thereby, and who perhaps in the
required self-sacrifice of individuals brought about his own
dissolution. As soon, however, as the neighbour (or society) recommended
altruism _on account of its utility_, the precisely antithetical
proposition, "Thou shalt seek thy advantage even at the expense of
everybody else," was brought into use: accordingly, "thou shalt," and
"thou shalt not," are preached in one breath!
22.
_L'Ordre du Jour pour le Roi._—The day commences: let us begin to
arrange for this day the business and fêtes of our most gracious lord,
who at present is still pleased to repose. His Majesty has bad weather
to-day: we shall be careful not to call it bad; we shall not speak of
the weather,—but we shall go through to-day's business somewhat more
ceremoniously and make the fêtes somewhat more festive than would
otherwise be necessary. His Majesty may perhaps even be sick: we shall
give the last good news of the evening at breakfast, the arrival of M.
Montaigne, who knows how to joke so pleasantly about his sickness,—he
suffers from stone. We shall receive several persons (persons!—what
would that old inflated frog, who will be among them, say, if he heard
this word! "I am no person," he would say, "but always the thing
itself")—and the reception will last longer than is pleasant to anybody;
a sufficient reason for telling about the poet who wrote over his door,
"He who enters here will do me an honour; he who does not—a
favour."—That is, forsooth, saying a discourteous thing in a courteous
manner! And perhaps this poet is quite justified on his part in being
discourteous; they say that the rhymes are better than the rhymester.
Well, let him still make many of them, and withdraw himself as much as
possible from the world: and that is doubtless the significance of his
well-bred rudeness! A prince, on the other hand, is always of more value
than his "verse," even when—but what are we about? We gossip, and the
whole court believes that we have already been at work and racked our
brains: there is no light to be seen earlier than that which burns in
our window.—Hark! Was that not the bell? The devil! The day and the
dance commence, and we do not know our rounds! We must then
improvise,—all the world improvises its day. To-day, let us for once do
like all the world!—And therewith vanished my wonderful morning dream,
probably owing to the violent strokes of the tower-clock, which just
then announced the fifth hour with all the importance which is peculiar
to it. It seems to me that, on this occasion, the God of dreams wanted
to make merry over my habits,—it is my habit to commence the day by
arranging it properly, to make it endurable _for myself_, and it is
possible that I may often have done this too formally, and too much like
a prince.
23.
_The Characteristics of Corruption._—Let us observe the following
characteristics in that condition of society from time to time
necessary, which is designated by the word "corruption." Immediately
upon the appearance of corruption anywhere, a motley _superstition_
gets the upper hand, and the hitherto universal belief of a people
becomes colourless and impotent in comparison with it; for
superstition is freethinking of the second rank,—he who gives himself
over to it selects certain forms and formulæ which appeal to him, and
permits himself a right of choice. The superstitious man is always
much more of a "person," in comparison with the religious man, and a
superstitious society will be one in which there are many individuals,
and a delight in individuality. Seen from this standpoint superstition
always appears as a _progress_ in comparison with belief, and as a
sign that the intellect becomes more independent and claims to have
its rights. Those who reverence the old religion and the religious
disposition then complain of corruption,—they have hitherto also
determined the usage of language, and have given a bad repute to
superstition, even among the freest spirits. Let us learn that it is a
symptom of _enlightenment_.—Secondly, a society in which corruption
takes a hold is blamed for _effeminacy_: for the appreciation of war,
and the delight in war perceptibly diminish in such a society, and the
conveniences of life are now just as eagerly sought after as were
military and gymnastic honours formerly. But one is accustomed to
overlook the fact that the old national energy and national passion,
which acquired a magnificent splendour in war and in the tourney, has
