1003.
To _him who is one of Nature's lucky strokes,_ to, him unto whom my
heart goes out, to him who is carved from one integral block, which is
hard, sweet, and fragrant--to him from whom even my nose can derive
some pleasure--let this book be dedicated.
He enjoys that which is beneficial to him.
His pleasure in anything ceases when the limits of what is beneficial
to him are overstepped.
He divines the remedies for partial injuries; his illnesses are the
great stimulants of his existence.
He understands how to exploit his serious accidents.
He grows stronger under the misfortunes which threaten to annihilate
him.
He instinctively gathers from all he sees, hears, and experiences,
the materials for what concerns him most,--he pursues a selective
principle,--he rejects a good deal.
He reacts with that tardiness which long caution and deliberate
_pride_ have bred in him,--he tests the stimulus: whence does it come?
whither does it lead? He does not submit.
He is always in his own company, whether his intercourse be with books,
with men, or with Nature.
He honours anything by choosing it, by conceding to it, by trusting it.
1004.
We should attain to such a height, to such a lofty eagle's ledge, in
our observation, as to be able to understand that everything happens,
_just as it ought to happen_: and that all "imperfection," and the pain
it brings, belong to all that which is most eminently desirable.
1005.
Towards 1876 I experienced a fright; for I saw that everything I had
most wished for up to that time was being compromised. I realised this
when I perceived what Wagner was actually driving at: and I was bound
very fast to him--by all the bonds of a profound similarity of needs,
by gratitude, by the thought that he could not be replaced, and by the
absolute void which I saw facing me.
Just about this time I believed myself to be inextricably entangled in
my philology and my professorship--in the accident and last shift of my
life: I did not know how to get out of it, and was tired, used up, and
on my last legs.
At about the same time I realised that what my instincts most desired
to attain was precisely the reverse of what Schopenhauer's instincts
wanted--that is to say, a _justification of life,_ even where it was
most terrible, most equivocal, and most false: to this end, I had the
formula "_Dionysian_" in my hand.
Schopenhauer's interpretation of the "absolute" as _will_ was certainly
a step towards that concept of the "absolute" which supposed it to be
necessarily good, blessed, true, and integral, but Schopenhauer did
not understand how to deify this will: he remained suspended in the
moral-Christian ideal. Indeed, he was still so very much under the
dominion of Christian values, that, once he could no longer regard
the absolute as God, he had to conceive it as evil, foolish, utterly
reprehensible. He did not realise that there is an infinite number of
ways of being different, and even of being God.
1006.
Hitherto, moral values have been the highest values: does anybody doubt
this? If we bring down the values from their pedestal, we thereby
alter _all_ values; the principle of their _order of rank_ which has
prevailed hitherto is thus overthrown.
1007.
Transvalue values--what does this mean? It implies that all spontaneous
motives, all new, future, and stronger motives, are still extant; but
that they now appear under false names and false valuations, and have
not yet become conscious of themselves.
We ought to have the courage to become, conscious, and to affirm all
that which has been _attained_--to get rid of the humdrum character
of old valuations, which makes us unworthy of the best and strongest
things that we have achieved.
1008.
Any doctrine would be superfluous for which everything is not already
prepared in the way of accumulated forces and explosive material. A
transvaluation of values can only be accomplished when there is a
tension of new needs, and a new set of needy people who feel all old
values as painful,--although they are not conscious of what is wrong.
1009.
The standpoint from which my values are determined: is abundance or
desire active? ... Is one a mere spectator, or is one's own shoulder
at the wheel--is one looking away or is one turning aside? ... Is one
acting spontaneously, as the result of accumulated strength, or is one
merely reacting to a goad or to a stimulus? ... Is one simply acting
as the result of a paucity of elements, or of such an overwhelming
dominion over a host of elements that this power enlists the latter
into its service if it requires them? ... Is one a _problem_ one's
self or is one a _solution_ already? ... Is _one perfect_ through
the smallness of the task, or _imperfect_ owing to the extraordinary
character of the aim? ... Is one genuine or only an _actor;_ is one
genuine as an actor, or only the bad copy of an actor? is one a
representative or the creature represented? Is one a personality or
merely a rendezvous of personalities? ... Is one ill from a disease or
from surplus health? Does one lead as a shepherd, or as an "exception"
(third alternative: as a fugitive)? Is one in need of dignity, or can
one play the clown? Is one in search of resistance, or is one evading
it? Is one imperfect owing to one's precocity or to one's tardiness? Is
it one's nature to say yea, or no, or is one a peacock's tail of garish
parts? Is one proud enough not to feel ashamed even of one's vanity? Is
one still able to feel a bite of conscience (this species is becoming
rare; formerly conscience had to bite too often: it is as if it now no
longer had enough teeth to do so)? Is one still capable of a "duty"?
(there are some people who would lose the whole joy of their lives
if they were _deprived_ of their duty--this holds good especially of
feminine creatures, who are born subjects).
1010.
