427.
The apparition of Greek philosophers since the time of Socrates is a
symptom of decadence; the anti-Hellenic instincts become paramount.
The "_Sophist_" is still quite Hellenic--as are also Anaxagoras,
Democritus, and the great Ionians; but only as transitional forms. The
_polis_ loses its faith in the unity of its culture, in its rights of
dominion over every other _polis...._ Cultures, that is to say, "the
gods," are exchanged, and thus the belief in the exclusive prerogative
of the _deus autochthonus_ is lost. Good and Evil of whatever origin
get mixed: the boundaries separating good from evil gradually
_vanish...._ This is the "Sophist." ...
On the other hand, the "philosopher" is the _reactionary_: he insists
upon the _old_ virtues. He sees the reason of decay in the decay of
institutions: he therefore wishes to revive _old_ institutions;--he
sees decay in the decline of authority: he therefore endeavours to
find _new_ authorities (he travels abroad, explores foreign literature
and exotic religions....);--he will reinstate the _ideal polis,_ after
the concept "polis" has become superannuated (just, as the Jews kept
themselves together as a "people" after they had fallen into slavery).
They become interested in all tyrants: their desire is to re-establish
virtue with "_force majeure_".
Gradually everything _genuinely Hellenic_ is held responsible for
the state of _decay_ (and Plato is just as ungrateful to Pericles,
Homer, tragedy, and rhetoric as the prophets are to David and
Saul). _The downfall of Greece is conceived as an objection to the
fundamental principles of Hellenic culture: the profound error of
philosophers_--Conclusion: the Greek world perishes. The cause thereof:
Homer, mythology, ancient morality, etc.
The anti-Hellenic development of philosophers' valuations:--the
Egyptian influence ("Life after death" made into law....);--the Semitic
influence (the "dignity of the sage," the "Sheik");--the Pythagorean
influence, the subterranean cults, Silence, means of terrorisation
consisting of appeals to a "Beyond," _mathematics_: the religious
valuation consisting of a sort of intimacy with a cosmic entity;--the
sacerdotal, ascetic, and transcendental influences;--the _dialectical_
influence,--I am of opinion that even Plato already betrays revolting
and pedantic meticulousness in his concepts!--Decline of good
intellectual taste: the hateful noisiness of every kind of direct
dialectics seems no longer to be felt.
The _two_ decadent tendencies and extremes run side by side: (a) the
luxuriant and more charming kind of decadence which shows a love of
pomp and art, and (b) the gloomy kind, with its religious and moral
pathos, its stoical self-hardening tendency, its Platonic denial of the
senses, and its preparation of the soil for the coming of Christianity.
428.
To what extent psychologists have been corrupted by the moral
idiosyncrasy!--Not one of the ancient philosophers had the courage to
advance the theory of the non-free will (that is to say, the theory
that denies morality);--not one had the courage to identify the typical
feature of happiness, of every kind of happiness "pleasure"), with the
will to power: for the pleasure of power was considered immoral;--not
one had the courage to regard virtue as a _result of immorality_ (as a
result of a will to power) in the service of a species (or of a race,
or of a _polis_); for the will to power was considered immoral.
In the whole of moral evolution, there is no sign of truth: all
the conceptual elements which come into play are fictions; all the
psychological tenets are false; all the forms of logic employed in this
department of prevarication are sophisms. The chief feature of all
moral philosophers is their total lack of intellectual cleanliness and
self-control: they regard "fine feelings" as arguments: their heaving
breasts seem to them the bellows of godliness.... Moral philosophy is
the most suspicious period in the history of the human intellect.
The first great example: in the name of morality and under its
patronage, a great wrong was committed, which as a matter of fact was
in every respect an act of decadence. Sufficient stress cannot be laid
upon this fact, that the great Greek philosophers not only represented
the decadence of _every kind of Greek ability_, but also made it
_contagious_.... This "virtue" made wholly abstract was the highest
form of seduction; to make oneself abstract means to turn one's back on
the world.
