_good,_ not in respect to the results they have for himself, but in
respect to the results which we expect therefrom for ourselves and
for society:--we have all along had very little unselfishness, very
little "non-egoism" in our praise of the virtues! For otherwise it
could not but have been seen that the virtues (such as diligence,
obedience, chastity, piety, justice) are mostly _injurious_ to
their possessors, as impulses which rule in them too vehemently and
ardently, and do not want to be kept in co-ordination with the other
impulses by the reason. If you have a virtue, an actual, perfect
virtue (and not merely a kind of impulse towards virtue!)--you are
its _victim!_ But your neighbour praises your virtue precisely on that
account! One praises the diligent man though he injures his sight, or
the originality and freshness of his spirit, by his diligence; the
youth is honoured and regretted who has "worn himself out by work,"
because one passes the judgment that "for society as a whole the loss
of the best individual is only a small sacrifice! A pity that this
sacrifice should be necessary! A much greater pity it is true, if the
individual should think differently and regard his preservation and
development as more important than his work in the service of society!"
And so one regrets this youth, not on his own account, but because
a devoted _instrument,_ regardless of self--a so-called "good man,"
has been lost to society by his death. Perhaps one further considers
the question, whether it would not have been more advantageous for
the interests of society if he had laboured with less disregard of
himself, and had preserved himself longer-indeed one readily admits
an advantage therefrom but one esteems the other advantage, namely,
that a _sacrifice_ has been made, and that the disposition of the
sacrificial animal has once more been _obviously_ endorsed--as higher
and more enduring. It is accordingly, on the one part, the instrumental
character in the virtues which is praised when the virtues are praised,
and on the other part the blind, ruling impulse in every virtue which
refuse to let itself be kept within bounds by the general advantage
to the individual; in short, what is praised is the unreason in the
virtues, in consequence of which the individual allows himself to be
transformed into a function of the whole. The praise of the virtues is
the praise of something which is privately injurious to the individual;
it is praise of impulses which deprive man of his noblest self-love,
and the power to take the best care of himself. To be sure, for the
teaching and embodying of virtuous habits a series of effects of virtue
are displayed, which make it appear that virtue and private advantage
are closely related,--and there is in fact such a relationship!
Blindly furious diligence, for example, the typical virtue of an
instrument, is represented as the way to riches and honour, and as
the most beneficial antidote to tedium and passion: but people are
silent concerning its danger, its greatest dangerousness. Education
proceeds in this manner throughout: it endeavours, by a series of
enticements and advantages, to determine the individual to a certain
mode of thinking and acting, which, when it has become habit, impulse
and passion, rules in him and over him, _in opposition to his ultimate
advantage,_ but "for the general good." How often do I see that blindly
furious diligence does indeed create riches and honours, but at the
same time deprives the organs of the refinement by virtue of which
alone an enjoyment of riches and honours is possible; so that really
the main expedient for combating tedium and passion, simultaneously
blunts the senses and makes the spirit refractory towards new stimuli!
(The busiest of all ages--our age--does not know how to make anything
out of its great diligence and wealth, except always more and more
wealth, and more and more diligence; there is even more genius needed
for laying out wealth than for acquiring it!--Well, we shall have
our "grandchildren"!) If the education succeeds, every virtue of the
individual is a public utility, and a private disadvantage in respect
to the highest private end,--probably some psycho-æsthetic stunting, or
even premature dissolution. One should consider successively from the
same standpoint the virtues of obedience, chastity, piety, and justice.
