09. CHAPTER IX
WHAT IS NOBLE?
257. EVERY elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the
work of an aristocratic society and so it will always be--a
society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and
differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in
some form or other. Without the PATHOS OF DISTANCE, such as grows
out of the incarnated difference of classes, out of the constant
out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on subordinates
and instruments, and out of their equally constant practice of
obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a
distance--that other more mysterious pathos could never have
arisen, the longing for an ever new widening of distance within
the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, further,
more extended, more comprehensive states, in short, just the
elevation of the type "man," the continued "self-surmounting of
man," to use a moral formula in a supermoral sense. To be sure,
one must not resign oneself to any humanitarian illusions about
the history of the origin of an aristocratic society (that is to
say, of the preliminary
condition for the elevation of the type
"man"): the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge unprejudicedly how
every higher civilization hitherto has ORIGINATED! Men with a
still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the
word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of
will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more
moral, more peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing
communities), or upon old mellow civilizations in which the final
vital force was flickering out in brilliant fireworks of wit and
depravity. At the commencement, the noble caste was always the
barbarian caste: their superiority did not consist first of all
in their physical, but in their psychical power--they were more
COMPLETE men (which at every point also implies the same as "more
complete beasts").
258. Corruption--as the indication that anarchy threatens to
break out among the instincts, and that the foundation of the
emotions, called "life," is convulsed--is something radically
different according to the organization in which it manifests
itself. When, for instance, an aristocracy like that of France at
the beginning of the Revolution, flung away its privileges with
sublime disgust and sacrificed itself to an excess of its moral
sentiments, it was corruption:--it was really only the closing
act of the corruption which had existed for centuries, by virtue
of which that aristocracy had abdicated step by step its lordly
prerogatives and lowered itself to a FUNCTION of royalty (in the
end
even to its decoration and parade-dress). The essential
thing, however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it
should not regard itself as a function either of the kingship or
the commonwealth, but as the SIGNIFICANCE and highest
justification thereof--that it should therefore accept with a
good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who,
FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to
slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely
that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but only
as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class
of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher
duties, and in general to a higher EXISTENCE: like those sun-
seeking climbing plants in Java--they are called Sipo Matador,--
which encircle an oak so long and so often with their arms, until
at last, high above it, but supported by it, they can unfold
their tops in the open light, and exhibit their happiness.
259. To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from
exploitation, and put one's will on a par with that of others:
this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among
individuals when the necessary conditions are given (namely, the
actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and
degree of worth, and their co-relation within one organization).
As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more
generally, and if possible even as the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF
SOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really is--namely,
a
Will to the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and
decay. Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and
resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is ESSENTIALLY
appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak,
suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms,
incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest,
exploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these
words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?
Even the organization within which, as was previously supposed,
the individuals treat each other as equal--it takes place in
every healthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not
a dying organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the
individuals within it refrain from doing to each other it will
have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to
grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendancy--
not owing to any morality or immorality, but because it LIVES,
and because life IS precisely Will to Power. On no point,
however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans more
unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave
everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming
conditions of society in which "the exploiting character" is to
be absent--that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a
mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions.
"Exploitation" does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and
primitive society it belongs to the nature of the living being as
a primary organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic
Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life--
Granting that
as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is the FUNDAMENTAL
FACT of all history let us be so far honest towards ourselves!
260. In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities
which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I
found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected
with one another, until finally two primary types revealed
themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light.
There is MASTER-MORALITY and SLAVE-MORALITY,--I would at once
add, however, that in all higher and mixed civilizations, there
are also attempts at the reconciliation of the two moralities,
but one finds still oftener the confusion and mutual
misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close
juxtaposition--even in the same man, within one soul. The
distinctions of moral values have either originated in a ruling
caste, pleasantly conscious of being different from the ruled--or
among the ruled class, the slaves and dependents of all sorts. In
the first case, when it is the rulers who determine the
conception "good," it is the exalted, proud disposition which is
regarded as the distinguishing feature, and that which determines
the order of rank. The noble type of man separates from himself
the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud
disposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be
noted that in this first kind of morality the antithesis "good"
and "bad" means practically the same as "noble" and
"despicable",--the antithesis "good" and "EVIL"
is of a different
origin. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant, and those
thinking merely of narrow utility are despised; moreover, also,
the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the self-
abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused,
the mendicant flatterers, and above all the liars:--it is a
fundamental belief of all aristocrats that the common people are
untruthful. "We truthful ones"--the nobility in ancient Greece
called themselves. It is obvious that everywhere the designations
of moral value were at first applied to MEN; and were only
derivatively and at a later period applied to ACTIONS; it is a
gross mistake, therefore, when historians of morals start with
questions like, "Why have sympathetic actions been praised?" The
noble type of man regards HIMSELF as a determiner of values; he
does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: "What
is injurious to me is injurious in itself;" he knows that it is he
himself only who confers honour on things; he is a CREATOR OF
VALUES. He honours whatever he recognizes in himself: such
morality equals self-glorification. In the foreground there is
the feeling of plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the
happiness of high tension, the consciousness of a wealth which
would fain give and bestow:--the noble man also helps the
