PART II. THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW.

_The Shadow_: It is so long since I heard you speak that I should like to

give you an opportunity of talking.

_The Wanderer_: I hear a voice—where? whose? I almost fancied that I heard

myself speaking, but with a voice yet weaker than my own.

_The Shadow_ (after a pause): Are you not glad to have an opportunity of

speaking?

_The Wanderer_: By God and everything else in which I disbelieve, it is my

shadow that speaks. I hear it, but I do not believe it.

_The Shadow_: Let us assume that it exists, and think no more about it. In

another hour all will be over.

_The Wanderer_: That is just what I thought when in a forest near Pisa I

saw first two and then five camels.

_The Shadow_: It is all the better if we are both equally forbearing

towards each other when for once our reason is silent. Thus we shall avoid

losing our tempers in conversation, and shall not at once apply mutual

thumb-screws in the event of any word sounding for once unintelligible to

us. If one does not know exactly how to answer, it is enough to say

_something_. Those are the reasonable terms on which I hold conversation

with any person. During a long talk the wisest of men becomes a fool once

and a simpleton thrice.

_The Wanderer_: Your moderation is not flattering to those to whom you

confess it.

_The Shadow_: Am I, then, to flatter?

_The Wanderer_: I thought a man’s shadow was his vanity. Surely vanity

would never say, “Am I, then, to flatter?”

_The Shadow_: Nor does human vanity, so far as I am acquainted with it,

ask, as I have done twice, whether it may speak. It simply speaks.

_The Wanderer_: Now I see for the first time how rude I am to you, my

beloved shadow. I have not said a word of my supreme _delight_ in hearing

and not merely seeing you. You must know that I love shadows even as I

love light. For the existence of beauty of face, clearness of speech,

kindliness and firmness of character, the shadow is as necessary as the

light. They are not opponents—rather do they hold each other’s hands like

good friends; and when the light vanishes, the shadow glides after it.

_The Shadow_: Yes, and I hate the same thing that you hate—night. I love

men because they are votaries of life. I rejoice in the gleam of their

eyes when they recognise and discover, they who never weary of recognising

and discovering. That shadow which all things cast when the sunshine of

knowledge falls upon them—that shadow too am I.

_The Wanderer_: I think I understand you, although you have expressed

yourself in somewhat shadowy terms. You are right. Good friends give to

each other here and there, as a sign of mutual understanding, an obscure

phrase which to any third party is meant to be a riddle. And we are good

friends, you and I. So enough of preambles! Some few hundred questions

oppress my soul, and the time for you to answer them is perchance but

short. Let us see how we may come to an understanding as quickly and

peaceably as possible.

_The Shadow_: But shadows are more shy than men. You will not reveal to

any man the manner of our conversation?

_The Wanderer_: _The manner_ of our conversation? Heaven preserve me from

wire-drawn, literary dialogues! If Plato had found less pleasure in

spinning them out, his readers would have found more pleasure in Plato. A

dialogue that in real life is a source of delight, when turned into

writing and read, is a picture with nothing but false perspectives.

Everything is too long or too short.—Yet perhaps I may reveal the _points

on which_ we have come to an understanding?

_The Shadow_: With that I am content. For every one will only recognise

your views once more, and no one will think of the shadow.

_The Wanderer_: Perhaps you are wrong, my friend! Hitherto they have

observed in my views more of the shadow than of me.

_The Shadow_: More of the shadow than of the light? Is that possible?

_The Wanderer_: Be serious, dear fool! My very first question demands

seriousness.

1.

OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.—Probability, but no truth; the semblance of

freedom, but no freedom—these are the two fruits by virtue of which the

tree of knowledge cannot be confounded with the tree of life.

2.

THE WORLD’S REASON.—That the world is _not_ the abstract essence of an

eternal reasonableness is sufficiently proved by the fact that that _bit

of the world_ which we know—I mean our human reason—is none too

reasonable. And if _this_ is not eternally and wholly wise and reasonable,

the rest of the world will not be so either. Here the conclusion _a minori

ad majus, a parte ad totum_ holds good, and that with decisive force.

3.

“IN THE BEGINNING WAS.”—To glorify the origin—that is the metaphysical

after-shoot which sprouts again at the contemplation of history, and

absolutely makes us imagine that _in the beginning_ of things lies all

that is most valuable and essential.

4.

STANDARD FOR THE VALUE OF TRUTH.—The difficulty of climbing mountains is

no gauge of their height. Yet in the case of science it is different!—we

are told by certain persons who wish to be considered “the initiated,”—the

difficulty in finding truth is to determine the value of truth! This

insane morality originates in the idea that “truths” are really nothing

more than gymnastic appliances, with which we have to exercise ourselves

until we are thoroughly tired. It is a morality for the athletes and

gymnasts of the intellect.

5.

USE OF WORDS AND REALITY.—There exists a simulated contempt for all the

things that mankind actually holds most important, for all everyday

matters. For instance, we say “we only eat to live”—an abominable _lie_,

like that which speaks of the procreation of children as the real purpose

of all sexual pleasure. Conversely, the reverence for “the most important

things” is hardly ever quite genuine. The priests and metaphysicians have

indeed accustomed us to a hypocritically exaggerated _use of words_

regarding these matters, but they have not altered the feeling that these

most important things are not so important as those despised “everyday

matters.” A fatal consequence of this twofold hypocrisy is that we never

make these everyday matters (such as eating, housing, clothes, and

intercourse) the object of a constant unprejudiced and _universal_

reflection and revision, but, as such a process appears degrading, we

divert from them our serious intellectual and artistic side. Hence in such

matters habit and frivolity win an easy victory over the thoughtless,

especially over inexperienced youth. On the other hand, our continual

transgressions of the simplest laws of body and mind reduce us all, young

and old, to a disgraceful state of dependence and servitude—I mean to that

fundamentally superfluous dependence upon physicians, teachers and

clergymen, whose dead-weight still lies heavy upon the whole of society.

6.

EARTHLY INFIRMITIES AND THEIR MAIN CAUSE.—If we look about us, we are

always coming across men who have eaten eggs all their lives without

observing that the oblong-shaped taste the best; who do not know that a

thunder-storm is beneficial to the stomach; that perfumes are most

fragrant in cold, clear air; that our sense of taste varies in different

parts of our mouths; that every meal at which we talk well or listen well

does harm to the digestion. If we are not satisfied with these examples of

defective powers of observation, we shall concede all the more readily

that the everyday matters are very imperfectly seen and rarely observed by

the majority. Is this a matter of indifference?—Let us remember, after

all, that from this defect are derived _nearly all the bodily and

spiritual infirmities_ of the individual. Ignorance of what is good and

bad for us, in the arrangement of our mode of life, the division of our

day, the selection of our friends and the time we devote to them, in

business and leisure, commanding and obeying, our feeling for nature and

for art, our eating, sleeping, and meditation; ignorance and lack of keen

perceptions _in the smallest and most ordinary details_—this it is that

makes the world “a vale of tears” for so many. Let us not say that here as

everywhere the fault lies with human _unreason_. Of reason there is enough

and to spare, but it is _wrongly directed_ and _artificially diverted_

from these little intimate things. Priests and teachers, and the sublime

ambition of all idealists, coarser and subtler, din it even into the

child’s ears that the means of serving mankind at large depend upon

altogether different _things_—upon the salvation of the soul, the service

of the State, the advancement of science, or even upon social position and

property; whereas the needs of the individual, his requirements great and

small during the twenty-four hours of the day, are quite paltry or

indifferent.—Even Socrates attacked with all his might this arrogant

neglect of the human for the benefit of humanity, and loved to indicate by

a quotation from Homer the true sphere and conception of all anxiety and

reflection: “All that really matters,” he said, “is the good and evil hap

I find at home.”

7.

TWO MEANS OF CONSOLATION.—Epicurus, the soul-comforter of later antiquity,

said, with that marvellous insight which to this very day is so rarely to

be found, that for the calming of the spirit the solution of the final and

ultimate theoretical problems is by no means necessary. Hence, instead of

raising a barren and remote discussion of the final question, whether the

Gods existed, it sufficed him to say to those who were tormented by “fear

of the Gods”: “If there are Gods, they do not concern themselves with us.”

The latter position is far stronger and more favourable, for, by conceding

a few points to the other, one makes him readier to listen and to take to

heart. But as soon as he sets about proving the opposite (that the Gods do

concern themselves with us), into what thorny jungles of error must the

poor man fall, quite of his own accord, and without any cunning on the

part of his interlocutor! The latter must only have enough subtlety and

humanity to conceal his sympathy with this tragedy. Finally, the other

comes to feel disgust—the strongest argument against any

proposition—disgust with his own hypothesis. He becomes cold, and goes

away in the same frame of mind as the pure atheist who says, “What do the

Gods matter to me? The devil take them!”—In other cases, especially when a

half-physical, half-moral assumption had cast a gloom over his spirit,

Epicurus did not refute the assumption. He agreed that it might be true,

but that there was _a second assumption_ to explain the same phenomenon,

and that it could perhaps be maintained in other ways. The plurality of

hypotheses (for example, that concerning the origin of conscientious

scruples) suffices even in our time to remove from the soul the shadows

that arise so easily from pondering over a hypothesis which is isolated,

merely visible, and hence overvalued a hundredfold.—Thus whoever wishes to

console the unfortunate, the criminal, the hypochondriac, the dying, may

call to mind the two soothing suggestions of Epicurus, which can be

applied to a great number of problems. In their simplest form they would

run: firstly, granted the thing is so, it does not concern us; secondly,

the thing may be so, but it may also be otherwise.

8.