The moment is a very remarkable one: the Sophists are within sight
of the first _criticism of morality,_ the first _knowledge_ of
morality:--they classify the majority of moral valuations (in view
of their dependence upon local conditions) together;--they lead one
to understand that every form of morality is capable of being upheld
dialectically: that is to say, they guessed that all the fundamental
principles of a morality must be _sophistical_--a proposition which
was afterwards proved in the grandest possible style by the ancient
philosophers from Plato onwards (up to Kant);--they postulate the
primary truth that there is no such thing as a "moral _per se_," a
"good _per se_," and that it is madness to talk of "truth" in this
respect.
Wherever was _intellectual uprightness_ to be found in those days?
The Greek culture of the Sophists had grown out of all the Greek
instincts; it belongs to the culture of the age of Pericles as
necessarily as Plato does not: it has its predecessors in Heraclitus,
Democritus, and in the scientific types of the old philosophy; it
finds expression in the elevated culture of Thucydides, for instance.
And--it has ultimately shown itself to be right: every step in the
science of epistemology and morality has _confirmed the attitude_ of
the Sophists.... Our modern attitude of mind is, to a great extent,
Heraclitean, Democritean, and Protagorean ... to say that it is
_Protagorean_ is even sufficient: because Protagoras was in himself a
synthesis of the two men Heraclitus and Democritus.
(_Plato_: a _great Cagliostro,_--let us think of how Epicurus judged
him; how Timon, Pyrrho's friend, judged him----Is Plato's integrity by
any chance beyond question?... But we at least know what he wished to
have _taught_ as absolute truth--namely, things which were to him not
even relative truths: the separate and immortal life of "souls.")
429.
The _Sophists_ are nothing more, nor less than realists: they elevate
all the values and practices which are common property to the rank of
values--they have the courage, peculiar to all strong intellects,
which consists in _knowing_ their immorality....
Is it to be supposed that these small Greek independent republics,
so filled with rage and envy that they would fain have devoured each
other, were led by principles of humanity and honesty? Is Thucydides
by any chance reproached with the words he puts into the mouths of
the Athenian ambassadors when they were treating with the Melii anent
the question of destruction or submission? Only the most perfect
Tartuffes could have been able to speak of virtue in the midst of that
dreadful strain--or if not Tartuffes, at least _detached philosophers,_
anchorites, exiles, and fleers from reality.... All of them, people
who denied things in order to be able to exist.
The Sophists were Greeks: when Socrates and Plato adopted the cause
of virtue and justice, they were _Jews_ or I know not what. _Grote's_
tactics in the defence of the Sophists are false: he would like to
raise them to the rank of men of honour and moralisers--but it was
their honour not to indulge in any humbug with grand words and virtues.
430.
The great reasonableness underlying all moral education lay in the fact
that it always attempted to attain to _the certainty of an instinct_:
so that neither good intentions nor good means, as such, first required
to enter consciousness. Just as the soldier learns his exercises, so
should man learn how to act in life. In truth this unconsciousness
belongs to every kind of perfection: even the mathematician carries out
his calculations unconsciously....
What, then, does Socrates' _reaction_ mean, which recommended
dialectics as the way to virtue, and which was charmed when morality
was unable to justify itself logically? But this is precisely what
proves its _superiority_--without unconsciousness _it is worth nothing_!
In reality it means _the dissolution of Greek instincts,_ when
_demonstrability_ is posited as the first condition of personal
excellence in virtue. All these great "men of virtue" and of words are
themselves types of dissolution.
In practice, it means that moral judgments have been torn from the
conditions among which they grew and in which alone they had some
sense, from their Greek and Græco-political soil, in order to be
_denaturalised_ under the cover of being _made sublime._ The great
concepts "good" and "just" are divorced from the first principles of
which they form a part, and, as "ideas" _become free,_ degenerate
into subjects for discussion. A certain truth is sought behind them;
they are regarded as entities or as symbols of entities: a world is
_invented_ where they are "at home," and from which they are supposed
to hail.
_In short_: the scandal reaches its apotheosis in Plato.... And then it
was necessary to invent the _perfectly abstract_ man also:--good, just,
wise, and a dialectician to boot--in short, the _scarecrow_ of the
ancient philosopher: a plant without any soil whatsoever; a human race
devoid of all definite ruling instincts; a virtue which "justifies"
itself with reasons. The perfectly absurd "individual" _per se_! the
highest form of _Artificiality...._
Briefly, the denaturalisation of moral values resulted in the creation
of a degenerate _type of man_--"the good man," "the happy man,"
"the wise man."--Socrates represents a moment of the most _profound
perversity_ in the history of values.
