149.
LITTLE UNCONVENTIONAL ACTIONS ARE NECESSARY!—To act occasionally in
matters of custom against our own better judgments; to yield in practice
while reserving our own intellectual liberty; to behave like everybody
else and thus to show ourselves amiable and considerate to all, to
compensate them, as it were, even if only to some extent, for our
unconventional opinions—all this among many tolerably liberal-minded men
is looked upon not only as permissible but even as “honourable,” “humane,”
“tolerant,” and “unpedantic,” or whatever fine words may be used to lull
to sleep the intellectual conscience. So, for example, one man, although
he may be an atheist, has his infant baptized in the usual Christian
fashion; another goes through his period of military service, though he
may severely condemn all hatred between nations; and a third runs into the
Church with a girl because she comes from a religious family, and makes
his vows to a priest without feeling ashamed of it. “It is of no
importance if one of us does what every one else does and has done”—so
says ignorant prejudice! What a profound mistake! For nothing is of
greater importance than that a powerful, long-established, and irrational
custom should be once again confirmed by the act of some one who is
recognised as rational. In this way the proceeding is thought to be
sanctioned by reason itself! All honour to your opinions! but little
unconventional actions are of still greater value.
150.
THE HAZARD OF MARRIAGES.—If I were a god, and a benevolent god, the
marriages of men would cause me more displeasure than anything else. An
individual can make very great progress within the seventy years of his
life—yea, even within thirty years: such progress, indeed, as to surprise
even the gods! But when we then see him exposing the inheritance and
legacy of his struggles and victories, the laurel crown of his humanity,
on the first convenient peg where any female may pick it to pieces for
him; when we observe how well he can acquire and how little he is capable
of preserving his acquisitions, and how he does not even dream that by
procreation he might prepare a still more victorious life,—we then,
indeed, become impatient and say, “Nothing can in the end result from
humanity, individuals are wasted, for all rationality of a great advance
of humanity is rendered impossible by the hazard of marriages: let us
cease from being the assiduous spectators and fools of this aimless
drama!” It was in this mood that the gods of Epicurus withdrew long ago to
their divine seclusion and felicity: they were tired of men and their love
affairs.
151.
HERE ARE NEW IDEALS TO INVENT.—At a time when a man is in love he should
not be allowed to come to a decision about his life and to determine once
and for all the character of his society on account of a whim. We ought
publicly to declare invalid the vows of lovers, and to refuse them
permission to marry: and this because we should treat marriage itself much
more seriously, so that in cases where it is now contracted it would not
usually be allowed in future! Are not the majority of marriages such that
we should not care to have them witnessed by a third party? And yet this
third party is scarcely ever lacking—the child—and he is more than a
witness; he is the whipping-boy and scapegoat.
152.
FORMULA OF OATH.—“If I am now telling a lie I am no longer an honourable
man, and every one may say so to my face.” I recommend this formula in
place of the present judicial oath and its customary invocation to the
Deity: it is stronger. There is no reason why even religious men should
oppose it; for as soon as the customary oath no longer serves, all the
religious people will have to turn to their catechism, which says, “Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
153.
THE MALCONTENT.—He is one of the brave old warriors: angry with
civilisation because he believes that its object is to make all good
things—honour, rewards, and fair women—accessible even to cowards.
154.
CONSOLATION AMID PERILS.—The Greeks, in the course of a life that was
always surrounded by great dangers and cataclysms, endeavoured to find in
meditation and knowledge a kind of security of feeling, a last _refugium_.
We, who live in a much more secure state, have introduced danger into
meditation and knowledge, and it is in life itself that we endeavour to
find repose, a refuge from danger.
155.
EXTINCT SCEPTICISM.—Hazardous enterprises are rarer in modern times than
in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, probably because modern times have no
more belief in omens, oracles, stars, and soothsayers. In other words, we
have become incapable of believing in a future which is reserved for us,
as the ancients did, who—in contradistinction to ourselves—were much less
sceptical regarding that which is to be than that which is.
156.
EVIL THROUGH EXUBERANCE.—“Oh, that we should not feel too happy!”—such was
the secret fear of the Greeks in their best age. _That_ is why they
preached moderation to themselves. And we?
157.
THE WORSHIP OF NATURAL SOUNDS.—What signification can we find in the fact
that our culture is not only indulgent to the manifestations of grief,
such as tears, complaints, reproaches, and attitudes of rage and humility,
but even approves them and reckons them among the most noble and essential
things?—while, on the other hand, the spirit of ancient philosophy looked
down upon them with contempt, without admitting their necessity in any
way. Let us remember how Plato—who was by no means one of the most inhuman
of the philosophers—speaks of the Philoctetus of the tragic stage. Is it
possible that our modern culture is wanting in “philosophy”? or, in
accordance with the valuations of those old philosophers, do we perhaps
all form part of the “mob”?
158.
THE CLIMATE FOR FLATTERY.—In our day flatterers should no longer be sought
at the courts of kings, since these have all acquired a taste for
militarism, which cannot tolerate flattery. But this flower even now often
grows in abundance in the neighbourhood of bankers and artists.
159.
THE REVIVERS.—Vain men value a fragment of the past more highly from the
moment when they are able to revive it in their imagination (especially if
it is difficult to do so), they would even like if possible to raise it
from the dead. Since, however, the number of vain people is always very
large, the danger presented by historical studies, if an entire epoch
devotes its attention to them, is by no means small: too great an amount
of strength is then wasted on all sorts of imaginable resurrections. The
entire movement of romanticism is perhaps best understood from this point
of view.
160.
VAIN, GREEDY, AND NOT VERY WISE.—Your desires are greater than your
understanding, and your vanity is even greater than your desires,—to
people of your type a great deal of Christian practice and a little
Schopenhauerian theory may be strongly recommended.
161.
BEAUTY CORRESPONDING TO THE AGE.—If our sculptors, painters, and musicians
wish to catch the significance of the age, they should represent beauty as
bloated, gigantic, and nervous: just as the Greeks, under the influence of
their morality of moderation, saw and represented beauty in the Apollo di
Belvedere. We should, indeed, call him ugly! But the pedantic
“classicists” have deprived us of all our honesty!
162.
THE IRONY OF THE PRESENT TIME.—At the present day it is the habit of
Europeans to treat all matters of great importance with irony, because, as
the result of our activity in their service, we have no time to take them
seriously.
163.
AGAINST ROUSSEAU.—If it is true that there is something contemptible about
our civilisation, we have two alternatives: of concluding with Rousseau
that, “This despicable civilisation is to blame for our bad morality,” or
to infer, contrary to Rousseau’s view, that “Our good morality is to blame
for this contemptible civilisation. Our social conceptions of good and
evil, weak and effeminate as they are, and their enormous influence over
both body and soul, have had the effect of weakening all bodies and souls
and of crushing all unprejudiced, independent, and self-reliant men, the
real pillars of a strong civilisation: wherever we still find the evil
morality to-day, we see the last crumbling ruins of these pillars.” Thus
let paradox be opposed by paradox! It is quite impossible for the truth to
lie with both sides: and can we say, indeed, that it lies with either?
Decide for yourself.
164.
PERHAPS PREMATURE.—It would seem at the present time that, under many
different and misleading names, and often with a great want of clearness,
those who do not feel themselves attached to morals and to established
laws are taking the first initial steps to organise themselves, and thus
to create a right for themselves; whilst hitherto, as criminals,
free-thinkers, immoral men and miscreants, they have lived beyond the pale
of the law, under the bane of outlawry and bad conscience, corrupted and
corrupting. On the whole, we should consider this as right and proper,
although it may result in insecurity for the coming century and compel
every one to bear arms.—There is thereby a counterforce which continually
reminds us that there is no exclusively moral-making morality, and that a
morality which asserts itself to the exclusion of all other morality
destroys too much sound strength and is too dearly bought by mankind. The
non-conventional and deviating people, who are so often productive and
inventive, must no longer be sacrificed: it must never again be considered
as a disgrace to depart from morality either in actions or thought; many
new experiments must be made upon life and society, and the world must be
relieved from a huge weight of bad conscience. These general aims must be
recognised and encouraged by all those upright people who are seeking
truth.
165.
A MORALITY WHICH DOES NOT BORE ONE.—The principal moral commandments which
a nation permits its teachers to emphasise again and again stand in
relation to its chief defects, and that is why it does not find them
tiresome. The Greeks, who so often failed to employ moderation, coolness,
fair-mindedness, and rationality in general, turned a willing ear to the
four Socratic virtues,—they stood in such need of them, and yet had so
little talent for them!
166.
AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.—Shame! You wish to form part of a system in
which you must be a wheel, fully and completely, or risk being crushed by
wheels! where it is understood that each one will be that which his
superiors make of him! where the seeking for “connections” will form part
of one’s natural duties! where no one feels himself offended when he has
his attention drawn to some one with the remark, “He may be useful to you
some time”; where people do not feel ashamed of paying a visit to ask for
somebody’s intercession, and where they do not even suspect that by such a
voluntary submission to these morals, they are once and for all stamped as
the common pottery of nature, which others can employ or break up of their
free will without feeling in any way responsible for doing so,—just as if
one were to say, “People of my type will never be lacking, therefore, do
what you will with me! Do not stand on ceremony!”
167.
UNCONDITIONAL HOMAGE.—When I think of the most read German philosopher,
the most popular German musician, and the most distinguished German
statesman, I cannot but acknowledge that life is now rendered unusually
arduous for these Germans, this nation of unconditional sentiments, and
that, too, by their own great men. We see three magnificent spectacles
spread out before us: on each occasion there is a river rushing along in
the bed which it has made for itself, and even so agitated that one thinks
at times it intends to flow uphill. And yet, however we might admire
Schopenhauer, who would not, all things considered, like to have other
opinions than his? Who in all greater and smaller things would now share
the opinions of Richard Wagner, although there may be truth in the view
expressed by some one: viz. that wherever Wagner gave or took offence some
problem lay hidden,—which, however, he did not unearth for us. And,
finally, how many are there who would be willing and eager to agree with
Bismarck, if only he could always agree with himself, or were even to show
some signs of doing so for the future! It is true that it is by no means
astonishing to find statesmen without principles, but with dominant
instincts; a versatile mind, actuated by these dominant and violent
instincts, and hence without principles—these qualities are looked upon as
reasonable and natural in a statesman. But, alas, this has up to the
present been so un-German; as un-German as the fuss made about music and
the discord and bad temper excited around the person of the musician; or
as un-German as the new and extraordinary position taken up by
Schopenhauer: he did not feel himself to be either above things or on his
knees before them—one or other of these alternatives might still have been
German—but he assumed an attitude against things! How incredible and
disagreeable! to range one’s self with things and nevertheless be their
adversary, and finally the adversary of one’s self,—what can the
unconditional admirer do with such an example? And what, again, can he do
with three such examples who cannot keep the peace towards one another!
Here we see Schopenhauer as the antagonist of Wagner’s music, Wagner
attacking Bismarck’s politics, and Bismarck attacking Wagnerism and
Schopenhauerism. What remains for us to do? Where shall we flee with our
thirst for wholesale hero-worship! Would it not be possible to choose from
the music of the musician a few hundred bars of good music which appealed
to the heart, and which we should like to take to heart because they are
inspired by the heart,—could we not stand aside with this small piece of
plunder, and forget the rest? And could we not make a similar compromise
as regards the philosopher and the statesman,—select, take to heart, and
in particular forget the rest?
Yes, if only forgetfulness were not so difficult! There was once a very
proud man who would never on any account accept anything, good or evil,
from others,—from any one, indeed, but himself. When he wanted to forget,
however, he could not bestow this gift upon himself, and was three times
compelled to conjure up the spirits. They came, listened to his desire,
and said at last, “This is the only thing it is not in our power to give!”
Could not the Germans take warning by this experience of Manfred? Why,
then, should the spirits be conjured up? It is useless. We never forget
what we endeavour to forget. And how great would be the “balance” which we
should have to forget if we wished henceforth to continue wholesale
admirers of these three great men! It would therefore be far more
advisable to profit by the excellent opportunity offered us to try
something new, _i.e._ to advance in the spirit of honesty towards
ourselves and become, instead of a nation of credulous repetition and of
bitter and blind animosity, a people of conditional assent and benevolent
opposition. We must come to learn in the first place, however, that
unconditional homage to people is something rather ridiculous, that a
change of view on this point would not discredit even Germans, and that
there is a profound and memorable saying: “Ce qui importe, ce ne sont
point les personnes: mais les choses.” This saying is like the man who
uttered it—great, honest, simple, and silent,—just like Carnot, the
soldier and Republican. But may I at the present time speak thus to
Germans of a Frenchman, and a Republican into the bargain? Perhaps not:
perhaps I must not even recall what Niebuhr in his time dared to say to
the Germans: that no one had made such an impression of true greatness
upon him as Carnot.
168.
A MODEL.—What do I like about Thucydides, and how does it come that I
esteem him more highly than Plato? He exhibits the most wide-spread and
artless pleasure in everything typical in men and events, and finds that
each type is possessed of a certain quantity of good sense: it is this
good sense which he seeks to discover. He likewise exhibits a larger
amount of practical justice than Plato; he never reviles or belittles
those men whom he dislikes or who have in any way injured him in the
course of his life. On the contrary: while seeing only types, he
introduces something noble and additional into all things and persons; for
what could posterity, to which he dedicates his work, do with things not
typical! Thus this culture of the disinterested knowledge of the world
attains in him, the poet-thinker, a final marvellous bloom,—this culture
which has its poet in Sophocles, its statesman in Pericles, its doctor in
Hippocrates, and its natural philosopher in Democritus: this culture which
deserves to be called by the name of its teachers, the Sophists, and
which, unhappily, from the moment of its baptism at once begins to grow
pale and incomprehensible to us,—for henceforward we suspect that this
culture, which was combated by Plato and all the Socratic schools, must
have been very immoral! The truth of this matter is so complicated and
entangled that we feel unwilling to unravel it: so let the old error
(_error veritate simplicior_) run its old course.
169.
THE GREEK GENIUS FOREIGN TO US.—Oriental or modern, Asiatic or European:
compared with the ancient Greeks, everything is characterised by enormity
of size and by the revelling in great masses as the expression of the
sublime, whilst in Paestum, Pompeii, and Athens we are astonished, when
contemplating Greek architecture, to see with what small masses the Greeks
were able to express the sublime, and how they loved to express it thus.
In the same way, how simple were the Greeks in the idea which they formed
of themselves! How far we surpass them in the knowledge of man! Again, how
full of labyrinths would our souls and our conceptions of our souls appear
in comparison with theirs! If we had to venture upon an architecture after
the style of our own souls—(we are too cowardly for that!)—a labyrinth
would have to be our model. That music which is peculiar to us, and which
really expresses us, lets this be clearly seen! (for in music men let
themselves go, because they think there is no one who can see them hiding
behind their music).
170.
ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW.—How we babble about the Greeks! What do we
understand of their art, the soul of which was the passion for naked
masculine beauty! It was only by starting therefrom that they appreciated
feminine beauty. For the latter they had thus a perspective quite
different from ours. It was the same in regard to their love for women:
their worship was of a different kind, and so also was their contempt.
171.
THE FOOD OF THE MODERN MAN.—He has learned to digest many things; nay,
almost everything; it is his ambition to do so. He would, however, be
really of a higher order if he did not understand this so well: _homo
pamphagus_ is not the finest type of the human race. We live between a
past which had a more wayward and deranged taste than we, and a future
which will possibly have a more select taste,—we live too much midway.
172.
TRAGEDY AND MUSIC.—Men of essentially warlike disposition, such, for
example, as the ancient Greeks in the time of Æschylus, are difficult to
rouse, and when pity once triumphs over their hardness they are seized as
by a kind of giddiness or a “demoniacal power,”—they feel themselves
overpowered and thrilled by a religious horror. After this they become
sceptical about their condition; but as long as they are in it they enjoy
the charm of being, as it were, outside themselves, and the delight of the
marvellous mixed with the bitterest gall of suffering: this is the proper
kind of drink for fighting men,—something rare, dangerous, and
bitter-sweet, which does not often fall to one’s lot.
Tragedy appeals to souls who feel pity in this way, to those fierce and
warlike souls which are difficult to overcome, whether by fear or pity,
but which lose nothing by being softened from time to time. Of what use,
however, is tragedy to those who are as open to the “sympathetic
affections” as the sails of a ship to the wind! When at the time of Plato
the Athenians had become more softened and sensitive, oh, how far they
were still removed from the gushing emotions of the inhabitants of our
modern towns and villages! And yet even then the philosophers were
beginning to complain of the injurious nature of tragedy. An epoch full of
danger such as that now beginning, in which bravery and manliness are
rising in value, will perhaps again harden souls to such an extent that
they will once more stand in need of tragic poets: but in the meantime
these are somewhat superfluous, to put it mildly. For music, too, a better
age may be approaching (it will certainly be a more evil age!) when
artists will have to make their music appeal to strongly individual
beings, beings which will have become hard and which will be dominated by
the gloomy earnestness of their own passion; but of what use is music to
the little souls of the present age which is fast passing away, souls that
are too unsteady, ill-developed, half-personal, inquisitive, and covetous
of everything?
173.
