38.
Just lately an accidental and in every way inappropriate term has been
very much misused: everywhere people are speaking of "_Pessimism_,"
and there is a fight around the question (to which some replies must be
forthcoming): which is right--Pessimism or Optimism?
People have not yet seen what is so terribly-obvious--namely, that
Pessimism is not a problem but a _symptom,_--that the term ought to be
replaced by "Nihilism,"--that the question, "to be or not to be," is
itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy.
The Nihilistic movement is only an expression of physiological
decadence.
39.
_To be understood_:--That every kind of decline and tendency to
sickness has incessantly been at work in helping to create general
evaluations: that in those valuations which now dominate, decadence
has even begun to preponderate, that we have not only to combat the
conditions which present misery and degeneration have brought into
being; but that all decadence, previous to that of our own times, has
been transmitted and has therefore remained an _active force_ amongst
us. A universal departure of this kind, on the part of man, from
his fundamental instincts, such universal decadence of the valuing
judgment, is the note of interrogation _par excellence,_ the real
riddle, which the animal "man" sets to all philosophers.
40.
_The notion "decadence":--Decay, decline,_ and _waste,_ are, _per se,_
in no way open to objection; they are the natural consequences of life
and vital growth. The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to
life as advance or progress is: we are not in a position which enables
us to _suppress_ it. On the contrary, reason _would have it retain its
rights._
It is disgraceful on the part of socialist-theorists to argue that
circumstances and social combinations could be devised which would put
an end to all vice, illness, crime, prostitution, and poverty.... But
that is tantamount to condemning _Life_ ... a society is not at liberty
to remain young. And even in its prime it must bring forth ordure and
decaying matter. The more energetically and daringly it advances, the
richer will it be in failures and in deformities, and the nearer it
will be to its fall. Age is not deferred by means of institutions. Nor
is illness. Nor is vice.
41.
Fundamental aspect of the nature of decadence: _what has heretofore
been regarded as its causes are its effects._
In this way, the whole perspective _of the problems of morality_ is
altered.
All the struggle of morals against vice, luxury, crime, and even
against illness, seems a _naïveté,_ a superfluous effort: there is no
such thing as "_improvement_" (a word against _repentance_).
Decadence itself is not a thing _that can be withstood_: it is
absolutely necessary and is proper to all ages and all peoples. That
which must be withstood, and by all means in our power, is the
spreading of the contagion among the sound parts of the organism.
Is that done? The very _reverse_ is done. It is precisely on this
account that one makes a stand on behalf of _humanity._
How do the _highest values_ created hitherto stand in relation to this
fundamental question in _biology_? Philosophy, religion, morality, art,
etc.
(The remedy: militarism, for instance, from Napoleon onwards, who
regarded civilisation as his natural enemy.)
42.
All those things which heretofore have been regarded as the _causes of
degeneration,_ are really its effects.
But those things also which have been regarded as the _remedies_ of
degeneration are only _palliatives_ of certain effects thereof: the
"cured" are _types of the degenerate._
_The results of decadence_: vice--viciousness; illness--sickliness;
crime--criminality; celibacy--sterility; hysteria--the weakness of the
will; alcoholism; pessimism, anarchy; debauchery (also of the spirit).
The calumniators, underminers, sceptics, and destroyers.
43.
Concerning the notion "decadence." (1) Scepticism is a result of
decadence: just as spiritual debauchery is.
(2) Moral corruption is a result of decadence (the weakness of the will
and the need of strong stimulants).
(3) Remedies, whether psychological or moral, do not alter the march
of decadence, they do not arrest anything; physiologically they do not
count.
A peep into the _enormous futility_ of these pretentious "reactions";
they are forms of anæsthetising oneself against certain fatal
symptoms resulting from the prevailing condition of things; they do
not eradicate the morbid element; they are often heroic attempts to
cancel the decadent man, to allow only a minimum of his _deleterious
influence_ to survive.
(4) Nihilism is not a cause, but only the _rationale_ of decadence.
(5) The "good" and the "bad" are no more than two types of decadence:
they come together in all its fundamental phenomena.
(6) The _social problem_ is a result of _decadence._
(7) Illnesses, more particularly those attacking the nerves and the
head, are signs that the _defensive_ strength of strong nature is
lacking; a proof of this is that irritability which causes pleasure and
pain to be regarded as problems of the first order.
44.
_The most common types of decadence_: (1) In the belief that they are
remedies, cures are chosen which only precipitate exhaustion;--this is
the case with Christianity (to point to the most egregious example of
mistaken instinct);--this is also the case with "progress."
