wanting to be a function; they strive after it, and have the keenest
scent for all those positions in which precisely _they_ themselves can
be functions. Among such persons are those women who transform
themselves into just that function of a man that is but weakly developed
in him, and then become his purse, or his politics, or his social
intercourse. Such beings maintain themselves best when they insert
themselves in an alien organism; if they do not succeed they become
vexed, irritated, and eat themselves up.
120.
_Health of the Soul._—The favourite medico-moral formula (whose
originator was Ariston of Chios), "Virtue is the health of the soul,"
would, at least in order to be used, have to be altered to this: "Thy
virtue is the health of thy soul." For there is no such thing as health
in itself, and all attempts to define a thing in that way have
lamentably failed. It is necessary to know thy aim, thy horizon, thy
powers, thy impulses, thy errors, and especially the ideals and
fantasies of thy soul, in order to determine _what_ health implies even
for thy _body_. There are consequently innumerable kinds of physical
health; and the more one again permits the unique and unparalleled to
raise its head, the more one unlearns the dogma of the "Equality of
men," so much the more also must the conception of a normal health,
together with a normal diet and a normal course of disease, be abrogated
by our physicians. And then only would it be time to turn our thoughts
to the health and disease of the _soul_ and make the special virtue of
everyone consist in its health; but, to be sure, what appeared as health
in one person might appear as the contrary of health in another. In the
end the great question might still remain open: whether we could _do
without_ sickness, even for the development of our virtue, and whether
our thirst for knowledge and self-knowledge would not especially need
the sickly soul as well as the sound one; in short, whether the mere
will to health is not a prejudice, a cowardice, and perhaps an instance
of the subtlest barbarism and unprogressiveness.
121.
_Life no Argument._—We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we
can live—by the postulating of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and
effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of
faith no one could manage to live at present! But for all that they are
still unproved. Life is no argument; error might be among the conditions
of life.
122.
_The Element of Moral Scepticism in Christianity._—Christianity also has
made a great contribution to enlightenment, and has taught moral
scepticism in a very impressive and effective manner—accusing and
embittering, but with untiring patience and subtlety; it annihilated in
every individual the belief in his virtues: it made the great virtuous
ones, of whom antiquity had no lack, vanish for ever from the earth,
those popular men, who, in the belief in their perfection, walked about
with the dignity of a hero of the bull-fight. When, trained in this
Christian school of scepticism, we now read the moral books of the
ancients, for example those of Seneca and Epictetus, we feel a
pleasurable superiority, and are full of secret insight and
penetration,—it seems to us as if a child talked before an old man, or a
pretty, gushing girl before La Rochefoucauld:—we know better what virtue
is! After all, however, we have applied the same scepticism to all
_religious_ states and processes, such as sin, repentance, grace,
sanctification, &c., and have allowed the worm to burrow so well, that
we have now the same feeling of subtle superiority and insight even in
reading all Christian books:—we know also the religious feelings better!
And it is time to know them well and describe them well, for the pious
ones of the old belief die out also; let us save their likeness and
type, at least for the sake of knowledge.
123.
_Knowledge more than a Means._—Also _without_ this passion—I refer to
the passion for knowledge—science would be furthered: science has
hitherto increased and grown up without it. The good faith in science,
the prejudice in its favour, by which States are at present dominated
(it was even the Church formerly), rests fundamentally on the fact that
the absolute inclination and impulse has so rarely revealed itself in
it, and that science is regarded _not_ as a passion, but as a condition
and an "ethos." Indeed, _amour-plaisir_ of knowledge (curiosity) often
enough suffices, _amour-vanité_ suffices, and habituation to it, with
the afterthought of obtaining honour and bread; it even suffices for
many that they do not know what to do with a surplus of leisure, except
to continue reading, collecting, arranging, observing and narrating;
their "scientific impulse" is their ennui. Pope Leo X. once (in the
brief to Beroaldus) sang the praise of science; he designated it as the
finest ornament and the greatest pride of our life, a noble employment
in happiness and in misfortune; "without it," he says finally, "all
human undertakings would be without a firm basis,—even with it they are
still sufficiently mutable and insecure!" But this rather sceptical
Pope, like all other ecclesiastical panegyrists of science, suppressed
his ultimate judgment concerning it. If one may deduce from his words
what is remarkable enough for such a lover of art, that he places
science above art, it is after all, however, only from politeness that
he omits to speak of that which he places high above all science: the
"revealed truth," and the "eternal salvation of the soul,"—what are
ornament, pride, entertainment and security of life to him, in
comparison thereto? "Science is something of secondary rank, nothing
ultimate or unconditioned, no object of passion"—this judgment was kept
back in Leo's soul: the truly Christian judgment concerning science! In
antiquity its dignity and appreciation were lessened by the fact that,
even among its most eager disciples, the striving after _virtue_ stood
foremost, and that people thought they had given the highest praise to
knowledge when they celebrated it as the best means to virtue. It is
something new in history that knowledge claims to be more than a means.