The praise of the unselfish, self-sacrificing, virtuous person--he,
consequently, who does not expend his whole energy and reason for
_his own_ conservation, development, elevation, furtherance and
augmentation of power, but lives as regards himself unassumingly and
thoughtlessly, perhaps even indifferently or ironically--this praise
has in any case not originated out of the spirit of unselfishness! The
"neighbour" praises unselfishness because _he profits by it!_ If the
neighbour were "unselfishly" disposed himself, he would reject that
destruction of power, that injury for _his_ advantage, he would thwart
such inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his
unselfishness just by _not giving it a good name!_ The fundamental
contradiction in that morality which at present stands in high honour
is here indicated: the _motives_ to such a morality are in antithesis
to its _principle!_ That with which this morality wishes to prove
itself, refutes it out of its criterion of what is moral! The maxim,
"Thou shalt renounce thyself and offer thyself as a sacrifice," in
order not to be inconsistent with its own morality, could only be
decreed by a being who himself renounced his own advantage thereby, and
who perhaps in the required self-sacrifice of individuals brought about
his own dissolution. As soon; however, as the neighbour (or society)
recommended altruism _on account of its utility,_ the precisely
antithetical proposition, "Thou shalt seek thy advantage even at the
expense of everybody else," was brought into use: accordingly, "thou
shalt," and "thou shalt not," are preached in one breath!
22.
_L'Ordre du jour pour le Roi.--_The day commences: let us begin to
arrange for this day the business and fêtes of our most gracious lord,
who at present is still pleased to repose. His Majesty has bad weather
to-day: we shall be careful not to call it bad; we shall not speak
of the weather,--but we shall go through to-day's business somewhat
more ceremoniously and make the fêtes somewhat more festive than would
otherwise be necessary. His Majesty may perhaps even be sick: we shall
give the last good news of the evening at breakfast, the arrival of M.
Montaigne, who knows how to joke so pleasantly about his sickness,--he
suffers from stone. We shall receive several persons (persons!--what
would that old inflated frog, who will be among them, say, if he heard
this word! "I am no person," he would say, "but always the thing
itself")--and the reception will last longer than is pleasant to
anybody; a sufficient reason for telling about the poet who wrote over
his door, "He who enters here will do me an honour; he who does not--a
favour."--That is, forsooth, saying a discourteous thing in a courteous
manner! And perhaps this poet is quite justified on his part in being
discourteous; they say that his rhymes are better than the rhymester.
Well, let him still make many of them, and withdraw himself as much
as possible from the world: and that is doubtless the significance of
his well-bred rudeness! A prince, on the other hand, is always of more
value than his "verse," even when--but what are we about? We gossip,'
and the whole court believes that we have already been at work and
racked our brains: there is no light to be seen earlier than that which
burns in our window.--Hark! Was that not the bell? The devil! The day
and the dance commence, and we do not know our rounds! We must then
improvise,--all the world improvises its day. To-day, let us for once
do like all the world!--And therewith vanished my wonderful morning
dream, probably owing to the violent strokes of the tower-clock, which
just then announced the fifth hour with all the importance which is
peculiar to it. It seems to me that on this occasion the God of dreams
wanted to make merry over my habits,--it is my habit to commence the
day by arranging it properly, to make it endurable _for myself_ and it
is possible that I may often have done this too formally, and too much
like a prince.
23.
_The Characteristics of Corruption._--Let us observe the following
characteristics in that condition of society from time to time
necessary, which is designated by the word "corruption." Immediately
upon the appearance of corruption anywhere, a motley _superstition_
gets the upper hand, and the hitherto universal belief of a people
becomes colourless and impotent in comparison with it; for superstition
is free-thinking of the second rank,--he who gives himself over
to it selects certain forms and formulæ which appeal, to him, and
permits himself a right of choice. The superstitious man is always
much more of a "person," in comparison with the religious man, and a
superstitious society will be one in which there are many individuals,
and a delight in individuality. Seen from this standpoint superstition
always appears as a _progress_ in comparison with belief, and as a
sign that the intellect becomes more independent and claims to have
its rights. Those who reverence the old religion and the religious
disposition then complain of corruption,--they have hitherto also