now transferred itself into innumerable private passions, and has
merely become less visible; indeed in periods of "corruption" the
quantity and quality of the expended energy of a people is probably
greater than ever, and the individual spends it lavishly, to such an
extent as could not be done formerly—he was not then rich enough to do
so! And thus it is precisely in times of "effeminacy" that tragedy
runs at large in and out of doors, it is then that ardent love and
ardent hatred are born, and the flame of knowledge flashes heavenward
in full blaze.—Thirdly, as if in amends for the reproach of
superstition and effeminacy, it is customary to say of such periods of
corruption that they are milder, and that cruelty has then greatly
diminished in comparison with the older, more credulous, and stronger
period. But to this praise I am just as little able to assent as to
that reproach: I only grant so much—namely, that cruelty now becomes
more refined, and its older forms are henceforth counter to the taste;
but the wounding and torturing by word and look reaches its highest
development in times of corruption,—it is now only that _wickedness_
is created, and the delight in wickedness. The men of the period of
corruption are witty and calumnious; they know that there are yet
other ways of murdering than by the dagger and the ambush—they know
also that all that is _well said_ is believed in.—Fourthly, it is when
"morals decay" that those beings whom one calls tyrants first make
their appearance; they are the forerunners of the _individual_, and as
it were early matured _firstlings_. Yet a little while, and this fruit
of fruits hangs ripe and yellow on the tree of a people,—and only for
the sake of such fruit did this tree exist! When the decay has reached
its worst, and likewise the conflict of all sorts of tyrants, there
always arises the Cæsar, the final tyrant, who puts an end to the
exhausted struggle for sovereignty, by making the exhaustedness work
for him. In his time the individual is usually most mature, and
consequently the "culture" is highest and most fruitful, but not on
his account nor through him: although the men of highest culture love
to flatter their Cæsar by pretending that they are _his_ creation. The
truth, however, is that they need quietness externally, because
internally they have disquietude and labour. In these times bribery
and treason are at their height: for the love of the _ego_, then first
discovered, is much more powerful than the love of the old, used-up,
hackneyed "fatherland"; and the need to be secure in one way or other
against the frightful fluctuations of fortune, opens even the nobler
hands, as soon as a richer and more powerful person shows himself
ready to put gold into them. There is then so little certainty with
regard to the future; people live only for the day: a condition of
mind which enables every deceiver to play an easy game,—people of
course only let themselves be misled and bribed "for the present," and
reserve for themselves futurity and virtue. The individuals, as is
well known, the men who only live for themselves, provide for the
moment more than do their opposites, the gregarious men, because they
consider themselves just as incalculable as the future; and similarly
they attach themselves willingly to despots, because they believe
themselves capable of activities and expedients, which can neither
reckon on being understood by the multitude, nor on finding favour
with them,—but the tyrant or the Cæsar understands the rights of the
Individual even in his excesses, and has an interest in speaking on
behalf of a bolder private morality, and even in giving his hand to
it. For he thinks of himself, and wishes people to think of him what
Napoleon once uttered in his classical style—"I have the right to
answer by an eternal 'thus I am' to everything about which complaint
is brought against me. I am apart from all the world, I accept
conditions from nobody. I wish people also to submit to my fancies,
and to take it quite as a simple matter, if I should indulge in this
or that diversion." Thus spoke Napoleon once to his wife, when she had
reasons for calling in question the fidelity of her husband.—The times
of corruption are the seasons when the apples fall from the tree: I
mean the individuals, the seed-bearers of the future, the pioneers of
the spiritual colonisation and of a new construction of national and
social unions. Corruption is only an abusive term for the _harvest
time_ of a people.
24.
