to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has
forgotten how to wage war. For the present we know of no other means
whereby the rough energy of the camp, the deep impersonal hatred, the
cold-bloodedness of murder with a good conscience, the general ardour
of the system in the destruction of the enemy, the proud indifference
to great losses, to one's own existence and that of one's friends, the
hollow, earthquake-like convulsion of the soul, can be as forcibly
and certainly communicated to enervated nations as is done by every
great war: owing to the brooks and streams that here break forth,
which, certainly, sweep stones and rubbish of all sorts along with
them and destroy the meadows of delicate cultures, the mechanism in
the workshops of the mind is afterwards, in favourable circumstances,
rotated by new power. Culture can by no means dispense with passions,
vices, and malignities. When the Romans, after having become Imperial,
had grown rather tired of war, they attempted to gain new strength
by beast-baitings, gladiatoral combats, and Christian persecutions.
The English of to-day, who appear on the whole to have also renounced
war, adopt other means in order to generate anew those vanishing
forces; namely, the dangerous exploring expeditions, sea voyages and
mountaineerings, nominally undertaken for scientific purposes, but in
reality to bring home surplus strength from adventures and dangers of
all kinds. Many other such substitutes for war will be discovered, but
perhaps precisely thereby it will become more and more obvious that
such a highly cultivated and therefore necessarily enfeebled humanity
as that of modern Europe not only needs wars, but the greatest and most
terrible wars,--consequently occasional relapses into barbarism,--lest,
by the means of culture, it should lose its culture and its very
existence.
478.
INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTH AND THE NORTH.--Industry arises in two entirely
different ways. The artisans of the South are not industrious because
of acquisitiveness but because of the constant needs of others. The
smith is industrious because some one is always coming who wants a
horse shod or a carriage mended. If nobody came he would loiter about
in the market-place. In a fruitful land he has little trouble in
supporting himself, for that purpose he requires only a very small
amount of work, certainly no industry; eventually he would beg and
be contented. The industry of English workmen, on the contrary, has
acquisitiveness behind it; it is conscious of itself and its aims; with
property it wants power, and with power the greatest possible liberty
and individual distinction.
479.
WEALTH AS THE ORIGIN OF A NOBILITY OF RACE.--Wealth necessarily
creates an aristocracy of race, for it permits the choice of the most
beautiful women and the engagement of the best teachers; it allows a
man cleanliness, time for physical exercises, and, above all, immunity
from dulling physical labour. So far it provides all the conditions
for making man, after a few generations, move and even act nobly and
handsomely: greater freedom of character and absence of niggardliness,
of wretchedly petty matters, and of abasement before bread-givers. It
is precisely these negative qualities which are the most profitable
birthday gift, that of happiness, for the young man; a person who is
quite poor usually comes to grief through nobility of disposition,
he does not get on, and acquires nothing, his race is not capable
of living. In this connection, however, it must be remembered that
wealth produces almost the same effects whether one have three hundred
or thirty thousand thalers a year; there is no further essential
progression of the favourable conditions afterwards. But to have less,
to beg in boyhood and to abase one's self is terrible, although it may
be the proper starting-point for such as seek their happiness in the
splendour of courts, in subordination to the mighty, and influential,
or for such as wish to be heads of the Church. (It teaches how to slink
crouching into the underground passages to favour.)
480.
ENVY AND INERTIA IN DIFFERENT COURSES.--The two opposing parties,
the socialist and the national,--or whatever they may be called in
the different countries of Europe,--are worthy of each other; envy
and laziness are the motive powers in each of them. In the one camp
they desire to work as little as possible with their hands, in the
other as little as possible with their heads; in the latter they hate
and envy prominent, self-evolving individuals, who do not willingly
allow themselves to be drawn up in rank and file for the purpose of
a collective effect; in the former they hate and envy the better
social caste, which is more favourably circumstanced outwardly, whose
peculiar mission, the production of the highest blessings of culture,
makes life inwardly all the harder and more painful. Certainly, if it
be possible to make the spirit of the collective effect the spirit of
the higher classes of society, the socialist crowds are quite right,
when they also seek outward equalisation between themselves and these
classes, since they are certainly internally equalised with one another
already in head and heart. Live as higher men, and always do the deeds
of higher culture,--thus everything that lives will acknowledge your
right, and the order of society, whose summit ye are, will be safe
from every evil glance and attack!