Supposing our common comprehension of the universe were a
_misunderstanding,_ would it be possible to conceive of a form of
_perfection,_ within the limits of which even such a _misunderstanding
as this_ could be sanctioned?
The concept of a _new_ form of perfection: that which does _not_
correspond to our logic, to our "beauty," to our "good," to our
"truth," might be perfect in a _higher_ sense even than our ideal is.
1011.
Our most important limitation: we must not deify the unknown; we are
just beginning to know so little. The false and wasted endeavours.
Our "new world": we must ascertain to what extent we are the _creators_
of our valuations--we will thus be able to put "sense" into history.
This belief in truth is reaching its final logical conclusion in
us--ye know how it reads: that if there is anything at all that must
be worshipped it is _appearance;_ that _falsehood_ and _not_ truth
is--divine.
1012.
He who urges rational thought forward, thereby also drives its
antagonistic power--mysticism and foolery of every kind--to new feats
of strength.
We should recognise that every movement is (1) _partly_ the
manifestation of fatigue resulting from a previous movement (satiety
after it, the malice of weakness towards it, and disease); and (2)
_partly_ a newly awakened accumulation of long slumbering forces, and
therefore wanton, violent, healthy.
1013.
Health and morbidness: let us be careful! The standard is the bloom of
the body, the agility, courage, and cheerfulness of the mind--but also,
of course, how much _morbidness a man can bear and overcome,_--and
convert into health. That which would send more delicate natures to the
dogs, belongs to the stimulating means of _great_ health.
1014.
It is only a question of power: to have all the morbid traits of the
century, but to balance them I by means of overflowing, plastic, and
rejuvenating power. The _strong_ man.
1015.
_Concerning the strength of the nineteenth century.--_We are more
mediæval than the eighteenth century; not only more inquisitive or more
susceptible to the strange and to the rare. We have revolted against
the _Revolution,_ ... We have freed ourselves from the fear of reason,
which was the spectre of the eighteenth century: we once more dare to
be childish, lyrical, absurd, in a word, we are musicians. And we are
just as little frightened of the _ridiculous_ as of the _absurd._ The
_devil_ finds that he is tolerated even by God:[6] better still, he has
become interesting as one who has been misunderstood and slandered for
ages,--we are the saviours of the devil's honour.
We no longer separate the great from the terrible. We reconcile good
things, in all their complexity, with the very _worst_ things; we
have overcome the _desideratum_ of the past (which wanted goodness to
grow without the increase of evil). The _cowardice_ towards the ideal,
peculiar to the Renaissance, has diminished--we even dare to aspire to
the latter's morality. _Intolerance_ towards priests and the Church has
at the same time come to an end; "It is immoral to believe in God"--but
this is precisely what we regard as the best possible justification of
this belief.
On all these things we have conferred the civic rights of our minds. We
do not tremble before the back side of "good things" (we even look for
it, we are brave and inquisitive enough for that), of Greek antiquity,
of morality, of reason, of good taste, for instance (we reckon up
the losses which we incur with all this treasure: we almost reduce
ourselves to poverty with such a treasure). Neither do we conceal the
back side of "evil things" from ourselves.
[Footnote 6: This is reminiscent of Goethe's _Faust,_ See "Prologue in
Heaven."--Tr.]
1016.
_That which does us honour._--If anything does us honour, it is this:
we have transferred our seriousness to other things; all those things
which have been despised and laid aside as base by all ages, we regard
as important--on the other hand, we surrender "fine feelings" at a
cheap rate.
Could any aberration be more dangerous than the contempt of the body?
As if all intellectuality were not thereby condemned to become morbid,
and to take refuge in the _vapeurs_ of "idealism"!
Nothing that has been thought out by Christians and idealists holds
water: we are more radical. We have discovered the "smallest world"
everywhere as the most decisive.
The paving-stones in the streets, good air in our rooms, food
understood according to its worth: we value all the _necessaries_ of
life seriously, and _despise_ all "beautiful soulfulness" as a form of
"levity and frivolity." That which has been most despised hitherto, is
now pressed into the front rank.
1017
In the place of Rousseau's "man of Nature," the nineteenth century has
discovered a much _more genuine_ image of "Man,"--it had the courage
to do this.... On the whole, the Christian concept of man has in a way
been reinstalled. What we have not had the courage to do, was to call
precisely this "man _par excellence_," good, and to see the future of
mankind guaranteed in him. In the same way, we did not dare to regard
the _growth in the terrible side_ of man's character as an accompanying
feature of every advance in culture; in this sense we are still
under the influence of the Christian ideal, and side with it against
paganism, and likewise against the Renaissance concept of _virtù._ But
the key of culture is not to be found in this way: and _in praxi_ we
still have the forgeries of history in favour of the "good man" (as if
he alone constituted the progress of humanity) and the _socialistic
ideal (i.e._ the _residue_ of Christianity and of Rousseau in the
de-Christianised world).