IN THE NIGHT.—So soon as night begins to fall our sensations concerning

everyday matters are altered. There is the wind, prowling as if on

forbidden paths, whispering as if in search of something, fretting because

he cannot find it. There is the lamplight, with its dim red glow, its

weary look, unwillingly fighting against night, a sullen slave to wakeful

man. There are the breathings of the sleeper, with their terrible rhythm,

to which an ever-recurring care seems to blow the trumpet-melody—we do not

hear it, but when the sleeper’s bosom heaves we feel our heart-strings

tighten; and when the breath sinks and almost dies away into a deathly

stillness, we say to ourselves, “Rest awhile, poor troubled spirit!” All

living creatures bear so great a burden that we wish them an eternal rest;

night invites to death.—If human beings were deprived of the sun and

resisted night by means of moonlight and oil-lamps, what a philosophy

would cast its veil over them! We already see only too plainly how a

shadow is thrown over the spiritual and intellectual nature of man by that

moiety of darkness and sunlessness that envelops life.

9.

ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF FREE WILL.—Necessity sways one man in the shape

of his passions, another as a habit of hearing and obeying, a third as a

logical conscience, a fourth as a caprice and a mischievous delight in

evasions. These four, however, seek the freedom of their will at the very

point where they are most securely fettered. It is as if the silkworm

sought freedom of will in spinning. What is the reason? Clearly this, that

every one thinks himself most free where his vitality is strongest; hence,

as I have said, now in passion, now in duty, now in knowledge, now in

caprice. A man unconsciously imagines that where he is strong, where he

feels most thoroughly alive, the element of his freedom must lie. He

thinks of dependence and apathy, independence and vivacity as forming

inevitable pairs.—Thus an experience that a man has undergone in the

social and political sphere is wrongly transferred to the ultimate

metaphysical sphere. There the strong man is also the free man, there the

vivid feeling of joy and sorrow, the high hopes, the keen desires, the

powerful hates are the attributes of the ruling, independent natures,

while the thrall and the slave live in a state of dazed oppression.—The

doctrine of free will is an invention of the ruling classes.

10.

ABSENCE OF FEELING OF NEW CHAINS.—So long as we do not feel that we are in

some way dependent, we consider ourselves independent—a false conclusion

that shows how proud man is, how eager for dominion. For he hereby assumes

that he would always be sure to observe and recognise dependence so soon

as he suffered it, the preliminary hypothesis being that he generally

lives in independence, and that, should he lose that independence for once

in a way, he would immediately detect a contrary sensation.—Suppose,

however, the reverse to be true—that he is always living in a complex

state of dependence, but thinks himself free where, through long habit, he

no longer feels the weight of the chain? He only suffers from new chains,

and “free will” really means nothing more than an absence of feeling of

new chains.

11.

FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND THE ISOLATION OF FACTS.—Our ordinary inaccurate

observation takes a group of phenomena as one and calls them a fact.

Between this fact and another we imagine a vacuum, we isolate each fact.

In reality, however, the sum of our actions and cognitions is no series of

facts and intervening vacua, but a continuous stream. Now the belief in

free will is incompatible with the idea of a continuous, uniform,

undivided, indivisible flow. This belief presupposes that every single

action is isolated and indivisible; it is an atomic theory as regards

volition and cognition.—We misunderstand facts as we misunderstand

characters, speaking of similar characters and similar facts, whereas both

are non-existent. Further, we bestow praise and blame only on this false

hypothesis, that there are similar facts, that a graduated order of

species of facts exists, corresponding to a graduated order of values.

Thus we isolate not only the single fact, but the groups of apparently

equal facts (good, evil, compassionate, envious actions, and so forth). In

both cases we are wrong.—The word and the concept are the most obvious

reason for our belief in this isolation of groups of actions. We do not

merely thereby designate the things; the thought at the back of our minds

is that by the word and the concept we can grasp the essence of the

actions. We are still constantly led astray by words and actions, and are

induced to think of things as simpler than they are, as separate,

indivisible, existing in the absolute. Language contains a hidden

philosophical mythology, which, however careful we may be, breaks out

afresh at every moment. The belief in free will—that is to say, in similar

facts and isolated facts—finds in language its continual apostle and

advocate.

12.

THE FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS.—A man cannot feel any psychical pleasure or pain

unless he is swayed by one of two illusions. Either he believes in the

identity of certain facts, certain sensations, and in that case finds

spiritual pleasure and pain in comparing present with past conditions and

in noting their similarity or difference (as is invariably the case with

recollection); or he believes in the freedom of the will, perhaps when he

reflects, “I ought not to have done this,” “This might have turned out

differently,” and from these reflections likewise he derives pleasure and

pain. Without the errors that are rife in every psychical pain and

pleasure, humanity would never have developed. For the root idea of

humanity is that man is free in a world of bondage—man, the eternal

wonder-worker, whether his deeds be good or evil—man, the amazing

exception, the super-beast, the quasi-God, the mind of creation, the

indispensable, the key-word to the cosmic riddle, the mighty lord of

nature and despiser of nature, the creature that calls _its_ history “the

history of the world”! _Vanitas vanitatum homo._

13.

REPETITION.—It is an excellent thing to express a thing consecutively in

two ways, and thus provide it with a right and a left foot. Truth can

stand indeed on one leg, but with two she will walk and complete her

journey.

14.

MAN AS THE COMIC ACTOR OF THE WORLD.—It would require beings more

intellectual than men to relish to the full the humorous side of man’s

view of himself as the goal of all existence and of his serious

pronouncement that he is satisfied only with the prospect of fulfilling a

world-mission. If a God created the world, he created man to be his ape,

as a perpetual source of amusement in the midst of his rather tedious

eternities. The music of the spheres surrounding the world would then

presumably be the mocking laughter of all the other creatures around

mankind. God in his boredom uses pain for the tickling of his favourite

animal, in order to enjoy his proudly tragic gestures and expressions of

suffering, and, in general, the intellectual inventiveness of the vainest

of his creatures—as inventor of this inventor. For he who invented man as

a joke had more intellect and more joy in intellect than has man.—Even

here, where our human nature is willing to humble itself, our vanity again

plays us a trick, in that we men should like in this vanity at least to be

quite marvellous and incomparable. Our uniqueness in the world! Oh, what

an improbable thing it is! Astronomers, who occasionally acquire a horizon

outside our world, give us to understand that the drop of life on the

earth is without significance for the total character of the mighty ocean

of birth and decay; that countless stars present conditions for the

generation of life similar to those of the earth—and yet these are but a

handful in comparison with the endless number that have never known, or

have long been cured, of the eruption of life; that life on each of these

stars, measured by the period of its existence, has been but an instant, a

flicker, with long, long intervals afterwards—and thus in no way the aim

and final purpose of their existence. Possibly the ant in the forest is

quite as firmly convinced that it is the aim and purpose of the existence

of the forest, as we are convinced in our imaginations (almost

unconsciously) that the destruction of mankind involves the destruction of

the world. It is even modesty on our part to go no farther than this, and

not to arrange a universal twilight of the world and the Gods as the

funeral ceremony of the last man. Even to the eye of the most unbiassed

astronomer a lifeless world can scarcely appear otherwise than as a

shining and swinging star wherein man lies buried.

15.

THE MODESTY OF MAN.—How little pleasure is enough for the majority to make

them feel that life is good! How modest is man!

16.

WHERE INDIFFERENCE IS NECESSARY.—Nothing would be more perverse than to

wait for the truths that science will finally establish concerning the

first and last things, and until then to think (and especially to believe)

in the traditional way, as one is so often advised to do. The impulse that

bids us seek nothing but _certainties_ in this domain is a religious

offshoot, nothing better—a hidden and only apparently sceptical variety of

the “metaphysical need,” the underlying idea being that for a long time no

view of these ultimate certainties will be obtainable, and that until then

the “believer” has the right not to trouble himself about the whole

subject. We have no need of these certainties about the farthermost

horizons in order to live a full and efficient human life, any more than

the ant needs them in order to be a good ant. Rather must we ascertain the

origin of that troublesome significance that we have attached to these

things for so long. For this we require the history of ethical and

religious sentiments, since it is only under the influence of such

sentiments that these most acute problems of knowledge have become so

weighty and terrifying. Into the outermost regions to which the mental eye

can penetrate (without ever penetrating _into_ them), we have smuggled

such concepts as guilt and punishment (everlasting punishment, too!). The

darker those regions, the more careless we have been. For ages men have

let their imaginations run riot where they could establish nothing, and

have induced posterity to accept these fantasies as something serious and

true, with this abominable lie as their final trump-card: that faith is

worth more than knowledge. What we need now in regard to these ultimate

things is not knowledge as against faith, but indifference as against

faith and pretended knowledge in these matters!—Everything must lie nearer

to us than what has hitherto been preached to us as the most important

thing, I mean the questions: “What end does man serve?” “What is his fate

after death?” “How does he make his peace with God?” and all the rest of

that bag of tricks. The problems of the dogmatic philosophers, be they

idealists, materialists, or realists, concern us as little as do these

religious questions. They all have the same object in view—to force us to

a decision in matters where neither faith nor knowledge is needed. It is

better even for the most ardent lover of knowledge that the territory open

to investigation and to reason should be encircled by a belt of fog-laden,

treacherous marshland, a strip of ever watery, impenetrable, and

indeterminable country. It is just by the comparison with the realm of

darkness on the edge of the world of knowledge that the bright, accessible

region of that world rises in value.—We must once more become good friends

of the “everyday matters,” and not, as hitherto, despise them and look

beyond them at clouds and monsters of the night. In forests and caverns,

in marshy tracts and under dull skies, on the lowest rungs of the ladder

of culture, man has lived for æons, and lived in poverty. There he has

learnt to despise the present, his neighbours, his life, and himself, and

we, the inhabitants of the brighter fields of Nature and mind, still

inherit in our blood some taint of this contempt for everyday matters.

17.

