wished to exist--its envy for everything superior to itself, its
cupidity, the disorder of its customs, the enslavement of the women,
lack of conscience in the keeping of oaths, in murder, and in cases of
violent death.
Tremendous power of self-control: for example in a man like Socrates,
who was capable of everything evil.
121
Its noble sense of order and systematic arrangement had rendered the
Athenian state immortal--The ten strategists in Athens! Foolish! Too big
a sacrifice on the altar of jealousy.
122
The recreations of the Spartans consisted of feasting, hunting, and
making war · their every-day life was too hard. On the whole, however,
their state is merely a caricature of the polls, a corruption of Hellas.
The breeding of the complete Spartan--but what was there great about him
that his breeding should have required such a brutal state!
123
The political defeat of Greece is the greatest failure of culture; for
it has given rise to the atrocious theory that culture cannot be pursued
unless one is at the same time armed to the teeth. The rise of
Christianity was the second greatest failure: brute force on the one
hand, and a dull intellect on the other, won a complete victory over the
aristocratic genius among the nations. To be a Philhellenist now means
to be a foe of brute force and stupid intellects. Sparta was the ruin of
Athens in so far as she compelled Athens to turn her entire attention
to politics and to act as a federal combination.
124
There are domains of thought where the _ratio_ will only give rise to
disorder, and the philologist, who possesses nothing more, is lost
through it and is unable to see the truth · _e.g._ in the consideration
of Greek mythology. A merely fantastic person, of course, has no claim
either · one must possess Greek imagination and also a certain amount of
Greek piety. Even the poet does not require to be too consistent, and
consistency is the last thing Greeks would understand.
125
Almost all the Greek divinities are accumulations of divinities . we
find one layer over another, soon to be hidden and smoothed down by yet
a third, and so on. It scarcely seems to me to be possible to pick these
various divinities to pieces in a scientific manner, for no good method
of doing so can be recommended: even the poor conclusion by analogy is
in this instance a very good conclusion.
126
At what a distance must one be from the Greeks to ascribe to them such a
stupidly narrow autochthony as does Ottfried Muller![10] How Christian
it is to assume, with Welcker,[11] that the Greeks were originally
monotheistic! How philologists torment themselves by investigating the
question whether Homer actually wrote, without being able to grasp the
far higher tenet that Greek art long exhibited an inward enmity against
writing, and did not wish to be read at all.
127
In the religious cultus an earlier degree of culture comes to light a
remnant of former times. The ages that celebrate it are not those which
invent it, the contrary is often the case. There are many contrasts to
be found here. The Greek cultus takes us back to a pre-Homeric
disposition and culture. It is almost the oldest that we know of the
Greeks--older than their mythology, which their poets have considerably
remoulded, so far as we know it--Can this cult really be called Greek? I
doubt it: they are finishers, not inventors. They _preserve_ by means of
this beautiful completion and adornment.
128
It is exceedingly doubtful whether we should draw any conclusion in
regard to nationality and relationship with other nations from
languages. A victorious language is nothing but a frequent (and not
always regular) indication of a successful campaign. Where could there
have been autochthonous peoples! It shows a very hazy conception of
things to talk about Greeks who never lived in Greece. That which is
really Greek is much less the result of natural aptitude than of adapted
institutions, and also of an acquired language.
129
To live on mountains, to travel a great deal, and to move quickly from
one place to another . in these ways we can now begin to compare
ourselves with the Greek gods. We know the past, too, and we almost know
the future. What would a Greek say, if only he could see us!
130
The gods make men still more evil; this is the nature of man. If we do
not like a man, we wish that he may become worse than he is, and then we
are glad. This forms part of the obscure philosophy of hate--a
philosophy which has never yet been written, because it is everywhere
the _pudendum_ that every one feels.
131
The pan-Hellenic Homer finds his delight in the frivolity of the gods;
but it is astounding how he can also give them dignity again. This
amazing ability to raise one's self again, however, is Greek.
132
What, then, is the origin of the envy of the gods? people did not
believe in a calm, quiet happiness, but only in an exuberant one. This
must have caused some displeasure to the Greeks; for their soul was only
too easily wounded: it embittered them to see a happy man. That is
Greek. If a man of distinguished talent appeared, the flock of envious
people must have become astonishingly large. If any one met with a
misfortune, they would say of him: "Ah! no wonder! he was too frivolous
and too well off." And every one of them would have behaved exuberantly
if he had possessed the requisite talent, and would willingly have
played the role of the god who sent the unhappiness to men.
133
The Greek gods did not demand any complete changes of character, and
were, generally speaking, by no means burdensome or importunate . it was
thus possible to take them seriously and to believe in them. At the time
of Homer, indeed, the nature of the Greek was formed · flippancy of
images and imagination was necessary to lighten the weight of its
passionate disposition and to set it free.