_The fight against the eighteenth century:_ it meets with its _greatest
conquerors_ in _Goethe_ and _Napoleon._ Schopenhauer, too, fights
against the eighteenth century; but he returns involuntarily to
the seventeenth--he is a modern Pascal, with Pascalian valuations,
_without_ Christianity. Schopenhauer was not strong enough to invent a
_new yea._
_Napoleon:_ we see the necessary relationship between the higher and
the terrible man. "Man" reinstalled, and her due of contempt and fear
restored to woman. Highest activity and health are the signs of the
great man; the straight line and grand style rediscovered in action;
the mightiest of all instincts, that of life itself,--the lust of
dominion,--heartily welcomed.
1018.
(_Revue des deux mondes,_ 15th February 1887. Taine concerning
Napoleon) "Suddenly the master faculty reveals itself: the _artist,_
which was latent in the politician, comes forth from his scabbard; he
creates _dans l'idéal et l'impossible._ He is once more recognised as
that which he is: the posthumous brother of Dante and of Michelangelo;
and verily, in view of the definite contours of his vision, the
intensity, the coherence, and inner consistency of his dream, the depth
of his meditations, the superhuman greatness of his conception, he is
their equal: _son génie a la même taille et la même structure; il est
un des trois esprits souverains de la renaissance italienne._"
_Nota bene._ Dante, Michelangelo, Napoleon.
1019.
_Concerning the pessimism of strength._ In the internal economy of
_the primitive_ man's soul, the _fear_ of evil preponderates. What is
_evil!_ Three kinds of things: accident, uncertainty, the unexpected.
How does primitive man combat evil?--He conceives it as a thing of
reason, of power, even as a person. By this means he is enabled to
make treaties with it, and generally to operate upon it in advance--to
forestall it.
--Another expedient is to declare its evil and harmful character to
be but apparent: the consequences of accidental occurrences, and of
uncertainty and the unexpected, are interpreted as _well-meant,_ as
reasonable.
--A third means is to interpret evil, above all, as merited: evil is
thus justified as a punishment.
--In short, _man submits to in_ all religious and moral interpretations
are but forms of submission to evil.--The belief that a good purpose
lies behind all evil, implies the renunciation of any desire to combat
it.
Now, the history of every culture shows a diminution of this _fear
of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected._ Culture
means precisely, to learn to reckon, to discover causes, to acquire
the power of forestalling events, to acquire a belief in necessity.
With the growth of culture, man is able to dispense with that primitive
form of submission to evil (called religion or morality), and that
"justification of evil." Now he wages war against "evil,"--he gets rid
of it. Yes, a state of security, of belief in law and the possibility
of calculation, is possible, in which consciousness regards these
things with tedium,--in which the joy of the accidental, of the
uncertain, and of the unexpected, actually becomes a spur.
Let us halt a moment before this symptom of _highest_ culture, I
call it the _pessimism of strength._ Man now no longer requires a
"justification of evil"; justification is precisely what he abhors:
he enjoys evil, _pur, cru_; he regards purposeless evil as the most
interesting kind of evil. If he had required a God in the past, he now
delights in cosmic disorder without a God, a world of accident, to the
essence of which terror, ambiguity, and seductiveness belong.
In a state of this sort, it is precisely _goodness_ which requires
to be justified--that is to say, it must either have an evil and a
dangerous basis, or else it must contain a vast amount of stupidity:
_in which case it still pleases._ Animality no longer awakens terror
now; a very intellectual and happy wanton spirit in favour of the
animal in man, is, in such periods, the most triumphant form of
spirituality. Man is now strong enough to be able to feel ashamed of
_a belief in God:_ he may now play the part of the devil's advocate
afresh. If in practice he pretends to uphold virtue, it will be for
those reasons which lead virtue to be associated with subtlety,
cunning, lust of gain, and a form of the lust of power.
_This pessimism of strength_ also ends in a _theodicy, i.e._ in an
absolute saying of yea to the world--but the same arguments will
be raised in favour of life which formerly were raised against it:
and in this way, in a conception of this world _as the highest ideal
possible,_ which has been effectively attained.
1020.
_The principal kinds of pessimism:--_
The pessimism of _sensitiveness_ (excessive irritability with a
preponderance of the feelings of pain).
The pessimism of the _will that is not free_ (otherwise expressed: the
lack of resisting power against stimuli).
The pessimism of _doubt_ (shyness in regard to everything fixed, in
regard to all grasping and touching).
The psychological conditions which belong to these different kinds of
pessimism, may all be observed in a lunatic asylum, even though they
are there found in a slightly exaggerated form. The same applies to
"Nihilism" (the penetrating feeling of nonentity).
What, however, is the nature of Pascal's moral pessimism, and the
_metaphysical pessimism_ of the Vedânta-Philosophy? What is the nature
of the _social pessimism_ of anarchists (as of Shelley), and of the
pessimism of compassion (like that of Leo Tolstoy and of Alfred de
Vigny)?
Are all these things not also the phenomena of decay and sickness?...