PROFOUND INTERPRETATIONS.—He who has interpreted a passage in an author

“more profoundly” than was intended, has not interpreted the author but

has obscured him. Our metaphysicians are in the same relation, or even in

a worse relation, to the text of Nature. For, to apply their profound

interpretations, they often alter the text to suit their purpose—or, in

other words, corrupt the text. A curious example of the corruption and

obscuration of an author’s text is furnished by the ideas of Schopenhauer

on the pregnancy of women. “The sign of a continuous will to life in

time,” he says, “is copulation; the sign of the light of knowledge which

is associated anew with this will and holds the possibility of a

deliverance, and that too in the highest degree of clearness, is the

renewed incarnation of the will to life. This incarnation is betokened by

pregnancy, which is therefore frank and open, and even proud, whereas

copulation hides itself like a criminal.” He declares that every woman, if

surprised in the sexual act, would be likely to die of shame, but

“displays her pregnancy without a trace of shame, nay even with a sort of

pride.” Now, firstly, this condition cannot easily be displayed more

aggressively than it displays itself, and when Schopenhauer gives

prominence only to the intentional character of the display, he is

fashioning his text to suit the interpretation. Moreover, his statement of

the universality of the phenomenon is not true. He speaks of “every

woman.” Many women, especially the younger, often appear painfully ashamed

of their condition, even in the presence of their nearest kinsfolk. And

when women of riper years, especially in the humbler classes, do actually

appear proud of their condition, it is because they would give us to

understand that they are still desirable to their husbands. That a

neighbour on seeing them or a passing stranger should say or think “Can it

be possible?”—that is an alms always acceptable to the vanity of women of

low mental capacity. In the reverse instance, to conclude from

Schopenhauer’s proposition, the cleverest and most intelligent women would

tend more than any to exult openly in their condition. For they have the

best prospect of giving birth to an intellectual prodigy, in whom “the

will” can once more “negative” itself for the universal good. Stupid

women, on the other hand, would have every reason to hide their pregnancy

more modestly than anything they hide.—It cannot be said that this view

corresponds to reality. Granted, however, that Schopenhauer was right on

the general principle that women show more self-satisfaction when pregnant

than at any other time, a better explanation than this lies to hand. One

might imagine the clucking of a hen even before she lays an egg, saying,

“Look! look! I shall lay an egg! I shall lay an egg!”

18.

THE MODERN DIOGENES.—Before we look for man, we must have found the

lantern.—Will it have to be the Cynic’s lantern?

19.

IMMORALISTS.—Moralists must now put up with being rated as immoralists,

because they dissect morals. He, however, who would dissect must kill, but

only in order that we may know more, judge better, live better, not in

order that all the world may dissect. Unfortunately, men still think that

every moralist in his every action must be a pattern for others to

imitate. They confound him with the preacher of morality. The older

moralists did not dissect enough and preached too often, whence that

confusion and the unpleasant consequences for our latter-day moralists are

derived.

20.

A CAUTION AGAINST CONFUSION.—There are moralists who treat the strong,

noble, self-denying attitude of such beings as the heroes of Plutarch, or

the pure, enlightened, warmth-giving state of soul peculiar to truly good

men and women, as difficult scientific problems. They investigate the

origin of such phenomena, indicating the complex element in the apparent

simplicity, and directing their gaze to the tangled skein of motives, the

delicate web of conceptual illusions, and the sentiments of individuals or

of groups, that are a legacy of ancient days gradually increased. Such

moralists are very different from those with whom they are most commonly

confounded, from those petty minds that do not believe at all in these

modes of thought and states of soul, and imagine their own poverty to be

hidden somewhere behind the glamour of greatness and purity. The moralists

say, “Here are problems,” and these pitiable creatures say, “Here are

impostors and deceptions.” Thus the latter deny the existence of the very

things which the former are at pains to explain.

21.

_Man as the Measurer._—Perhaps all human morality had its origin in the

tremendous excitement that seized primitive man when he discovered measure

and measuring, scales and weighing (for the word _Mensch_ [man] means “the

measurer”—he wished to _name_ himself after his greatest discovery!). With

these ideas they mounted into regions that are quite beyond all measuring

and weighing, but did not appear to be so in the beginning.

22.

_The Principle of Equilibrium._—The robber and the man of power who

promises to protect a community from robbers are perhaps at bottom beings

of the same mould, save that the latter attains his ends by other means

than the former—that is to say, through regular imposts paid to him by the

community, and no longer through forced contributions. (The same relation

exists between merchant and pirate, who for a long period are one and the

same person: where the one function appears to them inadvisable, they

exercise the other. Even to-day mercantile morality is really nothing but

a refinement on piratical morality—buying in the cheapest market, at prime

cost if possible, and selling in the dearest.) The essential point is that

the man of power promises to maintain the equilibrium against the robber,

and herein the weak find a possibility of living. For either they must

group themselves into an equivalent power, or they must subject themselves

to some one of equivalent power (_i.e._ render service in return for his

efforts). The latter course is generally preferred, because it really

keeps two dangerous beings in check—the robber through the man of power,

and the man of power through the standpoint of advantage; for the latter

profits by treating his subjects with graciousness and tolerance, in order

that they may support not only themselves but their ruler. As a matter of

fact, conditions may still be hard and cruel enough, yet in comparison

with the complete annihilation that was formerly always a possibility, men

breathe freely.—The community is at first the organisation of the weak to

counterbalance menacing forces. An organisation to outweigh those forces

would be more advisable, if its members grew strong enough to destroy the

adverse power: and when it is a question of one mighty oppressor, the

_attempt will_ certainly be made. But if the one man is the head of a

clan, or if he has a large following, a rapid and decisive annihilation is

improbable, and a long or permanent feud is only to be expected. This

feud, however, involves the least desirable condition for the community,

for it thereby loses the time to provide for its means of subsistence with

the necessary regularity, and sees the product of all work hourly

threatened. Hence the community prefers to raise its power of attack and

defence to the exact plane on which the power of its dangerous neighbour

stands, and to give him to understand that an equal weight now lies in its

own side of the scales—so why not be good friends?—Thus equilibrium is a

most important conception for the understanding of the ancient doctrines

of law and morals. Equilibrium is, in fact, the basis of justice. When

justice in ruder ages says, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” it

presupposes the attainment of this equilibrium and tries to maintain it by

means of this compensation; so that, when crime is committed, the injured

party will not take the revenge of blind anger. By means of the _jus

talionis_ the equilibrium of the disturbed relations of power is restored,

for in such primitive times an eye or an arm more means a bit more power,

more weight.—In a community where all consider themselves equal, disgrace

and punishment await crime—that is, violations of the principle of

equilibrium. Disgrace is thrown into the scale as a counter-weight against

the encroaching individual, who has gained profit by his encroachment, and

now suffers losses (through disgrace) which annul and outweigh the

previous profits. Punishment, in the same way, sets up a far greater

counter-weight against the preponderance which every criminal hopes to

obtain—imprisonment as against a deed of violence, restitution and fines

as against theft. Thus the sinner is reminded that his action has excluded

him from the community and from its moral advantages, since the community

treats him as an inferior, a weaker brother, an outsider. For this reason

punishment is not merely retaliation, but has something more, something of

the cruelty of the state of nature, and of this it would serve as a

reminder.

23.

WHETHER THE ADHERENTS OF THE DOCTRINE OF FREE WILL HAVE A RIGHT TO

PUNISH?—Men whose vocation it is to judge and punish try to establish in

every case whether an evil-doer is really responsible for his act, whether

he was able to apply his reasoning powers, whether he acted with motives

and not unconsciously or under constraint. If he is punished, it is

because he preferred the worse to the better motives, which he must

consequently have known. Where this knowledge is wanting, man is,

according to the prevailing view, not responsible—unless his ignorance,

_e.g._ his _ignorantia legis_, be the consequence of an intentional

neglect to learn what he ought: in that case he already preferred the

worse to the better motives at the time when he refused to learn, and must

now pay the penalty of his unwise choice. If, on the other hand, perhaps

through stupidity or shortsightedness, he has never seen the better

motives, he is generally not punished, for people say that he made a wrong

choice, he acted like a brute beast. The intentional rejection of the

better reason is now needed before we treat the offender as fit to be

punished. But how can any one be intentionally more unreasonable than he

ought to be? Whence comes the decision, if the scales are loaded with good

and bad motives? So the origin is not error or blindness, not an internal

or external constraint? (It should furthermore be remembered that every

so-called “external constraint” is nothing more than the internal

constraint of fear and pain.) Whence? is the repeated question. So reason

is not to be the cause of action, because reason cannot decide against the

better motives? Thus we call “free will” to our aid. Absolute discretion

is to decide, and a moment is to intervene when no motive exercises an

influence, when the deed is done as a miracle, resulting from nothing.

This assumed discretion is punished in a case where no discretion should

rule. Reason, which knows law, prohibition, and command, should have left

no choice, they say, and should have acted as a constraint and a higher

power. Hence the offender is punished because he makes use of “free

will”—in other words, has acted without motive where he should have been

guided by motives. But why did he do it? This question must not even be

asked; the deed was done without a “Why?” without motive, without origin,

being a thing purposeless, unreasoned.—However, according to the

above-named preliminary condition of punishability, such a deed should not

be punished at all! Moreover, even this reason for punishing should not

hold good, that in this case something had _not_ been done, had been

omitted, that reason had not been used at all: for at any rate the

omission was unintentional, and only intentional omission is considered

punishable. The offender has indeed preferred the worse to the better

motives, but without motive and purpose: he has indeed failed to apply his

reason, but not exactly with the object of not applying it. The very

assumption made in the case of punishable crime, that the criminal

intentionally renounced his reason, is removed by the hypothesis of “free

will.” According to your own principles, you must not punish, you

adherents of the doctrine of free will!—These principles are, however,

nothing but a very marvellous conceptual mythology, and the hen that

hatched them has brooded on her eggs far away from all reality.