134
Every religion has for its highest images an analogon in the spiritual
condition of those who profess it. The God of Mohammed . the
solitariness of the desert, the distant roar of the lion, the vision of
a formidable warrior. The God of the Christians . everything that men
and women think of when they hear the word "love". The God of the
Greeks: a beautiful apparition in a dream.
135
A great deal of intelligence must have gone to the making up of a Greek
polytheism . the expenditure of intelligence is much less lavish when
people have only _one_ God.
136
Greek morality is not based on religion, but on the _polis_.
There were only priests of the individual gods; not representatives of
the whole religion . _i.e._, no guild of priests. Likewise no Holy Writ.
137
The "lighthearted" gods · this is the highest adornment which has ever
been bestowed upon the world--with the feeling, How difficult it is to
live!
138
If the Greeks let their "reason" speak, their life seems to them bitter
and terrible. They are not deceived. But they play round life with lies:
Simonides advises them to treat life as they would a play; earnestness
was only too well known to them in the form of pain. The misery of men
is a pleasure to the gods when they hear the poets singing of it. Well
did the Greeks know that only through art could even misery itself
become a source of pleasure, _vide tragoediam_.
139
It is quite untrue to say that the Greeks only took _this_ life into
their consideration--they suffered also from thoughts of death and Hell.
But no "repentance" or contrition.
140
The incarnate appearance of gods, as in Sappho's invocation to
Aphrodite, must not be taken as poetic licence · they are frequently
hallucinations. We conceive of a great many things, including the will
to die, too superficially as rhetorical.
141
The "martyr" is Hellenic: Prometheus, Hercules. The hero-myth became
pan-Hellenic: a poet must have had a hand in that!
142
How _realistic_ the Greeks were even in the domain of pure inventions!
They poetised reality, not yearning to lift themselves out of it. The
raising of the present into the colossal and eternal, _e.g._, by Pindar.
143
What condition do the Greeks premise as the model of their life in
Hades? Anæmic, dreamlike, weak . it is the continuous accentuation of
old age, when the memory gradually becomes weaker and weaker, and the
body still more so. The senility of senility . this would be our state
of life in the eyes of the Hellenes.
144
The naive character of the Greeks observed by the Egyptians.
145
The truly scientific people, the literary people, were the Egyptians and
not the Greeks. That which has the appearance of science among the
Greeks, originated among the Egyptians and later on returned to them to
mingle again with the old current. Alexandrian culture is an
amalgamation of Hellenic and Egyptian . and when our world again founds
its culture upon the Alexandrian culture, then....[12]
146
The Egyptians are far more of a literary people than the Greeks. I
maintain this against Wolf. The first grain in Eleusis, the first vine
in Thebes, the first olive-tree and fig-tree. The Egyptians had lost a
great part of their mythology.
147
The unmathematical undulation of the column in Paestum is analogous to
the modification of the _tempo_: animation in place of a mechanical
movement.
148
The desire to find something certain and fixed in æsthetic led to the
worship of Aristotle: I think, however, that we may gradually come to
see from his works that he understood nothing about art, and that it is
merely the intellectual conversations of the Athenians, echoing in his
pages, which we admire.
149
In Socrates we have as it were lying open before us a specimen of the
consciousness out of which, later on, the instincts of the theoretic man
originated: that one would rather die than grow old and weak in mind.
150
At the twilight of antiquity there were still wholly unchristian
figures, which were more beautiful, harmonious, and pure than those of
any Christians: _e.g._, Proclus. His mysticism and syncretism were
things that precisely Christianity cannot reproach him with. In any
case, it would be my desire to live together with such people. In
comparison with them Christianity looks like some crude brutalisation,
organised for the benefit of the mob and the criminal classes.
Proclus, who solemnly invokes the rising moon.
151
With the advent of Christianity a religion attained the mastery which
corresponded to a pre-Greek condition of mankind: belief in witchcraft
in connection with all and everything, bloody sacrifices, superstitious
fear of demoniacal punishments, despair in one's self, ecstatic brooding
and hallucination, man's self become the arena of good and evil spirits
and their struggles.
152
All branches of history have experimented with antiquity · critical
consideration alone remains. By this term I do not mean conjectural and
literary-historical criticism.
153
Antiquity has been treated by all kinds of historians and their methods.
We have now had enough experience, however, to turn the history of
antiquity to account without being shipwrecked on antiquity itself.
154
We can now look back over a fairly long period of human existence · what
will the humanity be like which is able to look back at us from an
equally long distance? which finds us lying intoxicated among the débris
of old culture! which finds its only consolation in "being good" and in
holding out the "helping hand," and turns away from all other
consolations!--Does beauty, too, grow out of the ancient culture? I
think that our ugliness arises from our metaphysical remnants . our
confused morals, the worthlessness of our marriages, and so on, are the
cause. The beautiful man, the healthy, moderate, and enterprising man,
moulds the objects around him into beautiful shapes after his own image.