unfortunate, but not--or scarcely--out of pity, but rather from
an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power. The noble
man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power
over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who
takes pleasure in subjecting
himself to severity and hardness,
and has reverence for all that is severe and hard. "Wotan placed
a hard heart in my breast," says an old Scandinavian Saga: it is
thus rightly expressed from the soul of a proud Viking. Such a
type of man is even proud of not being made for sympathy; the
hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly: "He who has not a hard
heart when young, will never have one." The noble and brave who
think thus are the furthest removed from the morality which sees
precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others, or in
DESINTERESSEMENT, the characteristic of the moral; faith in
oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards
"selflessness," belong as definitely to noble morality, as do a
careless scorn and precaution in presence of sympathy and the
"warm heart."--It is the powerful who KNOW how to honour, it is
their art, their domain for invention. The profound reverence for
age and for tradition--all law rests on this double reverence,--
the belief and prejudice in favour of ancestors and unfavourable
to newcomers, is typical in the morality of the powerful; and if,
reversely, men of "modern ideas" believe almost instinctively in
"progress" and the "future," and are more and more lacking in
respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these "ideas" has
complacently betrayed itself thereby. A morality of the ruling
class, however, is more especially foreign and irritating to
present-day taste in the sternness of its principle that one has
duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards beings of a
lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to
one, or "as the heart desires," and
in any case "beyond good and
evil": it is here that sympathy and similar sentiments can have a
place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude
and prolonged revenge--both only within the circle of equals,--
artfulness in retaliation, RAFFINEMENT of the idea in friendship,
a certain necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the emotions
of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance--in fact, in order to be a
good FRIEND): all these are typical characteristics of the noble
morality, which, as has been pointed out, is not the morality of
"modern ideas," and is therefore at present difficult to realize,
and also to unearth and disclose.--It is otherwise with the
second type of morality, SLAVE-MORALITY. Supposing that the
abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the
weary, and those uncertain of themselves should moralize, what
will be the common element in their moral estimates? Probably a
pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of man
will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together
with his situation. The slave has an unfavourable eye for the
virtues of the powerful; he has a skepticism and distrust, a
REFINEMENT of distrust of everything "good" that is there
honoured--he would fain persuade himself that the very happiness
there is not genuine. On the other hand, THOSE qualities which
serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are brought into
prominence and flooded with light; it is here that sympathy, the
kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence,
humility, and friendliness attain to honour; for here these are
the most useful qualities, and almost
the only means of
supporting the burden of existence. Slave-morality is essentially
the morality of utility. Here is the seat of the origin of the
famous antithesis "good" and "evil":--power and dangerousness are
assumed to reside in the evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety,
and strength, which do not admit of being despised. According to
slave-morality, therefore, the "evil" man arouses fear; according
to master-morality, it is precisely the "good" man who arouses
fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is regarded as the
despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when, in
accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a
shade of depreciation--it may be slight and well-intentioned--at
last attaches itself to the "good" man of this morality; because,
according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in
any case be the SAFE man: he is good-natured, easily deceived,
perhaps a little stupid, un bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-
morality gains the ascendancy, language shows a tendency to
approximate the significations of the words "good" and "stupid."-
-A last fundamental difference: the desire for FREEDOM, the
instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of
liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as
artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular
symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.--
Hence we can understand without further detail why love AS A
PASSION--it is our European specialty--must absolutely be of
noble origin; as is well known, its invention is due to the
Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant,
ingenious men of the
"gai saber," to whom Europe owes so much, and almost owes itself.
261. Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult
for a noble man to understand: he will be tempted to deny it,
where another kind of man thinks he sees it self-evidently. The
problem for him is to represent to his mind beings who seek to
arouse a good opinion of themselves which they themselves do not
possess--and consequently also do not "deserve,"--and who yet
BELIEVE in this good opinion afterwards. This seems to him on the
one hand such bad taste and so self-disrespectful, and on the
other hand so grotesquely unreasonable, that he would like to
consider vanity an exception, and is doubtful about it in most
cases when it is spoken of. He will say, for instance: "I may be
mistaken about my value, and on the other hand may nevertheless
demand that my value should be acknowledged by others precisely
as I rate it:--that, however, is not vanity (but self-conceit,
or, in most cases, that which is called 'humility,' and also
'modesty')." Or he will even say: "For many reasons I can delight
in the good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honour
them, and rejoice in all their joys, perhaps also because their
good opinion endorses and strengthens my belief in my own good
opinion, perhaps because the good opinion of others, even in
cases where I do not share it, is useful to me, or gives promise
of usefulness:--all this, however, is not vanity." The man of
noble character must
first bring it home forcibly to his mind,
especially with the aid of history, that, from time immemorial,
in all social strata in any way dependent, the ordinary man WAS
only that which he PASSED FOR:--not being at all accustomed to
fix values, he did not assign even to himself any other value
than that which his master assigned to him (it is the peculiar
RIGHT OF MASTERS to create values). It may be looked upon as the
result of an extraordinary atavism, that the ordinary man, even
at present, is still always WAITING for an opinion about himself,
and then instinctively submitting himself to it; yet by no means
only to a "good" opinion, but also to a bad and unjust one
(think, for instance, of the greater part of the self-
appreciations and self-depreciations which believing women learn
from their confessors, and which in general the believing
Christian learns from his Church). In fact, conformably to the
slow rise of the democratic social order (and its cause, the
blending of the blood of masters and slaves), the originally
noble and rare impulse of the masters to assign a value to
themselves and to "think well" of themselves, will now be more
and more encouraged and extended; but it has at all times an
older, ampler, and more radically ingrained propensity opposed to
it--and in the phenomenon of "vanity" this older propensity
overmasters the younger. The vain person rejoices over EVERY good
opinion which he hears about himself (quite apart from the point
of view of its usefulness, and equally regardless of its truth or
falsehood), just as he suffers from every bad opinion: for he
subjects himself to both, he
feels himself subjected to both, by
that oldest instinct of subjection which breaks forth in him.--It
is "the slave" in the vain man's blood, the remains of the
slave's craftiness--and how much of the "slave" is still left in
woman, for instance!--which seeks to SEDUCE to good opinions of
itself; it is the slave, too, who immediately afterwards falls
prostrate himself before these opinions, as though he had not
called them forth.--And to repeat it again: vanity is an atavism.