24.

JUDGING THE CRIMINAL AND HIS JUDGE.—The criminal, who knows the whole

concatenation of circumstances, does not consider his act so far beyond

the bounds of order and comprehension as does his judge. His punishment,

however, is measured by the degree of astonishment that seizes the judge

when he finds the crime incomprehensible.—If the defending counsel’s

knowledge of the case and its previous history extends far enough, the

so-called extenuating circumstances which he duly pleads must end by

absolving his client from all guilt. Or, to put it more plainly, the

advocate will, step by step, tone down and finally remove the astonishment

of the judge, by forcing every honest listener to the tacit avowal, “He

was bound to act as he did, and if we punished, we should be punishing

eternal Necessity.”—Measuring the punishment by the degree of knowledge we

possess or can obtain of the previous history of the crime—is that not in

conflict with all equity?

25.

EXCHANGE AND EQUITY.—In an exchange, the only just and honest course would

be for either party to demand only so much as he considers his commodity

to be worth, allowance being made for trouble in acquisition, scarcity,

time spent and so forth, besides the subjective value. As soon as you make

your price bear a relation to the other’s need, you become a refined sort

of robber and extortioner.—If money is the sole medium of exchange, we

must remember that a shilling is by no means the same thing in the hands

of a rich heir, a farm labourer, a merchant, and a university student. It

would be equitable for every one to receive much or little for his money,

according as he has done much or little to earn it. In practice, as we all

know, the reverse is the case. In the world of high finance the shilling

of the idle rich man can buy more than that of the poor, industrious man.

26.

LEGAL CONDITIONS AS MEANS.—Law, where it rests upon contracts between

equals, holds good so long as the power of the parties to the contract

remains equal or similar. Wisdom created law to end all feuds and useless

expenditure among men on an equal footing. Quite as definite an end is put

to this waste, however, when one party has become decidedly weaker than

the other. Subjection enters and law ceases, but the result is the same as

that attained by law. For now it is the wisdom of the superior which

advises to spare the inferior and not uselessly to squander his strength.

Thus the position of the inferior is often more favourable than that of

the equal.—Hence legal conditions are temporary _means_ counselled by

wisdom, and not ends.

27.

EXPLANATION OF MALICIOUS JOY.—Malicious joy arises when a man consciously

finds himself in evil plight and feels anxiety or remorse or pain. The

misfortune that overtakes B. makes him equal to A., and A. is reconciled

and no longer envious.—If A. is prosperous, he still hoards up in his

memory B.’s misfortune as a capital, so as to throw it in the scale as a

counter-weight when he himself suffers adversity. In this case too he

feels “malicious joy” (_Schadenfreude_). The sentiment of equality thus

applies its standard to the domain of luck and chance. Malicious joy is

the commonest expression of victory and restoration of equality, even in a

higher state of civilisation. This emotion has only been in existence

since the time when man learnt to look upon another as his equal—in other

words, since the foundation of society.

28.

THE ARBITRARY ELEMENT IN THE AWARD OF PUNISHMENT.—To most criminals

punishment comes just as illegitimate children come to women. They have

done the same thing a hundred times without any bad consequences. Suddenly

comes discovery, and with discovery punishment. Yet habit should make the

deed for which the criminal is punished appear more excusable, for he has

developed a propensity that is hard to resist. Instead of this, the

criminal is punished more severely if the suspicion of habitual crime

rests on him, and habit is made a valid reason against all extenuation. On

the other hand, a model life, wherein crime shows up in more terrible

contrast, should make the guilt appear more heavy! But here the custom is

to soften the punishment. Everything is measured not from the standpoint

of the criminal but from that of society and its losses and dangers. The

previous utility of an individual is weighed against his one nefarious

action, his previous criminality is added to that recently discovered, and

punishment is thus meted out as highly as possible. But if we thus punish

or reward a man’s past (for in the former case the diminution of

punishment is a reward) we ought to go farther back and punish and reward

the cause of his past—I mean parents, teachers, society. In many instances

we shall then find the _judges_ somehow or other sharing in the guilt. It

is arbitrary to stop at the criminal himself when we punish his past: if

we will not grant the absolute excusability of every crime, we should stop

at each individual case and probe no farther into the past—in other words,

isolate guilt and not connect it with previous actions. Otherwise we sin

against logic. The teachers of free will should draw the inevitable

conclusion from their doctrine of “free will” and boldly decree: “No

action has a past.”

29.

ENVY AND HER NOBLER SISTER.—Where equality is really recognised and

permanently established, we see the rise of that propensity that is

generally considered immoral, and would scarcely be conceivable in a state

of nature—envy. The envious man is susceptible to every sign of individual

superiority to the common herd, and wishes to depress every one once more

to the level—or raise himself to the superior plane. Hence arise two

different modes of action, which Hesiod designated good and bad Eris. In

the same way, in a condition of equality there arises indignation if A. is

prosperous above and B. unfortunate beneath their deserts and equality.

These latter, however, are emotions of nobler natures. They feel the want

of justice and equity in things that are independent of the arbitrary

choice of men—or, in other words, they desire the equality recognised by

man to be recognised as well by Nature and chance. They are angry that men

of equal merits should not have equal fortune.

30.

THE ENVY OF THE GODS.—“The envy of the Gods” arises when a despised person

sets himself on an equality with his superior (like Ajax), or is made

equal with him by the favour of fortune (like Niobe, the too favoured

mother). In the social class system this envy demands that no one shall

have merits above his station, that his prosperity shall be on a level

with his position, and especially that his self-consciousness shall not

outgrow the limits of his rank. Often the victorious general, or the pupil

who achieves a masterpiece, has experienced “the envy of the gods.”

31.

VANITY AS AN ANTI-SOCIAL AFTERGROWTH.—As men, for the sake of security,

have made themselves equal in order to found communities, but as also this

conception is imposed by a sort of constraint and is entirely opposed to

the instincts of the individual, so, the more universal security is

guaranteed, the more do new offshoots of the old instinct for predominance

appear. Such offshoots appear in the setting-up of class distinctions, in

the demand for professional dignities and privileges, and, generally

speaking, in vanity (manners, dress, speech, and so forth). So soon as

danger to the community is apparent, the majority, who were unable to

assert their preponderance in a time of universal peace, once more bring

about the condition of equality, and for the time being the absurd

privileges and vanities disappear. If the community, however, collapses

utterly and anarchy reigns supreme, there arises the state of nature: an

absolutely ruthless inequality as recounted by Thucydides in the case of

Corcyra. Neither a natural justice nor a natural injustice exists.

32.

EQUITY.—Equity is a development of justice, and arises among such as do

not come into conflict with the communal equality. This more subtle

recognition of the principle of equilibrium is applied to cases where

nothing is prescribed by law. Equity looks forwards and backwards, its

maxim being, “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.”

_Aequum_ means: “This principle is conformable to our equality; it tones

down even our small differences to an appearance of equality, and expects

us to be indulgent in cases where we are not compelled to pardon.”

33.

ELEMENTS OF REVENGE.—The word “revenge” is spoken so quickly that it

almost seems as if it could not contain more than one conceptual and

emotional root. Hence we are still at pains to find this root. Our

economists, in the same way, have never wearied of scenting a similar

unity in the word “value,” and of hunting after the primitive root idea of

value. As if all words were not pockets, into which this or that or

several things have been stuffed at once! So “revenge” is now one thing,

now another, and sometimes more composite. Let us first distinguish that

defensive counter-blow, which we strike, almost unconsciously, even at

inanimate objects (such as machinery in motion) that have hurt us. The

notion is to set a check to the object that has hurt us, by bringing the

machine to a stop. Sometimes the force of this counter-blow, in order to

attain its object, will have to be strong enough to shatter the machine.

If the machine be too strong to be disorganised by one man, the latter

will all the same strike the most violent blow he can—as a sort of last

attempt. We behave similarly towards persons who hurt us, at the immediate

sensation of the hurt. If we like to call this an act of revenge, well and

good: but we must remember that here self-preservation alone has set its

cog-wheels of reason in motion, and that after all we do not think of the

doer of the injury but only of ourselves. We act without any idea of doing

injury in return, only with a view to getting away safe and sound.—It

needs time to pass in thought from oneself to one’s adversary and ask

oneself at what point he is most vulnerable. This is done in the second

variety of revenge, the preliminary idea of which is to consider the

vulnerability and susceptibility of the other. The intention then is to

give pain. On the other hand, the idea of securing himself against further

injury is in this case so entirely outside the avenger’s horizon, that he

almost regularly brings about his own further injury and often foresees it

in cold blood. If in the first sort of revenge it was the fear of a second

blow that made the counter-blow as strong as possible, in this case there

is an almost complete indifference to what one’s adversary will do: the

strength of the counter-blow is only determined by what he has _already_

done to us. Then what has he done? What profit is it to us if he is now

suffering, after we have suffered through him? This is a case of

readjustment, whereas the first act of revenge only serves the purpose of

self-preservation. It may be that through our adversary we have lost

property, rank, friends, children—these losses are not recovered by

revenge, the readjustment only concerns a subsidiary loss which is added

to all the other losses. The revenge of readjustment does not preserve one

from further injury, it does not make good the injury already

suffered—except in one case. If our honour has suffered through our

adversary, revenge can restore it. But in any case honour _has_ suffered

an injury if intentional harm has been done us, because our adversary

proved thereby that he was not afraid of us. By revenge we prove that we

are not afraid of him either, and herein lies the settlement, the

readjustment. (The intention of showing their complete lack of fear goes

so far in some people that the dangers of revenge—loss of health or life

or other losses—are in their eyes an indispensable condition of every

vengeful act. Hence they practise the duel, although the law also offers

them aid in obtaining satisfaction for what they have suffered. They are

not satisfied with a safe means of recovering their honour, because this

would not prove their fearlessness.)—In the first-named variety of revenge

it is just fear that strikes the counter-blow; in the second case it is

the absence of fear, which, as has been said, wishes to manifest itself in

the counter-blow.—Thus nothing appears more different than the motives of

the two courses of action which are designated by the one word “revenge.”