And is not excessive seriousness in regard to moral values, or in
regard to "other-world" fictions, or social calamities, or _suffering_
in general, of the same order? All such _exaggeration_ of a single and
narrow standpoint is in itself a sign of sickness. The same applies to
the preponderance of a negative over an affirmative attitude!
_In this respect we must not confound with the above:_ the joy of
saying and doing _no,_ which is the result of the enormous power and
tenseness of an affirmative attitude--peculiar to all rich and mighty
men and ages. It is, as it were, a luxury, a form of courage too,
which opposes the terrible, which has sympathy with the frightful and
the questionable, because, among other things, one is terrible and
questionable: the _Dionysian_ in will, intellect, and taste.
1021.
_My Five "Noes."_
(1) My fight against _the feeling of sin_ and the introduction of
the notion of _punishment_ into the physical and metaphysical world,
likewise into psychology and the interpretation of history. The
recognition of the fact that all philosophies and valuations hitherto
have been saturated with morality.
(2) My identification and my discovery of the _traditional_ ideal,
of the Christian ideal, even where the dogmatic form of Christianity
has been wrecked. The _danger of the Christian ideal_ resides in its
valuations, in that which can dispense with concrete expression: my
struggle against _latent Christianity_ (for instance, in music, in
Socialism).
(3) My struggle against the eighteenth century of Rousseau, against
his "Nature," against his "good man," his belief in the dominion of
feeling--against the pampering, weakening, and moralising of man: an
ideal born of the _hatred of aristocratic culture,_ which in practice
is the dominion of unbridled feelings of resentment, and invented as a
standard for the purpose of war (the Christian morality of the feeling
of sin, as well as the morality of resentment, is an attitude of the
mob).
(4) My fight against _Romanticism,_ in which the ideals of Christianity
and of Rousseau converge, but which possesses at the same time a
yearning for that _antiquity_ which knew of sacerdotal and aristocratic
culture, a yearning for _virtù,_ and for the "strong man"--something
extremely hybrid; a false and imitated kind of _stronger_ humanity,
which appreciates extreme conditions in general and sees the symptom
of strength in them ("the cult of passion"; an imitation of the
most expressive _forms, furore espressivo,_ originating not out of
plenitude, but out _of want)._--(In the nineteenth century there are
some things which are born out of relative plenitude--_i.e._ out of
_well-being;_ cheerful music, etc.--among poets, for instance, Stifter
and Gottfried Keller give signs of more strength and inner well-being
than--. The great strides of engineering, of inventions, of the natural
sciences and of history (?) are relative products of the strength and
self-reliance of the nineteenth century.)
(5) My struggle against the _predominance of gregarious instincts,_ now
science makes common cause with them; against the profound hate with
which every kind of order of rank and of aloofness is treated.
1022.
From the pressure of plenitude, from the tension of forces that are
continually increasing within us and which cannot yet discharge
themselves, a condition is produced which is very similar to that which
precedes a storm: we--like Nature's sky--become overcast. I hat, too,
is "pessimism.".. A teaching which puts an end to such a condition by
the fact that it _commands_ something: a transvaluation of values by
means of which the accumulated forces are given a channel, a direction,
so that they explode into deeds and flashes of lightning-does not
in the least require to be a hedonistic teaching: in so far as it
_releases strength_ which was compressed to an agonising degree, it
brings happiness.
1023.
_Pleasure_ appears with the feeling of power.
_Happiness_ means that the consciousness of power and triumph has begun
to prevail.
_Progress_ is the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise
great will-power, everything else is a misunderstanding and a danger.
1024.
There comes a time when the old masquerade and moral togging-up of the
passions provokes repugnance: _naked Nature;_ when the _quanta_ of
_power_ are recognised as _decidedly_ simple (as _determining rank_);
when _grand style_ appears again as the result of great passion.
1025.
The purpose of culture _would have_ us enlist everything terrible,
step by step and experimentally, into its service; but before it is
_strong enough_ for this it must combat, moderate, mask, and even curse
everything terrible.
Wherever a culture points to anything as evil, it betrays its _fear_
and therefore weakness.
_Thesis:_ everything good is the evil of yore which has been rendered
serviceable. _Standard:_ the more terrible and the greater the passions
may be which an age, a people, and an individual are at liberty to
possess, because they are able to use them as _a means, the higher is
their culture:_ the more mediocre, weak, submissive, and cowardly a man
may be, the more things he will regard as _evil:_ according to him the
kingdom of evil is the largest. The lowest man will see the kingdom of
evil (_i.e._ that which is forbidden him and which is hostile to him)
everywhere.
1026.
It is not a fact that "happiness follows virtue"--but it is the mighty
man who first _declares his happy state to be virtue._
Evil actions belong to the mighty and the virtuous: bad and base
actions belong to the subjected.
The mightiest man, the creator, would have to be the most evil,
inasmuch as he makes his ideal prevail over all men in _opposition_ to
their ideals, and remoulds them according to his own image.
Evil, in this respect, means hard, painful, enforced.