481.
HIGH POLITICS AND THEIR DETRIMENTS.--Just as a nation does not suffer
the greatest losses that war and readiness for war involve through
the expenses of the war, or the stoppage of trade and traffic, or
through the maintenance of a standing army,--however great these
losses may now be, when eight European States expend yearly the sum
of five milliards of marks thereon,--but owing to the fact that
year after year its ablest, strongest, and most industrious men are
withdrawn in extraordinary numbers from their proper occupations and
callings to be turned into soldiers: in the same way, a nation that
sets about practising high politics and securing a decisive voice
among the great Powers does not suffer its greatest losses where
they are usually supposed to be. In fact, from this time onward it
constantly sacrifices a number of its most conspicuous talents upon
the "Altar of the Fatherland" or of national ambition, whilst formerly
other spheres of activity were open to those talents which are now
swallowed up by politics. But apart from these public hecatombs, and
in reality much more horrible, there is a drama which is constantly
being performed simultaneously in a hundred thousand acts; every able,
industrious, intellectually striving man of a nation that thus covets
political laurels, is swayed by this covetousness, and no longer
belongs entirely to himself alone as he did formerly; the new daily
questions and cares of the public welfare devour a daily tribute of
the intellectual and emotional capital of every citizen; the sum of
all these sacrifices and losses of, individual energy and labour is
so enormous, that the political growth of a nation almost necessarily
entails an intellectual impoverishment and lassitude, a diminished
capacity for the performance of works that require great concentration
and specialisation. The question may finally be asked: "Does it then
_pay,_ all this bloom and magnificence of the total (which indeed only
manifests itself as the fear of the new Colossus in other nations, and
as the compulsory favouring by them of national trade and commerce)
when all the nobler, finer, and more intellectual plants and products,
in which its soil was hitherto so rich, must be sacrificed to this
coarse and opalescent flower of the nation?"[2]
482.
REPEATED ONCE MORE.--Public opinion--private laziness.
[Footnote 1: This aphorism may have been suggested by Nietzsche's
observing the behaviour of his great contemporary, Bismarck, towards
the dynasty.--J.M.K.]
[Footnote 2: This is once more an allusion to modern Germany.--J.M.K.]
NINTH DIVISION.
MAN ALONE BY HIMSELF.
483.
THE ENEMIES OF TRUTH.--Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth
than lies.
484.
A TOPSY-TURVY WORLD.--We criticise a thinker more severely when he puts
an unpleasant statement before us; and yet it would be more reasonable
to do so when we find his statement pleasant.
485.
DECIDED CHARACTER.--A man far oftener appears to have a decided
character from persistently following his temperament than from
persistently following his principles.
486.
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.--One thing a man must have: either a naturally
light disposition or a disposition _lightened_ by art and knowledge.
487.
THE PASSION FOR THINGS.--Whoever sets his passion on things (sciences,
arts, the common weal, the interests of culture) withdraws much fervour
from his passion for persons (even when they are the representatives
of those things; as statesmen, philosophers, and artists are the
representatives of their creations).
488.
CALMNESS IN ACTION.--As a cascade in its descent becomes more
deliberate and suspended, so the great man of action usually acts with
_more_ calmness than his strong passions previous to action would lead
one to expect.
489.
NOT TOO DEEP.--Persons who grasp a matter in all its depth seldom
remain permanently true to it. They have just brought the depth up into
the light, and there is always much evil to be seen there.
490.
THE ILLUSION OF IDEALISTS.--All idealists imagine that the cause which
they serve is essentially better than all other causes, and will not
believe that if their cause is really to flourish it requires precisely
the same evil-smelling manure which all other human undertakings have
need of.
491.
SELF-OBSERVATION.--Man is exceedingly well protected from himself and
guarded against his self-exploring and self-besieging; as a rule he can
perceive nothing of himself but his outworks. The actual fortress is
inaccessible, and even invisible, to him, unless friends and enemies
become traitors and lead him inside by secret paths.
492.
THE RIGHT CALLING.--Men can seldom hold on to a calling unless they
believe or persuade themselves that it is really more important than
any other. Women are the same with their lovers.
493.
NOBILITY OF DISPOSITION.--Nobility of disposition consists largely in
good-nature and absence of distrust, and therefore contains precisely
that upon which money-grabbing and successful men take a pleasure in
walking with superiority and scorn.