155
Up to the present time all history has been written from the standpoint
of success, and, indeed, with the assumption of a certain reason in this
success. This remark applies also to Greek history: so far we do not
possess any. It is the same all round, however: where are the historians
who can survey things and events without being humbugged by stupid
theories? I know of only one, Burckhardt. Everywhere the widest possible
optimism prevails in science. The question: "What would have been the
consequence if so and so had not happened?" is almost unanimously thrust
aside, and yet it is the cardinal question. Thus everything becomes
ironical. Let us only consider our own lives. If we examine history in
accordance with a preconceived plan, let this plan be sought in the
purposes of a great man, or perhaps in those of a sex, or of a party.
Everything else is a chaos.--Even in natural science we find this
deification of the necessary.
Germany has become the breeding-place of this historical optimism; Hegel
is perhaps to blame for this. Nothing, however, is more responsible for
the fatal influence of German culture. Everything that has been kept
down by success gradually rears itself up: history as the scorn of the
conqueror; a servile sentiment and a kneeling down before the actual
fact--"a sense for the State," they now call it, as if _that_ had still
to be propagated! He who does not understand how brutal and
unintelligent history is will never understand the stimulus to make it
intelligent. Just think how rare it is to find a man with as great an
intelligent knowledge of his own life as Goethe had . what amount of
rationality can we expect to find arising out of these other veiled and
blind existences as they work chaotically with and in opposition to each
other?
And it is especially naive when Hellwald, the author of a history of
culture, warns us away from all "ideals," simply because history has
killed them off one after the other.
156
To bring to light without reserve the stupidity and the want of reason
in human things · that is the aim of _our_ brethren and colleagues.
People will then have to distinguish what is essential in them, what is
incorrigible, and what is still susceptible of further improvement. But
"Providence" must be kept out of the question, for it is a conception
that enables people to take things too easily. I wish to breathe the
breath of _this_ purpose into science. Let us advance our knowledge of
mankind! The good and rational in man is accidental or apparent, or the
contrary of something very irrational. There will come a time when
_training_ will be the only thought.
157
Surrender to necessity is exactly what I do not teach--for one must
first know this necessity to be necessary. There may perhaps be many
necessities; but in general this inclination is simply a bed of
idleness.
158
To know history now means · to recognise how all those who believed in a
Providence took things too easily. There is no such thing. If human
affairs are seen to go forward in a loose and disordered way, do not
think that a god has any purpose in view by letting them do so or that
he is neglecting them. We can now see in a general way that the history
of Christianity on earth has been one of the most dreadful chapters in
history, and that a stop _must_ be put to it. True, the influence of
antiquity has been observed in Christianity even in our own time, and,
as it diminishes, so will our knowledge of antiquity diminish also to an
even greater extent. Now is the best time to recognise it: we are no
longer prejudiced in favour of Christianity, but we still understand it,
and also the antiquity that forms part of it, so far as this antiquity
stands in line with Christianity.
159
Philosophic heads must occupy themselves one day with the collective
account of antiquity and make up its balance-sheet. If we have this,
antiquity will be overcome. All the shortcomings which now vex us have
their roots in antiquity, so that we cannot continue to treat this
account with the mildness which has been customary up to the present.
The atrocious crime of mankind which rendered Christianity possible, as
it actually became possible, is the _guilt_ of antiquity. With
Christianity antiquity will also be cleared away.--At the present time
it is not so very far behind us, and it is certainly not possible to do
justice to it. It has been availed of in the most dreadful fashion for
purposes of repression, and has acted as a support for religious
oppression by disguising itself as "culture." It was common to hear the
saying, "Antiquity has been conquered by Christianity."
This was a historical fact, and it was thus thought that no harm could
come of any dealings with antiquity. Yes, it is so plausible to say that
we find Christian ethics "deeper" than Socrates! Plato was easier to
compete with! We are at the present time, so to speak, merely chewing
the cud of the very battle which was fought in the first centuries of
the Christian era--with the exception of the fact that now, instead of
the clearly perceptible antiquity which then existed, we have merely its
pale ghost; and, indeed, even Christianity itself has become rather
ghostlike. It is a battle fought _after_ the decisive battle, a
post-vibration. In the end, all the forces of which antiquity consisted
have reappeared in Christianity in the crudest possible form: it is
nothing new, only quantitatively extraordinary.
160
What severs us for ever from the culture of antiquity is the fact that
its foundations have become too shaky for us. A criticism of the Greeks
is at the same time a criticism of Christianity; for the bases of the
spirit of belief, the religious cult, and witchcraft, are the same in
both--There are many rudimentary stages still remaining, but they are by
this time almost ready to collapse.