Such men as Napoleon must always return and always settle our belief
in the self-glory of the individual afresh: he himself, however, was
corrupted by the means he had to stoop to, and had _lost noblesse_
of character. If he had had to prevail among another kind of men, he
could have availed himself of other means; and thus it would not seem
_necessary_ that a Cæsar _must become bad._
1027.
Man is a combination of the _beast_ and the _super-beast_; higher
man a combination of the monster and the superman:[7] these opposites
belong to each other. With every degree of a man's growth towards
greatness and loftiness, he also grows downwards into the depths and
into the terrible: we should not desire the one without the other;--or,
better still: the more fundamentally we desire the one, the more
completely we shall achieve the other.
[Footnote 7: The play on the German words: "Unthier" and "Überthier,"
"Unmensch" and "Übermensch," is unfortunately not translatable.--Tr.]
1028.
Terribleness belongs to greatness: let us not deceive ourselves.
1029.
I have taught the knowledge of such terrible things, that all
"Epicurean contentment" is impossible concerning them. Dionysian
pleasure is the only _adequate_ kind here: _I was the first to discover
the tragic._ Thanks to their superficiality in ethics, the Greeks
misunderstood it. Resignation is not the lesson of tragedy, but only
the misunderstanding of it! The yearning for nonentity is the _denial_
of tragic wisdom, its opposite!
1030.
A rich and powerful soul not only gets over painful and even terrible
losses, deprivations, robberies, and insults: it actually leaves such
dark infernos in possession of still greater plenitude and power;
and, what is most important of all, in possession of an increased
blissfulness in love. I believe that he who has divined something of
the most fundamental conditions of love, will understand Dante for
having written over the door of his Inferno: "I also am the creation of
eternal love."
1031.
To have travelled over the whole circumference of the modern soul,
and to have sat in all its corners--my ambition, my torment, and my
happiness.
Veritably to have _overcome_ pessimism, and, as the result thereof, to
have acquired the eyes of a Goethe--full of love and goodwill.
1032.
The first question is by no means whether we are satisfied with
ourselves; but whether we are satisfied with anything at all. Granting
that we should say yea to any single moment, we have then affirmed
not only ourselves, but the whole of existence. For nothing stands by
itself, either in us or in other things: and if our soul has vibrated
and rung with happiness, like a chord, once only and only once, then
all eternity was necessary in order to bring about that one event,--and
all eternity, in this single moment of our affirmation, was called
good, was saved, justified, and blessed.
1033.
The passions which _say yea._ I ride, happiness, health, the love of
the sexes, hostility and war, reverence, beautiful attitudes, manners,
strong will, the discipline of lofty spirituality, the will to power,
and gratitude to the Earth and to Life: all that is rich, that would
fain bestow, and that refreshes, gilds, immortalises, and deifies
Life--the whole power of the virtues that _glorify_--all declaring
things good, saying yea, and doing yea.
1034.
We, many or few, who once more dare to live in a world _purged of
morality_, we _pagans_ in faith, we are probably also the first who
understand what a _pagan faith_ is: to be obliged to imagine higher
creatures than man, but to imagine them _beyond_ good and evil; to be
compelled to value all higher existence as _immoral_ existence. We
believe in Olympus, and _not_ in the "man on the cross."
1035.
The more modern man has exercised his idealising power in regard to a
_God_ mostly by _moralising the latter_ ever more and more--what does
that mean?--nothing good, a diminution in man's strength.
As a matter of fact, the reverse would be possible: and indications
of this are not wanting. God imagined as emancipation from morality,
comprising the whole of the abundant assembly of Life's contrasts, and
_saving_ and _justifying_ them in a divine agony. God as the beyond,
the superior elevation, to the wretched _cul-de-sac_ morality of "Good
and Evil."
1036.
A humanitarian God cannot be _demonstrated_ from the world that
is known to us: so much are ye driven and forced to conclude
to-day. But what conclusion do ye draw from this? "He cannot be
demonstrated to _us_": the scepticism of knowledge. You all _fear_
the conclusion: "From the world that is known to us quite a different
God would be _demonstrable,_ such a one as would certainly not be
humanitarian"--and, in a word, you cling fast to your God, and invent a
world for Him which _is unknown to us._
1037.
Let us banish the highest good from our concept of God: it is unworthy
of a God. Let us likewise banish the highest wisdom: it is the vanity
of philosophers who have perpetrated the absurdity of a God who is a
monster of wisdom: the idea was to make Him as like them as possible.
No! God _as the highest power_--that is sufficient!--Everything
follows from that, even--"the world"!
