972.
_The lawgivers of the future._--After having tried for a long time in
vain to attach a particular meaning to the word "philosopher,"--for I
found many antagonistic traits, I recognised that we can distinguish
between two kinds of philosophers:--
(1) Those who desire to establish any large system of values (logical
or moral);
(2) Those who are the _lawgivers_ of such valuations.
The former try to seize upon the world of the present or the past,
by embodying or abbreviating the multifarious phenomena by means of
signs: their object is to make it possible for us to survey, to reflect
upon, to comprehend, and to utilise everything that has happened
hitherto--they serve the purpose of man by using all past things to the
benefit of his future.
The second class, however, are _commanders;_ they say: "Thus shall it
be!" They alone determine the "whither" and the "wherefore," and that
which will be useful and beneficial to man; they have command over the
previous work of scientific men, and all knowledge is to them only
a means to their creations. This second kind of philosopher seldom
appears; and as a matter of fact their situation and their danger is
appalling. How often have they not intentionally blindfolded their
eyes in order to shut out the sight of the small strip of ground which
separates them from the abyss and from utter destruction. Plato, for
instance, when he persuaded himself that "the good," as he wanted it,
was not Plato's good, but "the good in itself," the eternal treasure
which a certain man of the name of Plato had chanced to find on his
way! This same will to blindness prevails in a much coarser form in the
case of the founders of religion; their "Thou shalt" must on no account
sound to their ears like "I will,"--they only dare to pursue their task
as if under the command of God; their legislation of values can only be
a burden they can bear if they regard it as "revelation," in this way
their conscience is not crushed by the responsibility.
As soon as those two comforting expedients--that of Plato and that of
Muhammed--have been overthrown, and no thinker can any longer relieve
his conscience with the hypothesis "God" or "eternal values," the
claim of the lawgiver to determine new values rises to an awfulness
which has not yet been experienced. Now those elect, on whom the
faint light of such a duty is beginning to dawn, try and see whether
they cannot escape it--as their greatest danger--by means of a timely
side-spring: for instance, they try to persuade themselves that their
task is already accomplished, or that it defies accomplishment, or that
their shoulders are not broad enough for such burdens, or that they
are already taken up with burdens closer to hand, or even that this
new and remote duty is a temptation and a seduction, drawing them away
from all other duties; a disease, a kind of madness. Many, as a matter
of fact, do succeed in evading the path appointed to them: throughout
the whole of history we can see the traces of such deserters and their
guilty consciences. In most cases,, however, there comes to such men
of destiny that hour of delivery, that autumnal season of maturity, in
which they are forced to do that which they did not even "wish to do":
and that deed before which in the past they have trembled most, falls
easily and unsought from the tree, as an involuntary deed, almost as a
present.
973.
_The human horizon._--Philosophers may be conceived as men who make
the greatest efforts to _discover_ to what extent man can _elevate_
himself--this holds good more particularly of Plato: how far man's
_power_ can extend. But they do this as individuals; perhaps the
instinct of Cæsars and of all founders of states, etc., was greater,
for it preoccupied itself with the question how far man could be urged
forward in _development_ under "favourable circumstances." What they
did not sufficiently understand, however, was the nature of favourable
circumstances. The great question: "Where has the plant 'man' grown
most magnificently heretofore? In order to answer this, a comparative
study of history is necessary.
974.
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age
and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
975.
To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard while making a thought
prevail is perhaps the best forte of artists; but if for this purpose
any one have to work upon human material (as teachers, statesmen,
have to do, etc.), then the repose, the coldness, and the hardness
soon vanish. In natures like Cæsar and Napoleon we are able to divine
something of the nature of "disinterestedness" in their work on their
marble, whatever be the number of men that are sacrificed in the
process. In this direction the future of higher men lies: to bear the
greatest responsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin through
them.--Hitherto the deceptions of inspiration have almost always been
necessary for a man not to lose faith in his own hand, and in his right
to his task.
976.
The reason why philosophers are mostly failures. Because among the
conditions which determine them there are qualities which generally
ruin other men:--
(1) A philosopher must have an enormous multiplicity of qualities; he
must be a sort of abbreviation of man and have all man's high and base
desires: the danger of the contrast within him, and of the possibility
of his loathing himself;
(2) He must be inquisitive in an extraordinary number of ways: the
danger of versatility;
(3) He must be just and honest in the highest sense, but profound both
in love and hate (and in injustice);
(4) He must not only be a spectator but a lawgiver: a judge and
defendant (in so far as he is an abbreviation of the world);
(5) He must be extremely multiform and yet firm and hard. He must be
supple.
977.
The really _regal_ calling of the philosopher (according to the
expression of Alcuin the Anglo-Saxon): "_Prava corrigere, et recta
corroborare, et sancta sublimare._"
978.