Yet it often happens that the avenger is not precisely certain as to what

really prompted his deed: perhaps he struck the counterblow from fear and

the instinct of self-preservation, but in the background, when he has time

to reflect upon the standpoint of wounded honour, he imagines that he has

avenged himself for the sake of his honour—this motive is in any case more

_reputable_ than the other. An essential point is whether he sees his

honour injured in the eyes of others (the world) or only in the eyes of

his offenders: in the latter case he will prefer secret, in the former

open revenge. Accordingly, as he enters strongly or feebly into the soul

of the doer and the spectator, his revenge will be more bitter or more

tame. If he is entirely lacking in this sort of imagination, he will not

think at all of revenge, as the feeling of “honour” is not present in him,

and accordingly cannot be wounded. In the same way, he will not think of

revenge if he despises the offender and the spectator; because as objects

of his contempt they cannot give him honour, and accordingly cannot rob

him of honour. Finally, he will forego revenge in the not uncommon case of

his loving the offender. It is true that he then suffers loss of honour in

the other’s eyes, and will perhaps become less worthy of having his love

returned. But even to renounce all requital of love is a sacrifice that

love is ready to make when its only object is to avoid hurting the beloved

object: this would mean hurting oneself more than one is hurt by the

sacrifice.—Accordingly, every one will avenge himself, unless he be bereft

of honour or inspired by contempt or by love for the offender. Even if he

turns to the law-courts, he desires revenge as a private individual; but

also, as a thoughtful, prudent man of society, he desires the revenge of

society upon one who does not respect it. Thus by legal punishment private

honour as well as that of society is restored—that is to say, punishment

is revenge. Punishment undoubtedly contains the first-mentioned element of

revenge, in as far as by its means society helps to preserve itself, and

strikes a counter-blow in self-defence. Punishment desires to prevent

further injury, to scare other offenders. In this way the two elements of

revenge, different as they are, are united in punishment, and this may

perhaps tend most of all to maintain the above-mentioned confusion of

ideas, thanks to which the individual avenger generally does not know what

he really wants.

34.

THE VIRTUES THAT DAMAGE US.—As members of communities we think we have no

right to exercise certain virtues which afford us great honour and some

pleasure as private individuals (for example, indulgence and favour

towards miscreants of all kinds)—in short, every mode of action whereby

the advantage of society would suffer through our virtue. No bench of

judges, face to face with its conscience, may permit itself to be

gracious. This privilege is reserved for the king as an individual, and we

are glad when he makes use of it, proving that we should like to be

gracious individually, but not collectively. Society recognises only the

virtues profitable to her, or at least not injurious to her—virtues like

justice, which are exercised without loss, or, in fact, at compound

interest. The virtues that damage us cannot have originated in society,

because even now opposition to them arises in every small society that is

in the making. Such virtues are therefore those of men of unequal

standing, invented by the superior individuals; they are the virtues of

rulers, and the idea underlying them is: “I am mighty enough to put up

with an obvious loss; that is a proof of my power.” Thus they are virtues

closely akin to pride.

35.

THE CASUISTRY OF ADVANTAGE.—There would be no moral casuistry if there

were no casuistry of advantage. The most free and refined intelligence is

often incapable of choosing between two alternatives in such a way that

his choice necessarily involves the greater advantage. In such cases we

choose because we must, and afterwards often feel a kind of emotional

sea-sickness.

36.

TURNING HYPOCRITE.—Every beggar turns hypocrite, like every one who makes

his living out of indigence, be it personal or public.—The beggar does not

feel want nearly so keenly as he must make others feel it, if he wishes to

make a living by mendicancy.

37.

A SORT OF CULT OF THE PASSIONS.—You hypochondriacs, you philosophic

blind-worms talk of the formidable nature of human passions, in order to

inveigh against the dreadsomeness of the whole world-structure. As if the

passions were always and everywhere formidable! As if this sort of terror

must always exist in the world!—Through a carelessness in small matters,

through a deficiency in observation of self and of the rising generation,

you have yourselves allowed your passions to develop into such unruly

monsters that you are frightened now at the mere mention of the word

“passion”! It rests with you and it rests with us to divest the passions

of their formidable features and so to dam them that they do not become

devastating floods.—We must not exalt our errors into eternal fatalities.

Rather shall we honestly endeavour to convert all the passions of humanity

into sources of joy.(18)

38.

THE STING OF CONSCIENCE.—The sting of conscience, like the gnawing of a

dog at a stone, is mere foolishness.

39.

ORIGIN OF RIGHTS.—Rights may be traced to traditions, traditions to

momentary agreements. At some time or other men were mutually content with

the consequences of making an agreement, and, again, too indolent formally

to renew it. Thus they went on living as if it had constantly been

renewed, and gradually, when oblivion cast its veil over the origin, they

thought they possessed a sacred, unalterable foundation on which every

generation would be compelled to build. Tradition was now a constraint,

even if it no more involved the profit originally derived from making the

agreement.—Here the weak have always found their strong fortress. They are

inclined to immortalise the momentary agreement, the single act of favour

shown towards them.

40.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OBLIVION IN MORAL SENTIMENT.—The same actions that in

primitive society first aimed at the common advantage were later on

performed from other motives: from fear or reverence of those who demanded

and recommended them; or from habit, because men had seen them done about

them from childhood upwards; or from kindness, because the practising of

them caused delight and approving looks on all sides; or from vanity,

because they were praised. Such actions, in which the fundamental motive,

that of utility, has been _forgotten_, are then called moral; not, indeed,

because they are done from those other motives, but because they are not

done with a conscious purpose of utility.—Whence the hatred of utility

that suddenly manifests itself here, and by which all praiseworthy actions

formally exclude all actions for the sake of utility?—Clearly society, the

rallying-point of all morality and of all maxims in praise of moral

action, has had to battle too long and too fiercely with the selfishness

and obstinacy of the individual not to rate every motive morally higher

than utility. Hence it looks as if morals had not sprung from utility,

whereas in fact morals are originally the public utility, which had great

difficulty in prevailing over the interests of the unit and securing a

loftier reputation.

41.

THE HEIRS TO THE WEALTH OF MORALITY.—Even in the domain of morals there is

an inherited wealth, which is owned by the gentle, the good-tempered, the

compassionate, the indulgent. They have inherited from their forefathers

their gentle mode of action, but not common sense (the source of that mode

of action). The pleasant thing about this wealth is that one must always

bestow and communicate a portion of it, if its presence is to be felt at

all. Thus this wealth unconsciously aims at bridging the gulf between the

morally rich and the morally poor, and, what is its best and most

remarkable feature, not for the sake of a future mean between rich and

poor, but for the sake of a universal prosperity and superfluity.—Such may

be the prevailing view of inherited moral wealth, but it seems to me that

this view is maintained more _in majorem gloriam_ of morality than in

honour of truth. Experience at least establishes a maxim which must serve,

if not as a refutation, at any rate as an important check upon that

generalisation. Without the most exquisite intelligence, says experience,

without the most refined capacity for choice and a strong propensity to

observe the mean, the morally rich will become spendthrifts of morality.

For by abandoning themselves without restraint to their compassionate,

gentle, conciliatory, harmonising instincts, they make all about them more

careless, more covetous, and more sentimental. The children of these

highly moral spendthrifts easily and (sad to relate) at best become

pleasant but futile wasters.

42.

THE JUDGE AND EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES.—“One should behave as a man of

honour even towards the devil and pay his debts,” said an old soldier,

when the story of Faust had been related to him in rather fuller detail.

“Hell is the right place for Faust!” “You are terrible, you men!” cried

his wife; “how can that be? After all, his only fault was having no ink in

his ink-stand! It is indeed a sin to write with blood, but surely for that

such a handsome man ought not to burn in Hell-fire?”

43.

PROBLEM OF THE DUTY OF TRUTH.—Duty is an imperious sentiment that forces

us to action. We call it good, and consider it outside the pale of

discussion. The origin, limits, and justification of duty we will not

debate or allow to be debated. But the thinker considers everything an

evolution and every evolution a subject for discussion, and is accordingly

without duty so long as he is merely a thinker. As such, he would not

recognise the duty of seeing and speaking the truth; he would not _feel_

the sentiment at all. He asks, whence comes it and whither will it go? But

even this questioning appears to him questionable. Surely, however, the

consequence would be that the thinker’s machinery would no longer work

properly if he could really feel himself unencumbered by duty in the

search for knowledge? It would appear, then, that for fuel the same

element is necessary as must be investigated by means of the

machine.—Perhaps the formula will be: granted there were a duty of

recognising truth, what is then the truth in regard to every other kind of

duty?—But is not a hypothetical sense of duty a contradiction in terms?

44.

GRADES OF MORALS.—Morality is primarily a means of preserving the

community and saving it from destruction. Next it is a means of

maintaining the community on a certain plane and in a certain degree of

benevolence. Its motives are fear and hope, and these in a more coarse,

rough, and powerful form, the more the propensity towards the perverse,

one-sided, and personal still persists. The most terrible means of

intimidation must be brought into play so long as milder forms have no

effect and that twofold species of preservation cannot be attained. (The

strongest intimidation, by the way, is the invention of a hereafter with a

hell everlasting.) For this purpose we must have racks and torturers of

the soul. Further grades of morality, and accordingly means to the end

referred to, are the commandments of a God (as in the Mosaic law). Still

further and higher are the commandments of an absolute sense of duty with

a “Thou shalt”—all rather roughly hewn yet _broad_ steps, because on the

finer, narrower steps men cannot yet set their feet. Then comes a morality

of inclination, of taste, finally of insight—which is beyond all the

illusory motives of morality, but has convinced itself that humanity for

long periods could be allowed no other.

