peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans
strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work--the
characteristic vice of the new world--already begins to infect
old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange
lack of intellectuality. One is now ashamed of repose: even long
reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with
a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial
newspaper; we live like men who are continually "afraid of letting
opportunities slip." "Better do anything whatever, than nothing"--this
principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste
may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this
hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye
for the melody of movement, also disappear. The proof of this is
the _clumsy perspicuity_ which is now everywhere demanded in all
positions where a person would like to be sincere with his fellows,
in intercourse with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers,
pupils, leaders and princes,--one has no longer either time or energy
for ceremonies, for roundabout courtesies, for any _esprit_ in
conversation, or for any _otium_ whatever. For life in the hunt for
gain continually compels a person to consume his intellect, even to
exhaustion, in constant dissimulation, overreaching, or forestalling:
the real virtue nowadays is to do something in a shorter time than
another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse
_permitted:_ in them, however, people are tired, and would not only
like "to let themselves go," but _to stretch their legs_ out wide in
awkward style. The way people write their _letters_ nowadays is quite
in keeping with the age; their style and spirit will always be the true
"sign of the times." If there be still enjoyment in society and in art,
it is enjoyment such as over-worked slaves provide for themselves. Oh,
this moderation in "joy" of our cultured and uncultured classes! Oh,
this increasing suspiciousness of all enjoyment! _Work_ is winning over
more and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment
already calls itself "need of recreation," and even begins to be
ashamed of itself. "One owes it to one's health," people say, when they
are caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could
not yield to the desire for the _vita contemplativa_ (that is to say,
excursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad
conscience.--Well! Formerly it was the very reverse: it was "action"
that suffered from a bad conscience. A man of good family _concealed_
his work when need compelled him to labour. The slave laboured under
the weight of the feeling that he did something contemptible:--the
"doing" itself was something contemptible. "Only in _otium_ and
_bellum_ is there nobility and honour:" so rang the voice of ancient
prejudice!
330.
_Applause._--The thinker does not need applause or the clapping of
hands, provided he be sure of the clapping of his own hands: the
latter, however, he cannot do without. Are there men who could also
do without this, and in general without any kind of applause? I doubt
it: and even as regards the wisest, Tacitus, who is no calumniator
of the wise, says: _quando etiam sapientibus gloriæ cupido novissima
exuitur_--that means with him: never.
331.
_Better Deaf than Deafened._--Formerly a person wanted to have his
_calling,_ but that no longer suffices to-day, for the market has
become too large,--there has now to be _bawling._ The consequence
is that even good throats outcry each other, and the best wares are
offered for sale with hoarse voices; without market-place bawling and
hoarseness there is now no longer any genius.--It is, sure enough, an
evil age for the thinker: he has to learn to find his stillness betwixt
two noises, and has to pretend to be deaf until he finally becomes so.
As long as he has not learned this, he is in danger of perishing from
impatience and headaches.
332.
_The Evil Hour._--There has perhaps been an evil hour for every
philosopher, in which he thought: What do I matter, if people should
not believe my poor arguments!--And then some malicious bird has flown
past him and twittered: "What do you matter? What do you matter?"
333.
_What does Knowing Mean?--Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed
intelligere!_ says Spinoza, so simply and sublimely, as is his wont.