determined the usage of language, and have given a bad repute to
superstition, even among the freest spirits. Let us learn that it is a
symptom of _enlightenment._--Secondly, a society in which corruption
takes a hold is blamed for _effeminacy:_ for the appreciation of war,
and the delight in war, perceptibly diminish in such a society, and
the conveniences of life are now just as eagerly sought after as were
military and gymnastic honours formerly. But one is accustomed to
overlook the fact that the old national energy and national passion,
which acquired a magnificent splendour in war and in the tourney, has
now transferred itself into innumerable private passions, and has
merely become less visible; indeed in periods of "corruption" the
quantity and quality of the expended energy of a people is probably
greater than ever, and the individual spends it lavishly, to such an
extent as could not be done formerly--he was not then rich enough to do
so! And thus it is precisely in times of "effeminacy" that tragedy runs
at large in and out of doors, it is then that ardent love and ardent
hatred are born, and the flame of knowledge flashes heavenward in full
blaze.--Thirdly, as if in amends for the reproach of superstition
and effeminacy, it is customary to say of such periods of corruption
that they are milder, and that cruelty has then greatly diminished in
comparison with the older, more credulous, and stronger period. But to
this praise I am just as little able to assent as to that reproach: I
only grant so much--namely, that cruelty now becomes more refined, and
its older forms are henceforth counter to the taste; but the wounding
and torturing by word and look reaches its highest development in times
of corruption,--it is now only that _wickedness_ is created, and the
delight in wickedness. The men of the period of corruption are witty
and calumnious; they know that there are yet other ways of murdering
than by the dagger and the ambush--they know also that all that is
_well said_ is believed in.--Fourthly, it is when "morals decay" that
those beings whom one calls tyrants first make their appearance; they
are the forerunners of the _individual,_ and as it were early matured
_firstlings._ Yet a little while, and this fruit of fruits hangs ripe
and yellow on the tree of a people,--and only for the sake of such
fruit did this tree exist! When the decay has reached its worst, and
likewise the conflict of all sorts of tyrants, there always arises the
Cæsar, the final tyrant, who puts an end to the exhausted struggle for
sovereignty, by making the exhaustedness work for him. In his time
the individual is usually most mature, and consequently the "culture"
is highest and most fruitful, but not on his account nor through him:
although the men of highest culture love to flatter their Cæsar by
pretending that they are _his_ creation. The truth, however, is that
they need quietness externally, because they have disquietude and
labour internally. In these times bribery and treason are at their
height: for the love of the _ego,_ then first discovered, is much more
powerful than the love of the old, used-up, hackneyed "father-land";
and the need to be secure in one way or other against the frightful
fluctuations of fortune, opens even the nobler hands, as soon as a
richer and more powerful person shows himself ready to put gold into
them. There is then so little certainty with regard to the future;
people live only for the day: a psychical condition which enables every
deceiver to play an easy game,--people of course only let themselves
be misled and bribed "for the present," and reserve for themselves
futurity and virtue. The individuals, as is well known, the men who
only live for themselves, provide for the moment more than do their
opposites, the gregarious men, because they consider themselves just
as incalculable as the future; and similarly they attach themselves
willingly--to despots, because they believe themselves capable of
activities and expedients, which can neither reckon on being understood
by the multitude, nor on finding favour with them--but the tyrant
or the Cæsar understands the rights of the individual even in his
excesses, and has an interest in speaking on behalf of a bolder private
morality, and even in giving his hand to it For he thinks of himself,
and wishes people to think of him what Napoleon once uttered in his
classical style--"I have the right to answer by an eternal 'thus I am'
to everything about which complaint is brought against me. I am apart
from all the world, I accept conditions from nobody. I wish people
also to submit to my fancies, and to take it quite as a simple matter,
if I should indulge in this or that diversion." Thus spoke Napoleon
once to his wife, when she had reasons for calling in question the
fidelity of her husband. The times of corruption are the seasons when
the apples fall from the tree: I mean the individuals, the seed-bearers
of the future, the pioneers of spiritual colonisation, and of a new
construction of national and social unions. Corruption is only an
abusive term for the _harvest time_ of a people.
24.