1038
And how many new Gods are not still possible! I, myself, in whom the
religious--that is to say, the god-_creating_ instinct occasionally
becomes active at the most inappropriate moments: how very differently
the divine has revealed itself every time to me! ... So many strange
things have passed before me in those timeless moments, which fall into
a man's life as if they came from the moon, and in which he absolutely
no longer knows how old he is or how young he still may be! ... I would
not doubt that there are several kinds of gods.... Some are not wanting
which one could not possibly imagine without a certain halcyonic calm
and levity.... Light feet perhaps belong to the concept "God". Is it
necessary to explain that a _God_ knows how to hold Himself preferably
outside all Philistine and rationalist circles? also (between
ourselves) beyond good and evil? His outlook is a _free_ one--as Goethe
would say.--And to invoke the authority of Zarathustra, which cannot be
too highly appreciated in this regard: Zarathustra goes as far as to
confess, "I would only believe in a God who knew how to _dance_ ..."
Again I say: how many new Gods are not still possible! Certainly
Zarathustra himself is merely an old atheist: he believes neither in
old nor in new gods. Zarathustra says, _"he would"_--but Zarathustra
will not.... Take care to understand him well.
The type God conceived according to the type of creative spirits, of
"great men."
1039.
And how many new _ideals_ are not, at bottom, still possible? Here is
a little ideal that I seize upon every five weeks, while upon a wild
and lonely walk, in the azure moment of a blasphemous joy. To spend
one's life amid delicate and absurd things; a stranger to reality,
half-artist, half-bird, half-metaphysician; without a yea or a nay for
reality, save that from time to time one acknowledges it, after the
manner of a good dancer, with the tips of one's toes; always tickled
by some happy ray of sunlight; relieved and encouraged even by sorrow
--for sorrow _preserves_ the happy man; fixing a little tail of jokes
even to the most holy thing: this, as is clear, is the ideal of a heavy
spirit, a ton in weight _of the spirit of gravity._
1040.
_From the military-school of the soul._ (Dedicated to the brave, the
good-humoured, and the abstinent.)
I should not like to undervalue the amiable virtues; but greatness
of soul is not compatible with them. Even in the arts, grand style
excludes all merely pleasing qualities.
***
In times of painful tension and vulnerability, choose war. War hardens
and develops muscle.
***
Those who have been deeply wounded have the Olympian laughter; a man
only has what he needs.
***
It has now already lasted ten years: no sound any longer _reaches_
me--a land without rain. A man must have a vast amount of humanity at
his disposal in order not to pine away in such drought.[8]
[Footnote 8: For the benefit of those readers who are not acquainted
with the circumstances of Nietzsche's life, it would be as well to
point out that this is a purely personal plaint, comprehensible enough
in the mouth of one who, like Nietzsche, was for years a lonely
anchorite.--Tr.]
1041.
_My new road to an affirmative attitude._--Philosophy, as I have
understood it and lived it up to the present, is the voluntary quest
of the repulsive and atrocious aspects of existence. From the long
experience derived from such wandering over ice and desert, I learnt
to regard quite differently everything that had been philosophised
hitherto: the _concealed_ history of philosophy, the psychology of its
great names came into the light for me. "How much truth can a spirit
_endure_; for how much truth is it _daring_ enough?"--this for me
was the real measure of value. Error is a piece of _cowardice_ ...
every victory on the part of knowledge, is the _result_ of courage, of
hardness towards one's self, of cleanliness towards one's self.... The
kind of _experimental philosophy_ which I am living, even anticipates
the possibility of the most fundamental Nihilism, on principle: but
by this I do not mean that it remains standing at a negation, at a
_no,_ or at a will to negation. It would rather attain to the very
reverse--to a _Dionysian affirmation_ of the world, as it is, without
subtraction, exception, or choice--it would have eternal circular
motion: the same things, the same reasoning, and the same illogical
concatenation. The highest state to which a philosopher can attain: to
maintain a Dionysian attitude to Life--my formula for this is _amor
fati._
To this end we must not only consider those aspects of life which
have been denied hitherto, as: _necessary,_ but as desirable, and not
only desirable to those aspects which have been affirmed hitherto (as
complements or first prerequisites, so to speak), but for their own
sake, as the more powerful, more terrible, and more _veritable_ aspects
of life, in which the latter's will expresses itself most clearly.
To this end, we must also value that aspect of existence which alone
has been affirmed until now; we must understand whence this valuation
arises, and to how slight an extent it has to do with a Dionysian
valuation of Life: I selected and understood that which in this respect
says "yea" (on the one hand, the instinct of the sufferer; on the
other, the gregarious instinct; and thirdly, the _instinct of the
greater number_ against the exceptions).
Thus I divined to what extent a stronger kind of man must necessarily
imagine--the elevation and enhancement of man in another direction:
_higher creatures,_ beyond good and evil, beyond those values which
bear the stamp of their origin in the sphere of suffering, of the herd,
and of the greater number--I searched for the data of this topsy-turvy
formation of ideals in history (the concepts "pagan," "classical,"
"noble," have been discovered afresh and brought forward).
1042.
We should demonstrate to what extent the religion of the Greeks was
_higher_ than Judæo-Christianity. The latter triumphed because the
Greek religion was degenerate (and decadent).
1043.
It is not surprising that a couple of centuries have been necessary in
order to link up again--a couple of centuries are very little indeed.
1044.