262. A SPECIES originates, and a type becomes established and
strong in the long struggle with essentially constant
UNFAVOURABLE conditions. On the other hand, it is known by the
experience of breeders that species which receive super-abundant
nourishment, and in general a surplus of protection and care,
immediately tend in the most marked way to develop variations,
and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in monstrous
vices). Now look at an aristocratic commonwealth, say an ancient
Greek polis, or Venice, as a voluntary or involuntary contrivance
for the purpose of REARING human beings; there are there men
beside one another, thrown upon their own resources, who want to
make their species prevail, chiefly because they MUST prevail, or
else run the terrible danger of being exterminated. The favour,
the super-abundance, the protection are there lacking under which
variations are fostered; the species needs itself as species, as
something which, precisely by virtue of its hardness, its
uniformity, and
simplicity of structure, can in general prevail
and make itself permanent in constant struggle with its
neighbours, or with rebellious or rebellion-threatening vassals.
The most varied experience teaches it what are the qualities to
which it principally owes the fact that it still exists, in spite
of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been victorious: these
qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone it develops
to maturity. It does so with severity, indeed it desires
severity; every aristocratic morality is intolerant in the
education of youth, in the control of women, in the marriage
customs, in the relations of old and young, in the penal laws
(which have an eye only for the degenerating): it counts
intolerance itself among the virtues, under the name of
"justice." A type with few, but very marked features, a species
of severe, warlike, wisely silent, reserved, and reticent men
(and as such, with the most delicate sensibility for the charm
and nuances of society) is thus established, unaffected by the
vicissitudes of generations; the constant struggle with uniform
UNFAVOURABLE conditions is, as already remarked, the cause of a
type becoming stable and hard. Finally, however, a happy state of
things results, the enormous tension is relaxed; there are
perhaps no more enemies among the neighbouring peoples, and the
means of life, even of the enjoyment of life, are present in
superabundance. With one stroke the bond and constraint of the
old discipline severs: it is no longer regarded as necessary, as
a condition of existence--if it would continue, it can only do so
as a form of LUXURY, as an archaizing TASTE. Variations,
whether
they be deviations (into the higher, finer, and rarer), or
deteriorations and monstrosities, appear suddenly on the scene in
the greatest exuberance and splendour; the individual dares to be
individual and detach himself. At this turning-point of history
there manifest themselves, side by side, and often mixed and
entangled together, a magnificent, manifold, virgin-forest-like
up-growth and up-striving, a kind of TROPICAL TEMPO in the
rivalry of growth, and an extraordinary decay and self-
destruction, owing to the savagely opposing and seemingly
exploding egoisms, which strive with one another "for sun and
light," and can no longer assign any limit, restraint, or
forbearance for themselves by means of the hitherto existing
morality. It was this morality itself which piled up the strength
so enormously, which bent the bow in so threatening a manner:--it
is now "out of date," it is getting "out of date." The dangerous
and disquieting point has been reached when the greater, more
manifold, more comprehensive life IS LIVED BEYOND the old
morality; the "individual" stands out, and is obliged to have
recourse to his own law-giving, his own arts and artifices for
self-preservation, self-elevation, and self-deliverance. Nothing
but new "Whys," nothing but new "Hows," no common formulas any
longer, misunderstanding and disregard in league with each other,
decay, deterioration, and the loftiest desires frightfully
entangled, the genius of the race overflowing from all the
cornucopias of good and bad, a portentous simultaneousness of
Spring and Autumn, full of new charms and mysteries peculiar
to
the fresh, still inexhausted, still unwearied corruption. Danger
is again present, the mother of morality, great danger; this time
shifted into the individual, into the neighbour and friend, into
the street, into their own child, into their own heart, into all
the most personal and secret recesses of their desires and
volitions. What will the moral philosophers who appear at this
time have to preach? They discover, these sharp onlookers and
loafers, that the end is quickly approaching, that everything
around them decays and produces decay, that nothing will endure
until the day after tomorrow, except one species of man, the
incurably MEDIOCRE. The mediocre alone have a prospect of
continuing and propagating themselves--they will be the men of
the future, the sole survivors; "be like them! become mediocre!"
is now the only morality which has still a significance, which
still obtains a hearing.--But it is difficult to preach this
morality of mediocrity! it can never avow what it is and what it
desires! it has to talk of moderation and dignity and duty and
brotherly love--it will have difficulty IN CONCEALING ITS IRONY!
263. There is an INSTINCT FOR RANK, which more than anything else
is already the sign of a HIGH rank; there is a DELIGHT in the
NUANCES of reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and
habits. The refinement, goodness, and loftiness of a soul are put
to a perilous test when something passes by that is of the
highest rank, but is not yet protected
by the awe of authority
from obtrusive touches and incivilities: something that goes its
way like a living touchstone, undistinguished, undiscovered, and
tentative, perhaps voluntarily veiled and disguised. He whose
task and practice it is to investigate souls, will avail himself
of many varieties of this very art to determine the ultimate
value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which
it belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE.