431.
_Socrates._--This veering round of Greek taste in favour of dialectics
is a great question. What really happened then? Socrates, the
_roturier_ who was responsible for it, was thus able to triumph over
a more noble taste, the taste of _the noble_:--the mob gets the upper
hand along with dialectics. Previous to Socrates dialectic manners
were repudiated in good society; they were regarded as indecent; the
youths were Warned against them. What was the purpose of this display
of reasons? Why demonstrate? Against others one could use authority.
One commanded, and that sufficed. Among friends, _inter pares,_ there
was tradition--_also_ a form of authority: and last but not least,
one understood each other. There was no room found for dialectics.
Besides, all such modes of presenting reasons were distrusted. All
honest things do not carry their reasons in their hands in such
fashion. It is indecent to show all the five fingers at the same time.
That which can be "demonstrated" is little worth. The instinct of
every party-speaker tells him that dialectics excites mistrust and
carries little conviction. Nothing is more easily wiped away than the
effect of a dialectician. It can only be a _last defence._ One must
be in an extremity; it is necessary to have to _extort_ one's rights;
otherwise one makes no use of dialectics. That is why the Jews were
dialecticians, Reynard the Fox was a dialectician, and so was Socrates.
As a dialectician a person has a merciless instrument in his hand:
he can play the tyrant with it; he compromises when he conquers. The
dialectician leaves it to his opponent to demonstrate that he is not an
idiot; he is made furious and helpless, while the dialectician himself
remains calm and still possessed of his triumphant reasoning powers--he
_paralyses_ his opponent's intellect.--The dialectician's irony is a
form of mob-revenge: the ferocity of the oppressed lies in the cold
knife-cuts of the syllogism....
In Plato, as in all men of excessive sensuality and wild fancies, the
charm of concepts was so great, that he involuntarily honoured and
deified the concept as a form of ideal. _Dialectical intoxication_: as
the consciousness of being able to exercise control over one's self by
means of it--as an instrument of the Will to Power.
432.
_The problem of Socrates._--The two antitheses: the _tragic_ and the
_Socratic_ spirits--measured according to the law of Life.
To what extent is the Socratic spirit a decadent phenomenon? to what
extent are robust health and power still revealed by the whole attitude
of the scientific man, his dialectics, his ability, and his severity?
(the health of the _plebeian_; whose malice, _esprit frondeur,_
whose astuteness, whose rascally depths, are held in check by his
_cleverness_; the whole type is "ugly").
_Uglification_: self-derision, dialectical dryness, intelligence in
the form of a _tyrant_ against the "tyrant" (instinct). Everything in
Socrates is exaggeration, eccentricity, caricature; he is a buffoon
with the blood of Voltaire in his veins.
He discovers a new form of _agon_; he is the first fencing-master in
the superior classed of Athens; he stands for nothing else than the
_highest form of cleverness_: he calls it "virtue" (he regarded it as a
means of _salvation_; he did not choose to be _clever,_ cleverness was
_de rigueur_); the proper thing is to control one's self in suchwise
that one enters into a struggle _not_ with passions but with reasons
as one's weapons (Spinoza's stratagem--the unravelment of the errors
of passion);--it is desirable to discover how every one may be caught
once he is goaded into a passion, and to know how illogically passion
proceeds; self-mockery is practised in order to injure the very roots
of the _feelings of resentment._
It is my wish to understand which idiosyncratic states form a part of
the Socratic problem: its association of reason, virtue, and happiness.
With this absurd doctrine of the identity of these things it succeeded
_in charming_ the world: ancient philosophy could not rid itself of
this doctrine....
Absolute lack of objective interest: hatred of science: the
idiosyncrasy of considering one's self a problem. Acoustic
hallucinations in Socrates: morbid element. When the intellect is
rich and independent, it most strongly resists preoccupying itself
with morality. How is it that Socrates is a _moral-maniac_?--Every
"practical" philosophy immediately steps into the foreground in times
of distress. When morality and religion become the chief interests of a
community, they are signs of a state of distress.
433.
Intelligence, clearness, hardness, and logic as weapons against the_
wildness of the instincts_. The latter must be dangerous and must
threaten ruin, otherwise no purpose can be served by developing
_intelligence_ to this degree of tyranny. In order to make a _tyrant_
of intelligence the instincts must first have proved themselves
tyrants. This is the problem. It was a very timely one in those days.