124.
_In the Horizon of the Infinite._—We have left the land and have gone
aboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us,—nay, more, the
land behind us! Well, little ship! look out! Beside thee is the ocean;
it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like
silk and gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come when thou wilt
feel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than
infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes
against the walls of this cage! Alas, if homesickness for the land
should attack thee, as if there had been more _freedom_ there,—and there
is no "land" any longer!
125.
_The Madman._—Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning
lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly:
"I seek God! I seek God!"—As there were many people standing about who
did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he
lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does
he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage?
Has he emigrated?—the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The
insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances.
"Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! _We have killed
him_,—you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How
were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away
the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its
sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns?
Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all
directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as
through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has
it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and
darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not
hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell
the divine putrefaction?—for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains
dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most
murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world
has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who will wipe
the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What
lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the
magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to
become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater
event,—and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a
higher history than any history hitherto!"—Here the madman was silent
and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him
in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it
broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said,
"I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its
way, and is travelling,—it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and
thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time,
even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet
further from them than the furthest star,—_and yet they have done
it!_"—It is further stated that the madman made his way into different
churches on the same day, and there intoned his _Requiem aeternam deo_.
When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are
these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?"—
126.
_Mystical Explanations._—Mystical explanations are regarded as profound;
the truth is that they do not even go the length of being superficial.
127.
_After-Effect of the most Ancient Religiousness._—The thoughtless man
thinks that the Will is the only thing that operates, that willing is
something simple, manifestly given, underived, and comprehensible in
itself. He is convinced that when he does anything, for example, when he
delivers a blow, it is _he_ who strikes, and he has struck because he
_willed_ to strike. He does not notice anything of a problem therein,
but the feeling of _willing_ suffices to him, not only for the
acceptance of cause and effect, but also for the belief that he
_understands_ their relationship. Of the mechanism of the occurrence and
of the manifold subtle operations that must be performed in order that
the blow may result, and likewise of the incapacity of the Will in
itself to effect even the smallest part of those operations—he knows
nothing. The Will is to him a magically operating force; the belief in
the Will as the cause of effects is the belief in magically operating
forces. In fact, whenever he saw anything happen, man originally
believed in a Will as cause, and in personally _willing_ beings
operating in the background,—the conception of mechanism was very remote
from him. Because, however, man for immense periods of time believed
only in persons (and not in matter, forces, things, &c.), the belief in
cause and effect has become a fundamental belief with him, which he
applies everywhere when anything happens,—and even still uses
instinctively as a piece of atavism of remotest origin. The
propositions, "No effect without a cause," and "Every effect again
implies a cause," appear as generalisations of several less general
propositions:—"Where there is operation there has been _willing_,"
"Operating is only possible on _willing_ beings." "There is never a
pure, resultless experience of activity, but every experience involves
stimulation of the Will" (to activity, defence, revenge or retaliation).
But in the primitive period of the human race, the latter and the former
propositions were identical, the first were not generalisations of the
second, but the second were explanations of the first.—Schopenhauer,
with his assumption that all that exists is something _volitional_, has
set a primitive mythology on the throne; he seems never to have
attempted an analysis of the Will, because he _believed_ like everybody
in the simplicity and immediateness of all volition:—while volition is
in fact such a cleverly practised mechanical process that it almost
escapes the observing eye. I set the following propositions against
those of Schopenhauer:—Firstly, in order that Will may arise, an idea of
pleasure and pain is necessary. Secondly, that a vigorous excitation may
be felt as pleasure or pain, is the affair of the _interpreting_
intellect, which, to be sure, operates thereby for the most part
unconsciously to us, and one and the same excitation _may_ be
interpreted as pleasure or pain. Thirdly, it is only in an intellectual
being that there is pleasure, displeasure and Will; the immense majority
of organisms have nothing of the kind.