Nevertheless, what else is this _intelligere_ ultimately, but just
the form in which the three other things become perceptible to us all
at once? A result of the diverging and opposite impulses of desiring
to deride, lament and execrate? Before knowledge is possible each of
these impulses must first have brought forward its one-sided view of
the object or event. The struggle of these one-sided views occurs
afterwards, and out of it there occasionally arises a compromise, a
pacification, a recognition of rights on all three sides, a sort of
justice and agreement: for in virtue of the justice and agreement
all those impulses can maintain themselves in existence and retain
their mutual rights. We, to whose consciousness only the closing
reconciliation scenes and final settling of accounts of these long
processes manifest themselves, think on that account that _intelligere_
is something conciliating, just and good, something essentially
antithetical to the impulses; whereas it is only _a certain relation of
the impulses to one another._ For a very long time conscious thinking
was regarded as the only thinking: it is now only that the truth dawns
upon us that the greater part of our intellectual activity goes on
unconsciously and unfelt by us; I believe, however, that the impulses
which are here in mutual conflict understand rightly how to make
themselves felt by _one another,_ and how to cause pain:--the violent
sudden exhaustion which overtakes all thinkers, may have its origin
here (it is the exhaustion of the battle-field). Aye, perhaps in our
struggling interior there is much concealed _heroism,_ but certainly
nothing divine, or eternally-reposing-in-itself, as Spinoza supposed.
_Conscious_ thinking, and especially that of the philosopher, is the
weakest, and on that account also the relatively mildest and quietest
mode of thinking: and thus it is precisely the philosopher who is most
easily misled concerning the nature of knowledge.
334.
_One must Learn to Love.--_This is our experience in music: we must
first _learn_ in general _to hear,_ to hear fully, and to distinguish a
theme or a melody, we have to isolate and limit it as a life by itself;
then we need to exercise effort and good-will in order _to endure_ it
in spite of its strangeness we need patience towards its aspect and
expression and indulgence towards what is odd in it:--in the end there
comes a moment when we are _accustomed_ to it, when we expect it, when
it dawns upon us that we should miss it if it were lacking; and then
it goes on to exercise its spell and charm more and more, and does not
cease until we have become its humble and enraptured lovers, who want
it, and want it again, and ask for nothing better from the world.--It
is thus with us, however, not only in music: it is precisely thus
that we have _learned to love_ everything that we love. We are always
finally recompensed for our good-will, our patience reasonableness
and gentleness towards what is unfamiliar, by the unfamiliar slowly
throwing off its veil and presenting itself to us as a new, ineffable
beauty:--that is its _thanks_ for our hospitality. He also who loves
himself must have learned it in this way: there is no other way. Love
also has to be learned.
335.
_Cheers for Physics!_--How many men are there who know how to observe?
And among the few who do know,--how many observe themselves? "Everyone
is furthest from himself"--all the "triers of the reins" know that
to their discomfort; and the saying, "Know thyself," in the mouth
of a God and spoken to man, is almost a mockery. But that the case
of self-observation is so desperate, is attested best of all by the
manner in which _almost everybody_ talks of the nature of a moral
action, that prompt, willing, convinced, loquacious manner, with its
look, its smile, and its pleasing eagerness! Everyone seems inclined
to say to you: "Why, my dear Sir, that is precisely _my_ affair! You
address yourself with your question to him who _is authorised_ to
answer, for I happen to be wiser with regard to this matter than in
anything else. Therefore, when a man decides that '_this is right_,'
when he accordingly concludes that '_it must therefore be done,_ and
thereupon _does_ what he has thus recognised as right and designated
as necessary--then the nature of his action is _moral!"_ But, my
friend, you are talking to me about three actions instead of one: your
deciding, for instance, that "this is right," is also an action,--could
one not judge either morally or immorally? _Why_ do you regard
this, and just this, as right?--"Because my conscience tells me so;
conscience never speaks immorally, indeed it determines in the first
place what shall be moral!"--But why do you _listen_ to the voice of
your conscience? And in how far are you justified in regarding such a
judgment as true and infallible? This _belief_--is there no further
conscience for it? Do you know nothing of an intellectual conscience?
A conscience behind your "conscience"? Your decision, "this is right,"
has a previous history in your impulses, your likes and dislikes, your
experiences and non-experiences; "_how_ has it originated?" you must
ask, and afterwards the further question: "_what_ really impels me to
give ear to it?" You can listen to its command like a brave soldier
who hears the command of his officer. Or like a woman who loves him
who commands. Or like a flatterer and coward, afraid of the commander.