DIFFERENCE ENGENDRE HAINE: the vulgarity of many a nature spurts
up suddenly like dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel
from closed shrines, any book bearing the marks of great destiny,
is brought before it; while on the other hand, there is an
involuntary silence, a hesitation of the eye, a cessation of all
gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul FEELS the nearness
of what is worthiest of respect. The way in which, on the whole,
the reverence for the BIBLE has hitherto been maintained in
Europe, is perhaps the best example of discipline and refinement
of manners which Europe owes to Christianity: books of such
profoundness and supreme significance require for their
protection an external tyranny of authority, in order to acquire
the PERIOD of thousands of years which is necessary to exhaust
and unriddle them. Much has been achieved when the sentiment has
been at last instilled into the masses (the shallow-pates and the
boobies of every kind) that they are not allowed to touch
everything, that there are holy experiences before which they
must take off their shoes and keep away the unclean hand--it is
almost their highest advance towards humanity.
On the contrary,
in the so-called cultured classes, the believers in "modern
ideas," nothing is perhaps so repulsive as their lack of shame,
the easy insolence of eye and hand with which they touch, taste,
and finger everything; and it is possible that even yet there is
more RELATIVE nobility of taste, and more tact for reverence
among the people, among the lower classes of the people,
especially among peasants, than among the newspaper-reading
DEMIMONDE of intellect, the cultured class.
264. It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors
have preferably and most constantly done: whether they were
perhaps diligent economizers attached to a desk and a cash-box,
modest and citizen-like in their desires, modest also in their
virtues; or whether they were accustomed to commanding from
morning till night, fond of rude pleasures and probably of still
ruder duties and responsibilities; or whether, finally, at one
time or another, they have sacrificed old privileges of birth and
possession, in order to live wholly for their faith--for their
"God,"--as men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which
blushes at every compromise. It is quite impossible for a man NOT
to have the qualities and predilections of his parents and
ancestors in his constitution, whatever appearances may suggest
to the contrary. This is the problem of race. Granted that one
knows something of the parents, it is admissible to draw a
conclusion about the child: any kind of offensive incontinence,
any kind of sordid envy, or
of clumsy self-vaunting--the three
things which together have constituted the genuine plebeian type
in all times--such must pass over to the child, as surely as bad
blood; and with the help of the best education and culture one
will only succeed in DECEIVING with regard to such heredity.--And
what else does education and culture try to do nowadays! In our
very democratic, or rather, very plebeian age, "education" and
"culture" MUST be essentially the art of deceiving--deceiving
with regard to origin, with regard to the inherited plebeianism
in body and soul. An educator who nowadays preached truthfulness
above everything else, and called out constantly to his pupils:
"Be true! Be natural! Show yourselves as you are!"--even such a
virtuous and sincere ass would learn in a short time to have
recourse to the FURCA of Horace, NATURAM EXPELLERE: with what
results? "Plebeianism" USQUE RECURRET. [FOOTNOTE: Horace's
"Epistles," I. x. 24.]
265. At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that
egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the
unalterable belief that to a being such as "we," other beings
must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice
themselves. The noble soul accepts the fact of his egoism without
question, and also without consciousness of harshness,
constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather as something
that may have its basis in the primary law of things:--if he
sought a designation for it
he would say: "It is justice itself."
He acknowledges under certain circumstances, which made him
hesitate at first, that there are other equally privileged ones;
as soon as he has settled this question of rank, he moves among
those equals and equally privileged ones with the same assurance,
as regards modesty and delicate respect, which he enjoys in
intercourse with himself--in accordance with an innate heavenly
mechanism which all the stars understand. It is an ADDITIONAL
instance of his egoism, this artfulness and self-limitation in
intercourse with his equals--every star is a similar egoist; he
honours HIMSELF in them, and in the rights which he concedes to
them, he has no doubt that the exchange of honours and rights, as
the ESSENCE of all intercourse, belongs also to the natural
condition of things. The noble soul gives as he takes, prompted
by the passionate and sensitive instinct of requital, which is at
the root of his nature. The notion of "favour" has, INTER PARES,
neither significance nor good repute; there may be a sublime way
of letting gifts as it were light upon one from above, and of
drinking them thirstily like dew-drops; but for those arts and
displays the noble soul has no aptitude. His egoism hinders him
here: in general, he looks "aloft" unwillingly--he looks either
FORWARD, horizontally and deliberately, or downwards--HE KNOWS
THAT HE IS ON A HEIGHT.
266. "One can only truly esteem him who does not LOOK OUT FOR
himself."--Goethe to Rath Schlosser.
267. The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their
children: "SIAO-SIN" ("MAKE THY HEART SMALL"). This is the
essentially fundamental tendency in latter-day civilizations. I
have no doubt that an ancient Greek, also, would first of all
remark the self-dwarfing in us Europeans of today--in this
respect alone we should immediately be "distasteful" to him.