The new philosopher can only arise in conjunction with a ruling class,
as the highest spiritualisation of the latter. Great politics, the
rule of the earth, as a proximate contingency, the total _lack of
principles_ necessary thereto.
979.
Fundamental concept: the new values must first be created--this remains
_our duty_! The philosopher must be our lawgiver. New species. (How the
greatest species hitherto [for instance, the Greeks] were reared: this
kind of accident must now be _consciously_ striven for.)
980.
Supposing one thinks of the philosopher as an educator who, looking
down from his lonely elevation, is powerful enough to draw long chains
of generations up to him: then he must be granted the most terrible
privileges of a great educator. An educator never says what he himself
thinks; but only that which he thinks it is good for those whom he is
educating to hear upon any subject. This dissimulation on his part
must not be found out; it is part of his masterliness that people
should believe in his honesty, he must be capable of all the means of
discipline and education: there are some natures which he will only be
able to raise by means of lashing them with his scorn; others who are
lazy, irresolute, cowardly, and vain, he will be able to affect only
with exaggerated praise. Such a teacher stands beyond good and evil,
but nobody must know that he does.
981.
We must _not_ make men "better," we must _not_ talk to them about
morality in any form as if "morality in itself," or an ideal kind
of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must _create
circumstances_ in which _stronger men are necessary,_ such as for
their part will require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and
spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will
consequently insist! As they will need one so badly, they will have it.
We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue eyes and heaving breasts:
_greatness of soul has absolutely nothing romantic about it. And
unfortunately nothing whatever amiable either._
982.
From warriors we must learn: (1) to associate death with those
interests for which we are fighting--that makes us venerable; (2) we
must learn to _sacrifice_ numbers, and to take our cause sufficiently
seriously not to spare men; (3) we must practise inexorable discipline,
and allow ourselves violence and cunning in war.
983.
The _education_ which rears those _ruling_ virtues that allow a man to
become master of his benevolence and his pity: the great disciplinary
virtues ("Forgive thine enemies" is mere child's play beside them),
_and the passions of the creator, must be elevated_ to the heights--we
must cease from carving marble! The exceptional and powerful position
of those creatures (compared with that of all princes hitherto): the
Roman Cæsar with Christ's soul.
984.
We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. For
the former involves _independence_; but without intellectual greatness
independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create disasters
even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." Inferior
spirits _must_ obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of greatness.
985.
The more lofty philosophical man who is surrounded by loneliness, not
because he wishes to be alone, but because he is what he is, and cannot
find his equal: what a number of dangers and torments are reserved for
him, precisely at the present time, when we have lost our belief in
the order of rank, and consequently no longer know how to understand
or honour this isolation! Formerly the sage almost sanctified himself
in the consciences of the mob by going aside in this way; to-day
the anchorite sees himself as though enveloped in a cloud of gloomy
doubt and suspicions. And not alone by the envious and the wretched:
in every well-meant act that he experiences he is bound to discover
misunderstanding, neglect, and superficiality. He knows the crafty
tricks of foolish pity which makes these people feel so good and holy
when they attempt to save him from his own destiny, by giving him more
comfortable situations and more decent and reliable society. Yes, he
will even get to admire the unconscious lust of destruction with which
all mediocre spirits stand up and oppose him, believing all the while
that they have a holy right to do so! For men of such incomprehensible
loneliness it is necessary to put a good stretch of country between
them and the officiousness of their fellows: this is part of their
prudence. For such a man to maintain himself uppermost to-day amid
the dangerous maelstroms of the age which threaten to draw him under,
even cunning and disguise will be necessary. Every attempt he makes to
order his life in the present and with the present, every time he draws
near to these men and their modern desires, he will have to expiate as
if it were an actual sin: and withal he may look with wonder at the
concealed wisdom of his nature, which after every one of these attempts
immediately leads him back to himself by means of illnesses and painful
accidents.
986.
_"Maledetto colui_
_che contrista, un spirto immortal!"_
MANZONI (_Conte di Carmagnola,_ Act II.)
987.
The most difficult and the highest form which man can attain is the
most seldom successful: thus the history of philosophy reveals a
superabundance of bungled and unhappy cases of manhood, and its march
is an extremely slow one; whole centuries intervene and suppress what
has been achieved: and in this way the connecting-link is always made
to fail. It is an appalling history, this history of the highest men,
of the sages.--What is most often damaged is precisely the recollection
of great men, for the semi-successful and botched cases of mankind
misunderstand them and overcome them by their "successes." Whenever
an "effect" is noticeable, the masses gather in a crowd round it;
to hear the inferior and the poor in spirit having their say is a
terrible ear-splitting torment for him who knows and trembles at the
thought, that the fate of man depends upon the success of its highest
types. From the days of my childhood I have reflected upon the sage's
conditions of existence, and I will not conceal my happy conviction
that in Europe he has once more become possible--perhaps only for a
short time.