45.

THE MORALITY OF PITY IN THE MOUTHS OF THE INTEMPERATE.—All those who are

not sufficiently masters of themselves and do not know morality as a

self-control and self-conquest continuously exercised in things great and

small, unconsciously come to glorify the good, compassionate, benevolent

impulses of that instinctive morality which has no head, but seems merely

to consist of a heart and helpful hands. It is to their interest even to

cast suspicion upon a morality of reason and to set up the other as the

sole morality.

46.

SEWERS OF THE SOUL.—Even the soul must have its definite sewers, through

which it can allow its filth to flow off: for this purpose it may use

persons, relations, social classes, its native country, or the world, or

finally—for the wholly arrogant (I mean our modern “pessimists”)—_le bon

Dieu_.

47.

A KIND OF REST AND CONTEMPLATION.—Beware lest your rest and contemplation

resemble that of a dog before a butcher’s stall, prevented by fear from

advancing and by greed from retiring, and opening its eyes wide as though

they were mouths.

48.

PROHIBITIONS WITHOUT REASONS.—A prohibition, the reason of which we do not

understand or admit, is almost a command, not only for the stiff-necked

but for the thirster after knowledge. We at once make an experiment in

order to learn _why_ the prohibition was made. Moral prohibitions, like

those of the Decalogue, are only suited to ages when reason lies

vanquished. Nowadays a prohibition like “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt

not commit adultery,” laid down without reasons, would have an injurious

rather than a beneficial effect.

49.

CHARACTER PORTRAIT.—What sort of a man is it that can say of himself: “I

despise very easily, but never hate. I at once find out in every man

something which can be honoured and for which I honour him: the so-called

amiable qualities attract me but little”?

50.

PITY AND CONTEMPT.—The expression of pity is regarded as a sign of

contempt, because one has clearly ceased to be an object of _fear_ as soon

as one becomes an object of pity. One has sunk below the level of the

equilibrium. For this equilibrium does not satisfy human vanity, which is

only satisfied by the feeling that one is imposing respect and awe. Hence

it is difficult to explain why pity is so highly prized, just as we need

to explain why the unselfish man, who is originally despised or feared as

being artful, is praised.

51.

THE CAPACITY OF BEING SMALL.—We must be as near to flowers, grasses, and

butterflies as a child, that is, not much bigger than they. We adults have

grown up beyond them and have to stoop to them. I think the grasses hate

us when we confess our love for them.—He who would have a share in all

good things must understand at times how to be small.

52.

THE SUM-TOTAL OF CONSCIENCE.—The sum-total of our conscience is all that

has regularly been demanded of us, without reason, in the days of our

childhood, by people whom we respected or feared. From conscience comes

that feeling of obligation (“This I must do, this omit”) which does not

ask, Why must I?—In all cases where a thing is done with “because” and

“why,” man acts without conscience, but not necessarily on that account

_against_ conscience.—The belief in authority is the source of conscience;

which is therefore not the voice of God in the heart of man, but the voice

of some men in man.

53.

CONQUEST OF THE PASSIONS.—The man who has overcome his passions has

entered into possession of the most fruitful soil, like the colonist who

has become lord over bogs and forests. To sow the seed of spiritual good

works on the soil of the vanquished passions is the next and most urgent

task. The conquest itself is a means, not an end: if it be not so

regarded, all kind of weeds and devil’s crop quickly spring up upon the

fertile soil that has been cleared, and soon the growth is all wilder and

more luxuriant than before.

54.

SKILL IN SERVICE.—All so-called practical men have skill in service,

whether it be serving others or themselves; this is what makes them

practical. Robinson owned a servant even better than Friday—his name was

Crusoe.

55.

DANGER IN SPEECH TO INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM.—Every word is a preconceived

judgment.

56.

INTELLECT AND BOREDOM.—The proverb, “The Hungarian is far too lazy to feel

bored,” gives food for thought. Only the highest and most active animals

are capable of being bored.—The boredom of God on the seventh day of

Creation would be a subject for a great poet.

57.

INTERCOURSE WITH ANIMALS.—The origin of our morality may still be observed

in our relations with animals. Where advantage or the reverse do not come

into play, we have a feeling of complete irresponsibility. For example, we

kill or wound insects or let them live, and as a rule think no more about

it. We are so clumsy that even our gracious acts towards flowers and small

animals are almost always murderous: this does not in the least detract

from our pleasure in them.—To-day is the festival of the small animals,

the most sultry day of the year. There is a swarming and crawling around

us, and we, without intention, but also without reflection, crush here and

there a little fly or winged beetle.—If animals do us harm, we strive to

_annihilate_ them in every possible way. The means are often cruel enough,

even without our really intending them to be so—it is the cruelty of

thoughtlessness. If they are useful, we turn them to advantage, until a

more refined wisdom teaches us that certain animals amply reward a

different mode of treatment, that of tending and breeding. Here

responsibility first arises. Torturing is avoided in the case of the

domestic animal. One man is indignant if another is cruel to his cow,

quite in accordance with the primitive communal morality, which sees the

commonwealth in danger whenever an individual does wrong. He who perceives

any transgression in the community fears indirect harm to himself. Thus we

fear in this case for the quality of meat, agriculture, and means of

communication if we see the domestic animals ill-treated. Moreover, he who

is harsh to animals awakens a suspicion that he is also harsh to men who

are weak, inferior, and incapable of revenge. He is held to be ignoble and

deficient in the finer form of pride. Thus arises a foundation of moral

judgments and sentiments, but the greatest contribution is made by

superstition. Many animals incite men by glances, tones, and gestures to

transfer themselves into them in imagination, and some religions teach us,

under certain circumstances, to see in animals the dwelling-place of human

and divine souls: whence they recommend a nobler caution or even a

reverential awe in intercourse with animals. Even after the disappearance

of this superstition the sentiments awakened by it continue to exercise

their influence, to ripen and to blossom.—Christianity, as is well known,

has shown itself in this respect a poor and retrograde religion.

58.

NEW ACTORS.—Among human beings there is no greater banality than death.

Second in order, because it is possible to die without being born, comes

birth, and next comes marriage. But these hackneyed little tragi-comedies

are always presented, at each of their unnumbered and innumerable

performances, by new actors, and accordingly do not cease to find

interested spectators: whereas we might well believe that the whole

audience of the world-theatre had long since hanged themselves to every

tree from sheer boredom at these performances. So much depends on new

actors, so little on the piece.

59.

WHAT IS “BEING OBSTINATE”?—The shortest way is not the straightest

possible, but that wherein favourable winds swell our sails. So says the

wisdom of seamen. Not to follow his course is obstinate, firmness of

character being then adulterated by stupidity.

60.

THE WORD “VANITY.”—It is annoying that certain words, with which we

moralists positively cannot dispense, involve in themselves a kind of

censorship of morals, dating from the times when the most ordinary and

natural impulses were denounced. Thus that fundamental conviction that on

the waves of society we either find navigable waters or suffer shipwreck

far more through what we appear than through what we are (a conviction

that must act as guiding principle of all action in relation to society)

is branded with the general word “vanity.” In other words, one of the most

weighty and significant of qualities is branded with an expression which

denotes it as essentially empty and negative: a great thing is designated

by a diminutive, ay, even slandered by the strokes of caricature. There is

no help for it; we must use such words, but then we must shut our ears to

the insinuations of ancient habits.

61.

THE FATALISM OF THE TURK.—The fatalism of the Turk has this fundamental

defect, that it contrasts man and fate as two distinct things. Man, says

this doctrine, may struggle against fate and try to baffle it, but in the

end fate will always gain the victory. Hence the most rational course is

to resign oneself or to live as one pleases. As a matter of fact, every

man is himself a piece of fate. When he thinks that he is struggling

against fate in this way, fate is accomplishing its ends even in that

struggle. The combat is a fantasy, but so is the resignation in fate—all

these fantasies are included in fate.—The fear felt by most people of the

doctrine that denies the freedom of the will is a fear of the fatalism of

the Turk. They imagine that man will become weakly resigned and will stand

before the future with folded hands, because he cannot alter anything of

the future. Or that he will give a free rein to his caprices, because the

predestined cannot be made worse by that course. The follies of men are as

much a piece of fate as are his wise actions, and even that fear of belief

in fate is a fatality. You yourself, you poor timid creature, are that

indomitable _Moira_, which rules even the Gods; whatever may happen, you

are a curse or a blessing, and in any case the fetters wherein the

strongest lies bound: in you the whole future of the human world is

predestined, and it is no use for you to be frightened of yourself.

62.

THE ADVOCATE OF THE DEVIL.—“Only by our own suffering do we become wise,

only by others’ suffering do we become good”—so runs that strange

philosophy which derives all morality from pity and all intellectuality

from the isolation of the individual. Herein this philosophy is the

unconscious pleader for all human deterioration. For pity needs suffering,

and isolation contempt of others.

63.

THE MORAL CHARACTER-MASKS.—In ages when the character-masks of different

classes are definitely fixed, like the classes themselves, moralists will

be seduced into holding the moral character-masks, too, as absolute, and

in delineating them accordingly. Thus Molière is intelligible as the

contemporary of the society of Louis XIV.: in our society of transitions

and intermediate stages he would seem an inspired pedant.

64.

THE MOST NOBLE VIRTUE.—In the first era of the higher humanity courage is

accounted the most noble virtue, in the next justice, in the third

temperance, in the fourth wisdom. In which era do _we_ live? In which do

_you_ live?

65.

A NECESSARY PRELIMINARY.—A man who will not become master of his

irritability, his venomous and vengeful feelings, and his lust, and

attempts to become master in anything else, is as stupid as the farmer who

lays out his field beside a torrent without guarding against that torrent.