THE FLATTERERS OF WORK.—In the glorification of “work” and the
never-ceasing talk about the “blessing of labour,” I see the same secret
_arrière-pensée_ as I do in the praise bestowed on impersonal acts of a
general interest, viz. a fear of everything individual. For at the sight
of work—that is to say, severe toil from morning till night—we have the
feeling that it is the best police, viz. that it holds every one in check
and effectively hinders the development of reason, of greed, and of desire
for independence. For work uses up an extraordinary proportion of nervous
force, withdrawing it from reflection, meditation, dreams, cares, love,
and hatred; it dangles unimportant aims before the eyes of the worker and
affords easy and regular gratification. Thus it happens that a society
where work is continually being performed will enjoy greater security, and
it is security which is now venerated as the supreme deity.—And now,
horror of horrors! it is the “workman” himself who has become dangerous;
the whole world is swarming with “dangerous individuals,” and behind them
follows the danger of dangers—_the_ individuum!
174.
THE MORAL FASHION OF A COMMERCIAL COMMUNITY.—Behind the principle of the
present moral fashion: “Moral actions are actions performed out of
sympathy for others,” I see the social instinct of fear, which thus
assumes an intellectual disguise: this instinct sets forth as its supreme,
most important, and most immediate principle that life shall be relieved
of all the dangerous characteristics which it possessed in former times,
and that every one must help with all his strength towards the attainment
of this end. It is for that reason that only those actions which keep in
view the general security and the feeling of security of society are
called “good.” How little joy must men now have in themselves when such a
tyranny of fear prescribes their supreme moral law, if they make no
objection when commanded to turn their eyes from themselves and to look
aside from themselves! And yet at the same time they have lynx eyes for
all distress and suffering elsewhere! Are we not, then, with this gigantic
intention of ours of smoothing down every sharp edge and corner in life,
utilising the best means of turning mankind into sand! Small, soft, round,
infinite sand! Is that your ideal, ye harbingers of the “sympathetic
affections”? In the meantime even the question remains unanswered whether
we are of more use to our neighbour in running immediately and continually
to his help,—which for the most part can only be done in a very
superficial way, as otherwise it would become a tyrannical meddling and
changing,—or by transforming ourselves into something which our neighbour
can look upon with pleasure,—something, for example, which may be compared
to a beautiful, quiet, and secluded garden, protected by high walls
against storms and the dust of the roads, but likewise with a hospitable
gate.
175.
FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF A CULTURE OF TRADERS.—We have now an opportunity of
watching the manifold growth of the culture of a society of which commerce
is the soul, just as personal rivalry was the soul of culture among the
ancient Greeks, and war, conquest, and law among the ancient Romans. The
tradesman is able to value everything without producing it, and to value
it according to the requirements of the consumer rather than his own
personal needs. “How many and what class of people will consume this?” is
his question of questions. Hence, he instinctively and incessantly employs
this mode of valuation and applies it to everything, including the
productions of art and science, and of thinkers, scholars, artists,
statesmen, nations, political parties, and even entire ages: with respect
to everything produced or created he inquires into the supply and demand
in order to estimate for himself the value of a thing. This, when once it
has been made the principle of an entire culture, worked out to its most
minute and subtle details, and imposed upon every kind of will and
knowledge, this is what you men of the coming century will be proud of,—if
the prophets of the commercial classes are right in putting that century
into your possession! But I have little belief in these prophets. _Credat
Judæus Apella_—to speak with Horace.
176.
THE CRITICISM OF OUR ANCESTORS.—Why should we now endure the truth, even
about the most recent past? Because there is now always a new generation
which feels itself in contradiction to the past and enjoys in this
criticism the first-fruits of its sense of power. In former times the new
generation, on the contrary, wished to base itself on the old and began to
feel conscious of its power, not only in accepting the opinions of its
ancestors but, if possible, taking them even more seriously. To criticise
ancestral authority was in former times a vice; but at the present time
our idealists begin by making it their starting-point.
177.
TO LEARN SOLITUDE.—O ye poor fellows in the great centres of the world’s
politics, ye young and talented men, who, urged on by ambition, think it
your duty to propound your opinion of every event of the day,—for
something is always happening,—who, by thus making a noise and raising a
cloud of dust, mistake yourselves for the rolling chariot of history; who,
because ye always listen, always suit the moment when ye can put in your
word or two, thereby lose all real productiveness. Whatever may be your
desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never
comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the
wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,—poor
fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of
forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made
up.
178.
DAILY WEAR AND TEAR.—These young men are lacking neither in character, nor
talent, nor zeal, but they have never had sufficient time to choose their
own path; they have, on the contrary, been habituated from the most tender
age to have their path pointed out to them. At the time when they were
ripe enough to be sent into the “desert,” something else was done with
them. They were turned to account, estranged from themselves, and brought
up in such a way that they became accustomed to be worn out by their daily
toil. This was imposed on them as a duty, and now they cannot do without
it; they would not wish it to be otherwise. The only thing that cannot be
refused to these poor beasts of burden is their “holidays”—such is the
name they give to this ideal of leisure in an overworked century;
“holidays,” in which they may for once be idle, idiotic, and childish to
their heart’s content.
179.
AS LITTLE STATE AS POSSIBLE!—All political and economic matters are not of
such great value that they ought to be dealt with by the most talented
minds: such a waste of intellect is at bottom worse than any state of
distress. These matters are, and ever will be, the province of smaller
minds, and others than the smaller minds should not be at the service of
this workshop: it would be better to let the machinery work itself to
pieces again! But as matters stand at the present time, when not only do
all people believe that they must know all about it day by day, but wish
likewise to be always busy about it, and in so doing neglect their own
work, it is a great and ridiculous mistake. The price that has to be paid
for the “public safety” is far too high, and, what is maddest of all, we
effect the very opposite of “public safety” a fact which our own dear
century has undertaken to prove, as if this had never been proved before!
To make society secure against thieves and fire, and to render it
thoroughly fit for all kinds of trade and traffic, and to transform the
State in a good and evil sense into a kind of Providence—these aims are
low, mediocre, and not by any means indispensable; and we should not seek
to attain them by the aid of the highest means and instruments which
exist—means which we should reserve precisely for our highest and rarest
aims! Our epoch, however much it may babble about economy, is a
spendthrift: it wastes intellect, the most precious thing of all.
180.
WARS.—The great wars of our own day are the outcome of historical study.
181.
GOVERNING.—Some people govern because of their passion for governing;
others in order that they may not be governed,—the latter choose it as the
lesser of two evils.
182.
ROUGH AND READY CONSISTENCY.—People say of a man with great respect, “He
is a character”—that is, when he exhibits a rough and ready consistency,
when it is evident even to the dullest eye. But, whenever a more subtle
and profound intellect sets itself up and shows consistency in a higher
manner, the spectators deny the existence of any character. That is why
cunning statesmen usually act their comedy under the cloak of a kind of
rough and ready consistency.
183.
THE OLD AND THE YOUNG.—“There is something immoral about Parliaments,”—so
many people still think,—“for in them views even against the Government
may be expressed.”—“We should always adopt that view of a subject which
our gracious Lord commands,”—this is the eleventh commandment in many an
honest old head, especially in Northern Germany. We laugh at it as an
out-of-date fashion, but in former times it was the moral law itself.
Perhaps we shall again some day laugh at that which is now considered as
moral by a generation brought up under a parliamentary régime, namely, the
policy of placing one’s party before one’s own wisdom, and of answering
every question concerning the public welfare in such a way as to fill the
sails of the party with a favourable gust of wind. “We must take that view
of a subject which the position of our party calls for”—such would be the
canon. In the service of such morals we may now behold every kind of
sacrifice, even martyrdom and conquest over one’s self.
184.
THE STATE AS A PRODUCTION OF ANARCHISTS.—In countries inhabited by
tractable men there are always a few backsliders and intractable people.
For the present the latter have joined the Socialists more than any other
party. If it should happen that these people once come to have the making
of the laws, they may be relied upon to impose iron chains upon
themselves, and to practise a dreadful discipline,—they know themselves!
and they will endure these harsh laws with the knowledge that they
themselves have imposed them—the feeling of power and of this particular
power will be too recent among them and too attractive for them not to
suffer anything for its sake.
185.
BEGGARS.—Beggars ought to be suppressed; because we get angry both when we
help them and when we do not.
186.
BUSINESS MEN.—Your business is your greatest prejudice, it binds you to
your locality, your society and your tastes. Diligent in business but lazy
in thought, satisfied with your paltriness and with the cloak of duty
concealing this contentment: thus you live, and thus you like your
children to be.
187.
A POSSIBLE FUTURE.—Is it impossible for us to imagine a social state in
which the criminal will publicly denounce himself and dictate his own
punishment, in the proud feeling that he is thus honouring the law which
he himself has made, that he is exercising his power, the power of a
lawmaker, in thus punishing himself? He may offend for once, but by his
own voluntary punishment he raises himself above his offence, and not only
expiates it by his frankness, greatness, and calmness, but adds to it a
public benefit.—Such would be the criminal of a possible future, a
criminal who would, it is true, presuppose a future legislation based upon
this fundamental idea: “I yield in great things as well as in small only
to the law which I myself have made.” How many experiments must yet be
made! How many futures have yet to dawn upon mankind!