Or like a blockhead who follows because he has nothing to say to the
contrary. In short, you can give ear to your conscience in a hundred
different ways. But _that_ you hear this or that judgment as the voice
of conscience, consequently, _that_ you feel a thing to be right--may
have its cause in the fact that you have never thought about your
nature, and have blindly accepted from your childhood what has been
designated to you as _right:_ or in the fact that hitherto bread
and honours have fallen to your share with that which you call your
duty,--it is "right" to you, because it seems to be _your_ "condition
of existence" (that you, however, have a _right_ to existence seems
to you irrefutable!). The _persistency_ of your moral judgment might
still be just a proof of personal wretchedness or impersonality; your
"moral force" might have its source in your obstinacy--or in your
incapacity to perceive new ideals! And to be brief: if you had thought
more acutely, observed more accurately, and had learned more, you would
no longer under all circumstances call this and that your "duty" and
your "conscience": the knowledge _how moral judgments have in general
always originated_ would make you tired of these pathetic words,--as
you have already grown tired of other pathetic words, for instance
"sin," "salvation," and "redemption."--And now, my friend, do not talk
to me about the categorical imperative! That word tickles my ear,
and I must laugh in spite of your presence and your seriousness. In
this connection I recollect old Kant, who, as a punishment for having
_gained possession surreptitiously_ of the "thing in itself"--also a
very ludicrous affair!--was imposed upon by the categorical imperative,
and with that in his heart _strayed back again_ to "God," the "soul,"
"freedom," and "immortality," like a fox which strays back into its
cage: and it had been _his_ strength and shrewdness which had _broken
open_ this cage!--What? You admire the categorical imperative in you?
This "persistency" of your so-called moral judgment? This absoluteness
of the feeling that "as I think on this matter, so must everyone
think"? Admire rather your _selfishness_ therein! And the blindness,
paltriness, and modesty of your selfishness! For it is selfishness in a
person to regard _his_ judgment as universal law, and a blind, paltry
and modest selfishness besides, because it betrays that you have not
yet discovered yourself, that you have not yet created for yourself
any personal, quite personal ideal:--for this could never be the ideal
of another, to say nothing of all, of every one!--He who still thinks
that "each would have to act in this manner in this case," has not yet
advanced half a dozen paces in self-knowledge: otherwise he would know
that there neither are, nor can be, similar actions,--that every action
that has been done, has been done in an entirely unique and inimitable
manner, and that it will be the same with regard to all future
actions; that all precepts of conduct (and even the most esoteric and
subtle precepts of all moralities up to the present), apply only to
the coarse exterior,--that by means of them, indeed, a semblance of
equality can be attained, _but only a semblance,_--that in outlook and
retrospect, _every_ action is, and remains, an impenetrable affair,
--that our opinions of the "good," "noble" and "great" can never be
proved by our actions, because no action is cognisable,--that our
opinions, estimates, and tables of values are certainly among the most
powerful levers in the mechanism of our actions, that in every single
case, nevertheless, the law of their mechanism is untraceable. Let us
_confine_ ourselves, therefore, to the purification of our opinions
and appreciations, and to the _construction of new tables of value of
our own:_--we will, however, brood no longer over the "moral worth of
our actions"! Yes, my friends! As regards the whole moral twaddle of
people about one another, it is time to be disgusted with it! To sit
in judgment morally ought to be opposed to our taste! Let us leave
this nonsense and this bad taste to those who have nothing else to do,
save to drag the past a little distance further through time, and who
are never themselves the present,--consequently to the many, to the
majority! We, however, _would seek to become what we are,--_the new,
the unique, the incomparable, making laws for ourselves and creating
ourselves! And for this purpose we must become the best students and
discoverers of all the laws and necessities in the world. We must be
_physicists_ in order to be _creators_ in that sense--whereas hitherto
all appreciations and ideals have been based on _ignorance_ of physics,
or in _contradiction_ thereto. And therefore, three cheers for physics!