66.

WHAT IS TRUTH?—_Schwarzert_ (Melanchthon): We often preach our faith when

we have lost it, and leave not a stone unturned to find it—and then we

often do not preach worst!

_Luther_: Brother, you are really speaking like an angel to-day.

_Schwarzert_: But that is the idea of your enemies, and they apply it to

you.

_Luther_: Then it would be a lie from the devil’s hind-quarters.

67.

THE HABIT OF CONTRASTS.—Superficial, inexact observation sees contrasts

everywhere in nature (for instance, “hot and cold”), where there are no

contrasts, only differences of degree. This bad habit has induced us to

try to understand and interpret even the inner nature, the intellectual

and moral world, in accordance with such contrasts. An infinite amount of

cruelty, arrogance, harshness, estrangement, and coldness has entered into

human emotion, because men imagined they saw contrasts where there were

only transitions.

68.

CAN WE FORGIVE?—How can we forgive them at all, if they know not what they

do? We have nothing to forgive. But does a man ever fully know what he is

doing? And if this point at least remains always debatable, men never have

anything to forgive each other, and indulgence is for the reasonable man

an impossible thing. Finally, if the evil-doers had really known what they

did, we should still only have a right to forgive if we had a right to

accuse and to punish. But we have not that right.

69.

HABITUAL SHAME.—Why do we feel shame when some virtue or merit is

attributed to us which, as the saying goes, “we have not deserved”?

Because we appear to have intruded upon a territory to which we do not

belong, from which we should be excluded, as from a holy place or holy of

holies, which ought not to be trodden by our foot. Through the errors of

others we have, nevertheless, penetrated to it, and we are now swayed

partly by fear, partly by reverence, partly by surprise; we do not know

whether we ought to fly or to enjoy the blissful moment with all its

gracious advantages. In all shame there is a mystery, which seems

desecrated or in danger of desecration through us. All _favour_ begets

shame.—But if it be remembered that we have never really “deserved”

anything, this feeling of shame, provided that we surrender ourselves to

this point of view in a spirit of Christian contemplation, becomes

habitual, because upon such a one God seems continually to be conferring

his blessing and his favours. Apart from this Christian interpretation,

the state of habitual shame will be possible even to the entirely godless

sage, who clings firmly to the basic non-responsibility and

non-meritoriousness of all action and being. If he be treated as if he had

deserved this or that, he will seem to have won his way into a higher

order of beings, who do actually deserve something, who are free and can

really bear the burden of responsibility for their own volition and

capacity. Whoever says to him, “You have deserved it,” appears to cry out

to him, “You are not a human being, but a God.”

70.

THE MOST UNSKILFUL TEACHER.—In one man all his real virtues are implanted

on the soil of his spirit of contradiction, in another on his incapacity

to say “no”—in other words, on his spirit of acquiescence. A third has

made all his morality grow out of his pride as a solitary, a fourth from

his strong social instinct. Now, supposing that the seeds of the virtues

in these four cases, owing to mischance or unskilful teachers, were not

sown on the soil of their nature, which provides them with the richest and

most abundant mould, they would become weak, unsatisfactory men (devoid of

morality). And who would have been the most unskilful of teachers, the

evil genius of these men? The moral fanatic, who thinks that the good can

only grow out of the good and on the soil of the good.

71.

THE CAUTIOUS STYLE.—_A._ But if this were known to _all_, it would be

injurious to the _majority_. You yourself call your opinions dangerous to

those in danger, and yet you make them public?

_B._ I write so that neither the mob, nor the _populi_, nor the parties of

all kinds can read me. So my opinions will never be “public opinions.”

_A._ How do you write, then?

_B._ Neither usefully nor pleasantly—for the three classes I have

mentioned.

72.

DIVINE MISSIONARIES.—Even Socrates feels himself to be a divine

missionary, but I am not sure whether we should not here detect a tincture

of that Attic irony and fondness for jesting whereby this odious, arrogant

conception would be toned down. He talks of the fact without unction—his

images of the gadfly and the horse are simple and not sacerdotal. The real

religious task which he has set himself—to _test_ God in a hundred ways

and see whether he spoke the truth—betrays a bold and free attitude, in

which the missionary walked by the side of his God. This testing of God is

one of the most subtle compromises between piety and free-thinking that

has ever been devised.—Nowadays we do not even need this compromise any

longer.

73.

HONESTY IN PAINTING.—Raphael, who cared a great deal for the Church (so

far as she could pay him), but, like the best men of his time, cared

little for the objects of the Church’s belief, did not advance one step to

meet the exacting, ecstatic piety of many of his patrons. He remained

honest even in that exceptional picture which was originally intended for

a banner in a procession—the Sistine Madonna. Here for once he wished to

paint a vision, but such a vision as even noble youths without “faith” may

and will have—the vision of the future wife, a wise, high-souled, silent,

and very beautiful woman, carrying her first-born in her arms. Let men of

an older generation, accustomed to prayer and devotion, find here, like

the worthy elder on the left, something superhuman to revere. We younger

men (so Raphael seems to call to us) are occupied with the beautiful

maiden on the right, who says to the spectator of the picture, with her

challenging and by no means devout look, “The mother and her child—is not

that a pleasant, inviting sight?” The face and the look are reflected in

the joy in the faces of the beholders. The artist who devised all this

enjoys himself in this way, and adds his own delight to the delight of the

art-lover. As regards the “messianic” expression in the face of the child,

Raphael, honest man, who would not paint any state of soul in which he did

not believe, has amiably cheated his religious admirers. He painted that

freak of nature which is very often found, the man’s eye in the child’s

face, and that, too, the eye of a brave, helpful man who sees distress.

This eye should be accompanied by a beard. The fact that a beard is

wanting, and that two different ages are seen in one countenance, is the

pleasing paradox which believers have interpreted in accordance with their

faith in miracles. The artist could only expect as much from their art of

exposition and interpretation.

74.

PRAYER.—On two hypotheses alone is there any sense in prayer, that not

quite extinct custom of olden times. It would have to be possible either

to fix or alter the will of the godhead, and the devotee would have to

know best himself what he needs and should really desire. Both hypotheses,

axiomatic and traditional in all other religions, are denied by

Christianity. If Christianity nevertheless maintained prayer side by side

with its belief in the all-wise and all-provident divine reason (a belief

that makes prayer really senseless and even blasphemous), it showed here

once more its admirable “wisdom of the serpent.” For an outspoken command,

“Thou shalt not pray,” would have led Christians by way of boredom to the

denial of Christianity. In the Christian _ora et labora ora_ plays the

rôle of pleasure. Without _ora_ what could those unlucky saints who

renounced _labora_ have done? But to have a chat with God, to ask him for

all kinds of pleasant things, to feel a slight amusement at one’s own

folly in still having any wishes at all, in spite of so excellent a

father—all that was an admirable invention for saints.

75.

A HOLY LIE.—The lie that was on Arria’s lips when she died (_Paete, non

dolet_(19)) obscures all the truths that have ever been uttered by the

dying. It is the only holy _lie_ that has become famous, whereas elsewhere

the odour of sanctity has clung only to _errors_.

76.

THE MOST NECESSARY APOSTLE.—Among twelve apostles one must always be hard

as stone, in order that upon him the new church may be built.

77.

WHICH IS MORE TRANSITORY, THE BODY OR THE SPIRIT?—In legal, moral, and

religious institutions the external and concrete elements—in other words,

rites, gestures, and ceremonies—are the most permanent. They are the body

to which a new spirit is constantly being superadded. The cult, like an

unchangeable text, is ever interpreted anew. Concepts and emotions are

fluid, customs are solid.

78.

THE BELIEF IN DISEASE _QUA_ DISEASE.—Christianity first painted the devil

on the wall of the world. Christianity first brought the idea of sin into

the world. The belief in the remedies, which is offered as an antidote,

has gradually been shaken to its very foundations. But the belief in the

disease, which Christianity has taught and propagated, still exists.

79.

SPEECH AND WRITINGS OF RELIGIOUS MEN.—If the priest’s style and general

expression, both in speaking and writing, do not clearly betray the

religious man, we need no longer take his views upon religion and his

pleading for religion seriously. These opinions have become powerless for

him if, judging by his style, he has at command irony, arrogance, malice,

hatred, and all the changing eddies of mood, just like the most

irreligious of men—how far more powerless will they be for his hearers and

readers! In short, he will serve to make the latter still more

irreligious.

80.

THE DANGER IN PERSONALITY.—The more God has been regarded as a personality

in himself, the less loyal have we been to him. Men are far more attached

to their thought-images than to their best beloved. That is why they

sacrifice themselves for State, Church, and even for God—so far as he

remains _their_ creation, their thought, and is not too much looked upon

as a personality. In the latter case they almost always quarrel with him.

After all, it was the most pious of men who let slip that bitter cry: “My

God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

81.

WORLDLY JUSTICE.—It is possible to unhinge worldly justice with the

doctrine of the complete non-responsibility and innocence of every man. An

attempt has been made in the same direction on the basis of the opposite

doctrine of the full responsibility and guilt of every man. It was the

founder of Christianity who wished to abolish worldly justice and banish

judgment and punishment from the world. For he understood all guilt as

“sin”—that is, an outrage against God and not against the world. On the

other hand, he considered every man in a broad sense, and almost in every

sense, a sinner. The guilty, however, are not to be the judges of their

peers—so his rules of equity decided. Thus all dispensers of worldly

justice were in his eyes as culpable as those they condemned, and their

air of guiltlessness appeared to him hypocritical and pharisaical.

Moreover, he looked to the motives and not to the results of actions, and

thought that only one was keen-sighted enough to give a verdict on

motives—himself or, as he expressed it, God.

82.