128.
_The Value of Prayer._—Prayer has been devised for such men as have
never any thoughts of their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul is
unknown, or passes unnoticed; what shall these people do in holy places
and in all important situations in life which require repose and some
kind of dignity? In order at least that they may not _disturb_, the
wisdom of all the founders of religions, the small as well as the great,
has commended to them the formula of prayer, as a long mechanical labour
of the lips, united with an effort of the memory, and with a uniform,
prescribed attitude of hands and feet—_and_ eyes! They may then, like
the Tibetans, chew the cud of their "_om mane padme hum_," innumerable
times, or, as in Benares, count the name of God Ram-Ram-Ram (and so on,
with or without grace) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu with his
thousand names of invocation, Allah with his ninety-nine; or they may
make use of the prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is that
they are settled down for a time at this work, and present a tolerable
appearance; their mode of prayer is devised for the advantage of the
pious who have thought and elevation of their own. But even these have
their weary hours when a series of venerable words and sounds and a
mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But supposing that these rare
men—in every religion the religious man is an exception—know how to help
themselves, the poor in spirit do not know, and to forbid them the
prayer-babbling would mean to take their religion from them, a fact
which Protestantism brings more and more to light. All that religion
wants with such persons is that they should _keep still_ with their
eyes, hands, legs, and all their organs: they thereby become temporarily
beautified and—more human-looking!
129.
_The Conditions for God._—"God himself cannot subsist without wise men,"
said Luther, and with good reason; but "God can still less subsist
without unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!
130.
_A Dangerous Resolution._—The Christian resolution to find the world
ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
131.
_Christianity and Suicide._—Christianity made use of the excessive
longing for suicide at the time of its origin as a lever for its power:
it left only two forms of suicide, invested them with the highest
dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all others in a dreadful
manner. But martyrdom and the slow self-annihilation of the ascetic were
permitted.
132.
_Against Christianity._—It is now no longer our reason, but our taste
that decides against Christianity.
133.
_Axioms._—An unavoidable hypothesis on which mankind must always fall
back again, is, in the long run, _more powerful_ than the most firmly
believed belief in something untrue (like the Christian belief). In the
long run: that means a hundred thousand years from now.
134.
_Pessimists as Victims._—When a profound dislike of existence gets the
upper hand, the after-effect of a great error in diet of which a people
has been long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism (_not_ its
origin) is thus to a considerable extent dependent on the excessive and
almost exclusive rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal
enervation that results therefrom. Perhaps the modern, European
discontentedness is to be looked upon as caused by the fact that the
world of our forefathers, the whole Middle Ages, was given to drink,
owing to the influence of German tastes in Europe: the Middle Ages, that
means the alcoholic poisoning of Europe.—The German dislike of life
(including the influence of the cellar-air and stove-poison in German
dwellings), is essentially a cold-weather complaint.
135.
_Origin of Sin._—Sin, as it is at present felt wherever Christianity
prevails or has prevailed, is a Jewish feeling and a Jewish invention;
and in respect to this background of all Christian morality,
Christianity has in fact aimed at "Judaising" the whole world. To what
an extent this has succeeded in Europe is traced most accurately in the
extent of our alienness to Greek antiquity—a world without the feeling
of sin—in our sentiments even at present; in spite of all the good will
to approximation and assimilation, which whole generations and many
distinguished individuals have not failed to display. "Only when thou
_repentest_ is God gracious to thee"—that would arouse the laughter or
the wrath of a Greek: he would say, "Slaves may have such sentiments."