And still louder cheers for that which _impels_ us thereto--our honesty.
336.
_Avarice of Nature_--Why has nature been so niggardly towards humanity
that she has not let human beings shine, this man more and that man
less, according to their inner abundance of light? Why have not great
men such a fine visibility in their rising and setting as the sun? How
much less equivocal would life among men then be!
337.
_Future "Humanity."--_When I look at this age with the eye of a distant
future, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of the present day as
his peculiar virtue and sickness called "the historical sense." It is a
tendency to something quite new and foreign in history: if this embryo
were given several centuries and more, there might finally evolve out
of it a marvellous plant, with a smell equally marvellous, on account
of which our old earth might be more pleasant to live in than it has
been hitherto. We moderns are just beginning to form the chain of a
very powerful, future sentiment, link by link,--we hardly know what
we are doing. It almost seems to us as if it were not the question
of a new sentiment, but of the decline of all old sentiments:--the
historical sense is still something so poor and cold, and many are
attacked by it as by a frost, and are made poorer and colder by it. To
others it appears as the indication of stealthily approaching age, and
our planet is regarded by them as a melancholy invalid, who, in order
to forget his present condition, writes the history of his youth. In
fact, this is one aspect of the new sentiment. He who knows how to
regard the history of man in its entirety as _his own history,_ feels
in the immense generalisation all the grief of the invalid who thinks
of health, of the old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of
the lover who is robbed of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is
destroyed, of the hero on the evening of the indecisive battle which
has brought him wounds and the loss of a friend. But to bear this
immense sum of grief of all kinds, to be able to bear it, and yet still
be the hero who at the commencement of a second day of battle greets
the dawn and his happiness, as one who has an horizon of centuries
before and behind him, as the heir of all nobility, of all past
intellect, and the obligatory heir (as the noblest) of all the old
nobles; while at the same time the first of a new nobility, the equal
of which has never been seen nor even dreamt of: to take all this upon
his soul, the oldest, the newest, the losses, hopes, conquests, and
victories of mankind: to have all this at last in one soul, and to
comprise it in one feeling:--this would necessarily furnish a happiness
which man has not hitherto known,--a God's happiness, full of power and
love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness which, like the sun in
the evening, continually gives of its inexhaustible riches and empties
into the sea,--and like the sun, too, feels itself richest when even
the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars! This divine feeling might
then be called--humanity!
338.
_The Will to Suffering and the Compassionate._--Is it to your advantage
to be above all compassionate? And is it to the advantage of the
sufferers when you are so? But let us leave the first question for a
moment without an answer.--That from which we suffer most profoundly
and personally is almost incomprehensible and inaccessible to every
one else: in this matter we are hidden from our neighbour even when
he eats at the same table with us. Everywhere, however, where we are
_noticed_ as sufferers, our suffering is interpreted in a shallow way;
it belongs to the nature of the emotion of pity to _divest_ unfamiliar
suffering of its properly personal character:--our "benefactors"
lower our value and volition more than our enemies. In most benefits
which are conferred on the unfortunate there is something shocking
in the intellectual levity with which the compassionate person plays
the rôle of fate: he knows nothing of all the inner consequences and
complications which are called misfortune for _me_ or for _you!_ The
entire economy of my soul and its adjustment by "misfortune," the
uprising of new sources and needs, the closing up of old wounds, the
repudiation of whole periods of the past--none of these things which
may be connected with misfortune preoccupy the dear sympathiser. He
wishes _to succour,_ and does not reflect that there is a personal
necessity for misfortune; that terror, want, impoverishment, midnight
watches, adventures, hazards and mistakes are as necessary to me and
to you as their opposites, yea, that, to speak mystically, the path to
one's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one's own
hell. No, he knows nothing thereof. The "religion of compassion" (or
"the heart") bids him help, and he thinks he has helped best when he
has helped most speedily! If you adherents of this religion actually