There must be some people who sanctify functions, not only eating and
drinking, and not only in memory of them, or in harmony with them; but
this world must be for ever glorified anew, and in a novel fashion.
1045.
The most intellectual men feel the ecstasy and charm of _sensual_
things in a way which other men --those with "fleshy hearts"--cannot
possibly imagine, and ought not to be able to imagine: they are
sensualists with the best possible faith, because they grant the senses
a more fundamental value than that fine sieve, that thinning and
mincing machine, or whatever it is called, which in the language of the
people is termed _"spirit"_ The strength and power of the senses--this
is the most essential thing in a sound man who is one of Nature's lucky
strokes: the splendid beast must first be there--otherwise what is the
value of all "humanisation"?
1046.
(1) We want to hold fast to our senses, and to the belief in them--and
accept their logical conclusions! The hostility to the senses in the
philosophy that has been written up to the present, has been man's
greatest feat of nonsense.
(2) The world now extant, on which all earthly and living things have
so built themselves, that it now appears as it does (enduring and
proceeding slowly), we would fain _continue building_--not criticise it
away as false!
(3) Our valuations help in the process of building; they emphasise and
accentuate. What does it mean when whole religions say: "Everything is
bad and false and evil"? This condemnation of the whole process can
only be the judgment of the failures!
(4) True, the failures might be the greatest sufferers and therefore
the most subtle! The contented might be worth little!
(5) We must understand the fundamental _artistic_ phenomenon which is
called "Life,"--_the formative_ spirit, which constructs under the most
unfavourable circumstances: and in the slowest manner possible----The
_proof_ of all its combinations must first be given afresh: _it
maintains itself._
1047.
Sexuality, lust of dominion, the pleasure derived from appearance
and deception, great and joyful gratitude to Life and its typical
conditions--these things are essential to all paganism, and it has
a good conscience on its side.--_That which is hostile to Nature_
(already in Greek antiquity) combats paganism in the form of morality
and dialectics.
1040.
An anti-metaphysical view of the world--yes, but an artistic one.
1049.
_Apollo's_ misapprehension: the eternity of beautiful forms, the
aristocratic prescription, "_Thus shall it ever be!_"
_Dionysus_. Sensuality and cruelty. The perishable nature of existence
might be interpreted as the joy of procreative and destructive force,
as _unremitting creation._
1050.
The word "_Dionysian_" expresses: a constraint to unity, a soaring
above personality, the common-place, society, reality, and above
the abyss of the _ephemeral_, the passionately painful sensation of
superabundance, in darker, fuller, and more fluctuating conditions;
an ecstatic saying of yea to the collective character of existence,
as that which remains the same, and equally mighty and blissful
throughout all change, the great pantheistic sympathy with pleasure
and pain, which declares even the most terrible and most questionable
qualities of existence good, and sanctifies them; the eternal will to
procreation, to fruitfulness, and to recurrence; the feeling of unity
in regard to the necessity of creating and annihilating.
The word "_Apollonian_" expresses: the constraint to be absolutely
isolated, to the typical "individual," to everything that simplifies,
distinguishes, and makes strong, salient, definite, and typical to
freedom within the law.
The further development of art is just as necessarily bound up with the
antagonism of these two natural art-forces, as the further development
of mankind is bound up with the antagonism of the sexes. The plenitude
of power and restraint, the highest form of self-affirmation in a cool,
noble, and reserved kind of beauty: the Apollonianism of the Hellenic
will.
This antagonism of the Dionysian and of the Apollonian in the Greek
soul, is one of the great riddles which made me feel drawn to the
essence of Hellenism. At bottom, I troubled about nothing save the
solution of the question, why precisely Greek Apollonianism should have
been forced to grow out of a Dionysian soil: the Dionysian Greek had
need of being Apollonian; that is to say in order to break his will to
the titanic, to the complex, to the uncertain, to the horrible by a
will to measure, to simplicity, and to submission to rule and concept.
Extravagance, wildness, and Asiatic tendencies lie at the root of the
Greeks. Their courage consists in their struggle with their Asiatic
nature: they were not given beauty, any more than they were given Logic
and moral! naturalness: in them these things are victories, they are
willed and fought for--they constitute the _triumph_ of the Greeks.
1051.
It is clear that only the rarest and most lucky cases of humanity
can attain to the highest and most sublime human joys in which Life
celebrates its own glorification; and this only happens when these
rare creatures themselves and their forbears have lived a long
preparatory life leading to this goal, without, however, having done
so consciously. It is then that an overflowing wealth of multifarious
forces and the most agile power of "free will" and lordly command
exist together in perfect concord in one man; then the intellect is
just as much at ease, or at home, in the senses as the senses are at
ease or at home in it; and everything that takes place in the latter
must give rise to extraordinarily subtle joys in the former. And _vice
versâ:_ just think of this _vice versâ_ for a moment in a man like
Hafiz; even Goethe, though to a lesser degree, gives some idea of this
process. It is probable that, in such perfect and well-constituted
men, the most sensual functions are finally transfigured by a symbolic
elatedness of the highest intellectuality; in themselves they feel a
kind of _deification of the body_ and are most remote from the ascetic
philosophy of the principle "God is a Spirit": from this principle it
is clear that the ascetic is the "botched man" who declares only that
to be good and "God" which is absolute, and which judges and condemns.