494.
GOAL AND PATH.--Many are obstinate with regard to the once-chosen path,
few with regard to the goal.
495.
THE OFFENSIVENESS IN AN INDIVIDUAL WAY OF LIFE.--All specially
individual lines of conduct excite irritation against him who adopts
them; people feel themselves reduced to the level of commonplace
creatures by the extraordinary treatment he bestows on himself.
496.
THE PRIVILEGE OF GREATNESS.--It is the privilege of greatness to confer
intense happiness with insignificant gifts.
497.
UNINTENTIONALLY NOBLE.--A person behaves with unintentional nobleness
when he has accustomed himself to seek naught from others and always to
give to them.
498.
A CONDITION OF HEROISM.--When a person wishes to become a hero, the
serpent must previously have become a dragon, otherwise he lacks his
proper enemy.
499.
FRIENDS.--Fellowship in joy, and, not sympathy in sorrow, makes people
friends.
500.
MAKING USE OF EBB AND FLOW.--For the purpose of knowledge we must know
how to make use of the inward current which draws us towards a thing,
and also of the current which after a time draws us away from it.
501.
JOY IN ITSELF.--"Joy in the Thing" people say; but in reality it is joy
in itself by means of the thing.
502.
THE UNASSUMING MAN.--He who is unassuming towards persons manifests his
presumption all the more with regard to things (town, State, society,
time, humanity). That is his revenge.
503.
ENVY AND JEALOUSY.--Envy and jealousy are the pudenda of the human
soul. The comparison may perhaps be carried further.
504.
THE NOBLEST HYPOCRITE.--It is a very noble hypocrisy not to talk of
one's self at all.
505.
VEXATION.--Vexation is a physical disease, which is not by any means
cured when its cause is subsequently removed.
506.
THE CHAMPIONS OF TRUTH.--Truth does not find fewest champions when it
is dangerous to speak it, but when it is dull.
507.
MORE TROUBLESOME EVEN THAN ENEMIES.--Persons of whose sympathetic
attitude we are not, in all circumstances, convinced, while for
some reason or other (gratitude, for instance) we are obliged to
maintain the appearance of unqualified sympathy with them, trouble our
imagination far more than our enemies do.
508.
FREE NATURE.--We are so fond of being out among Nature, because it has
no opinions about us.
509.
EACH SUPERIOR IN ONE THING.--In civilised intercourse every one feels
himself superior to all others in at least one thing; kindly feelings
generally are based thereon, inasmuch as every one can, in certain
circumstances, render help, and is therefore entitled to accept help
without shame.
510.
CONSOLATORY ARGUMENTS.--In the case of a death we mostly use
consolatory arguments not so much to alleviate the grief as to make
excuses for feeling so easily consoled.
511.
PERSONS LOYAL TO THEIR CONVICTIONS.--Whoever is very busy retains his
general views and opinions almost unchanged. So also does every one
who labours in the service of an idea; he will nevermore examine the
idea itself, he no longer has any time to do so; indeed, it is against
his interests to consider it as still admitting of discussion.
512.
MORALITY AND QUANTITY.--The higher morality of one man as compared
with that of another, often lies merely in the fact that his aims are
quantitively greater. The other, living in a circumscribed sphere, is
dragged down by petty occupations.
513.
"THE LIFE" AS THE PROCEEDS OF LIFE.--A man may stretch himself out ever
so far with his knowledge; he may seem to himself ever so objective,
but eventually he realises nothing therefrom but his own biography.
514.
IRON NECESSITY.--Iron necessity is a thing which has been found, in the
course of history, to be neither iron nor necessary.
515.
FROM EXPERIENCE.--The unreasonableness of a thing is no argument
against its existence, but rather a condition thereof.
516.
TRUTH.--Nobody dies nowadays of fatal truths, there are too many
antidotes to them.
517.
A FUNDAMENTAL INSIGHT.--There is no pre-established harmony between the
promotion of truth and the welfare of mankind.
518.
MAN'S LOT.--He who thinks most deeply knows that he is always in the
wrong, however he may act and decide.
519.
TRUTH AS CIRCE.--Error has made animals into men; is truth perhaps
capable of making man into an animal again?
520.
THE DANGER OF OUR CULTURE.--We belong to a period of which the culture
is in danger of being destroyed by the appliances of culture.
521.