have the same sentiments towards yourselves which you have towards your
fellows, if you are unwilling to endure your own suffering even for an
hour, and continually forestall all possible misfortune, if you regard
suffering and pain generally as evil, as detestable, as deserving of
annihilation, and as blots on existence, well, you have then, besides
your religion of compassion, yet another religion in your heart (and
this is perhaps the mother of the former)--_the religion of smug ease._
Ah, how little you know of the _happiness_ of man, you comfortable
and good-natured ones!--for happiness and misfortune are brother and
sister, and twins, who grow tall together, or, as with you, _remain
small_ together! But now let us return to the first question.--How is
it at all possible for a person to keep to _his_ path! Some cry or
other is continually calling one aside: our eye then rarely lights on
anything without it becoming necessary for us to leave for a moment our
own affairs and rush to give assistance. I know there are hundreds of
respectable and laudable methods of making me stray _from my course,_
and in truth the most "moral" of methods! Indeed, the opinion of the
present-day preachers of the morality of compassion goes so far as to
imply that just this, and this alone is moral:--to stray from _our_
course to that extent and to run to the assistance of our neighbour. I
am equally certain that I need only give myself over to the sight of
one case of actual distress, and I, too, _am_ lost! And if a suffering
friend said to me, "See, I shall soon die, only promise to die with
me"--I might promise it, just as--to select for once bad examples for
good reasons--the sight of a small, mountain people struggling for
freedom,. would bring me to the point of offering them my hand and my
life. Indeed, there is even a secret seduction in all this awakening
of compassion, and calling for help: our "own way" is a thing too
hard and insistent, and too far removed from the love and gratitude
of others,--we escape from it and from our most personal conscience,
not at all unwillingly, and, seeking security in the conscience of
others, we take refuge in the lovely temple of the "religion of pity."
As soon now as any war breaks out, there always breaks out at the
same time a certain secret delight precisely in the noblest class of
the people: they rush with rapture to meet the new danger of _death,_
because they believe that in the sacrifice for their country they have
finally that long-sought-for permission--the permission _to shirk
their aim:_--war is for them a detour to suicide, a detour, however,
with a good conscience. And although silent here about some things,
I will not, however, be silent about my morality, which says to me:
Live in concealment in order that thou _mayest_ live to thyself. Live
_ignorant_ of that which seems to thy age to be most important! Put at
least the skin of three centuries betwixt thyself, and the present day!
And the clamour of the present day, the noise of wars and revolutions,
ought to be a murmur to thee! Thou wilt also want to help, but only
those whose distress thou entirely _understandest,_ because they have
_one_ sorrow and _one_ hope in common with thee--thy _friends:_ and
only in _the_ way that thou helpest thyself:--I want to make them more
courageous, more enduring, more simple, more joyful! I want to teach
them that which at present so few understand, and the preachers of
fellowship in sorrow least of all:--namely, _fellowship in joy!_
339.
_Vita femina._--To see the ultimate beauties in a work--all knowledge
and good-will is not enough; it requires the rarest, good chance for
the veil of clouds to move for once from the summits, and for the sun
to shine on them. We must not only stand at precisely the right place
to see this, our very soul itself must have pulled away the veil from
its heights, and must be in need of an external expression and simile,
so as to have a hold and remain master of itself. All these, however,
are so rarely united at the same time that I am inclined to believe
that the highest summit of all that is good, be it work, deed, man, or
nature, has hitherto remained for most people, and even for the best,
as something concealed and shrouded:--that, however, which unveils
itself to us, _unveils itself to us but once._ The Greeks indeed
prayed: "Twice and thrice, everything beautiful!" Ah, they had their
good reason to call on the Gods, for ungodly actuality does not furnish
us with the beautiful at all, or only does so once! I mean to say that
the world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless
poor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those
beautiful things. But perhaps this is the greatest charm of life: it
puts a gold-embroidered veil of lovely potentialities over itself,
promising, resisting, modest, mocking, sympathetic, seductive. Yes,
life is a woman!
340.