Reason became virtue--virtue equalled happiness.
_Solution_: Greek philosophers stand upon the same fundamental fact
of their inner experiences as Socrates does; five feet from excess,
from anarchy and from dissolution--all decadent men. They regard him
as a doctor: Logic as will to power, as will to control self, as will
to "happiness." The wildness and anarchy of Socrates' instincts is a
_sign of decadence_, as is also the superfœtation of logic and clear
reasoning in him. Both are abnormities, each belongs to the other.
Criticism. Decadence reveals itself in this concern about "happiness"
(_i.e._ about the "salvation of the soul"; _i.e. to feel that one's
condition is a danger_). Its fanatical interest in "happiness" shows
the pathological condition of the subconscious self: it was a vital
interest. The _alternative_ which faced them all was: to be reasonable
or to perish. The morality of Greek philosophers shows that they felt
they were in danger.
434.
_Why everything resolved itself into mummery.--_Rudimentary
psychology, which only considered the _conscious_ lapses of men (as
causes), which regarded "consciousness" as an attribute of the soul,
and which sought a will behind every action (_i.e._ an intention),
could only answer "_Happiness_" to the question: "_What does man
desire?_" (it was impossible to answer "Power," because that would have
been _immoral)_;--consequently behind all men's actions there is the
intention of attaining to happiness by means of them. Secondly: if man
as a matter of fact does not attain to happiness, why is it? Because he
mistakes the means thereto.--_What is the unfailing means of acquiring
happiness?_ Answer: _virtue._--Why virtue? Because virtue is supreme
rationalness, and rationalness makes mistakes in the choice of means
impossible: virtue in the form of _reason_ is the way to happiness.
Dialectics is the constant occupation of virtue, because it does away
with passion and intellectual cloudiness.
As a matter of fact, man does _not_ desire "happiness." Pleasure is
a sensation of power: if the passions are excluded, those states of
the mind are also excluded which afford the greatest sensation of
power and therefore of pleasure. The highest rationalism is a state of
cool clearness, which is very far from being able to bring about that
feeling of power which every kind of _exaltation_ involves....
The ancient philosophers combat everything that intoxicates and
exalts--everything that impairs the perfect coolness and impartiality
of the mind.... They were consistent with their first false principle:
that consciousness was the _highest,_ the _supreme_ state of mind, the
prerequisite of perfection--whereas the reverse is true....
Any kind of action is imperfect in proportion as it has been willed or
conscious. The philosophers of antiquity _were the greatest duffers_
in practice, "because they condemned themselves" theoretically
to _dufferdom,_.... In practice everything resolved itself into
theatricalness: and he who saw through it, as Pyrrho did, for instance,
thought as everybody did--that is to say, that in goodness and
uprightness "paltry people" were far superior to philosophers.
All the deeper natures of antiquity were disgusted at the _philosophers
of virtue_; all people saw in them was brawlers and actors. (This was
the judgment passed on _Plato_ by _Epicurus_ and _Pyrrho_.)
_Result_: In practical life, in patience, goodness, and mutual
assistance, paltry people were above them:--this is something like the
judgment Dostoiewsky or Tolstoy claims for his muzhiks: they are more
philosophical in practice, they are more courageous in their way of
dealing with the exigencies of life....
435.
_A criticism of the philosopher._--Philosophers and moralists merely
deceive themselves when they imagine that they escape from decadence
by _opposing_ it. That lies beyond their wills: and however little they
may be aware of the fact, it is generally discovered, subsequently that
they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.
Let us examine the philosophers of Greece--Plato, for instance. He
it was who separated the instincts from the polis, from the love of
contest, from military efficiency, from art, beauty, the mysteries,
and the belief in tradition and in ancestors.... He was the seducer of
the nobles: he himself seduces through the _roturier_ Socrates.... He
denied all the first principles of the "noble Greek" of sterling worth;
he made dialectics an everyday practice, conspired with the tyrants,
dabbled in politics for the future, and was the example of a man whose
_instincts_ were the example of a man whose _instincts_ were most
perfectly separated from _tradition._ He is profound and passionate in
everything that is _anti-Hellenic_....