188.
STIMULANTS AND FOOD.—Nations are deceived so often because they are always
looking for a deceiver, _i.e._ a stimulating wine for their senses. When
they can only have this wine they are glad to put up even with inferior
bread. Intoxication is to them more than nutriment—this is the bait with
which they always let themselves be caught! What, to them, are men chosen
from among themselves—although they may be the most expert specialists—as
compared with the brilliant conquerors, or ancient and magnificent
princely houses! In order that he may inspire them with faith, the
demagogue must at least exhibit to them a prospect of conquest and
splendour. People will always obey, and even do more than obey, provided
that they can become intoxicated in doing so. We may not even offer them
repose and pleasure without this laurel crown and its maddening influence.
This vulgar taste which ascribes greater importance to intoxication than
nutrition did not by any means originate in the lower ranks of the
population: it was, on the contrary, transplanted there, and on this
backward soil it grows in great abundance, whilst its real origin must be
sought amongst the highest intellects, where it flourished for thousands
of years. The people is the last virgin soil upon which this brilliant
weed can grow. Well, then, is it really to the people that we should
entrust politics in order that they may thereby have their daily
intoxication?
189.
HIGH POLITICS.—Whatever may be the influence in high politics of
utilitarianism and the vanity of individuals and nations, the sharpest
spur which urges them onwards is their need for the feeling of power—a
need which rises not only in the souls of princes and rulers, but also
gushes forth from time to time from inexhaustible sources in the people.
The time comes again and again when the masses are ready to stake their
lives and their fortunes, their consciences and their virtue, in order
that they may secure that highest of all enjoyments and rule as a
victorious, tyrannical, and arbitrary nation over other nations (or at all
events think that they do).
On occasions such as these, feelings of prodigality, sacrifice, hope,
confidence, extraordinary audacity, and enthusiasm will burst forth so
abundantly that a sovereign who is ambitious or far-sighted will be able
to seize the opportunity for making war, counting upon the good conscience
of his people to hide his injustice. Great conquerors have always given
utterance to the pathetic language of virtue; they have always been
surrounded by crowds of people who felt themselves, as it were, in a state
of exaltation and would listen to none but the most elevated oratory. The
strange madness of moral judgments! When man experiences the sensation of
power he feels and calls himself good; and at exactly the same time the
others who have to endure his power call him evil!—Hesiod, in his fable of
the epochs of man, has twice in succession depicted the same epoch, that
of the heroes of Homer, and has thus made two epochs out of one: to those
who lived under the terrible iron heel of those adventurous despots, or
had heard their ancestors speak of them, the epoch appeared to be evil;
but the descendants of those chivalric races worshipped it as the “good
old times,” and as an almost ideally blissful age. The poet could thus not
help doing what he did,—his audience probably included the descendants of
both races.
190.
FORMER GERMAN CULTURE.—When the Germans began to interest other European
nations, which is not so very long ago, it was owing to a culture which
they no longer possess to-day, and which they have indeed shaken off with
a blind ardour, as if it had been some disease; and yet they have not been
able to replace it by anything better than political and national lunacy.
They have in this way succeeded in becoming even more interesting to other
nations than they were formerly through their culture: and may that
satisfy them! It is nevertheless undeniable that this German culture has
fooled Europeans, and that it did not deserve the interest shown in it,
and much less the imitation and emulation displayed by other nations in
trying to rival it.
Let us look back for a moment upon Schiller, Wilhelm von Humboldt,
Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Schelling; let us read their correspondence and
mingle for a time with the large circle of their followers: what have they
in common, what characteristics have they, that fill us, as we are now,
partly with a feeling of nausea and partly with pitiful and touching
emotions? First and foremost, the passion for appearing at all costs to be
morally exalted, and then the desire for giving utterance to brilliant,
feeble, and inconsequential remarks, together with their fixed purpose of
looking upon everything (characters, passions, times, customs) as
beautiful—“beautiful,” alas, in accordance with a bad and vague taste,
which nevertheless pretended to be of Hellenic origin. We behold in these
people a weak, good-natured, and glistening idealism, which, above all,
wished to exhibit noble attitudes and noble voices, something at once
presumptuous and inoffensive, and animated by a cordial aversion to “cold”
or “dry” reality—as also to anatomy, complete passions, and every kind of
philosophical continence and scepticism, but especially towards the
knowledge of nature in so far as it was impossible to use it as religious
symbolism.
Goethe, in his own characteristic fashion, observed from afar these
movements of German culture: placing himself beyond their influence,
gently remonstrating, silent, more and more confirmed in his own better
course. A little later, and Schopenhauer also was an observer of these
movements—a great deal of the world and devilry of the world had again
been revealed to him, and he spoke of it both roughly and
enthusiastically, for there is a certain beauty in this devilry! And what
was it, then, that really seduced the foreigners and prevented them from
viewing this movement as did Goethe and Schopenhauer, or, better, from
ignoring it altogether? It was that faint lustre, that inexplicable
starlight which formed a mysterious halo around this culture. The
foreigners said to themselves: “This is all very very remote from us; our
sight, hearing, understanding, enjoyment, and powers of valuations are
lost here, but in spite of that there may be some stars! There may be
something in it! Is it possible that the Germans have quietly discovered
some corner of heaven and settled there? We must try to come nearer to
these Germans.” So they did begin to come nearer to the Germans, while not
so very long afterwards the Germans put themselves to some trouble to get
rid of this starlight halo: they knew only too well that they had not been
in heaven, but only in a cloud!
191.
BETTER MEN.—They tell me that our art is meant for the men of the present
day, these greedy, unsatisfied, undisciplined, disgusted, and harassed
spirits, and that it exhibits to them a picture of happiness, exaltation,
and unworldliness beside that of their own brutality, so that for once
they may forget and breathe freely; nay, perhaps find that they may derive
some encouragement towards flight and conversion from that oblivion. Poor
artists, with such a public as this; half of whose thoughts require the
attention of a priest, and the other half the attention of an alienist!
How much happier was Corneille—“Our great Corneille!” as Madame de Sévigné
exclaimed, with the accent of a woman in the presence of a whole man,—how
far superior was his audience, which he could please with pictures of
chivalric virtues, strict duty, generous devotion, and heroic self-denial!
How differently did he and they love existence, not as coming from blind
and confused “will,” which we curse because we cannot destroy it; but
loving existence as a place, so to speak, where greatness joined with
humanity is possible, and where even the greatest restraint of form, such
as submission to the caprice of priests and princes, could not suppress
either the pride, chivalric feeling, the grace or the intellect of
individuals, but could, on the contrary, be felt as a charm and incentive,
as a welcome contrast to innate self-glorification and distinction and the
inherited power of volition and passion.
192.
THE DESIRE FOR PERFECT OPPONENTS.—It cannot be denied that the French have
been the most Christian nation in the world, not because the devotion of
masses in France has been greater than elsewhere, but because those
Christian ideals which are most difficult to realise have become
incarnated here instead of merely remaining fancies, intentions, or
imperfect beginnings. Take Pascal, for example, the greatest of all
Christians in his combination of ardour, intellect, and honesty, and
consider what elements had to be combined in his case! Take Fénelon, the
most perfect and attractive embodiment of ecclesiastical culture in all
its power: a sublime golden mean of whom a historian would be tempted to
prove the impossibility, whilst in reality he was merely the perfection of
something exceedingly difficult and improbable. Take Madame de Guyon among
her companions, the French Quietists: and everything that the eloquence
and ardour of the Apostle Paul has endeavoured to divine with regard to
the Christian’s state of semi-divinity, this most sublime, loving, silent,
and ecstatic state is seen verified in her, without, however, that Jewish
obtrusiveness that Paul showed towards God—due in the case of Madame de
Guyon to the real old French artlessness in words and gestures,
artlessness at once womanly, subtle, and distinguished. Consider, again,
the founder of the Trappists—the last person who really took seriously the
ascetic ideal of Christianity, not because he was an exception among
Frenchmen, but because he was a true Frenchman: for up to our own day his
gloomy organisation has not been able to acclimatise itself and to
prosper, except among Frenchmen; and it has followed them into Alsace and
Algeria.