GREATNESS MEANS LEADING THE WAY.--No stream is large and copious of
itself, but becomes great by receiving and leading on so many tributary
streams. It is so, also, with all intellectual greatnesses. It is only
a question of some one indicating the direction to be followed by so
many affluents; not whether he was richly or poorly gifted originally.
522.
A FEEBLE CONSCIENCE.--People who talk about their importance to mankind
have a feeble conscience for common bourgeois rectitude, keeping of
contracts, promises, etc.
523.
DESIRING TO BE LOVED.--The demand to be loved is the greatest of
presumptions.
524.
CONTEMPT FOR MEN.--The most unequivocal sign of contempt for man is
to regard everybody merely as a means to _one's own_ ends, or of no
account whatever.
525.
PARTISANS THROUGH CONTRADICTION.--Whoever has driven men to fury
against himself has also gained a party in his favour.
526.
FORGETTING EXPERIENCES.--Whoever thinks much and to good purpose
easily forgets his own experiences, but not the thoughts which these
experiences have called forth.
527.
STICKING TO AN OPINION.--One person sticks to an opinion because he
takes pride in having acquired it himself,--another sticks to it
because he has learnt it with difficulty and is proud of having
understood it; both of them, therefore, out of vanity.
528.
AVOIDING THE LIGHT.--Good deeds avoid the light just as anxiously as
evil deeds; the latter fear that pain will result from publicity (as
punishment), the former fear that pleasure will vanish with publicity
(the pure pleasure _per se,_ which ceases as soon as satisfaction of
vanity is added to it).
529.
THE LENGTH OF THE DAY.--When one has much to put into them, a day has a
hundred pockets.
530.
THE GENIUS OF TYRANNY.--When an invincible desire to obtain tyrannical
power has been awakened in the soul, and constantly keeps up its
fervour, even a very mediocre talent (in politicians, artists, etc.)
gradually becomes an almost irresistible natural force.
531.
THE ENEMY'S LIFE.--He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an
interest in the preservation of the enemy's life.[1]
532.
MORE IMPORTANT.--Unexplained, obscure matters are regarded as more
important than explained, clear ones.
533.
VALUATION OF SERVICES RENDERED.--We estimate services rendered to
us according to the value set on them by those who render them, not
according to the value they have for us.
534.
UNHAPPINESS.--The distinction associated with unhappiness (as if it
were a sign of stupidity, unambitiousness, or commonplaceness to feel
happy) is so great that when any one says to us, "How happy you are!"
we usually protest.
535.
IMAGINATION IN ANGUISH.--When one is afraid of anything, one's
imagination plays the part of that evil spirit which springs on one's
back just when one has the heaviest load to bear.
536.
THE VALUE OF INSIPID OPPONENTS.--We sometimes remain faithful to a
cause merely because its opponents never cease to be insipid.
537.
THE VALUE OF A PROFESSION.--A profession makes us thoughtless; that
is its greatest blessing. For it is a bulwark behind which we are
permitted to withdraw when commonplace doubts and cares assail us.
538.
TALENT.--Many a man's talent appears less than it is, because he has
always set himself too heavy tasks.
539.
YOUTH.--Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or
not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.
540.
TOO GREAT AIMS.--Whoever aims publicly at great things and at length
perceives secretly that he is too weak to achieve them, has usually
also insufficient strength to renounce his aims publicly, and then
inevitably becomes a hypocrite.
541.
IN THE CURRENT.--Mighty waters sweep many stones and shrubs away with
them; mighty spirits many foolish and confused minds.
542.
THE DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL EMANCIPATION.--In a seriously intended
intellectual emancipation a person's mute passions and cravings also
hope to find their advantage.
543.
THE INCARNATION OF THE MIND.--When any one thinks much and to good
purpose, not only his face but also his body acquires a sage look.
544.
SEEING BADLY AND HEARING BADLY.--The man who sees little always sees
less than there is to see; the man who hears badly always hears
something more than there is to hear.
545.
SELF-ENJOYMENT IN VANITY.--The vain man does not wish so much to be
prominent as to feel himself prominent; he therefore disdains none of
the expedients for self-deception and self-out-witting. It is not the
opinion of others that he sets his heart on, but his opinion of their
opinion
546.
EXCEPTIONALLY VAIN.--He who is usually self-sufficient becomes
exceptionally vain, and keenly alive to fame and praise when he is
physically ill. The more he loses himself the more he has to endeavour
to regain his position by means of the opinion of others.