One after the other, these great philosophers represent the _typical_
forms of decadence: the moral and religious idiosyncrasy, anarchy,
nihilism, (ἀδιαφορία), cynicism, hardening principles, hedonism, and
reaction.
The question of "happiness," of "virtue," and of the "salvation of the
soul," is the expression of _physiological contradictoriness_ in these
declining natures: their instincts lack all _balance_ and _purpose._
436.
To what extent do dialectics and the faith in reason rest upon _moral_
prejudices? With Plato we are as the temporary inhabitants of an
intelligible world of goodness, still in possession of a bequest from
former times: divine dialectics taking its root in goodness leads to
everything good (it follows, therefore, that it must lead "backwards").
Even Descartes had a notion of the fact that, according to a thoroughly
Christian and moral attitude of mind, which includes a belief in a
_good_ God as the Creator of all things, the truthfulness of God
_guarantees_ the judgments of our senses for us. But for this religious
sanction and warrant of our senses and our reason, whence should
we obtain our right to trust in existence? That thinking must be a
measure of reality,--that what cannot be the subject of thought, cannot
_exist,_--is a coarse _non plus ultra_ of a moral blind confidence
(in the essential principle of truth at the root of all things); this
in itself is a mad assumption which our experience contradicts every
minute. We cannot think of anything precisely as it is....
437.
The real _philosophers of Greece_ are those which came before Socrates
(with Socrates something changes). They are all distinguished men,
they take their stand away from the people and from usage; they have
travelled; they are earnest to the point of sombreness, their eyes
are calm, and they are not unacquainted with the business of state and
diplomacy. They anticipated all the great concepts which coming sages
were to have concerning things in general: they themselves represented
these concepts, they made systems out of themselves. Nothing run give a
higher idea of Greek intellect than this sudden fruitfulness in types,
than this involuntary completeness in the drawing up of all the great
possibilities of the philosophical ideal. I can see only one original
figure in those that came afterwards: a late arrival but necessarily
the last--_Pyrrho_ the nihilist. His instincts were opposed to the
influences which had become ascendant in the mean-time the Socratic
school, Plato, and the artistic optimism of Heraclitus. (Pyrrho goes
back to Democritus _via_ Protagoras....)
***
Wise weariness: Pyrrho. To live humbly among the humble. Devoid of
pride. To live in the vulgar way; to honour and believe what every
one believes. To be on one's guard against science and intellect, and
against everything that _puffs one out._ ... To be simply patient
in the extreme, careless and mild;--_ὰπάθεια_ or, better still,
πραῢτης. A Buddhist for Greece, bred amid the tumult of the
Schools; born alter his time; weary; an example of the protest of
weariness against the eagerness of dialecticians; the incredulity of
the tired man in regard to the importance of everything. He had seen
_Alexander_; he had seen the _Indian penitents._ To such late-arrivals
and creatures of great subtlety, everything lowly, poor, and idiotic,
is seductive. It narcoticises: it gives them relaxation (Pascal).
On the other hand, they mix with the crowd, and get confounded
with the rest. These weary creatures need warmth.... To overcome
contradiction; to do away with contests; to have no will to excel in
any way; to deny the _Greek_ instincts (Pyrrho lived with his sister,
who was a midwife.) To rig out wisdom in such a way that it no longer
distinguishes; to give it the ragged mantle of poverty; to perform
the lowest offices, and to go to market and sell sucking-pigs....
Sweetness, clearness, indifference; no need of virtues that require
attitudes; to be equal to all even in virtue: final conquest of one's
self, final indifference.
Pyrrho and Epicurus;--two forms of Greek decadence; they are related
in their hatred of dialectics and all _theatrical_ virtues. These
two things together were then called philosophy; Pyrrho and Epicurus
intentionally held that which they loved in low esteem; they chose
common and even contemptible names for it, and they represented a state
in which one is neither ill, healthy, lively, nor dead.... Epicurus was
more _naïf,_ more idyllic, more grateful; Pyrrho had more experience of
the world, had travelled more, and was more nihilistic. His life was a
protest against the great _doctrine of Identity_ (Happiness = Virtue =
Knowledge). The proper way of living is not promoted by science: wisdom
does not make "wise." ... The proper way of living does not desire
happiness, it turns away from happiness....