Let us not forget the Huguenots, either: that combination of a martial and
industrial spirit, refined manners and Christian severity, has never been
more beautifully exhibited. And it was at Port Royal that the great
Christian erudition beheld its last era of prosperity; and in France more
than anywhere else great men know how to prosper. Though not at all
superficial, a great Frenchman has always his apparent superficiality;—he
has, so to speak, a natural skin for his real contents and depth,—while,
on the other hand, the depth of a great German is generally, as it were,
closed up in an ugly-shaped box, like an elixir, which, by means of a hard
and curious covering, endeavours to preserve itself from the light of day
and the touch of thoughtless hands. And now let us endeavour to find out
why a people like the French, so prolific in perfect types of Christians,
likewise necessarily brought forth the perfect contrary types, those of
unchristian free-thought! The French free-thinker, in his own inward
being, had to fight against truly great men, and not, like the
free-thinkers of other nations, merely against dogmas and sublime
abortions.
193.
_ESPRIT_ AND MORALS.—The German, who possesses the secret of knowing how
to be tedious in spite of wit, knowledge, and feeling, and who has
habituated himself to consider tediousness as moral, is in dread in the
presence of French _esprit_ lest it should tear out the eyes of
morality—but a dread mingled with “fascination,” like that experienced by
the little bird in the presence of the rattlesnake. Amongst all the
celebrated Germans none possessed more _esprit_ than Hegel, but he also
had that great German dread of it which brought about his peculiar and
defective style. For the nature of this style resembles a kernel, which is
wrapped up so many times in an outer covering that it can scarcely peep
through, now and then glancing forth bashfully and inquisitively, like
“young women peeping through their veils,” to use the words of that old
woman-hater, Æschylus. This kernel, however, is a witty though often
impertinent joke on intellectual subjects, a subtle and daring combination
of words, such as is necessary in a society of thinkers as gilding for a
scientific pill—but, enveloped as it is in an almost impenetrable cover,
it exhibits itself as the most abstruse science, and likewise as the worst
possible moral tediousness. Here the Germans had a permissible form of
_esprit_ and they revelled in it with such boundless delight that even
Schopenhauer’s unusually fine understanding could not grasp it—during the
whole of his life he thundered against the spectacle that the Germans
offered to him, but he could never explain it.
194.
VANITY OF THE TEACHERS OF MORALS.—The relatively small success which
teachers of morals have met with may be explained by the fact that they
wanted too much at once, _i.e._ they were too ambitious and too fond of
laying down precepts for everybody. In other words, they were beating the
air and making speeches to animals in order to turn them into men; what
wonder, then, that the animals thought this tedious! We should rather
choose limited circles and endeavour to find and promote morals for them:
for instance, we should make speeches to wolves with the object of turning
them into dogs; but, above all, the greatest success will remain for the
man who does not seek to educate either everybody or certain limited
circles, but only one single individual, and who cannot be turned to the
right or left from his straight purpose. The last century was superior to
ours precisely because it possessed so many individually educated men, as
well as educators in the same proportion, who had made this their life’s
task, and who with this task were dignified not only in their own eyes but
in those of all the remaining “good society.”
195.
THE SO-CALLED CLASSICAL EDUCATION.—Alas! we discover that our life is
consecrated to knowledge and that we should throw it away, nay, that we
should even have to throw it away if this consecration did not protect us
from ourselves: we repeat this couplet, and not without deep emotion:
Thee, Fate, I follow, though I fain would not,
And yet I must, with many a sigh and groan!
And then, in looking backwards over the course of our lives, we discover
that there is one thing that cannot be restored to us: the wasted period
of our youth, when our teachers did not utilise these ardent and eager
years to lead us to the knowledge of things, but merely to this so-called
“classical education”! Only think of this wasted youth, when we were
inoculated clumsily and painfully with an imperfect knowledge of the
Greeks and Romans as well as of their languages, contrary to the highest
principle of all culture, which holds that we should not give food except
to those who hunger for it! Think of that period of our lives when we had
mathematics and physics forced down our throats, instead of being first of
all made acquainted with the despair of ignorance, instead of having our
little daily life, our activities, and everything occurring in our houses,
our workshops, in the sky, and in nature, split up into thousands of
problems, painful, humiliating and irritating problems—and thus having our
curiosity made acquainted with the fact that we first of all require a
mathematical and mechanical knowledge before we can be allowed to rejoice
in the absolute logic of this knowledge! If we had only been imbued with
reverence for those branches of science, if we had only been made to
tremble with emotion—were it only for once—at the struggles, the defeats,
and the renewed combats of those great men, of the martyrdom which is the
history of pure science! But, on the contrary, we were allowed to develop
a certain contempt for those sciences in favour of historical training,
formal education(4) and “classicism.”
And we allowed ourselves to be so easily deceived! Formal education! Might
we not have pointed to the best teachers at our high schools and asked
laughingly, “Where then do they keep their formal education? and, if it is
wanting in them, how can they teach it?” And classicism! Did we get any of
that instruction which the ancients used to impart to their youth? Did we
learn to speak or to write like them? Did we ceaselessly exercise
ourselves in that duel of speech, dialectic? Did we learn to move as
beautifully and proudly as they did, and to excel as they did in
wrestling, throwing, and boxing? Did we learn anything of that practical
asceticism of all the Greek philosophers? Did we receive any training in a
single ancient virtue, and in the way in which the ancients were trained
in it? Was not all meditation upon morals wanting in our education?—And
how much more the only possible criticism on the subject of morality,
those courageous and earnest attempts to live according to this or that
morality! Did our teachers ever stir up a feeling in us which the ancients
valued more highly than moderns? Did they in the spirit of the ancients
indicate to us the divisions of the day and of life, and those aims by
which the lives of the ancients were guided? Did we learn the ancient
languages as we now learn the modern ones, viz. that we might speak them
fluently and well? Nowhere can we find a real proficiency or any new
faculty as the result of those toilsome years! only the knowledge of what
men had learnt and were able to do in past ages!
And what knowledge! Nothing becomes clearer to me year by year than the
fact that the entire Greek and ancient mode of life, however simple and
evident it must seem to our eyes, is in truth very difficult to
understand, and even scarcely accessible, and that the customary ease with
which we babble about the ancients is either giddy levity or the old
hereditary conceit of our thoughtlessness. We are deceived by words and
ideas which appear to resemble our own, but behind them there is always
concealed a feeling which must be strange, incomprehensible, or painful to
our modern conceptions. And these are realms in which boys are allowed to
roam about! Enough: we roamed about them in our childhood, and there we
became seized with an almost ineradicable antipathy for all antiquity, the
antipathy arising from an intimacy which was apparently too great! For so
great is the conceit of our classical teachers, who would almost make it
appear that they had gained full control over the ancients, that they pass
on this conceit to their pupils, together with the suspicion that such a
possession is of little use for making people happy, but is good enough
for honest, foolish old book-worms. “Let them brood over their treasure:
it is well worthy of them!”—It is with this unexpressed thought that we
completed our classical education. It can’t be changed now—for us, at all
events! But let us not think of ourselves alone!
196.
THE MOST PERSONAL QUESTIONS OF TRUTH.—What am I really doing, and what do
I mean by doing it? That is the question of truth which is not taught
under our present system of education, and consequently not asked, because
there is no time for it. On the other hand, we have always time and
inclination for talking nonsense with children, rather than telling them
the truth; for flattering women who will later on be mothers, rather than
telling them the truth; and for speaking with young men about their future
and their pleasures, rather than about the truth!
But what, after all, are seventy years!—Time passes, and they soon come to
an end; it matters as little to us as it does to the wave to know how and
whither it is rolling! No, it might even be wisdom not to know it.
“Agreed; but it shows a want of pride not even to inquire into the matter;
our culture does not tend to make people proud.”
“So much the better!”
“Is it really?”
197.
ENMITY OF THE GERMANS TOWARDS ENLIGHTENMENT.—Let us consider the
contributions which in the first half of this century the Germans made to
general culture by their intellectual work. In the first place, let us
take the German philosophers: they went back to the first and oldest stage
of speculation, for they were content with conceptions instead of
explanations, like the thinkers of dreamy epochs—a pre-scientific type of
philosophy was thus revived by them. Secondly, we have the German
historians and romanticists: their efforts on the whole aimed at restoring
to the place of honour certain old and primitive sentiments, especially
Christianity, the “soul of the people,” folk-lore, folk-speech,
mediævalism, Oriental asceticism, and Hinduism. In the third place, there
are the natural philosophers who fought against the spirit of Newton and
Voltaire, and, like Goethe and Schopenhauer, endeavoured to re-establish
the idea of a deified or diabolised nature, and of its absolute ethical
and symbolical meaning. The main general tendency of the Germans was
directed against enlightenment and against those social revolutions which
were stupidly mistaken for the consequences of enlightenment: the piety
towards everything that existed tried to become piety towards everything
that had ever existed, only in order that heart and mind might be
permitted to fill themselves and gush forth again, thus leaving no space
for future and novel aims. The cult of feeling took the place of the cult
of reason, and the German musicians, as the best exponents of all that is
invisible, enthusiastic, legendary, and passionate, showed themselves more
successful in building up the new temple than all the other artists in
words and thoughts.
