questions a subject of study has an immense field of labour before him.
All kinds of passions must be thought about singly, and followed singly
throughout periods, peoples, great and insignificant individuals;
all their rationality, all their valuations and elucidations of
things, ought to come to light! Hitherto all that has given colour
to existence has lacked a history: where would one find a history of
love, of avance, of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty? Even
a comparative history of law, as also of punishment, has hitherto
been completely lacking. Have the different divisions of the day, the
consequences of a regular appointment of the times for labour, feast,
and repose, ever been made the object of investigation? Do we know the
moral effects of the alimentary substances? Is there a philosophy of
nutrition? (The ever-recurring outcry for and against vegetarianism
proves that as yet there is no such philosophy!) Have the experiences
with regard to communal living, for example, in monasteries, been
collected? Has the dialectic of marriage and friendship been set
forth? The customs of the learned, of trades-people, of artists, and
of mechanics--have they already found their thinkers? There is so much
to think of thereon! All that up till now has been considered as the
"conditions of existence," of human beings, and all reason, passion
and superstition in this consideration--have they been investigated to
the end? The observation alone of the different degrees of development
which the human impulses have attained, and could yet attain, according
to the different moral climates, would furnish too much work for the
most laborious; whole generations, and regular co-operating generations
of the learned, would be needed in order to exhaust the points of view
and the material here furnished. The same is true of the determining
of the reasons for the differences of the moral climates ("_on what
account_ does this sun of a fundamental moral judgment and standard of
highest value shine here--and that sun there?"). And there is again
a new labour which points out the erroneousness of all these reasons,
and determines the entire essence of the moral judgments hitherto made.
Supposing all these labours to be accomplished, the most critical of
all questions would then come into the foreground: whether science is
in a position to _furnish_ goals for human action, after it has proved
that it can take them away and annihilate them--and then would be the
time for a process of experimenting, in which every kind of heroism
could satisfy itself, an experimenting for centuries, which would
put into the shade all the great labours and sacrifices of previous
history. Science has not hitherto built its Cyclopic structures; for
that also the time will come.
8.
_Unconscious Virtues.--_All qualities in a man of which he is
conscious--and especially when he presumes that they are visible and
evident to his environment also--are subject to quite other laws
of development than those qualities which are unknown to him, or
imperfectly known, which by their subtlety can also conceal themselves
from the subtlest observer, and hide as it were behind nothing--as in
the case of the delicate sculptures on the scales of reptiles (it would
be an error to suppose them an adornment or a defence--for one sees
them only with the microscope; consequently, with an eye artificially
strengthened to an extent of vision which similar animals, to which
they might perhaps have meant adornment or defence, do not possess!).
Our visible moral qualities, and especially our moral qualities
_believed to be_ visible, follow their own course,--and our invisible
qualities of similar name, which in relation to others neither serve
for adornment nor defence, _also follow their own course:_ quite
a different course probably, and with lines and refinements, and
sculptures, which might perhaps give pleasure to a God with a divine
microscope. We have, for example, our diligence, our ambition, our
acuteness: all the world knows about them,--and besides, we have
probably once more _our_ diligence, _our_ ambition, _our_ acuteness;
but for these--our reptile scales--the microscope has not yet been
invented!--And here the adherents of instinctive morality will say,
"Bravo! He at least regards unconscious virtues as possible--that
suffices us!"--Oh, ye unexacting creatures!
9.
_Our Eruptions._--Numberless things which humanity acquired in its
earlier stages, but so weakly and embryonically that it could not be
noticed that they were acquired, are thrust suddenly into light long
afterwards, perhaps after the lapse of centuries: they have in the
interval become strong and mature. In some ages this or that talent,
this or that virtue seems to be entirely lacking, as it--is in some
men; but let us wait only for the grandchildren and grandchildren's
children, if we have time to wait,--they bring the interior of their
grandfathers into the sun, that interior of which the grandfathers
themselves were unconscious. The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of
his father; the latter understands himself better since he has got his
son. We have all hidden gardens and plantations in us; and by another
simile, we are all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of
eruption:--how near or how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not
even the good God.
10.