This would be a task . to characterise Greek antiquity as irretrievably
lost, and with it Christianity also and the foundations upon which, up
to the present time, our society and politics have been based.
161
Christianity has conquered antiquity--yes; that is easily said. In the
first place, it is itself a piece of antiquity, in the second place, it
has preserved antiquity, in the third place, it has never been in combat
with the pure ages of antiquity. Or rather: in order that Christianity
itself might remain, it had to let itself be overcome by the spirit of
antiquity--for example, the idea of empire, the community, and so forth.
We are suffering from the uncommon want of clearness and uncleanliness
of human things; from the ingenious mendacity which Christianity has
brought among men.
162
It is almost laughable to see how nearly all the sciences and arts of
modern times grow from the scattered seeds which have been wafted
towards us from antiquity, and how Christianity seems to us here to be
merely the evil chill of a long night, a night during which one is
almost inclined to believe that all is over with reason and honesty
among men. The battle waged against the natural man has given rise to
the unnatural man.
163
With the dissolution of Christianity a great part of antiquity has
become incomprehensible to us, for instance, the entire religious basis
of life. On this account an imitation of antiquity is a false tendency .
the betrayers or the betrayed are the philologists who still think of
such a thing. We live in a period when many different conceptions of
life are to be found: hence the present age is instructive to an unusual
degree; and hence also the reason why it is so ill, since it suffers
from the evils of all its tendencies at once. The man of the future .
the European man.
164
The German Reformation widened the gap between us and antiquity: was it
necessary for it to do so? It once again introduced the old contrast of
"Paganism" and "Christianity"; and it was at the same time a protest
against the decorative culture of the Renaissance--it was a victory
gained over the same culture as had formerly been conquered by early
Christianity.
In regard to "worldly things," Christianity preserved the grosser views
of the ancients. All the nobler elements in marriage, slavery, and the
State are unchristian. It _required_ the distorting characteristics of
worldliness to prove itself.
165
The connection between humanism and religious rationalism was emphasised
as a Saxonian trait by Kochly: the type of this philologist is Gottfried
Hermann.[13]
166
I understand religions as narcotics: but when they are given to such
nations as the Germans, I think they are simply rank poison.
167
All religions are, in the end, based upon certain physical assumptions,
which are already in existence and adapt the religions to their needs .
for example, in Christianity, the contrast between body and soul, the
unlimited importance of the earth as the "world," the marvellous
occurrences in nature. If once the opposite views gain the mastery--for
instance, a strict law of nature, the helplessness and superfluousness
of all gods, the strict conception of the soul as a bodily process--all
is over. But all Greek culture is based upon such views.
168
When we look from the character and culture of the Catholic Middle Ages
back to the Greeks, we see them resplendent indeed in the rays of higher
humanity; for, if we have anything to reproach these Greeks with, we
must reproach the Middle Ages with it also to a much greater extent. The
worship of the ancients at the time of the Renaissance was therefore
quite honest and proper. We have carried matters further in one
particular point, precisely in connection with that dawning ray of
light. We have outstripped the Greeks in the clarifying of the world by
our studies of nature and men. Our knowledge is much greater, and our
judgments are more moderate and just.
In addition to this, a more gentle spirit has become widespread, thanks
to the period of illumination which has weakened mankind--but this
weakness, when turned into morality, leads to good results and honours
us. Man has now a great deal of freedom: it is his own fault if he does
not make more use of it than he does; the fanaticism of opinions has
become much milder. Finally, that we would much rather live in the
present age than in any other is due to science, and certainly no other
race in the history of mankind has had such a wide choice of noble
enjoyments as ours--even if our race has not the palate and stomach to
experience a great deal of joy. But one can live comfortably amid all
this "freedom" only when one merely understands it and does not wish to
participate in it--that is the modern crux. The participants appear to
be less attractive than ever · how stupid they must be!
Thus the danger arises that knowledge may avenge itself on us, just as
ignorance avenged itself on us during the Middle Ages. It is all over
with those religions which place their trust in gods, Providences,
rational orders of the universe, miracles, and sacraments, as is also
the case with certain types of holy lives, such as ascetics; for we only
too easily conclude that such people are the effects of sickness and an
aberrant brain. There is no doubt that the contrast between a pure,
incorporeal soul and a body has been almost set aside. Who now believes
in the immortality of the soul! Everything connected with blessedness or
damnation, which was based upon certain erroneous physiological
assumptions, falls to the ground as soon as these assumptions are
recognised to be errors. Our scientific assumptions admit just as much
of an interpretation and utilisation in favour of a besotting
philistinism--yea, in favour of bestiality--as also in favour of
"blessedness" and soul-inspiration. As compared with all previous ages,
we are now standing on a new foundation, so that something may still be
expected from the human race.