If, in considering these details, we have taken into account the fact that
many good things were said and investigated, and that many things have
since then been more fairly judged than on any previous occasion, there
yet remains to be said of the whole that it was a general danger, and one
by no means small, to set knowledge altogether below feeling under the
appearance of an entire and definitive acquaintance with the past—and, to
use that expression of Kant, who thus defined his own particular task—“To
make way again for belief by fixing the limits of knowledge.” Let us once
more breathe freely, the hour of this danger is past! And yet, strange to
say, the very spirits which these Germans conjured up with such eloquence
have at length become the most dangerous for the intentions of those who
did conjure them up: history, the comprehension of origin and development,
sympathy with the past, the new passion for feeling and knowledge, after
they had been for a long time at the service of this obscure exalted and
retrograde spirit, have once more assumed another nature, and are now
soaring with outstretched wings above the heads of those who once upon a
time conjured them forth, as new and stronger genii of that very
enlightenment to combat which they had been resuscitated. It is this
enlightenment which we have now to carry forward,—caring nothing for the
fact that there has been and still is “a great revolution,” and again a
great “reaction” against it: these are but playful crests of foam when
compared with the truly great current on which we float, and want to
float.
198.
ASSIGNING PRESTIGE TO ONE’S COUNTRY.—It is the men of culture who
determine the rank of their country, and they are characterised by an
innumerable number of great inward experiences, which they have digested
and can now value justly. In France and Italy this fell to the lot of the
nobility; in Germany, where up to now the nobility has been, as a rule,
composed of men who had not much intellect to boast about (perhaps this
will soon cease to be the case), it was the task of the priests, the
school teachers and their descendants.
199.
WE ARE NOBLER.—Fidelity, generosity, concern for one’s good reputation:
these three qualities, combined in one sentiment, we call noble,
distinguished, aristocratic; and in this respect we excel the Greeks. We
do not wish to give this up at any cost under the pretext that the ancient
objects of these virtues have rightly fallen in esteem, but we wish
cautiously to substitute new objects for these most precious and
hereditary impulses. To understand why the sentiments of the noblest
Greeks must be considered as inferior and scarcely respectable in the
present age, where we are still under the influence of the chivalric and
feudal nobility, we must recall the words of consolation to which Ulysses
gave utterance in the midst of the most humiliating situations, “Bear with
it, my dear heart, bear with it! Thou hast borne with many more swinish
things(5) than these!” As an instance of this mythical example, consider
also the tale of that Athenian officer, who, when threatened with a stick
by another officer in the presence of the entire general staff, shook off
his disgrace with the words, “Strike, but listen to me.” (This was
Themistocles, that ingenious Ulysses of the classical epoch, who was just
the man at the moment of disgrace to address to his “dear heart” that
verse of comfort and affliction.)
The Greeks were far from making light of life and death because of an
insult, as we, influenced by a hereditary spirit of chivalric
adventurousness and self-devotion, are in the habit of doing; or from
looking for opportunities of honourably risking life and death, as in
duels; or from valuing the preservation of an unstained name (honour) more
than the acquirement of an evil reputation, when the latter was compatible
with glory and the feeling of power; or from remaining faithful to the
prejudices and the articles of faith of a caste, when these could prevent
them from becoming tyrants. For this is the ignoble secret of the good
Greek aristocrat: out of sheer jealousy he treats every one of the members
of his caste as being on an equal footing with himself, but he is ready at
every moment to spring like a tiger on his prey—despotism. What matter
lies, murders, treason, or the betrayal of his native city to him! Justice
was an extremely difficult matter for people of this kind to
understand—nay, justice was almost something incredible. “The just man”
was to the Greeks what “the saint” was to the Christians. When Socrates,
however, laid down the axiom, “The most virtuous man is the happiest,”
they could not trust their ears; they thought they had heard a madman
speaking. For, as a picture of the happiest man, every nobleman had in his
mind the cheeky audacity and devilry of the tyrant who sacrifices
everything and every one to his own exuberance and pleasure. Among people
whose imagination secretly raved about such happiness, the worship of the
State could not, of course, have been too deeply implanted—but I think
that men whose desire for power does not rage so blindly as that of the
Greek noblemen no longer stand in need of such idolatry of the State, by
means of which, in past ages, such a passion was kept within due bounds.
200.
ENDURANCE OF POVERTY.—There is one great advantage in noble extraction: it
makes us endure poverty better.
201.
THE FUTURE OF THE NOBILITY.—The bearing of the aristocratic classes shows
that, in all the members of their body the consciousness of power is
continually playing its fascinating game. Thus people of aristocratic
habits, men or women, never sink worn out into a chair; when every one
else makes himself comfortable, as in a train, for example, they avoid
reclining at their ease; they do not appear to get tired after standing at
Court for hours at a stretch; they do not furnish their houses in a
comfortable manner, but in such a way as to produce the impression of
something grand and imposing, as if they had to serve as a residence for
greater and taller beings; they reply to a provoking speech with dignity
and clearness of mind, and not as if scandalised, crushed, shamed, or out
of breath in the plebeian fashion. As the aristocrat is able to preserve
the appearance of being possessed of a superior physical force which never
leaves him, he likewise wishes by his aspect of constant serenity and
civility of disposition, even in the most trying circumstances, to convey
the impression that his mind and soul are equal to all dangers and
surprises. A noble culture may resemble, so far as passions are concerned,
either a horseman who takes pleasure in making his proud and fiery animal
trot in the Spanish fashion,—we have only to recollect the age of Louis
XIV.,—or like the rider who feels his horse dart away with him like the
elemental forces, to such a degree that both horse and rider come near
losing their heads, but, owing to the enjoyment of the delight, do keep
very clear heads: in both these cases this aristocratic culture breathes
power, and if very often in its customs only the appearance of the feeling
of power is required, nevertheless the real sense of superiority continues
constantly to increase as the result of the impression which this display
makes upon those who are not aristocrats.
This indisputable happiness of aristocratic culture, based as it is on the
feeling of superiority, is now beginning to rise to ever higher levels;
for now, thanks to the free spirits, it is henceforth permissible and not
dishonourable for people who have been born and reared in aristocratic
circles to enter the domain of knowledge, where they may secure more
intellectual consecrations and learn chivalric services even higher than
those of former times, and where they may look up to that ideal of
victorious wisdom which as yet no age has been able to set before itself
with so good a conscience as the period which is about to dawn. Lastly,
what is to be the occupation of the nobility in the future if it becomes
more evident from day to day that it is less and less indecorus to take
any part in politics?
202.
THE CARE OF THE HEALTH.—We have scarcely begun to devote any attention to
the physiology of criminals, and yet we have already reached the
inevitable conclusion that between criminals and madmen there is no really
essential difference: _if we suppose that the current moral fashion of
thinking is a healthy way of thinking_. No belief, however, is nowadays
more firmly believed in than this one, so we should not therefore shrink
from drawing the inevitable conclusion and treating the criminal like a
lunatic—above all, not with haughty pitifulness, but with medical skill
and good will. He may perhaps be in need of a change of air, a change of
society, or temporary absence: perhaps of solitude and new
occupations—very well! He may perhaps feel that it would be to his
advantage to live under surveillance for a short time in order thus to
obtain protection from himself and from a troublesome tyrannical
impulse—very well! We should make clear to him the possibility and the
means of curing him (the extermination, transformation, and sublimation of
these impulses), and also, in the worst cases, the improbability of a
cure; and we should offer to the incurable criminal, who has become a
useless burden to himself, the opportunity of committing suicide. While
holding this in reserve as an extreme measure of relief, we should neglect
nothing which would tend above all to restore to the criminal his good
courage and freedom of spirit; we should free his soul from all remorse,
as if it were something unclean, and show him how he may atone for a wrong
which he may have done some one by benefiting some one else, perhaps the
community at large, in such way that he might even do more than balance
his previous offence.
All this must be done with the greatest tact! The criminal must, above
all, remain anonymous or adopt an assumed name, changing his place of
residence frequently, so that his reputation and future life may suffer as
little as possible. At the present time it is true that the man who has
been injured, apart altogether from the manner in which this injury might
be redressed, wishes for revenge in addition, and applies to the courts
that he may obtain it—and this is why our dreadful penal laws are still in
force: Justice, as it were, holding up a pair of shopkeeper’s scales and
endeavouring to balance the guilt by punishment; but can we not take a
step beyond this? Would it not be a great relief to the general sentiment
of life if, while getting rid of our belief in guilt, we could also get
rid of our old craving for vengeance, and gradually come to believe that
it is a refined wisdom for happy men to bless their enemies and to do good
to those who have offended them, exactly in accordance with the spirit of
Christian teaching! Let us free the world from this idea of sin, and take
care to cast out with it the idea of punishment. May these monstrous ideas
henceforth live banished far from the abodes of men—if, indeed, they must
live at all, and do not perish from disgust with themselves.