_Different Dissatisfactions.--_The feeble and as it were feminine
dissatisfied people, have ingenuity for beautifying and deepening life;
the strong dissatisfied people--the masculine persons among them to
continue the metaphor--have ingenuity for improving and safeguarding
life. The former show their weakness and feminine character by
willingly letting themselves be temporarily deceived, and perhaps
even by putting up with a little ecstasy and enthusiasm on a time,
but on the whole they are never to be satisfied, and suffer from the
incurability of their dissatisfaction; moreover they are the patrons
of all those who manage to concoct opiate and narcotic comforts,
and on that account are averse to those who value the physician
higher than the priest,--they thereby encourage the _continuance_
of actual distress! If there had not been a surplus of dissatisfied
persons of this kind in Europe since the time of the Middle Ages,
the remarkable capacity of Europeans for constant _transformation_
would perhaps not have originated at all; for the claims of the
strong dissatisfied persons are too gross, and really too modest to
resist being finally quieted down. China is an instance of a country
in which dissatisfaction on a grand scale and the capacity for
transformation have died out for many centuries; and the Socialists
and state-idolaters of Europe could easily bring things to Chinese
conditions and to a Chinese "happiness," with their measures for the
amelioration and security of life, provided that they could first of
all root out the sicklier, tenderer, more feminine dissatisfaction
and Romanticism which are still very abundant among us. Europe is an
invalid who owes her best thanks to her incurability and the eternal
transformations of her sufferings; these constant new situations,
these equally constant new dangers, pains, and make-shifts, have at
last generated an intellectual sensitiveness which is almost equal to
genius, and is in any case the mother of all genius.
25.
_Not Pre-ordained to Knowledge._--There is a pur-blind humility not
at all rare, and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once for
all disqualified for being a disciple of knowledge. It is this in
fact: the moment a man of this kind perceives anything striking, he
turns as it were on his heel and says to himself: "You have deceived
yourself! Where have your wits been! This cannot be the truth!"--and
then, instead of looking at it and listening to it with more attention,
he runs out of the way of the striking object as if intimidated,
and seeks to get it out of his head as quickly as possible. For his
fundamental rule runs thus: "I want to see nothing that contradicts
the usual opinion concerning things! Am _I_ created for the purpose of
discovering new truths? There are already too many of the old ones."
26.
_What is Living?_--Living--that is to continually eliminate from
ourselves what is about to die; Living--that is to be cruel and
inexorable towards all that becomes weak and old in ourselves and
not only in ourselves. Living--that means, there fore to be without
piety toward the dying, the wrenched and the old? To be continually a
murderer?--And yet old Moses said: "Thou shalt not kill!"
27.
_The Self-Renouncer._--What does the self-renouncer do? He strives
after a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher
than all men of affirmation--he _throws away many things_ that
would impede his flight, and several things among them that are not
valueless, that are not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his
desire for elevation. Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the
very thing which becomes visible in him: on that account one calls him
a self-renouncer, and as such he stands before us, enveloped in his
cowl, and as the soul of a hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which
he makes upon us he is well content: he wants to keep concealed from us
his desire, his pride, his intention of flying _above_ us.--Yes! He is
wiser than we thought, and so courteous towards us--this affirmer! For
that is what he is, like us, even in his self-renunciation.
28.
_Injuring with ones best Qualities._--Out strong points sometimes drive
us so far forward that we cannot any longer endure our weaknesses,
and we perish by them: we also perhaps see this result beforehand,
but nevertheless do not want it to be otherwise. We then become hard
towards that which would fain be spared in us, and our pitilessness is
also our greatness. Such an experience, which must in the end cost us
our Hie, is a symbol of the collective effect of great men upon others
and upon their epoch:--it is just with their best abilities, with
that which only _they_ can do, that they destroy much that is weak,
uncertain, evolving, and _willing,_ and are thereby injurious. Indeed,
the case may happen in which, taken on the whole, they only do injury,
because their best is accepted and drunk up as it were solely by those
who lose their understanding and their egoism by it, as by too strong a
beverage; they become so intoxicated that they go breaking their limbs
on all the wrong roads where their drunkenness drives them.
29.
_Adventitious Liars._--When people began to combat the unity of
Aristotle in France, and consequently also to defend it, there was
once more to be seen that which has been seen so often, but seen
so unwillingly:--_people imposed false reasons on themselves_ on
account of which those laws ought to exist, merely for the sake of
not acknowledging to themselves that they had _accustomed_ themselves
to the authority of those laws, and did not want any longer to have
things otherwise. And people do so in every prevailing morality and
religion, and have always done so: the reasons and intentions behind
the habit, are only added surreptitiously when people begin to combat
the habit, and _ask_ for reasons and intentions. It is here that the
great dishonesty of the conservatives of all times hides:--they are
adventitious liars.