_Different Dissatisfactions._—The feeble and as it were feminine
dissatisfied people have ingenuity for beautifying and deepening life;
the strong dissatisfied people—the masculine persons among them, to
continue the metaphor—have the ingenuity for improving and safeguarding
life. The former show their weakness and feminine character by willingly
letting themselves be temporarily deceived, and perhaps even by putting
up with a little ecstasy and enthusiasm on a time, but on the whole they
are never to be satisfied, and suffer from the incurability of their
dissatisfaction; moreover they are the patrons of all those who manage
to concoct opiate and narcotic comforts, and just on that account averse
to those who value the physician higher than the priest,—they thereby
encourage the _continuance_ of actual distress! If there had not been a
surplus of dissatisfied persons of this kind in Europe since the time of
the Middle Ages, the remarkable capacity of Europeans for constant
_transformation_ would perhaps not have originated at all; for the
claims of the strong dissatisfied persons are too gross, and really too
modest to resist being finally quieted down. China is an instance of a
country in which dissatisfaction on a grand scale and the capacity for
transformation have died out for many centuries; and the Socialists and
state-idolaters of Europe could easily bring things to Chinese
conditions and to a Chinese "happiness," with their measures for the
amelioration and security of life, provided that they could first of all
root out the sicklier, tenderer, more feminine dissatisfaction and
Romanticism which are still very abundant among us. Europe is an invalid
who owes her best thanks to her incurability and the eternal
transformations of her sufferings; these constant new situations, these
equally constant new dangers, pains, and make-shifts, have at last
generated an intellectual sensitiveness which is almost equal to genius,
and is in any case the mother of all genius.
25.
_Not Pre-ordained to Knowledge._—There is a purblind humility not at all
rare, and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once for all
unqualified for being a disciple of knowledge. It is this in fact: the
moment a man of this kind perceives anything striking, he turns as it
were on his heel, and says to himself: "You have deceived yourself!
Where have your wits been! This cannot be the truth!"—and then, instead
of looking at it and listening to it with more attention, he runs out of
the way of the striking object as if intimidated, and seeks to get it
out of his head as quickly as possible. For his fundamental rule runs
thus: "I want to see nothing that contradicts the usual opinion
concerning things! Am _I_ created for the purpose of discovering new
truths? There are already too many of the old ones."
26.
_What is Living?_—Living—that is to continually eliminate from ourselves
what is about to die; Living—that is to be cruel and inexorable towards
all that becomes weak and old in ourselves, and not only in ourselves.
Living—that means, therefore, to be without piety toward the dying, the
wretched and the old? To be continually a murderer?—And yet old Moses
said: "Thou shalt not kill!"
27.
_The Self-Renouncer._—What does the self-renouncer do? He strives after
a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher than all
men of affirmation—he _throws away many things_ that would burden his
flight, and several things among them that are not valueless, that are
not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his desire for elevation.
Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the very thing which becomes
visible in him: on that account one calls him the self-renouncer, and as
such he stands before us, enveloped in his cowl, and as the soul of a
hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which he makes upon us he is well
content: he wants to keep concealed from us his desire, his pride, his
intention of flying _above_ us.—Yes! He is wiser than we thought, and so
courteous towards us—this affirmer! For that is what he is, like us,
even in his self-renunciation.
28.
_Injuring with one's best Qualities._—Our strong points sometimes drive
us so far forward that we cannot any longer endure our weaknesses, and
we perish by them: we also perhaps see this result beforehand, but
nevertheless do not want it to be otherwise. We then become hard towards
that which would fain be spared in us, and our pitilessness is also our
greatness. Such an experience, which must in the end cost us our life,
is a symbol of the collective effect of great men upon others and upon
their epoch:—it is just with their best abilities, with that which only
_they_ can do, that they destroy much that is weak, uncertain, evolving,
and _willing_, and are thereby injurious. Indeed, the case may happen in
which, taken on the whole, they only do injury, because their best is
accepted and drunk up as it were solely by those who lose their
understanding and their egoism by it, as by too strong a beverage; they
become so intoxicated that they go breaking their limbs on all the wrong
roads where their drunkenness drives them.
29.
_Adventitious Liars._—When people began to combat the unity of Aristotle
in France, and consequently also to defend it, there was once more to be
seen that which has been seen so often, but seen so unwillingly:—_people
imposed false reasons on themselves_ on account of which those laws
ought to exist, merely for the sake of not acknowledging to themselves
that they had _accustomed_ themselves to the authority of those laws,
and did not want any longer to have things otherwise. And people do so
in every prevailing morality and religion, and have always done so: the
reasons and intentions behind the habit, are only added surreptitiously
when people begin to combat the habit, and _ask_ for reasons and
intentions. It is here that the great dishonesty of the conservatives of
all times hides:—they are adventitious liars.
30.