438.
The war against the "old faith," as Epicurus waged it, was, strictly
speaking, a struggle against _pre-existing_ Christianity--the struggle
against a world then already gloomy, moralised, acidified throughout
with feelings of guilt, and grown old and sick.
Not the "moral corruption" of antiquity, but precisely its _moral
infectedness_ was the prerequisite which enabled Christianity to become
its master. Moral fanaticism (in short: Plato) destroyed paganism by
transvaluing its values and poisoning its innocence. We ought at last
to understand that what was then destroyed was _higher_ than what
prevailed! Christianity grew on the soil of psychological corruption,
and could only take root in rotten ground.
439.
Science: as a disciplinary measure or as an instinct--I see a decline
of the instincts in Greek philosophers: otherwise they could not have
been guilty of the profound error of regarding the conscious state
as the more valuable state. The intensity of consciousness stands in
the inverse ratio to the ease and speed of cerebral transmission.
Greek philosophy upheld the opposite view, which is always the sign of
weakened instincts.
We must, in sooth, seek _perfect life_ there where it is least
conscious (that is to say, there where it is least aware of its logic,
its reasons, its means, its intentions, and its _utility)._ The return
to the facts of _common sense,_ the facts of the common man and of
"paltry people." _Honesty and intelligence_ stored up for generations
of people who are quite unconscious of their principles, and who
even have some fear of principles. It is not reasonable to desire a
_reasoning virtue._ ... A philosopher is compromised by such a desire.
440.
When morality--that is to say, refinement, prudence, bravery, and
equity--have been stored up in the same way, thanks to the moral
efforts of a whole succession of generations, the collective power of
this hoard of virtue projects its rays even into that sphere where
honesty is most seldom present--the sphere of _intellect._ When a
thing becomes conscious, it is the sign of a state of ill-ease in
the organism; something new has got to be found, the organism is not
satisfied or adapted, it is subject to distress, suspense, and it is
hypersensitive--precisely all this is consciousness....
Gennius lies in the instincts; goodness does too. One only acts
perfectly when one acts instinctively. Even from the moral point of
view all thinking which is conscious is merely a process of groping,
and in the majority of cases an attack on morality. Scientific honesty
is always sacrificed when a thinker begins to reason: let any one try
the experiment: put the wisest man in the balance, and then let him
discourse upon morality....
It could also be proved that the whole of a man's _conscious_ thinking
shows a much lower standard of morality than the thoughts of the same
man would show if they were led by his _instincts._
441.
The struggle against Socrates, Plato, and all the Socratic schools,
proceeds from the profound instinct that man _is_ not made _better_
when he is shown that virtue may be demonstrated or based upon
reason.... This in the end is the niggardly fact, it was the agonal
instinct in all these born dialecticians, which drove them to glorify
their _personal abilities_ as the _highest of all qualities,_ and to
represent every other form of goodness as conditioned by them. The
_anti-scientific_ spirit of all this "philosophy": it _will never admit
that it is not right._
442.
This is extraordinary. From its very earliest beginnings, Greek
philosophy carries on a struggle against science with the weapons of
a theory of knowledge, especially of scepticism; and why is this? It
is always in favour of _morality...._ (Physicists and medical men
are hated.) Socrates, Aristippus, the Megarian school, the Cynics,
Epicurus and Pyrrho--a general onslaught upon knowledge in favour
of _morality...._ (Hatred of dialectics also.) There is still a
problem to be solved: they approach sophistry in order to be rid of
science. On the other hand, the physicists are subjected to such an
extent that, among their first principles, they include the theory of
truth and of real being: for instance, the atom, the four elements
(_juxtaposition_ of being, in order to explain its multiformity and its
transformations). Contempt of _objectivity_ in interests is taught:
return to practical interest, and to the personal utility of all
knowledge....
The struggle against science is directed at: (1) its pathos
(objectivity); (2) its means (that is to say, at its utility); (3) its
results (which are considered childish). It is the same struggle which
is taken up later on by the _Church_ in the name of piety: the Church
inherited the whole arsenal of antiquity for her war with science. The
theory of knowledge played the same part in the affair as it did in
Kant's or the Indians' case. There is no desire whatever to be troubled
with it, a free hand is wanted for the "purpose" that is envisaged.