_A Species of Atavism._--I like best to think of the rare men of an
age as suddenly emerging after-shoots of past cultures, and of their
persistent strength: like the atavism of a people and its civilisation
--there is thus still something in them to _think of!_ They now seem
strange, rare, and extraordinary: and he who feels these forces in
himself has to foster them in face of a different, opposing world; he
has to defend them, honour them, and rear them to maturity: and he
either becomes a great man thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person,
if he does not altogether break down betimes. Formerly these rare
qualities were usual, and were consequently regarded as common: they
did not distinguish people. Perhaps they were demanded and presupposed;
it was impossible to become great with them, for indeed there was also
no danger of becoming insane and solitary with them.--It is principally
in the _old-established_ families and castes of a people that such
after-effects of old impulses present themselves, while there is no
probability of such atavism where races, habits, and valuations change
too rapidly. For the _tempo_ of the evolutional forces in peoples
implies just as much as in music; for our case an _andante_ of
evolution is absolutely necessary, as the _tempo_ of a passionate and
slow spirit:--and the spirit of conserving families is certainly of
_that_ sort.
11.
_Consciousness._--Consciousness is the last and latest development
of the organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least
powerful of these developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out
of consciousness, which, "in spite of fate," as Homer says, cause an
animal or a man to break down earlier than might be necessary. If the
conserving bond of the instincts were not very much more powerful,
it would not generally serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and
dreaming with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity, in short,
just by consciousness, mankind would necessarily have broken down:
or rather, without the former there would long ago have been nothing
more of the latter! Before a function is fully formed and matured, it
is a danger to the organism: all the better if it be then thoroughly
tyrannised over! Consciousness is thus thoroughly tyrannised over--and
not least by the pride in it! It is thought that here is _the
quintessence_ of man; that which is enduring, eternal, ultimate, and
most original in him! Consciousness is regarded as a fixed, given
magnitude! Its growth and intermittences are denied! It is accepted
as the "unity of the organism"!--This ludicrous overvaluation and
misconception of consciousness has as its result the great utility
that a too rapid maturing of it has thereby been _hindered._ Because
men believed that they already possessed consciousness, they gave
themselves very little trouble to acquire it--and even now it is not
otherwise! It is still an entirely new _problem_ just dawning on the
human eye, and hardly yet plainly recognisable: _to embody knowledge
in ourselves_ and make it instinctive,--a problem which is only seen
by those who have grasped the fact that hitherto our _errors_ alone
have been embodied in us, and that all our consciousness is relative to
errors!
12.
_The Goal of Science.--_What? The ultimate goal of science is to create
the most pleasure possible to man, and the least possible pain? But
what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who
_wants_ the greatest possible amount of the one _must_ also have the
greatest possible amount of the other,--that he who wants to experience
the "heavenly high jubilation,"[1] must also be ready to be "sorrowful
unto death"?[2] And it is so, perhaps! The Stoics at least believed it
was so, and they were consistent when they wished to have the least
possible pleasure, in order to have the least possible pain from life.
(When one uses the expression: "The virtuous man is the happiest," it
is as much the sign-board of the school for the masses, as a casuistic
subtlety for the subtle.) At present also ye have still the choice:
either the _least possible pain,_ in short painlessness--and after
all, socialists and politicians of all parties could not honourably
promise more to their people,--or the _greatest possible amount of
pain,_ as the price of the growth of a fullness of refined delights and
enjoyments rarely tasted hitherto! If ye decide for the former, if ye
therefore want to depress and minimise man's capacity for pain, well,
ye must also depress and minimise his _capacity for enjoyment._ In
fact, one can further the one as well as the other goal _by science!_
Perhaps science is as yet best known by its capacity for depriving man
of enjoyment, and making him colder, more statuesque, and more Stoical.
But it might also turn out to be the _great pain-bringer!_--And then,
perhaps, its counteracting force would be discovered simultaneously,
its immense capacity for making new sidereal worlds of enjoyment beam
forth!
[1] Allusions to the song of Clara in Goethe's "Egmont."--TR.
13.
_The Theory of the Sense of Power._--We exercise our power over others
by doing them good or by doing them ill--that is all we care for!
_Doing ill_ to those on whom we have to make our power felt; for pain
is a far more sensitive means for that purpose than pleasure:--pain
always asks concerning the cause, while pleasure is inclined to keep
within itself and not look backward. _Doing good_ and being kind
to those who are in any way already dependent on us (that is, who
are accustomed to think of us as their _raison d'être);_ we want to
increase their power, because we thus increase our own; or we want
to show them the advantage there is in being in our power,--they
thus become more contented with their position, and more hostile
to the enemies of _our_ power and readier to contend with to If we
make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the
ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause,
as martyrs for the sake of our church, it is a sacrifice to _our_
longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power.