268. What, after all, is ignobleness?--Words are vocal symbols
for ideas; ideas, however, are more or less definite mental
symbols for frequently returning and concurring sensations, for
groups of sensations. It is not sufficient to use the same words
in order to understand one another: we must also employ the same
words for the same kind of internal experiences, we must in the
end have experiences IN COMMON. On this account the people of one
nation understand one another better than those belonging to
different nations, even when they use the same language; or
rather, when people have lived long together under similar
conditions (of climate, soil, danger, requirement, toil) there
ORIGINATES therefrom an entity that "understands itself"--namely,
a nation. In all souls a like number of frequently recurring
experiences have gained the upper hand over those occurring more
rarely: about these matters people understand one another rapidly
and always more rapidly--the history of language is the history
of a process of
abbreviation; on the basis of this quick
comprehension people always unite closer and closer. The greater
the danger, the greater is the need of agreeing quickly and
readily about what is necessary; not to misunderstand one another
in danger--that is what cannot at all be dispensed with in
intercourse. Also in all loves and friendships one has the
experience that nothing of the kind continues when the discovery
has been made that in using the same words, one of the two
parties has feelings, thoughts, intuitions, wishes, or fears
different from those of the other. (The fear of the "eternal
misunderstanding": that is the good genius which so often keeps
persons of different sexes from too hasty attachments, to which
sense and heart prompt them--and NOT some Schopenhauerian "genius
of the species"!) Whichever groups of sensations within a soul
awaken most readily, begin to speak, and give the word of
command--these decide as to the general order of rank of its
values, and determine ultimately its list of desirable things. A
man's estimates of value betray something of the STRUCTURE of his
soul, and wherein it sees its conditions of life, its intrinsic
needs. Supposing now that necessity has from all time drawn
together only such men as could express similar requirements and
similar experiences by similar symbols, it results on the whole
that the easy COMMUNICABILITY of need, which implies ultimately
the undergoing only of average and COMMON experiences, must have
been the most potent of all the forces which have hitherto
operated upon mankind. The more similar, the more ordinary
people,
have always had and are still having the advantage; the
more select, more refined, more unique, and difficultly
comprehensible, are liable to stand alone; they succumb to
accidents in their isolation, and seldom propagate themselves.
One must appeal to immense opposing forces, in order to thwart
this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE, the evolution
of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the gregarious
--to the IGNOBLE!--
269. The more a psychologist--a born, an unavoidable psychologist
and soul-diviner--turns his attention to the more select cases
and individuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by
sympathy: he NEEDS sternness and cheerfulness more than any other
man. For the corruption, the ruination of higher men, of the more
unusually constituted souls, is in fact, the rule: it is dreadful
to have such a rule always before one's eyes. The manifold
torment of the psychologist who has discovered this ruination,
who discovers once, and then discovers ALMOST repeatedly
throughout all history, this universal inner "desperateness" of
higher men, this eternal "too late!" in every sense--may perhaps
one day be the cause of his turning with bitterness against his
own lot, and of his making an attempt at self-destruction--of his
"going to ruin" himself. One may perceive in almost every
psychologist a tell-tale inclination for delightful intercourse
with commonplace and well-ordered men; the fact is thereby
disclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort
of flight and forgetfulness,
away from what his insight and
incisiveness--from what his "business"--has laid upon his
conscience. The fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is
easily silenced by the judgment of others; he hears with unmoved
countenance how people honour, admire, love, and glorify, where
he has PERCEIVED--or he even conceals his silence by expressly
assenting to some plausible opinion. Perhaps the paradox of his
situation becomes so dreadful that, precisely where he has learnt
GREAT SYMPATHY, together with great CONTEMPT, the multitude, the
educated, and the visionaries, have on their part learnt great
reverence--reverence for "great men" and marvelous animals, for
the sake of whom one blesses and honours the fatherland, the
earth, the dignity of mankind, and one's own self, to whom one
points the young, and in view of whom one educates them. And who
knows but in all great instances hitherto just the same happened:
that the multitude worshipped a God, and that the "God" was only
a poor sacrificial animal! SUCCESS has always been the greatest
liar--and the "work" itself is a success; the great statesman,
the conqueror, the discoverer, are disguised in their creations
until they are unrecognizable; the "work" of the artist, of the
philosopher, only invents him who has created it, is REPUTED to
have created it; the "great men," as they are reverenced, are
poor little fictions composed afterwards; in the world of
historical values spurious coinage PREVAILS. Those great poets,
for example, such as Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol
(I do not venture to mention much greater names, but I have them
in my mind), as
they now appear, and were perhaps obliged to be:
men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous, and childish, light-
minded and impulsive in their trust and distrust; with souls in
which usually some flaw has to be concealed; often taking revenge
with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking
forgetfulness in their soaring from a too true memory, often lost
in the mud and almost in love with it, until they become like the
Will-o'-the-Wisps around the swamps, and PRETEND TO BE stars--the
people then call them idealists,--often struggling with
protracted disgust, with an ever-reappearing phantom of
disbelief, which makes them cold, and obliges them to languish
for GLORIA and devour "faith as it is" out of the hands of
intoxicated adulators:--what a TORMENT these great artists are
and the so-called higher men in general, to him who has once
found them out! It is thus conceivable that it is just from
woman--who is clairvoyant in the world of suffering, and also
unfortunately eager to help and save to an extent far beyond her
powers--that THEY have learnt so readily those outbreaks of
boundless devoted SYMPATHY, which the multitude, above all the
reverent multitude, do not understand, and overwhelm with prying
and self-gratifying interpretations. This sympathizing invariably
deceives itself as to its power; woman would like to believe that
love can do EVERYTHING--it is the SUPERSTITION peculiar to her.
Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor, helpless,
pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love is--he
finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!--It is possible that
under the holy fable
and travesty of the life of Jesus there is
hidden one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of
KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LOVE: the martyrdom of the most innocent and most
craving heart, that never had enough of any human love, that
DEMANDED love, that demanded inexorably and frantically to be
loved and nothing else, with terrible outbursts against those who
refused him their love; the story of a poor soul insatiated and
insatiable in love, that had to invent hell to send thither those
who WOULD NOT love him--and that at last, enlightened about human
love, had to invent a God who is entire love, entire CAPACITY for
love--who takes pity on human love, because it is so paltry, so
ignorant! He who has such sentiments, he who has such KNOWLEDGE
about love--SEEKS for death!--But why should one deal with such
painful matters? Provided, of course, that one is not obliged to
do so.