Let us not forget also, however, that the injury caused to society and to
the individual by the criminal is of the same species as that caused by
the sick: for the sick spread cares and ill-humour; they are
non-productive, consume the earnings of others, and at the same time
require attendance, doctors, and support, and they really live on the time
and strength of the healthy. In spite of this, however, we should
designate as inhuman any one who, for this reason, would wish to wreak
vengeance on the sick. In past ages, indeed, this was actually done: in
primitive conditions of society, and even now among certain savage
peoples, the sick man is treated as a criminal and as a danger to the
community, and it is believed that he is the resting-place of certain
demoniacal beings who have entered into his body as the result of some
offence he has committed—those ages and peoples hold that the sick are the
guilty!
And what of ourselves? Are we not yet ripe for the contrary conception?
Shall we not be allowed to say, “The guilty are the sick”? No; the hour
for that has not yet come. We still lack, above all, those physicians who
have learnt something from what we have hitherto called practical morals
and have transformed it into the art and science of healing. We still lack
that intense interest in those things which some day perhaps may seem not
unlike the “storm and stress” of those old religious ecstasies. The
Churches have not yet come into the possession of those who look after our
health; the study of the body and of dietary are not yet amongst the
obligatory subjects taught in our primary and secondary schools; there are
as yet no quiet associations of those people who are pledged to one
another to do without the help of law courts, and who renounce the
punishment and vengeance now meted out to those who have offended against
society. No thinker has as yet been daring enough to determine the health
of society, and of the individuals who compose it, by the number of
parasites which it can support; and no statesman has yet been found to use
the ploughshare in the spirit of that generous and tender saying, “If thou
wilt till the land, till it with the plough; then the bird and the wolf,
walking behind thy plough, will rejoice in thee—all creatures will rejoice
in thee.”
203.
AGAINST BAD DIET.—Fie upon the meals which people nowadays eat in hotels
and everywhere else where the well-off classes of society live! Even when
eminent men of science meet together their tables groan under the weight
of the dishes, in accordance with the principle of the bankers: the
principle of too many dishes and too much to eat. The result of this is
that dinners are prepared with a view to their mere appearance rather than
the consequences that may follow from eating them, and that stimulating
drinks are required to help in driving away the heaviness in the stomach
and in the brain. Fie on the dissoluteness and extreme nervousness which
must follow upon all this! Fie upon the dreams that such repasts bring!
Fie upon the arts and books which must be the desert of such meals!
Despite all the efforts of such people their acts will taste of pepper and
ill-temper, or general weariness! (The wealthy classes in England stand in
great need of their Christianity in order to be able to endure their bad
digestions and their headaches.) Finally, to mention not only the
disgusting but also the more pleasant side of the matter, these people are
by no means mere gluttons: our century and its spirit of activity has more
power over the limbs than the belly. What then is the meaning of these
banquets? They represent! What in Heaven’s name do they represent?
Rank?—no, money! There is no rank now! We are all “individuals”! but money
now stands for power, glory, pre-eminence, dignity, and influence; money
at the present time acts as a greater or lesser moral prejudice for a man
in proportion to the amount he may possess. Nobody wishes to hide it under
a bushel or display it in heaps on a table: hence money must have some
representative which can be put on the table—so behold our banquets!
204.
DANÆ AND THE GOD OF GOLD.—Whence arises this excessive impatience in our
day which turns men into criminals even in circumstances which would be
more likely to bring about the contrary tendency? What induces one man to
use false weights, another to set his house on fire after having insured
it for more than its value, a third to take part in counterfeiting, while
three-fourths of our upper classes indulge in legalised fraud, and suffer
from the pangs of conscience that follow speculation and dealings on the
Stock Exchange: what gives rise to all this? It is not real want,—for
their existence is by no means precarious; perhaps they have even enough
to eat and drink without worrying,—but they are urged on day and night by
a terrible impatience at seeing their wealth pile up so slowly, and by an
equally terrible longing and love for these heaps of gold. In this
impatience and love, however, we see re-appear once more that fanaticism
of the desire for power which was stimulated in former times by the belief
that we were in the possession of truth, a fanaticism which bore such
beautiful names that we could dare to be inhuman with a good conscience
(burning Jews, heretics, and good books, and exterminating entire cultures
superior to ours, such as those of Peru and Mexico). The means of this
desire for power are changed in our day, but the same volcano is still
smouldering, impatience and intemperate love call for their victims, and
what was once done “for the love of God” is now done for the love of
money, _i.e._ for the love of that which at present affords us the highest
feeling of power and a good conscience.
205.
THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL.—One of the spectacles which the next century will
invite us to witness is the decision regarding the fate of the European
Jews. It is quite obvious now that they have cast their die and crossed
their Rubicon: the only thing that remains for them is either to become
masters of Europe or to lose Europe, as they once centuries ago lost
Egypt, where they were confronted with similar alternatives. In Europe,
however, they have gone through a schooling of eighteen centuries such as
no other nation has ever undergone, and the experiences of this dreadful
time of probation have benefited not only the Jewish community but, even
to a greater extent, the individual. As a consequence of this, the
resourcefulness of the modern Jews, both in mind and soul, is
extraordinary. Amongst all the inhabitants of Europe it is the Jews least
of all who try to escape from any deep distress by recourse to drink or to
suicide, as other less gifted people are so prone to do. Every Jew can
find in the history of his own family and of his ancestors a long record
of instances of the greatest coolness and perseverance amid difficulties
and dreadful situations, an artful cunning in fighting with misfortune and
hazard. And above all it is their bravery under the cloak of wretched
submission, their heroic _spernere se sperni_ that surpasses the virtues
of all the saints.
People wished to make them contemptible by treating them contemptibly for
nearly twenty centuries, and refusing them access to all honourable
positions and dignities, and by pushing them further down into the meaner
trades—and under this process indeed they have not become any cleaner. But
contemptible? They have never ceased for a moment from believing
themselves qualified for the very highest functions, nor have the virtues
of the suffering ever ceased to adorn them. Their manner of honouring
their parents and children, the rationality of their marriages and
marriage customs, distinguishes them amongst all Europeans. Besides this,
they have been able to create for themselves a sense of power and eternal
vengeance from the very trades that were left to them (or to which they
were abandoned). Even in palliation of their usury we cannot help saying
that, without this occasional pleasant and useful torture inflicted on
their scorners, they would have experienced difficulty in preserving their
self-respect for so long. For our self-respect depends upon our ability to
make reprisals in both good and evil things. Nevertheless, their revenge
never urges them on too far, for they all have that liberty of mind, and
even of soul, produced in men by frequent changes of place, climate, and
customs of neighbours and oppressors, they possess by far the greatest
experience in all human intercourse, and even in their passions they
exercise the caution which this experience has developed in them. They are
so certain of their intellectual versatility and shrewdness that they
never, even when reduced to the direst straits, have to earn their bread
by manual labour as common workmen, porters, or farm hands. In their
manners we can still see that they have never been inspired by chivalric
and noble feelings, or that their bodies have ever been girt with fine
weapons: a certain obtrusiveness alternates with a submissiveness which is
often tender and almost always painful.
Now, however, that they unavoidably inter-marry more and more year after
year with the noblest blood of Europe, they will soon have a considerable
heritage of good intellectual and physical manners, so that in another
hundred years they will have a sufficiently noble aspect not to render
themselves, as masters, ridiculous to those whom they will have subdued.
And this is important! and therefore a settlement of the question is still
premature. They themselves know very well that the conquest of Europe or
any act of violence is not to be thought of; but they also know that some
day or other Europe may, like a ripe fruit, fall into their hands, if they
do not clutch at it too eagerly. In the meantime, it is necessary for them
to distinguish themselves in all departments of European distinction and
to stand in the front rank: until they shall have advanced so far as to
determine themselves what distinction shall mean. Then they will be called
the pioneers and guides of the Europeans whose modesty they will no longer
offend.
And then where shall an outlet be found for this abundant wealth of great
impressions accumulated during such an extended period and representing
Jewish history for every Jewish family, this wealth of passions, virtues,
resolutions, resignations, struggles, and conquests of all kinds—where can
it find an outlet but in great intellectual men and works! On the day when
the Jews will be able to exhibit to us as their own work such jewels and
golden vessels as no European nation, with its shorter and less profound
experience, can or could produce, when Israel shall have changed its
eternal vengeance into an eternal benediction for Europe: then that
seventh day will once more appear when old Jehovah may rejoice in Himself,
in His creation, in His chosen people—and all, all of us, will rejoice
with Him!
206.