He who under these circumstances feels that he "is in possession of
truth" how many possessions does he not let go, in order to preserve
this feeling! What does he not throw overboard, in order to keep
himself "up,"--that is to say, _above_ the others who lack the truth.
Certainly the condition we are in when we do ill is seldom so pleasant,
so purely pleasant as that in which we practise kindness,--it is an
indication that we still lack power, or it betrays ill-humour at this
defect in us; it brings with it new dangers and uncertainties as to
the power we already possess, and clouds our horizon by the prospect
of revenge, scorn, punishment and failure. Perhaps only tee most
susceptible to the sense of power and eager for it, will prefer to
impress the seal of power on the resisting individual.--those to whom
the sight of the already subjugated person as the object of benevolence
is a burden and a tedium. It is a question how a person is accustomed
to _season_ his life; it is a matter of taste whether a person would
rather have the slow or the sudden to safe or the dangerous and daring
increase of power,--he seeks this or that seasoning always according
to his temperament. An easy booty is something contemptible to proud
natures; they have an agreeable sensation only at the sight of men of
unbroken spirit who could be enemies to them, and similarly, also, at
the sight of all not easily accessible possession; they are often hard
toward the sufferer, for he is not worthy of their effort or their
pride,--but they show themselves so much the more courteous towards
their _equals,_ with whom strife and struggle would in any case be full
of honour, _if_ at any time an occasion for it should present itself.
It is under the agreeable feelings of _this_ perspective that the
members of the knightly caste have habituated themselves to exquisite
courtesy toward one another.--Pity is the most pleasant feeling in
those who have not much pride, and have no prospect of great conquests:
the easy booty--and that is what every sufferer is--is for them an
enchanting thing. Pity is said to be the virtue of the gay lady.
14.
_What is called Love._--The lust of property, and love: what different
associations each of these ideas evoke!--and yet it might be the same
impulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint
of those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained
something of repose,--who are now apprehensive for the safety of their
"possession"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of
the unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as "good." Our
love of our neighbour,--is it not a striving after new _property?_
And similarly our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the
striving after novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old and
securely possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the finest
landscape in which we live for three months is no longer certain of our
love, and any kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness: the
possession for the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our
pleasure in ourselves seeks to maintain itself by always transforming
something new _into ourselves,_--that is just possessing. To become
satiated with a possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves.
(One can also suffer from excess,--even the desire to cast away, to
share out, may assume the honourable name of "love.") When we see any
one suffering, we willingly utilise the opportunity then afforded
to take possession of him; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for
example, does this; he also calls the desire for new possession
awakened in him, by the name of "love," and has enjoyment in it, as
in a new acquisition suggesting itself to him. The love of the sexes,
however, betrays itself most plainly as the striving after possession:
the lover wants the unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed
for by him; he wants just as absolute power over her soul as over her
body; he wants to be loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other
soul as what is highest and most to be desired. When one considers
that this means precisely to _exclude_ all the world from a precious
possession, a happiness, and an enjoyment; when one considers that
the lover has in view the impoverishment and privation of all other
rivals, and would like to become the dragon of his golden hoard, as
the most inconsiderate and selfish of all "conquerors" and exploiters;
when one considers finally that to the lover himself, the whole world
besides appears indifferent, colourless, and worthless, and that he
is ready to make every sacrifice, disturb every arrangement, and put
every other interest behind his own,--one is verily surprised that
this ferocious lust of property and injustice of sexual love should
have been glorified and deified to such an extent at all times; yea,
that out of this love the conception of love as the antithesis of
egoism should have been derived, when it is perhaps precisely the most
unqualified expression of egoism. Here, evidently, the non-possessors
and desirers have determined the usage of language,--there were, of
course, always too many of them. Those who have been favoured with much
possession and satiety, have, to be sure, dropped a word now and then
about the "raging demon," as, for instance, the most lovable and most
beloved of all the Athenians--Sophocles; but Eros always laughed at
such revilers,--they were always his greatest favourites.--There is, of
course, here and there on this terrestrial sphere a kind of sequel to
love, in which that covetous longing of two persons for one another has
yielded to a new desire and covetousness, to a _common,_ higher thirst
for a superior ideal standing above them: but who knows this love? Who
has experienced it? Its right name is _friendship._
15.