270. The intellectual haughtiness and loathing of every man who
has suffered deeply--it almost determines the order of rank HOW
deeply men can suffer--the chilling certainty, with which he is
thoroughly imbued and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering
he KNOWS MORE than the shrewdest and wisest can ever know, that
he has been familiar with, and "at home" in, many distant,
dreadful worlds of which "YOU know nothing"!--this silent
intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this pride of the elect
of knowledge, of the "initiated," of the almost sacrificed, finds
all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from contact
with officious and
sympathizing hands, and in general from all
that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes
noble: it separates.--One of the most refined forms of disguise
is Epicurism, along with a certain ostentatious boldness of
taste, which takes suffering lightly, and puts itself on the
defensive against all that is sorrowful and profound. They are
"gay men" who make use of gaiety, because they are misunderstood
on account of it--they WISH to be misunderstood. There are
"scientific minds" who make use of science, because it gives a
gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to the
conclusion that a person is superficial--they WISH to mislead to
a false conclusion. There are free insolent minds which would
fain conceal and deny that they are broken, proud, incurable
hearts (the cynicism of Hamlet--the case of Galiani); and
occasionally folly itself is the mask of an unfortunate OVER-
ASSURED knowledge.--From which it follows that it is the part of
a more refined humanity to have reverence "for the mask," and not
to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place.
271. That which separates two men most profoundly is a different
sense and grade of purity. What does it matter about all their
honesty and reciprocal usefulness, what does it matter about all
their mutual good-will: the fact still remains--they "cannot
smell each other!" The highest instinct for purity places him who
is affected with it in the most extraordinary and dangerous
isolation, as a saint: for it is just holiness--the highest
spiritualization
of the instinct in question. Any kind of
cognizance of an indescribable excess in the joy of the bath, any
kind of ardour or thirst which perpetually impels the soul out of
night into the morning, and out of gloom, out of "affliction"
into clearness, brightness, depth, and refinement:--just as much
as such a tendency DISTINGUISHES--it is a noble tendency--it also
SEPARATES.--The pity of the saint is pity for the FILTH of the
human, all-too-human. And there are grades and heights where pity
itself is regarded by him as impurity, as filth.
272. Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to
the rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or
to share our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the
exercise of them, among our DUTIES.
273. A man who strives after great things, looks upon every one
whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a
delay and hindrance--or as a temporary resting-place. His
peculiar lofty BOUNTY to his fellow-men is only possible when he
attains his elevation and dominates. Impatience, and the
consciousness of being always condemned to comedy up to that
time--for even strife is a comedy, and conceals the end, as every
means does--spoil all intercourse for him; this kind of man is
acquainted with solitude, and what is most poisonous in it.
274. THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.--Happy chances are necessary,
and many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in
whom the solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action,
or "break forth," as one might say--at the right moment. On an
average it DOES NOT happen; and in all corners of the earth there
are waiting ones sitting who hardly know to what extent they are
waiting, and still less that they wait in vain. Occasionally,
too, the waking call comes too late--the chance which gives
"permission" to take action--when their best youth, and strength
for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many a
one, just as he "sprang up," has found with horror that his limbs
are benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! "It is too late,"
he has said to himself--and has become self-distrustful and
henceforth for ever useless.--In the domain of genius, may not
the "Raphael without hands" (taking the expression in its widest
sense) perhaps not be the exception, but the rule?--Perhaps
genius is by no means so rare: but rather the five hundred HANDS
which it requires in order to tyrannize over the [GREEK INSERTED
HERE], "the right time"--in order to take chance by the forelock!
275. He who does not WISH to see the height of a man, looks all
the more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground--
and thereby betrays himself.
276. In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul
is better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter
must be greater, the probability that it will come to grief and
perish is in fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the
conditions of its existence.--In a lizard a finger grows again
which has been lost; not so in man.--
277. It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished
building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares
something which he OUGHT absolutely to have known before he--
began to build. The eternal, fatal "Too late!" The melancholia of
everything COMPLETED!--
278.--Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without
scorn, without love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a
plummet which has returned to the light insatiated out of every
depth--what did it seek down there?--with a bosom that never
sighs, with lips that conceal their loathing, with a hand which
only slowly grasps: who art thou? what hast thou done? Rest thee
here: this place has hospitality for every one--refresh thyself!
And whoever thou art, what is it that now pleases thee? What will
serve to refresh thee? Only name it, whatever I have I offer
thee! "To refresh me? To refresh me? Oh, thou prying one, what
sayest thou! But give me, I pray
thee---" What? what? Speak out!
"Another mask! A second mask!"
279. Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are
happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they
would choke and strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only
too well that it will flee from them!
280. "Bad! Bad! What? Does he not--go back?" Yes! But you
misunderstand him when you complain about it. He goes back like
every one who is about to make a great spring.