988.
These new philosophers begin with a description of a systematic order
of rank and difference of value among men,--what they desire is, alas
precisely the reverse of an assimilation and equalisation of man: they
teach estrangement in every sense, they cleave gulfs such as have
never yet existed, and they would fain have man become more evil than
he ever was. For the present they live concealed and estranged even
from each other. For many reasons they will find it necessary to be
anchorites and to wear masks--they will therefore be of little use
in the matter of seeking for their equals. They will live alone, and
probably know the torments of all the loneliest forms of loneliness.
Should they, however, thanks to any accident, meet each other on the
road, I wager that they would not know each other, or that they would
deceive each other in a number of ways.
989.
"Les philosophes ne sont pas faits pour s'aimer. Les aigles ne volent
point en compagnie. Il faut laisser cela aux perdrix, aux étourneaux
... Planer au-dessus et avoir des griffes, voila le lot des grands
génies."--GALIANI.
990.
I forgot to say that such philosophers are cheerful, and that they
like to sit in the abyss of a perfectly clear sky: they are in need of
different means for enduring life than other men; for they suffer in
a different way (that is to say, just as much from the depth of their
contempt of man as from their love of man).--The animal which suffered
most on earth discovered for itself _--laughter._
991.
_Concerning the misunderstanding of "cheerfulness."_ --It is a
temporary relief from long tension; it is the wantonness, the
Saturnalia of a spirit, which is consecrating and preparing itself for
long and terrible resolutions. The "fool" in the form of "science."
992.
The new order of rank among spirits; tragic natures no longer in the
van.
993.
It is a comfort to me to know that over the smoke and filth of human
baseness there is a _higher and brighter_ mankind, which, judging from
their number, must be a small race (for everything that is in any way
distinguished is _ipso facto_ rare). A man does not belong to this race
because he happens to be more gifted, more virtuous, more heroic, or
more loving than the men below, but because he is _colder, brighter,
more far-sighted, and more lonely;_ because he endures, prefers, and
even insists upon, loneliness as the joy, the privilege, yea, even the
condition of existence; because he lives amid clouds and lightnings as
among his equals, and likewise among sunrays, dewdrops, snowflakes,
and all that which must needs come from the heights, and which in its
course moves ever from heaven to earth. The desire to look aloft is not
our desire.--Heroes, martyrs, geniuses, and enthusiasts of all kinds,
are not quiet, patient, subtle, cold, or slow enough for us.
994.
The absolute conviction that valuations above and below are different;
that innumerable experiences are wanting to the latter: that when
looking upwards from below misunderstandings are necessary.
995.
How do men attain to great power and to great tasks? All the virtues
and proficiences of the body and the soul are little by little
laboriously acquired, through great industry, self-control, and keeping
one's self within narrow bounds, through a frequent, energetic, and
genuine repetition of the same work and of the same hardships; but
there are men who are the heirs and masters of this slowly acquired
and manifold treasure of virtues and proficiences because, owing
to happy and reasonable marriages and also to lucky accidents, the
acquired and accumulated forces of many generations, instead of being
squandered and subdivided, have been assembled together by means of
steadfast struggling and willing. And thus, in the end, a man appears
who is such a monster of strength, that he craves for a monstrous
task. For it is our power which has command of us: and the wretched
intellectual play of aims and intentions and motivations lies only in
the foreground--however much weak eyes may recognise the principal
factors in these things.
990.
The sublime man has the highest value, even when he is most delicate
and fragile, because an abundance of very difficult and rare things
have been reared through many generations and united in him.
997.
I teach that there are higher and lower men, and that a single
individual may under certain circumstances justify whole millenniums of
existence --that is to say, a wealthier, more gifted, greater, and more
complete man, as compared with innumerable imperfect and fragmentary
men.
998.
Away from rulers and rid of all bonds, live the highest men: and in the
rulers they have their instruments.
999.
_The order of rank:_ he who _determines_ values and leads the will of
millenniums, and does this by leading the highest natures--he _is the
highest man._
1000.
I fancy I have divined some of the things that lie hidden in the soul
of the highest man; perhaps every man who has divined so much must go
to ruin: but he who has seen the highest man must do all he can to
make him _possible._ Fundamental thought: we must make the future the
standard of all our valuations--and not seek the laws for our conduct
behind us.
1001.
Not "mankind," but _Superman_ is the goal!
1002.
"Come l'uom s'eterna...."--_Inf._ xv. 85.