(2) The _power of resisting_ stimuli is on the wane--chance rules
supreme: events are inflated and drawn out until they appear monstrous
... a suppression of the "personality," a disintegration of the
will; in this regard we may mention a whole class of morality, the
altruistic, that which is incessantly preaching pity, and whose most
essential feature is the weakness of the personality, so that it _rings
in unison,_ and, like an over-sensitive string, does not cease from
vibrating ... extreme irritability....
(3) Cause and effect are confounded: decadence is not understood as
physiological, and its results are taken to be the causes of the
general indisposition:--this applies to all religious morality.
(4) A state of affairs is desired in which suffering shall cease;
life is actually considered the cause of all ills--_unconscious_ and
insensitive states (sleep and syncope) are held in incomparably higher
esteem than the conscious states; hence a _method_ of life.
45.
Concerning the hygiene of the "weak." All that is done in weakness ends
in failure. Moral: do nothing. The worst of it is, that precisely the
strength required in order to stop action, and to cease from reacting,
is most seriously diseased under the influence of weakness: that one
never reacts more promptly or more blindly than when one should not
react at all.
The strength of a character is shown by the ability to delay and
postpone reaction: a certain ἀδιαφορία is just as proper to it, as
involuntariness in recoiling, suddenness and lack of restraint in
"action," are proper to weakness. The will is weak: and the recipe
for preventing foolish acts would be: to have a strong will and to do
nothing--contradiction. A sort of self-destruction, the instinct of
self-preservation is compromised.... _The weak man injures himself_....
That is the decadent _type_.
As a matter of fact, we meet with a vast amount of thought concerning
the means wherewith _impassibility_ may be induced. To this extent, the
instincts are on the right scent; for to do nothing is more useful than
to do something....
All the practices of private orders, of solitary philosophers, and of
fakirs, are suggested by a correct consideration of the fact, that a
certain kind of man is most _useful to himself_ when he hinders his own
action as much as possible.
_Relieving measures_: absolute obedience, mechanical activity, total
isolation from men and things that might exact immediate decisions and
actions.
46.
_Weakness of Will_: this is a fable that can lead astray. For there
is no will, consequently neither a strong nor a weak one. The
multiplicity and disintegration of the instincts, the want of system in
their relationship, constitute what is known as a "weak will"; their
co-ordination, under the government of one individual among them,
results in a "strong will"--in the first case vacillation and a lack
of equilibrium is noticeable: in the second, precision and definite
direction.
47.
That which is inherited is not illness, but a _predisposition to
illness_: a lack of the powers of resistance against injurious external
influences, etc. etc, broken powers of resistance; expressed morally:
resignation and humility in the presence of the enemy.
I have often wondered whether it would not be possible to class all the
highest values of the philosophies, moralities, and religions which
have been devised hitherto, with the values of the feeble, the _insane_
and the _neurasthenic_ in a milder form, they present the same evils.
The value of all morbid conditions consists in the fact that they
magnify certain normal phenomena which are difficult to discern in
normal conditions....
_Health_ and _illness_ are not essentially different, as the ancient
doctors believed and as a few practitioners still believe to-day. They
cannot be imagined as two distinct principles or entities which fight
for the living organism and make it their battlefield. That is nonsense
and mere idle gossip, which no longer holds water. As a matter of
fact, there is only a difference of degree between these two living
conditions: exaggeration, want of proportion, want of harmony among the
normal phenomena, constitute the morbid state (Claude Bernard).
Just as "evil" may be regarded as exaggeration, discord, and want of
proportion, so can "good" be regarded as a sort of protective diet
against the danger of exaggeration, discord, and want of proportion.
_Hereditary weakness_ as a _dominant_ feeling: the cause of the
prevailing values.
_N.B._--Weakness is in demand--why?... mostly because people cannot be
anything else than weak.
_Weakening considered a duty_: The weakening of the desires, of the
feelings of pleasure and of pain, of the will to power, of the will
to pride, to property and to more property; weakening in the form of
humility; weakening in the form of a belief; weakening in the form
of repugnance and shame in the presence of all that is natural--in
the form of a denial of life, in the form of illness and chronic
feebleness; weakening in the form of a refusal to take revenge, to
offer resistance, to become an enemy, and to show anger.
_Blunders_ in the treatment: there is no attempt at combating weakness
by means of any fortifying system; but by a sort of justification
consisting of moralising; _i.e.,_ by means of _interpretation._
Two totally different conditions are _confused_: for instance, the
_repose of strength,_ which is essentially abstinence from reaction
(the prototype of the gods whom nothing moves), and the _peace of
exhaustion,_ rigidity to the point of anæsthesia. All these philosophic
and ascetic modes of procedure aspire to the second state, but actually
pretend to attain to the first ... for they ascribe to the condition
they have reached the attributes that would be in keeping only with a
divine state.