30.
_The Comedy of Celebrated Men.--_Celebrated men who _need_ their fame,
as, for instance, all politicians, no longer select their associates
and friends without fore-thought: from the one they want a portion
of the splendour and reflection of his virtues; from the other they
want the fear-inspiring power of certain dubious qualities in him, of
which everybody is aware; from another they steal his reputation for
idleness and basking in the sun, because it is advantageous for their
own ends to be regarded temporarily as heedless and lazy:--it conceals
the fact that they lie in ambush; they now use the visionaries, now
the experts, now the brooders, now the pedants in their neighbourhood,
as their actual selves for the time; but very soon they do not need
them any longer! And thus while their environment and outside die off
continually, everything seems to crowd into this environment, and
wants to become a "character" of it; they are like great cities in
this respect. Their repute is continually in process of mutation, like
their character, for their changing methods require this change, and
they show and _exhibit_ sometimes this and sometimes that actual or
fictitious quality on the stage; their friends and associates, as we
have said, belong to these stage properties. On the other hand, that
which they aim at must remain so much the more steadfast, and burnished
and resplendent in the distance,--and this also sometimes needs its
comedy and its stage-play.
31.
_Commerce and Nobility._--Buying and selling is now regarded as
something ordinary, like the art of reading and writing; everyone is
now trained to it even when he is not a tradesman exercising himself
daily in the art; precisely as formerly in the period of uncivilised
humanity, everyone was a hunter and exercised himself day by day in the
art of hunting. Hunting was then something common: but just as this
finally became a privilege of the powerful and noble, and thereby lost
the character of the commonplace and the ordinary--by ceasing to be
necessary and by becoming an affair of fancy and luxury,--so it might
become the same some day with buying and selling. Conditions of society
are imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in
which the necessity for this art will become quite lost; perhaps it
may then happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of
the prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling
as a _luxury of sentiment. _ It is then only that commerce would
acquire nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves
just as readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and
politics: while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then
have entirely altered. Already even politics ceases to be the business
of a gentleman; and it is possible that one day it may be found to
be so vulgar as to be brought, like all party literature and daily
literature, under the rubric: "Prostitution of the intellect."
32.
_Undesirable Disciples._--What shall I do with these two youths! called
out a philosopher dejectedly, who "corrupted" youths, as Socrates had
once corrupted them,--they are unwelcome disciples to me. One of them
cannot say "Nay," and the other says "Half and half" to everything.
Provided they grasped my doctrine, the former would _suffer_ too much,
for my mode of thinking requires a martial soul, willingness to cause
pain, delight in denying, and a hard skin,--he would succumb by open
wounds and internal injuries. And the other will choose the mediocre in
everything he represents, and thus make a mediocrity of the whole,--I
should like my enemy to have such a disciple.
33.
_Outside the Lecture-room._--"In order to prove that man after all
belongs to the good-natured animals, I would remind you how credulous
he has been for so long a time. It is now only, quite late, and
after an immense self-conquest, that he has become a _distrustful_
animal,--yes! man is now more wicked than ever."--I do not understand
this; why should man now be more distrustful and more wicked?--"Because
now he has science,--because he needs to have it!"--
34.
_Historia abscondita._--Every great man has a power which operates
backward; all history is again placed on the scales on his
account, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their
lurking-places--into _his_ sunlight. There is absolutely no knowing
what history may be some day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in
its essence! There is yet so much reinterpreting ability needed!
35.
_Heresy and Witchcraft._--To think otherwise than is customary--that is
by no means so much the activity of a better intellect, as the activity
of strong, wicked inclinations,--severing, isolating, refractory,
mischief-loving, malicious inclinations. Heresy is the counterpart of
witchcraft, and is certainly just as little a merely harmless affair,
or a thing worthy of honour in itself. Heretics and sorcerers are two
kinds of bad men; they have it in common that they also feel themselves
wicked; their unconquerable delight is to attack and injure whatever
rules,--whether it be men or opinions. The Reformation, a kind of
duplication of the spirit of the Middle Ages at a time when it had no
longer a good conscience, produced both of these kinds of people in the
greatest profusion.
36.