From that height of joy in which man feels himself completely and
utterly a deified form and self-justification of nature, down to the
joy of healthy peasants and healthy semi-human beasts, the whole of
this long and enormous gradation of the light and colour of _happiness_
was called by the Greek--not without that grateful quivering of one
who is initiated into secret, not without much caution and pious
silence--by the godlike name: _Dionysus._ What then _do_ all modern
men--the children of a crumbling, multifarious, sick and strange age
_know_ of the _compass_ of Greek happiness, how _could_ they know
anything about it! Whence would the slaves of "modern ideas" derive
their right to Dionysian feasts!
When the Greek body and soul were in full "bloom," and not, as it were,
in states of morbid exaltation and madness, there arose the secret
symbol of the loftiest affirmation and transfiguration of life and the
world that has ever existed. There we have a _standard_ beside which
everything that has grown since must seem too short, too poor, too
narrow: if we but pronounce the word "Dionysus" in the presence of
the best of more recent names and things, in the presence of Goethe,
for instance, or Beethoven, or Shakespeare, or Raphael, in a trice we
realise that our best things and moments are _condemned._ Dionysus
is a _judge!_ Am I understood? There can be no doubt that the Greeks
sought to interpret, by means of their Dionysian experiences, the
final mysteries of the "destiny of the soul" and everything they knew
concerning the education and the purification of man, and above all
concerning the absolute hierarchy and inequality of value between man
and man. There is the deepest experience of all Greeks, which they
conceal beneath great silence,--_we do not know the Greeks_ so long
as this hidden and sub-terranean access to them remains obstructed.
The indiscreet eyes of scholars will never perceive anything in these
things, however much learned energy may still have to be expended in
the service of this excavation--; even the noble zeal of such friends
of antiquity as Goethe and Winckelmann, seems to savour somewhat of
bad form and of arrogance, precisely in this respect. To wait and to
prepare oneself; to await the appearance of new sources of knowledge;
to prepare oneself in solitude for the sight of new faces and the
sound of new voices; to cleanse one's soul ever more and more of the
dust and noise, as of a country fair, which is peculiar to this age;
to _overcome_ everything Christian by something super-Christian,
and not only to rid oneself of it,--for the Christian doctrine is
the counter-doctrine to the Dionysian; to rediscover the _South_
in oneself, and to stretch a clear, glittering, and mysterious
southern sky above one; to reconquer the southern healthiness and
concealed power of the soul, once more for oneself; to increase the
compass of one's soul step by step, and to become more supernational,
more European, more super-European, more Oriental, and finally more
_Hellenic_--for Hellenism was, as a matter of fact, the first great
union and synthesis of everything Oriental, and precisely on that
account, the _beginning_ of the European soul, the discovery of _our
"new_ world":--he who lives under such imperatives, who knows what he
may not encounter some day? Possibly--a _new dawn!_
1052.
_The two types; Dionysus and Christ on the Cross._ We should ascertain
whether the typically _religious_ man is a decadent phenomenon (the
great innovators are one and all morbid and epileptic); but do not let
us forget to include that type of the religious man who is _pagan._ Is
the pagan cult not a form of gratitude for, and affirmation of, Life?
Ought not its most representative type to be an apology and deification
of Life? The type of a well-constituted and ecstatically overflowing
spirit! The type of a spirit which absorbs the contradictions and
problems of existence, and which _solves_ them!
At this point I set up the _Dionysus_ of the Greeks: the religious
affirmation of Life, of the whole of Life, not of denied and partial
Life (it is typical that in this cult the sexual act awakens ideas of
depth, mystery, and reverence).
Dionysus _versus_ "Christ"; here you have the contrast. It is _not_
a difference in regard to the martyrdom,--but the latter has a
different meaning. Life itself--Life s eternal fruitfulness and
recurrence caused anguish, destruction, and the will to annihilation.
In the other case, the suffering of the "Christ as the Innocent One"
stands as an objection against Life, it is the formula of Life's
condemnation.--Readers will guess that the problem concerns the meaning
of suffering; whether a Christian or a tragic meaning be given to it.
In the first case it is the road to a holy mode of existence; in the
second case _existence itself is regarded as sufficiently holy_ to
justify an enormous amount of suffering. The tragic man says yea even
to the most excruciating suffering: he is sufficiently strong, rich,
and capable of deifying, to be able to do this; the Christian denies
even the happy lots on earth: he is weak, poor, and disinherited enough
to suffer from life in any form. God on the Cross is a curse upon Life,
a signpost directing people to deliver themselves from it;--Dionysus
cut into pieces is a _promise_ of Life: it will be for ever born anew,
and rise afresh from destruction.