281.--"Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they
believe it of me: I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of
myself and about myself, only in very rare cases, only
compulsorily, always without delight in 'the subject,' ready to
digress from 'myself,' and always without faith in the result,
owing to an unconquerable distrust of the POSSIBILITY of self-
knowledge, which has led me so far as to feel a CONTRADICTIO IN
ADJECTO even in the idea of 'direct knowledge' which theorists
allow themselves:--this matter of fact is almost the most certain
thing I know about myself. There must be a sort of repugnance in
me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself.--Is there perhaps
some enigma therein? Probably; but fortunately nothing
for my own
teeth.--Perhaps it betrays the species to which I belong?--but
not to myself, as is sufficiently agreeable to me."
282.--"But what has happened to you?"--"I do not know," he said,
hesitatingly; "perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table."--It
sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man
becomes suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table,
shrieks, raves, and shocks everybody--and finally withdraws,
ashamed, and raging at himself--whither? for what purpose? To
famish apart? To suffocate with his memories?--To him who has the
desires of a lofty and dainty soul, and only seldom finds his
table laid and his food prepared, the danger will always be
great--nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so. Thrown into
the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does not
like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger
and thirst--or, should he nevertheless finally "fall to," of
sudden nausea.--We have probably all sat at tables to which we
did not belong; and precisely the most spiritual of us, who are
most difficult to nourish, know the dangerous DYSPEPSIA which
originates from a sudden insight and disillusionment about our
food and our messmates--the AFTER-DINNER NAUSEA.
283. If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the
same time a noble self-control, to praise only
where one DOES NOT
agree--otherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is
contrary to good taste:--a self-control, to be sure, which offers
excellent opportunity and provocation to constant
MISUNDERSTANDING. To be able to allow oneself this veritable
luxury of taste and morality, one must not live among
intellectual imbeciles, but rather among men whose
misunderstandings and mistakes amuse by their refinement--or one
will have to pay dearly for it!--"He praises me, THEREFORE he
acknowledges me to be right"--this asinine method of inference
spoils half of the life of us recluses, for it brings the asses
into our neighbourhood and friendship.
284. To live in a vast and proud tranquility; always beyond . . .
To have, or not to have, one's emotions, one's For and Against,
according to choice; to lower oneself to them for hours; to SEAT
oneself on them as upon horses, and often as upon asses:--for one
must know how to make use of their stupidity as well as of their
fire. To conserve one's three hundred foregrounds; also one's
black spectacles: for there are circumstances when nobody must
look into our eyes, still less into our "motives." And to choose
for company that roguish and cheerful vice, politeness. And to
remain master of one's four virtues, courage, insight, sympathy,
and solitude. For solitude is a virtue with us, as a sublime bent
and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of man and
man--"in society"--it must be unavoidably impure. All society
makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometime--"commonplace."
285. The greatest events and thoughts--the greatest thoughts,
however, are the greatest events--are longest in being
comprehended: the generations which are contemporary with them do
not EXPERIENCE such events--they live past them. Something
happens there as in the realm of stars. The light of the furthest
stars is longest in reaching man; and before it has arrived man
DENIES--that there are stars there. "How many centuries does a
mind require to be understood?"--that is also a standard, one
also makes a gradation of rank and an etiquette therewith, such
as is necessary for mind and for star.
286. "Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted." [FOOTNOTE:
Goethe's "Faust," Part II, Act V. The words of Dr. Marianus.]--
But there is a reverse kind of man, who is also upon a height,
and has also a free prospect--but looks DOWNWARDS.
287. What is noble? What does the word "noble" still mean for us
nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he
recognized under this heavy overcast sky of the commencing
plebeianism, by which everything is rendered opaque and
leaden?--
It is not his actions which establish his claim--actions are
always ambiguous, always inscrutable; neither is it his "works."
One finds nowadays among artists and scholars plenty of those who
betray by their works that a profound longing for nobleness
impels them; but this very NEED of nobleness is radically
different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact
the eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not
the works, but the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines
the order of rank--to employ once more an old religious formula
with a new and deeper meaning--it is some fundamental certainty
which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be
sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be
lost.--THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR ITSELF.--
288. There are men who are unavoidably intellectual, let them
turn and twist themselves as they will, and hold their hands
before their treacherous eyes--as though the hand were not a
betrayer; it always comes out at last that they have something
which they hide--namely, intellect. One of the subtlest means of
deceiving, at least as long as possible, and of successfully
representing oneself to be stupider than one really is--which in
everyday life is often as desirable as an umbrella,--is called
ENTHUSIASM, including what belongs to it, for instance, virtue.
For as Galiani said, who was obliged to know it: VERTU EST
ENTHOUSIASME.
289. In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of
the echo of the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and
timid vigilance of solitude; in his strongest words, even in his
cry itself, there sounds a new and more dangerous kind of
silence, of concealment. He who has sat day and night, from
year's end to year's end, alone with his soul in familiar discord
and discourse, he who has become a cave-bear, or a treasure-
seeker, or a treasure-guardian and dragon in his cave--it may be
a labyrinth, but can also be a gold-mine--his ideas themselves
eventually acquire a twilight-colour of their own, and an odour,
as much of the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative
and repulsive, which blows chilly upon every passerby. The
recluse does not believe that a philosopher--supposing that a
philosopher has always in the first place been a recluse--ever
expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in books: are not
books written precisely to hide what is in us?--indeed, he will
doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual"
opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not,
and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler,
stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every
bottom, beneath every "foundation." Every philosophy is a
foreground philosophy--this is a recluse's verdict: "There is
something arbitrary in the fact that the PHILOSOPHER came to a
stand here, took a retrospect, and looked around; that he HERE
laid his spade aside and did not dig any
deeper--there is also
something suspicious in it." Every philosophy also CONCEALS a
philosophy; every opinion is also a LURKING-PLACE, every word is
also a MASK.