48.
_The most dangerous misunderstanding._--There is one concept which
apparently allows of no confusion or ambiguity, and that is the concept
_exhaustion._ Exhaustion may be acquired or inherited--in any case it
alters the aspect and _value of things._
Unlike him who involuntarily _gives_ of the superabundance which he
both feels and represents, to the things about him, and who sees them
fuller, mightier, and more pregnant with promises,--who, in fact, _can_
bestow,--the exhausted one belittles and disfigures everything he
sees--he impoverishes its worth: he is detrimental....
No mistake seems possible in this matter: and yet history discloses the
terrible fact, that the exhausted have always been _confounded_ with
those with the most abundant resources, and the latter with the most
detrimental.
The pauper in vitality, the feeble one, impoverishes even life: the
wealthy man, in vital powers, enriches it. The first is the parasite of
the second: the second is a bestower of his abundance. How is confusion
possible?
When he who was exhausted came forth with the bearing of a very
active and energetic man (when degeneration implied a certain excess
of spiritual and nervous discharge), he was _mistaken_ for the wealthy
man. He inspired terror. The cult of the madman is also always the cult
of him who is rich in vitality, and who is a powerful man. The fanatic,
the one possessed, the religious epileptic, all eccentric creatures
have been regarded as the highest types of power: as divine.
This kind of strength which inspires terror seemed to be, above all,
divine: this was the starting-point of authority; here _wisdom_
was interpreted, hearkened to, and sought. Out of this there was
developed, everywhere almost, a _will_ to "deify," _i.e.,_ to a typical
degeneration of spirit, body, and nerves: an attempt to discover the
road to this higher form of being. To make oneself ill or mad, to
provoke the symptoms of serious disorder--was called getting stronger,
becoming more superhuman, more terrible and more wise. People thought
they would thus attain to such wealth of power, that they would be able
to _dispense_ it. Wheresoever there have been prayers, some one has
been sought who had something to give away.
What led astray, here, was the experience of intoxication. This
increases the feeling of power to the highest degree, therefore, to the
mind of the ingenuous, it is _power._ On the highest altar of power
_the most intoxicated man_ must stand, the ecstatic. (There are two
causes of _intoxication_: superabundant life, and a condition of morbid
nutrition of the brain.)
49.
_Acquired,_ not inherited exhaustion: (1) inadequate _nourishment,_
often the result of ignorance concerning diet, as, for instance, in the
case of scholars; (2) erotic precocity: the damnation more especially
of the youth of France--Parisian youths, above all, who are already
dirtied and ruined when they step out of their _lycées_ into the world,
and who cannot break the chains of despicable tendencies; ironical and
scornful towards themselves--galley-slaves despite all their refinement
(moreover, in the majority of cases, already a symptom of racial and
family decadence, as all hypersensitiveness is; and examples of the
infection of environment: to be influenced by one's environment is
also a sign of decadence); (3) alcoholism, not the instinct but the
habit, foolish imitation, the cowardly or vain adaptation to a ruling
fashion. What a blessing a Jew is among Germans! See the obtuseness,
the flaxen head, the blue eye, and the lack of intellect in the face,
the language, and the bearing; the lazy habit of stretching the limbs,
and the need of repose among Germans--a need which is not the result of
overwork, but of the disgusting excitation and over-excitation caused
by alcohol.
50.
_A theory of exhaustion._--Vice, the insane (also artists), the
criminals, the anarchists--these are not the _oppressed_ classes, but
_the outcasts_ of the community of all classes hitherto.
Seeing that all our classes are permeated by these elements, we have
grasped the fact that _modern society_ is not a "society" or a "body,"
but a diseased agglomeration of Chandala,--a society which no longer
has the strength even to _excrete_.
To what extent living together for centuries has very much deepened
_sickliness_:
modern virtue }
modern intellect} as forms of disease.
modern science }
51.
_The state of corruption._--The interrelation of all forms of
corruption should be understood, and the Christian form (Pascal as
the type), as also the socialistic and communistic (a result of the
Christian), should not be overlooked (from the standpoint of natural
science, the _highest_ conception of society according to socialists,
is the lowest in the order of rank among societies); the "Beyond"
--corruption: as though outside the real world of Becoming there were a
world of Being.