THE IMPOSSIBLE CLASS.—Poverty, cheerfulness, and independence—it is
possible to find these three qualities combined in one individual;
poverty, cheerfulness, and slavery—this is likewise a possible
combination: and I can say nothing better to the workmen who serve as
factory slaves; presuming that it does not appear to them altogether to be
a shameful thing to be utilised as they are, as the screws of a machine
and the stopgaps, as it were, of the human spirit of invention. Fie on the
thought that merely by means of higher wages the essential part of their
misery, _i.e._ their impersonal enslavement, might be removed! Fie, that
we should allow ourselves to be convinced that, by an increase of this
impersonality within the mechanical working of a new society, the disgrace
of slavery could be changed into a virtue! Fie, that there should be a
regular price at which a man should cease to be a personality and become a
screw instead! Are you accomplices in the present madness of nations which
desire above all to produce as much as possible, and to be as rich as
possible? Would it not be your duty to present a counter-claim to them,
and to show them what large sums of internal value are wasted in the
pursuit of such an external object?
But where is your internal value when you no longer know what it is to
breathe freely; when you have scarcely any command over your own selves,
and often feel disgusted with yourselves as with some stale food; when you
zealously study the newspapers and look enviously at your wealthy
neighbour, made covetous by the rapid rise and fall of power, money, and
opinions; when you no longer believe in a philosophy in rags, or in the
freedom of spirit of a man who has few needs; when a voluntary and idyllic
poverty without profession or marriage, such as should suit the more
intellectual ones among you, has become for you an object of derision? On
the other hand, the piping of the Socialistic rat-catchers who wish to
inspire you with foolish hopes is continually sounding in your ears: they
tell you to be ready and nothing further, ready from this day to the next,
so that you wait and wait for something to come from outside, though
living in all other respects as you lived before—until this waiting is at
length changed into hunger and thirst and fever and madness, and the clay
of the _bestia triumphans_ at last dawns in all its glory. Every one of
you should on the contrary say to himself: “It would be better to emigrate
and endeavour to become a master in new and savage countries, and
especially to become master over myself, changing my place of abode
whenever the least sign of slavery threatens me, endeavouring to avoid
neither adventure nor war, and, if things come to the worst, holding
myself ready to die: anything rather than continuing in this state of
disgraceful thraldom, this bitterness, malice and rebelliousness!” This
would be the proper spirit: the workmen in Europe ought to make it clear
that their position as a class has become a human impossibility, and not
merely, as they at present maintain, the result of some hard and aimless
arrangement of society. They should bring about an age of great swarming
forth from the European beehive such as has never yet been seen,
protesting by this voluntary and huge migration against machines and
capital and the alternatives that now threaten them either of becoming
slaves of the State or slaves of some revolutionary party.
May Europe be freed from one-fourth of her inhabitants! Both she and they
will experience a sensation of relief. It is only far in the distance, in
the undertaking of vast colonisations, that we shall be able to observe
how much rationality, fairness, and healthy suspicion mother Europe has
incorporated in her sons—these sons who could no longer endure life in the
home of the dull old woman, always running the danger of becoming as
bad-tempered, irritable, and pleasure-seeking as she herself. The European
virtues will travel along with these workmen far beyond the boundaries of
Europe; and those very qualities which on their native soil had begun to
degenerate into a dangerous discontent and criminal inclinations will,
when abroad, be transformed into a beautiful, savage naturalness and will
be called heroism; so that at last a purer air would again be wafted over
this old, over-populated, and brooding Europe of ours. What would it
matter if there was a scarcity of “hands”? Perhaps people would then
recollect that they had accustomed themselves to many wants merely because
it was easy to gratify them—it would be sufficient to unlearn some of
these wants! Perhaps also Chinamen would be called in, and these would
bring with them their modes of living and thinking, which would be found
very suitable for industrious ants. They would also perhaps help to imbue
this fretful and restless Europe with some of their Asiatic calmness and
contemplation, and—what is perhaps most needful of all—their Asiatic
stability.
207.
THE ATTITUDE OF THE GERMANS TO MORALITY.—A German is capable of great
things, but he is unlikely to accomplish them, for he obeys whenever he
can, as suits a naturally lazy intellect. If he is ever in the dangerous
situation of having to stand alone and cast aside his sloth, when he finds
it no longer possible to disappear like a cipher in a number (in which
respect he is far inferior to a Frenchman or an Englishman), he shows his
true strength: then he becomes dangerous, evil, deep, and audacious, and
exhibits to the light of day that wealth of latent energy which he had
previously carried hidden in himself, and in which no one, not even
himself, had ever believed. When in such a case a German obeys himself—it
is very exceptional for him to do so—he does so with the same heaviness,
inflexibility, and endurance with which he obeys his prince and performs
his official duties: so that, as I have said, he is then capable of great
things which bear no relation to the “weak disposition” he attributes to
himself.
As a rule, however, he is afraid of depending upon himself alone, he is
afraid of taking the initiative: that is why Germany uses up so many
officials and so much ink. Light-heartedness is a stranger to the German;
he is too timid for it: but in entirely new situations which rouse him
from his torpor he exhibits an almost frivolous spirit—he then delights in
the novelty of his new position as if it were some intoxicating drink, and
he is, as we know, quite a connoisseur in intoxication. It thus happens
that the German of the present day is almost always frivolous in politics,
though even here he has the advantage and prejudice of thoroughness and
seriousness; and, although he may take full advantage of these qualities
in negotiations with other political powers, he nevertheless rejoices
inwardly at being able for once in his life to feel enthusiastic and
capricious, to show his fondness for innovations, and to change persons,
parties, and hopes as if they were masks. Those learned German scholars,
who hitherto have been considered as the most German of Germans, were and
perhaps still are as good as the German soldiers on account of their
profound and almost childish inclination to obey in all external things,
and on account of being often compelled to stand alone in science and to
answer for many things: if they can only preserve their proud, simple, and
patient disposition, and their freedom from political madness at those
times when the wind changes, we may yet expect great things from them—such
as they are or such as they were, they are the embryonic stage of
something higher.
So far the advantages and disadvantages of the Germans, including even
their learned men, have been that they were more given to superstition and
showed greater eagerness to believe than any of the other nations; their
vices are, and always have been, their drunkenness and suicidal
inclinations (the latter a proof of the clumsiness of their intellect,
which is easily tempted to throw away the reins). Their danger is to be
sought in everything that binds down the faculties of reason and unchains
the passions (as, for example, the excessive use of music and spirits),
for the German passion acts contrarily to its own advantage, and is as
self-destructive as the passions of the drunkard. Indeed, German
enthusiasm is worth less than that of other nations, for it is barren.
When a German ever did anything great it was done at a time of danger, or
when his courage was high, with his teeth firmly set and his prudence on
the alert, and often enough in a fit of generosity.—Intercourse with these
Germans is indeed advisable, for almost every one of them has something to
give, if we can only understand how to make him find it, or rather recover
it (for he is very untidy in storing away his knowledge).
Well: when people of this type occupy themselves with morals, what
precisely will be the morality that will satisfy them? In the first place,
they will wish to see idealised in their morals their sincere instinct for
obedience. “Man must have something which he can implicitly obey”—this is
a German sentiment, a German deduction; it is the basis of all German
moral teaching. How different is the impression, however, when we compare
this with the entire morality of the ancient world! All those Greek
thinkers, however varied they may appear to us, seem to resemble, as
moralists, the gymnastic teacher who encourages his pupils by saying,
“Come, follow me! Submit to my discipline! Then perhaps you may carry off
the prize from all the other Greeks.” Personal distinction: such was the
virtue of antiquity. Submission, obedience, whether public or private:
such is German virtue. Long before Kant set forth his doctrine of the
Categorical Imperative, Luther, actuated by the same impulse, said that
there surely must be a being in whom man could trust implicitly—it was his
proof of the existence of God; it was his wish, coarser and more popular
than that of Kant, that people should implicitly obey a person and not an
idea, and Kant also finally took his roundabout route through morals
merely that he might secure obedience for the person. This is indeed the
worship of the German, the more so as there is now less worship left in
his religion.
The Greeks and Romans had other opinions on these matters, and would have
laughed at such “there must be a being”: it is part of the boldness of
their Southern nature to take up a stand against “implicit belief,” and to
retain in their inmost heart a trace of scepticism against all and every
one, whether God, man, or idea. The thinker of antiquity went even
further, and said _nil admirari_: in this phrase he saw reflected all
philosophy. A German, Schopenhauer, goes so far in the contrary direction
as to say: _admirari id est philosophari_. But what if, as happens now and
then, the German should attain to that state of mind which would enable
him to perform great things? if the hour of exception comes, the hour of
disobedience? I do not think Schopenhauer is right in saying that the
single advantage the Germans have over other nations is that there are
more atheists among them than elsewhere; but I do know this: whenever the
German reaches the state in which he is capable of great things, he
invariably raises himself above morals! And why should he not? Now he has
something new to do, viz. to command—either himself or others! But this
German morality of his has not taught him how to command! Commanding has
been forgotten in it.