_The Comedy of Celebrated Men._—Celebrated men who _need_ their fame,
as, for instance, all politicians, no longer select their associates and
friends without after-thoughts: from the one they want a portion of the
splendour and reflection of his virtues; from the other they want the
fear-inspiring power of certain dubious qualities in him, of which
everybody is aware; from another they steal his reputation for idleness
and basking in the sun, because it is advantageous for their own ends to
be regarded temporarily as heedless and lazy:—it conceals the fact that
they lie in ambush; they now use the visionaries, now the experts, now
the brooders, now the pedants in their neighbourhood, as their actual
selves for the time, but very soon they do not need them any longer! And
thus while their environment and outside die off continually, everything
seems to crowd into this environment, and wants to become a "character"
of it; they are like great cities in this respect. Their repute is
continually in process of mutation, like their character, for their
changing methods require this change, and they show and _exhibit_
sometimes this and sometimes that actual or fictitious quality on the
stage; their friends and associates, as we have said, belong to these
stage properties. On the other hand, that which they aim at must remain
so much the more steadfast, and burnished and resplendent in the
distance,—and this also sometimes needs its comedy and its stage-play.
31.
_Commerce and Nobility._—Buying and selling is now regarded as something
ordinary, like the art of reading and writing; everyone is now trained
to it even when he is not a tradesman, exercising himself daily in the
art; precisely as formerly in the period of uncivilised humanity,
everyone was a hunter and exercised himself day by day in the art of
hunting. Hunting was then something common: but just as this finally
became a privilege of the powerful and noble, and thereby lost the
character of the commonplace and the ordinary—by ceasing to be necessary
and by becoming an affair of fancy and luxury:—so it might become the
same some day with buying and selling. Conditions of society are
imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in which
the necessity for this art will become quite lost; perhaps it may then
happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of the
prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling as a
_luxury of sentiment_. It is then only that commerce would acquire
nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves just as
readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and politics:
while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then have
entirely altered. Already even politics ceases to be the business of a
gentleman; and it is possible that one day it may be found to be so
vulgar as to be brought, like all party literature and daily literature,
under the rubric: "Prostitution of the intellect."
32.
_Undesirable Disciples._—What shall I do with these two youths! called
out a philosopher dejectedly, who "corrupted" youths, as Socrates had
once corrupted them,—they are unwelcome disciples to me. One of them
cannot say "Nay," and the other says "Half and half" to everything.
Provided they grasped my doctrine, the former would _suffer_ too much,
for my mode of thinking requires a martial soul, willingness to cause
pain, delight in denying, and a hard skin,—he would succumb by open
wounds and internal injuries. And the other will choose the mediocre in
everything he represents, and thus make a mediocrity of the whole,—I
should like my enemy to have such a disciple.
33.
_Outside the Lecture-room._—"In order to prove that man after all
belongs to the good-natured animals, I would remind you how credulous he
has been for so long a time. It is now only, quite late, and after an
immense self-conquest, that he has become a _distrustful_ animal,—yes!
man is now more wicked than ever."—I do not understand this; why should
man now be more distrustful and more wicked?—"Because he now has
science,—because he needs to have it!"—
34.
_Historia abscondita._—Every great man has a power which operates
backward; all history is again placed on the scales on his account, and
a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their lurking-places—into
_his_ sunlight. There is absolutely no knowing what history may be some
day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in its essence! There are
yet so many retroactive powers needed!
35.
_Heresy and Witchcraft._—To think otherwise than is customary—that is by
no means so much the activity of a better intellect, as the activity of
strong, wicked inclinations,—severing, isolating, refractory,
mischief-loving, malicious inclinations. Heresy is the counterpart of
witchcraft, and is certainly just as little a merely harmless affair, or
a thing worthy of honour in itself. Heretics and sorcerers are two kinds
of bad men; they have it in common that they also feel themselves
wicked; their unconquerable delight is to attack and injure whatever
rules,—whether it be men or opinions. The Reformation, a kind of
duplication of the spirit of the Middle Ages at a time when it had no
longer a good conscience, produced both of these kinds of people in the
greatest profusion.
36.