_Out of the Distance._--This mountain makes the whole district which
it dominates charming in every way, and full of significance. After
we have said this to ourselves for the hundredth time, we are so
irrationally and so gratefully disposed towards it, as the giver
of this charm, that we fancy it must itself be the most charming
thing in the district--and so we climb it, and are undeceived. All
of a sudden, both it and the landscape around us and under us, are
as it were disenchanted; we had forgotten that many a greatness,
like many a goodness, wants only to be seen at a certain distance,
and entirely from below, not from above,--it is thus only that _it
operates._ Perhaps you know men in your neighbourhood who can only
look at themselves from a certain distance to find themselves at all
endurable, or attractive and enlivening; they are to be dissuaded from
self-knowledge.
16.
_Across the Plank.--_One must be able to dissimulate in intercourse
with persons who are ashamed of their feelings; they take a sudden
aversion to anyone who surprises them in a state of tenderness, or of
enthusiastic and high-running feeling, as if he had seen their secrets.
If one wants to be kind to them in such moments one should make them
laugh, or say some kind of cold, playful wickedness:--their feeling
thereby congeals, and they are again self-possessed. But I give the
moral before the story.--We were once on a time so near one another
in the course of our lives, that nothing more seemed to hinder our
friendship and fraternity, and there was merely a small plank between
us. While you were just about to step on it, I asked you: "Do you want
to come across the plank to me?" But then you did not want to come
any longer; and when I again entreated, you were silent. Since then
mountains and torrents, and whatever separates and alienates, have
interposed between us, and even if we wanted to come to one another,
we could no longer do so! When, however, you now remember that small
plank, you have no longer words,--but merely sobs and amazement.
17.
_Motivation of Poverty._--We cannot, to be sure, by any artifice make a
rich and richly-flowing virtue out of a poor one, but we can gracefully
enough reinterpret its poverty into necessity, so that its aspect no
longer gives pain to us, and we cease making reproachful faces at fate
on account of it. It is thus that the wise gardener does who puts the
tiny streamlet of his garden into the arms of a fountain-nymph, and
thus motivates the poverty:--and who would not like him need the nymphs!
18.
_Ancient Pride._--The ancient savour of nobility is lacking in us,
because the ancient slave is lacking in our sentiment. A Greek of noble
descent found such immense intermediate stages, and such a distance
betwixt his elevation and that ultimate baseness, that he could hardly
even see the slave plainly: even Plato no longer saw him entirely.
It is otherwise with us, accustomed as we are to the _doctrine_ of
the equality of men, although not to the equality itself. A being who
has not the free disposal of himself and has not got leisure,--that
is not regarded by us as anything contemptible; there is perhaps too
much of this kind of slavishness in each of us, in accordance with the
conditions of our social order and activity, which are fundamentally
different from those of the ancients.--The Greek philosopher went
through life with the secret feeling that there were many more slaves
than people supposed--that is to say, that every one was a slave who
was not a philosopher. His pride was puffed up when he considered that
even the mightiest of the earth were thus to be looked upon as slaves.
This pride is also unfamiliar to us, and impossible; the word "slave"
has not its full force for us even in simile.
19.
_Evil._--Test the life of the best and most productive men and nations,
and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly heavenward
can dispense with bad weather and tempests: whether disfavour and
opposition from without, whether every kind of hatred, jealousy,
stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong
to the _favouring_ circumstances without which a great growth even in
virtue is hardly possible? The poison by which the weaker nature is
destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual--and he does not
call it poison.
20.
_Dignity of Folly._--Several millenniums further on in the path of the
last century!--and in everything that man does the highest prudence
will be exhibited: but just thereby prudence will have lost all its
dignity. It will then, sure enough, be necessary to be prudent, but it
will also be so usual and common, that a more fastidious taste will
feel this necessity as _vulgarity._ And just as a tyranny of truth
and science would be in a position to raise the value of falsehood,
a tyranny of prudence could force into prominence a new species of
nobleness. To be noble--that might then mean, perhaps, to be capable of
follies.
21.