1. NIHILISM AS AN OUTCOME OF THE VALUATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF
EXISTENCE WHICH HAVE PREVAILED HERETOFORE.
2.
What does Nihilism mean?--_That the highest values are losing their
value._ There is no bourne. There is no answer to the question: "to
what purpose?"
3.
Thorough Nihilism is the conviction that life is absurd, in the
light of the highest values already discovered; it also includes the
_view_ that we have not the smallest right to assume the existence of
transcendental objects or things in themselves, which would be either
divine or morality incarnate.
This view is a result of fully developed "truthfulness": therefore a
consequence of the belief in morality.
4.
What _advantages_ did the Christian hypothesis of morality offer?
(1) It bestowed an intrinsic value upon men, which contrasted with
their apparent insignificance and subordination to chance in the
eternal flux of becoming and perishing.
(2) It served the purpose of God's advocates, inasmuch as it granted
the world a certain _perfection_ despite its sorrow and evil--it also
granted the world that proverbial "freedom": evil seemed full of
_meaning_.
(3) It assumed that man could have a _knowledge_ of absolute values,
and thus granted him _adequate perception_ for the most important
things.
(4) It prevented man from despising himself as man, from turning
against life, and from being driven to despair by knowledge: it was a
self-preservative measure.
In short: Morality was the great _antidote_ against practical and
theoretical Nihilism.
5.
But among the forces reared by morality, there was _truthfulness_:
this in the end turns against morality, exposes the _teleology_ of the
latter, its interestedness, and now the _recognition_ of this lie so
long incorporated, from which we despaired of ever freeing ourselves,
acts just like a stimulus. We perceive certain needs in ourselves,
implanted during the long dynasty of the moral interpretation of life,
which now seem to us to be needs of untruth: on the other hand, those
very needs represent the highest values owing to which we are able to
endure life. We have _ceased_ from attaching any worth to what we
know, and we _dare_ not attach any more worth to that with which we
would fain deceive ourselves--from this antagonism there results a
process of dissolution.
6.
This is the _antinomy_: In so far as we believe in morality, we condemn
existence.
7.
The highest values in the service of which man ought to live, more
particularly when they oppressed and constrained him most--these
_social values, owing to their tone-strengthening_ tendencies,
were built over men's heads as though they were the will of God or
"reality," or the actual world, or even a hope of a world to come.
Now that the lowly origin of these values has become known, the
whole universe seems to have been transvalued and to have lost its
significance--but this is only an intermediate stage.
8.
The consequence of _Nihilism_ (disbelief in all values) as a result
of a moral valuation:--_We have grown to dislike egotism_ (even
though we have realised the impossibility of altruism);--_we have
grown to dislike what is most necessary_ (although we have recognised
the impossibility of a _liberum arbitrium_ and of an "intelligible
freedom"[1]). We perceive that we do not reach the spheres in which we
have set our values--at the same time those other spheres in which we
live have _not_ thereby gained _one iota_ in value. On the contrary, we
are _tired,_ because we have lost the main incentive to live. "All in
vain hitherto!"
9.
"Pessimism as a preparatory state to Nihilism."
10.
A. Pessimism viewed as strength--_in what respect?_ In the energy of
its logic, as anarchy, Nihilism, and analysis.
B. Pessimism regarded as collapse--_in what sense?_ In the sense of
its being a softening influence, a sort of cosmopolitan befingering, a
"tout comprendre," and historical spirit.
_Critical tension_: extremes make their appearance and become dominant.
11.
_The logic of Pessimism leads finally to Nihilism: what is the force at
work?_--The notion that _there are no values,_ and _no purpose_: the
recognition of the part that moral valuations have played in all other
lofty values.
Result: _moral valuations are condemnations, negations; morality is the
abdication of the will to live...._
[Footnote 1: This is a Kantian term. Kant recognised two kinds of
Freedom--the practical and the transcendental kind. The first belongs
to the phenomenal, the second to the intelligible world.--TRANSLATOR'S
NOTE.]
12.