Against what powers are they actually defending themselves? Against
dutifulness, against obedience to law, against the compulsion of going
hand in hand--I believe this is what is called _Freedom...._
This is how decadence manifests itself: the instinct of solidarity is
so degenerate that solidarity itself gets to be regarded as _tyranny_:
no authority or solidarity is brooked, nobody any longer desires to
fall in with the rank and file, and to adopt its ignobly slow pace. The
slow movement which is the tempo of science is generally hated, as are
also the scientific man's indifference in regard to getting on, his
long breath, and his impersonal attitude.
443.
At bottom, morality is _hostile_ to science: Socrates was so already
too--and the reason is, that science considers certain things important
which have no relation whatsoever to "good" and "evil," and which
therefore reduce the gravity of our feelings concerning "good" and
"evil." What morality requires is that the whole of a man should serve
it with all his power: it considers it waste on the part of a creature
that _can ill afford waste,_ when a man earnestly troubles his head
about stars or plants. That is why science very quickly declined
in Greece, once Socrates had inoculated scientific work with the
disease of morality. The mental attitudes reached by a Democritus, a
Hippocrates, and a Thucydides, have not been reached a second time.--
444.
The problem of the _philosopher_ and of the _scientific_ man.--The
influence of age; depressing habits (sedentary study _à la_ Kant;
over-work; inadequate nourishment of the brain; reading). A more
essential question still: is it not already perhaps a _symptom_ of
decadence when thinking tends to establish _generalities_?
_Objectivity regarded as the disintegration of the will_ (to be able
to remain as detached as possible ...). This presupposes a tremendous
adiaphora in regard to the strong passions: a kind of isolation, an
exceptional position, opposition to the normal passions.
Type: desertion of _home-country_ emigrants go ever greater distances
afield; growing exoticism; the voice of the old imperative dies
away;--and the continual question "whither?" ("happiness") is a sign
of _emancipation_ from forms of organisation, a sign of breaking loose
from everything.
Problem: is the man of _science_ more of a decadent symptom than the
philosopher?--as a _whole_ scientific man is not, cut loose from
everything, only a part of his being is consecrated exclusively to the
service of knowledge and disciplined to maintain a special attitude and
point of view; in his department he is in need of _all_ the virtues
of a strong race, of robust health, of great severity, manliness and
intelligence. He is rather a symptom of the great multiformity of
culture than of the effeteness of the latter. The decadent scholar
is a _bad_ scholar. Whereas the decadent philosopher has always been
reckoned hitherto as the typical philosopher.
445.
Among philosophers, nothing is more rare than _intellectual
uprightness_: they perhaps say the very reverse, and even believe it.
But the prerequisite of all their work is, that they can only admit
of certain truths; they know what they _have_ to prove; and the fact
that they must be agreed as to these "truths" is almost what makes them
recognise one another as philosophers. There are, for instance, the
truths of morality. But belief in morality is not a proof of morality:
there are cases--and the philosopher's case is one in point--when a
belief of this sort is simply a piece of _immorality_.
446.
_What is the retrograde factor in a philosopher?_--He teaches that
the qualities which he happens to possess are the only qualities that
exist, that they are indispensable to those who wish to attain to the
"highest good" (for instance, dialectics with Plato). He would have
all men raise themselves, _gradatim,_ to _his_ type as the highest. He
despises what is generally esteemed--by him a gulf is cleft between
the highest _priestly_ values and the values of the _world._ He knows
what is true, who God is, what every one's goal should be, and the way
thereto.... The typical philosopher is thus an absolute dogmatist;--if
he _requires_ scepticism at all it is only in order to be able to speak
dogmatically of his _principal purpose_.
447.
When the philosopher is confronted with his rival--science, for
instance, he becomes a sceptic; then he appropriates a _form of
knowledge_ which he denies to the man of science; he goes hand in
hand with the priest so that he may not be suspected of atheism or
materialism; he considers an attack made upon himself as an attack
upon morals, religion, virtue, and order--he knows how to bring his
opponents into ill repute by calling them "seducers" and "underminers":
then he marches shoulder to shoulder with power.
The philosopher at war with other philosophers:--he does his best
to compel them to appear like anarchists, disbelievers, opponents of
authority. In short, when he fights, he fights exactly like a priest
and like the priesthood.