Here a mighty being, an almighty being, and yet a revengeful being, is
presupposed; his power is so great that no injury whatever can be done
to him, except in the point of honour. Every sin is an infringement of
respect, a _crimen læsæ majestatis divinæ_—and nothing more! Contrition,
degradation, rolling-in-the-dust,—these are the first and last
conditions on which his favour depends: the restoration, therefore, of
his divine honour! If injury be caused otherwise by sin, if a profound,
spreading evil be propagated by it, an evil which, like a disease,
attacks and strangles one man after another—that does not trouble this
honour-craving Oriental in heaven; sin is an offence against him, not
against mankind!—to him on whom he has bestowed his favour he bestows
also this indifference to the natural consequences of sin. God and
mankind are here thought of as separated, as so antithetical that sin
against the latter cannot be at all possible,—all deeds are to be looked
upon _solely with respect to their supernatural consequences_, and not
with respect to their natural results: it is thus that the Jewish
feeling, to which all that is natural seems unworthy in itself, would
have things. The _Greeks_, on the other hand, were more familiar with
the thought that transgression also may have dignity,—even theft, as in
the case of Prometheus, even the slaughtering of cattle as the
expression of frantic jealousy, as in the case of Ajax; in their need to
attribute dignity to transgression and embody it therein, they invented
_tragedy_,—an art and a delight, which in its profoundest essence has
remained alien to the Jew, in spite of all his poetic endowment and
taste for the sublime.
136.
_The Chosen People._—The Jews, who regard themselves as the chosen
people among the nations, and that too because they are the moral genius
among the nations (in virtue of their capacity for _despising_ the human
in themselves _more_ than any other people)—the Jews have a pleasure in
their divine monarch and saint similar to that which the French nobility
had in Louis XIV. This nobility had allowed its power and autocracy to
be taken from it, and had become contemptible: in order not to feel
this, in order to be able to forget it, an _unequalled_ royal
magnificence, royal authority and plenitude of power was needed, to
which there was access only for the nobility. As in accordance with this
privilege they raised themselves to the elevation of the court, and from
that elevation saw everything under them,—saw everything
contemptible,—they got beyond all uneasiness of conscience. They thus
elevated intentionally the tower of the royal power more and more into
the clouds, and set the final coping-stone of their own power thereon.
137.
_Spoken in Parable._—A Jesus Christ was only possible in a Jewish
landscape—I mean in one over which the gloomy and sublime thunder-cloud
of the angry Jehovah hung continually. Here only was the rare, sudden
flashing of a single sunbeam through the dreadful, universal and
continuous nocturnal-day regarded as a miracle of "love," as a beam of
the most unmerited "grace." Here only could Christ dream of his rainbow
and celestial ladder on which God descended to man; everywhere else the
clear weather and the sun were considered the rule and the commonplace.
138.
_The Error of Christ._—The founder of Christianity thought there was
nothing from which men suffered so much as from their sins:—it was his
error, the error of him who felt himself without sin, to whom experience
was lacking in this respect! It was thus that his soul filled with that
marvellous, fantastic pity which had reference to a trouble that even
among his own people, the inventors of sin, was rarely a great trouble!
But Christians understood subsequently how to do justice to their
master, and to sanctify his error into a "truth."
139.
_Colour of the Passions._—Natures such as the apostle Paul, have an evil
eye for the passions; they learn to know only the filthy, the
distorting, and the heart-breaking in them,—their ideal aim, therefore,
is the annihilation of the passions; in the divine they see complete
purification from passion. The Greeks, quite otherwise than Paul and the
Jews, directed their ideal aim precisely to the passions, and loved,
elevated, embellished and deified them: in passion they evidently not
only felt themselves happier, but also purer and diviner than
otherwise.—And now the Christians? Have they wished to become Jews in
this respect? Have they perhaps become Jews!
140.
_Too Jewish._—If God had wanted to become an object of love, he would
first of all have had to forgo judging and justice:—a judge, and even a
gracious judge, is no object of love. The founder of Christianity showed
too little of the finer feelings in this respect—being a Jew.
141.
_Too Oriental._—What? A God who loves men, provided that they believe in
him, and who hurls frightful glances and threatenings at him who does
not believe in this love! What? A conditioned love as the feeling of an
almighty God! A love which has not even become master of the sentiment
of honour and of the irritable desire for vengeance! How Oriental is all
that! "If I love thee, what does it concern thee?"[9] is already a
sufficient criticism of the whole of Christianity.
142.
_Frankincense._—Buddha says: "Do not flatter thy benefactor!" Let one
repeat this saying in a Christian church:—it immediately purifies the
air of all Christianity.
143.