547.
THE "WITTY."--Those who seek wit do not possess it.
548.
A HINT TO THE HEADS OF PARTIES.--When one can make people publicly
support a cause they have also generally been brought to the point of
inwardly declaring themselves in its favour, because they wish to be
regarded as consistent.
549.
CONTEMPT.--Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to
self-contempt.
550.
THE TIE OF GRATITUDE.--There are servile souls who carry so far their
sense of obligation for benefits received that they strangle themselves
with the tie of gratitude.
551.
THE PROPHET'S KNACK.--In predicting beforehand the procedure of
ordinary individuals, it must be taken for granted that they always
make use of the smallest intellectual expenditure in freeing themselves
from disagreeable situations.
552.
MAN'S SOLE RIGHT.--He who swerves from the traditional is a victim of
the unusual; he who keeps to the traditional is its slave. The man is
ruined in either case.
553.
BELOW THE BEAST.--When a man roars with laughter he surpasses all the
animals by his vulgarity.
554.
PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE.--He who speaks a foreign language imperfectly has
more enjoyment therein than he who speaks it well. The enjoyment is
with the partially initiated.
555.
DANGEROUS HELPFULNESS.--There are people who wish to make human life
harder for no other reason than to be able afterwards to offer men
their life-alleviating recipes--their Christianity, for example.
556.
INDUSTRIOUSNESS AND CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.--Industriousness and
conscientiousness are often antagonists, owing to the fact that
industriousness wants to pluck the fruit sour from the tree while
conscientiousness wants to let it hang too long, until it falls and is
bruised.
557.
CASTING SUSPICION.--We endeavour to cast suspicion on persons whom we
cannot endure.
558.
THE CONDITIONS ARE LACKING.--Many people wait all their lives for the
opportunity to be good in _their own way._
559.
LACK OF FRIENDS.--Lack of friends leads to the inference that a person
is envious or presumptuous. Many a man owes his friends merely to the
fortunate circumstance that he has no occasion for envy.
560.
DANGER IN MANIFOLDNESS.--With one talent more we often stand less
firmly than with one less; just as a table stands better on three feet
than on four.
561.
AN EXEMPLAR FOR OTHERS.--Whoever wants to set a good example must add a
grain of folly to his virtue; people then imitate their exemplar and at
the same time raise themselves above him, a thing they love to do.
562.
BEING A TARGET.--The bad things others say about us are often not
really aimed at us, but are the manifestations of spite or ill-humour
occasioned by quite different causes.
563.
EASILY RESIGNED.--We suffer but little on account of ungratified wishes
if we have exercised our imagination in distorting the past.
564.
IN DANGER.--One is in greatest danger of being run over when one has
just got out of the way of a carriage.
565.
THE ROLE ACCORDING TO THE VOICE.--Whoever is obliged to speak louder
than he naturally does (say, to a partially deaf person or before a
large audience), usually exaggerates what he has to communicate. Many
a one becomes a conspirator, malevolent gossip, or intriguer, merely
because his voice is best suited for whispering.
566.
LOVE AND HATRED.--Love and hatred are not blind, but are dazzled by the
fire which they carry about with them.
567.
ADVANTAGEOUSLY PERSECUTED.--People who cannot make their merits
perfectly obvious to the world endeavour to awaken a strong hostility
against themselves. They have then the consolation of thinking that
this hostility stands between their merits and the acknowledgment
thereof--- and that many others think the same thing, which is very
advantageous for their recognition.
568.
CONFESSION.--We forget our fault when we have confessed it to another
person, but he does not generally forget it.
569.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY.--The Golden Fleece of self-sufficiency is a
protection against blows, but not against needle-pricks.
570.
SHADOWS IN THE FLAME.--The flame is not so bright to itself as to those
whom it illuminates,--so also the wise man.
571.
OUR OWN OPINIONS.--The first opinion that occurs to us when we are
suddenly asked about anything is not usually our own, but only the
current opinion belonging to our caste, position, or family; our own
opinions seldom float on the surface.
572.
THE ORIGIN OF COURAGE.--The ordinary man is as courageous and
invulnerable as a hero when he does not see the danger, when he has no
eyes for it. Reversely, the hero has his one vulnerable spot upon the
back, where he has no eyes.
573.