AN AFFECTATION IN PARTING.—He who wishes to sever his connection with a

party or a creed thinks it necessary for him to refute it. This is a most

arrogant notion. The only thing necessary is that he should clearly see

what tentacles hitherto held him to this party or creed and no longer hold

him, what views impelled him to it and now impel him in some other

directions. We have not joined the party or creed on strict grounds of

knowledge. We should not affect this attitude on parting from it either.

83.

SAVIOUR AND PHYSICIAN.—In his knowledge of the human soul the founder of

Christianity was, as is natural, not without many great deficiencies and

prejudices, and, as physician of the soul, was addicted to that

disreputable, laical belief in a universal medicine. In his methods he

sometimes resembles that dentist who wishes to heal all pain by extracting

the tooth. Thus, for example, he assails sensuality with the advice: “If

thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”—Yet there still remains the

distinction that the dentist at least attains his object—painlessness for

the patient—although in so clumsy a fashion that he becomes ridiculous;

whereas the Christian who follows that advice and thinks he has killed his

sensuality, is wrong, for his sensuality still lives in an uncanny,

vampire form, and torments him in hideous disguises.

84.

PRISONERS.—One morning the prisoners entered the yard for work, but the

warder was not there. Some, as their manner was, set to work at once;

others stood idle and gazed defiantly around. Then one of them strode

forward and cried, “Work as much as you will or do nothing, it all comes

to the same. Your secret machinations have come to light; the warder has

been keeping his eye on you of late, and will cause a terrible judgment to

be passed upon you in a few days’ time. You know him—he is of a cruel and

resentful disposition. But now, listen: you have mistaken me hitherto. I

am not what I seem, but far more—I am the son of the warder, and can get

anything I like out of him. I can save you—nay, I will save you. But

remember this: I will only save those of you who _believe_ that I am the

son of the prison warder. The rest may reap the fruits of their unbelief.”

“Well,” said an old prisoner after an interval of silence, “what can it

matter to you whether we believe you or not? If you are really the son,

and can do what you say, then put in a good word for us all. That would be

a real kindness on your part. But have done with all talk of belief and

unbelief!” “What is more,” cried a younger man, “I don’t believe him: he

has only got a bee in his bonnet. I’ll wager that in a week’s time we

shall find ourselves in the same place as we are to-day, and the warder

will know nothing.” “And if the warder ever knew anything, he knows it no

longer,” said the last of the prisoners, coming down into the yard at that

moment, “for he has just died suddenly.” “Ah ha!” cried several in

confusion, “ah ha! Sir Son, Sir Son, how stands it now with your title?

Are we by any chance _your_ prisoners now?” “I told you,” answered the man

gently, “I will set free all who believe in me, as surely as my father

still lives.”—The prisoners did not laugh, but shrugged their shoulders

and left him to himself.

85.

THE PERSECUTORS OF GOD.—Paul conceived and Calvin followed up the idea

that countless creatures have been predestined to damnation from time

immemorial, and that this fair world was made in order that the glory of

God might be manifested therein. So heaven and hell and mankind merely

exist to satisfy the vanity of God! What a cruel, insatiable vanity must

have smouldered in the soul of the first or second thinker of such a

thought!—Paul, then, after all, remained Saul—the persecutor of God.

86.

SOCRATES.—If all goes well, the time will come when, in order to advance

themselves on the path of moral reason, men will rather take up the

_Memorabilia_ of Socrates than the Bible, and when Montaigne and Horace

will be used as pioneers and guides for the understanding of Socrates, the

simplest and most enduring of interpretative sages. In him converge the

roads of the most different philosophic modes of life, which are in truth

the modes of the different temperaments, crystallised by reason and habit

and all ultimately directed towards the delight in life and in self. The

apparent conclusion is that the most peculiar thing about Socrates was his

share in all the temperaments. Socrates excels the founder of Christianity

by virtue of his merry style of seriousness and by that wisdom of sheer

roguish pranks which constitutes the best state of soul in a man.

Moreover, he had a superior intelligence.

87.

LEARNING TO WRITE WELL.—The age of good speaking is over, because the age

of city-state culture is over. The limit allowed by Aristotle to the great

city—in which the town-crier must be able to make himself heard by the

whole assembled community—troubles us as little as do any

city-communities, us who even wish to be understood beyond the boundaries

of nations. Therefore every one who is of a good European turn of mind

must learn to _write_ well, and to write better and better. He cannot help

himself, he must learn that: even if he was born in Germany, where bad

writing is looked upon as a national privilege. Better writing means

better thinking; always to discover matter more worthy of communication;

to be able to communicate it properly; to be translateable into the

tongues of neighbouring nations; to make oneself comprehensible to

foreigners who learn our language; to work with the view of making all

that is good common property, and of giving free access everywhere to the

free; finally, to pave the way for that still remote state of things, when

the great task shall come for good Europeans—guidance and guardianship of

the universal world-culture.—Whoever preaches the opposite doctrine of not

troubling about good writing and good reading (both virtues grow together

and decline together) is really showing the peoples a way of becoming more

and more _national_. He is intensifying the malady of this century, and is

a foe to good Europeans, a foe to free spirits.

88.

THE THEORY OF THE BEST STYLE.—The theory of the best style may at one time

be the theory of finding the expression by which we transfer every mood of

ours to the reader and the listener. At another, it may be the theory of

finding expressions for the more desirable human moods, the communication

and transference of which one desires most—for the mood of a man moved

from the depth of his heart, intellectually cheerful, bright, and sincere,

who has conquered his passions. This will be the theory of the best style,

a theory that corresponds to the good man.

89.

PAYING ATTENTION TO MOVEMENT.—The movement of the sentences shows whether

the author be tired. Individual expressions may nevertheless be still

strong and good, because they were invented earlier and for their own

sake, when the thought first flashed across the author’s mind. This is

frequently the case with Goethe, who too often dictated when he was tired.

90.

“ALREADY” AND “STILL.”—_A._ German prose is still very young. Goethe

declares that Wieland is its father.

_B._ So young and already so ugly!

_C._ But, so far as I am aware, Bishop Ulfilas already wrote German prose,

which must therefore be fifteen hundred years old.

_B._ So old and still so ugly!

91.

ORIGINAL GERMAN.—German prose, which is really not fashioned on any

pattern and must be considered an original creation of German taste,

should give the eager advocate of a future original German culture an

indication of how real German dress, German society, German furniture,

German meals would look without the imitation of models.—Some one who had

long reflected on these vistas finally cried in great horror, “But, Heaven

help us, perhaps we already have that original culture—only we don’t like

to talk about it!”

92.

FORBIDDEN BOOKS.—One should never read anything written by those arrogant

wiseacres and puzzle-brains who have the detestable vice of logical

paradox. They apply _logical_ formulæ just where everything is really

improvised at random and built in the air. (“Therefore” with them means,

“You idiot of a reader, this ‘therefore’ does not exist for you, but only

for me.” The answer to this is: “You idiot of a writer, then why do you

write?”)

93.

DISPLAYING ONE’S WIT.—Every one who wishes to display his wit thereby

proclaims that he has also a plentiful lack of wit. That vice which clever

Frenchmen have of adding a touch of _dédain_ to their best ideas arises

from a desire to be considered richer than they really are. They wish to

be carelessly generous, as if weary of continual spending from overfull

treasuries.

94.

FRENCH AND GERMAN LITERATURE.—The misfortune of the French and German

literature of the last hundred years is that the Germans ran away too

early from the French school, and the French, later on, went too early to

the German school.

95.

OUR PROSE.—None of the present-day cultured nations has so bad a prose as

the German. When clever, _blasé_ Frenchmen say, “There is no German

prose,” we ought really not to be angry, for this criticism is more polite

than we deserve. If we look for reasons, we come at last to the strange

phenomenon that the German knows only improvised prose and has no

conception of any other. He simply cannot understand the Italian, who says

that prose is as much harder than poetry as the representation of naked

beauty is harder to the sculptor than that of draped beauty. Verse,

images, rhythm, and rhyme need honest effort—that even the German

realises, and he is not inclined to set a very high value on extempore

poetry. But the notion of working at a page of prose as at a statue sounds

to him like a tale from fairyland.

96.

THE GRAND STYLE.—The grand style comes into being when the beautiful wins

a victory over the monstrous.

97.

DODGING.—We do not realise, in the case of distinguished minds, wherein

lies the excellence of their expression, their turn of phrase, until we

can say what word every mediocre writer would inevitably have hit upon in

expressing the same idea. All great artists, in steering their car, show

themselves prone to dodge and leave the track, but never to fall over.

98.

SOMETHING LIKE BREAD.—Bread neutralises and takes out the taste of other

food, and is therefore necessary to every long meal. In all works of art

there must be something like bread, in order that they may produce divers

effects. If these effects followed one another without occasional pauses

and intervals, they would soon make us weary and provoke disgust—in fact,

a long meal of art would then be impossible.

99.

JEAN PAUL.—Jean Paul knew a great deal, but had no science; understood all

manner of tricks of art, but had no art; found almost everything

enjoyable, but had no taste; possessed feeling and seriousness, but in

dispensing them poured over them a nauseous sauce of tears; had even wit,

but, unfortunately for his ardent desire for it, far too little—whence he

drives the reader to despair by his very lack of wit. In short, he was the

bright, rank-smelling weed that shot up overnight in the fair pleasaunces

of Schiller and Goethe. He was a good, comfortable man, and yet a destiny,

a destiny in a dressing-gown.(20)

100.

PALATE FOR OPPOSITES.—In order to enjoy a work of the past as its

contemporaries enjoyed it, one must have a palate for the prevailing taste

of the age which it attacked.

101.

SPIRITS-OF-WINE AUTHORS.—Many writers are neither spirit nor wine, but

spirits of wine. They can flare up, and then they give warmth.