Here there must be no compromise, but selection, annihilation, and
war--the Christian Nihilistic standard of value must be withdrawn from
all things and attacked beneath every disguise ... for instance, from
modern _sociology, music,_ and _Pessimism_ (all forms of the Christian
ideal of values).
Either one thing _or_ the other is true--that is to say, tending to
elevate the type man....
The priest, the shepherd of souls, should be looked upon as a form
of life which must be suppressed. All education, hitherto, has been
helpless, adrift, without ballast, and afflicted with the contradiction
of values.
Either one thing _or_ the other is true--that is to say, tending to
elevate the type man....
The priest, the shepherd of souls, should be looked upon as a form
of life which must be suppressed. All education, hitherto, has been
helpless, adrift, without ballast, and afflicted with the contradiction
of values.
52.
If Nature have no pity on the degenerate, it is not therefore
immoral: the growth of physiological and moral evils in the human
race, is rather the _result_ of _morbid and unnatural morality._ The
sensitiveness of the majority of men is both morbid and unnatural.
Why is it that mankind is corrupt in a moral and physiological respect?
The body degenerates if one organ is _unsound._ The _right of altruism_
cannot be traced to physiology, neither can the right to help and
to the equality of fate: these are all premiums for degenerates and
failures.
There can be no _solidarity_ in a society containing unfruitful,
unproductive, and destructive members, who, by the bye, are bound to
have offspring even more degenerate than they are themselves.
53.
Decadence exercises a profound and perfectly unconscious influence,
even over the ideals of science: all our sociology is a proof of this
proposition, and it has yet to be reproached with the fact that
it has only the experience of _society in the process of decay,_
and inevitably takes its own decaying instincts as the basis of
sociological judgment.
The _declining_ vitality of modern Europe formulates its social ideals
in its decaying instincts: and these ideals are all so like those of
_old and effete_ races, that they might be mistaken for one another.
The _gregarious instinct,_ then,--now a sovereign power,--is something
totally different from the instinct of an _aristocratic society_: and
the value of the sum depends upon the value of the units constituting
it.... The whole of our sociology knows no other instinct than that
of the herd, _i.e.,_ of a _multitude of mere ciphers_--of which every
cipher has "equal rights," and where it is a virtue to be----naught....
The valuation with which the various forms of society are judged to-day
is absolutely the same with that which assigns a higher place to peace
than to war: but this principle is contrary to the teaching of biology,
and is itself a mere outcome of decadent life. Life is a result of war,
society is a means to war.... Mr. Herbert Spencer was a decadent in
biology, as also in morality (he regarded the triumph of altruism as a
desideratum!!!).
54.
After thousands of years of error and confusion, it is my good fortune
to have rediscovered the road which leads to a Yea and to a Nay.
I teach people to say Nay in the face of all that makes for weakness
and exhaustion.
I teach people to say Yea in the face of all that makes for strength,
that preserves strength, and justifies the feeling of strength.
Up to the present, neither the one nor the other has been taught; but
rather virtue, disinterestedness, pity, and even the negation of life.
All these are values proceeding from exhausted people.
After having pondered over the physiology of exhaustion for some time,
I was led to the question: to what extent the judgments of exhausted
people had percolated into the world of values.
The result at which I arrived was as startling as it could possibly
be--even for one like myself who was already at home in many a strange
world: I found that all prevailing values--that is to say, all those
which had gained ascendancy over humanity, or at least over its tamer
portions, could be traced back to the judgment of exhausted people.
Under the cover of the holiest names, I found the most destructive
tendencies; people had actually given the name "God" to all that
renders weak, teaches weakness, and infects with weakness.... I found
that the "good man" was a form of self-affirmation on the part of
decadence.
That virtue which Schopenhauer still proclaimed as superior to all,
and as the most fundamental of all virtues; even that same pity I
recognised as more dangerous than any vice. Deliberately to thwart
the law of selection among species, and their natural means of purging
their stock of degenerate members--this, up to my time, had been the
greatest of all virtues....
One should do honour to the _fatality_ which says to the feeble:
"perish!"
The opposing of this fatality, the botching of mankind and the allowing
of it to putrefy, was given the name "God" One shall not take the name
of the Lord one's God in vain....
The race is corrupted--not by its vices, but by its ignorance: it is
corrupted because it has not recognised exhaustion as exhaustion:
physiological misunderstandings are the cause of all evil.
Virtue is our greatest misunderstanding.
Problem: how were the exhausted able to make the laws of values? In
other words, how did they who are the last, come to power?... How did
the instincts of the animal man ever get to stand on their heads?...