290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than
of being misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but
the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says:
"Ah, why would you also have as hard a time of it as I have?"
291. Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal,
uncanny to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather
than by his strength, has invented the good conscience in order
finally to enjoy his soul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of
morality is a long, audacious falsification, by virtue of which
generally enjoyment at the sight of the soul becomes possible.
From this point of view there is perhaps much more in the
conception of "art" than is generally believed.
292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences,
sees, hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things;
who is struck by his own thoughts as if they came from the
outside, from above and below, as a species of events and
lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who is perhaps himself a storm
pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous
man, around whom there
is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and something uncanny
going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often runs away from
himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity always
makes him "come to himself" again.
293. A man who says: "I like that, I take it for my own, and mean
to guard and protect it from every one"; a man who can conduct a
case, carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep
hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has
his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the
suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit
and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a MASTER by nature--
when such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has value! But
of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of those
even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost
the whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness
towards pain, and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in
complaining, an effeminizing, which, with the aid of religion and
philosophical nonsense, seeks to deck itself out as something
superior--there is a regular cult of suffering. The UNMANLINESS
of that which is called "sympathy" by such groups of visionaries,
is always, I believe, the first thing that strikes the eye.--One
must resolutely and radically taboo this latest form of bad
taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet, "GAI
SABER" ("gay science,"
in ordinary language), on heart and neck,
as a protection against it.
294. THE OLYMPIAN VICE.--Despite the philosopher who, as a
genuine Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in
all thinking minds--"Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature,
which every thinking mind will strive to overcome" (Hobbes),--I
would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the
quality of their laughing--up to those who are capable of GOLDEN
laughter. And supposing that Gods also philosophize, which I am
strongly inclined to believe, owing to many reasons--I have no
doubt that they also know how to laugh thereby in an overman-like
and new fashion--and at the expense of all serious things! Gods
are fond of ridicule: it seems that they cannot refrain from
laughter even in holy matters.
295. The genius of the heart, as that great mysterious one
possesses it, the tempter-god and born rat-catcher of
consciences, whose voice can descend into the nether-world of
every soul, who neither speaks a word nor casts a glance in which
there may not be some motive or touch of allurement, to whose
perfection it pertains that he knows how to appear,--not as he
is, but in a guise which acts as an ADDITIONAL constraint on his
followers to press ever closer to him, to follow him more
cordially and thoroughly;--the genius of the heart, which
imposes
silence and attention on everything loud and self-conceited,
which smoothes rough souls and makes them taste a new longing--to
lie placid as a mirror, that the deep heavens may be reflected in
them;--the genius of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and too
hasty hand to hesitate, and to grasp more delicately; which
scents the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness
and sweet spirituality under thick dark ice, and is a divining-
rod for every grain of gold, long buried and imprisoned in mud
and sand; the genius of the heart, from contact with which every
one goes away richer; not favoured or surprised, not as though
gratified and oppressed by the good things of others; but richer
in himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded
by a thawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more
fragile, more bruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names,
full of a new will and current, full of a new ill-will and
counter-current . . . but what am I doing, my friends? Of whom am
I talking to you? Have I forgotten myself so far that I have not
even told you his name? Unless it be that you have already
divined of your own accord who this questionable God and spirit
is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it
happens to every one who from childhood onward has always been on
his legs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered on my
path many strange and dangerous spirits; above all, however, and
again and again, the one of whom I have just spoken: in fact, no
less a personage than the God DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and
tempter, to whom, as you know, I once
offered in all secrecy and
reverence my first-fruits--the last, as it seems to me, who has
offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I have found no one who could
understand what I was then doing. In the meantime, however, I
have learned much, far too much, about the philosophy of this
God, and, as I said, from mouth to mouth--I, the last disciple
and initiate of the God Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last
begin to give you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little
taste of this philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly:
for it has to do with much that is secret, new, strange,
wonderful, and uncanny. The very fact that Dionysus is a
philosopher, and that therefore Gods also philosophize, seems to
me a novelty which is not unensnaring, and might perhaps arouse
suspicion precisely among philosophers;--among you, my friends,
there is less to be said against it, except that it comes too
late and not at the right time; for, as it has been disclosed to
me, you are loth nowadays to believe in God and gods. It may
happen, too, that in the frankness of my story I must go further
than is agreeable to the strict usages of your ears? Certainly
the God in question went further, very much further, in such
dialogues, and was always many paces ahead of me . . . Indeed, if
it were allowed, I should have to give him, according to human
usage, fine ceremonious tides of lustre and merit, I should have
to extol his courage as investigator and discoverer, his fearless
honesty, truthfulness, and love of wisdom. But such a God does
not know what to do with all that respectable trumpery and pomp.
"Keep that," he would say,
"for thyself and those like thee, and
whoever else require it! I--have no reason to cover my
nakedness!" One suspects that this kind of divinity and
philosopher perhaps lacks shame?--He once said: "Under certain
circumstances I love mankind"--and referred thereby to Ariadne,
who was present; "in my opinion man is an agreeable, brave,
inventive animal, that has not his equal upon earth, he makes his
way even through all labyrinths. I like man, and often think how
I can still further advance him, and make him stronger, more
evil, and more profound."--"Stronger, more evil, and more
profound?" I asked in horror. "Yes," he said again, "stronger,
more evil, and more profound; also more beautiful"--and thereby
the tempter-god smiled with his halcyon smile, as though he had
just paid some charming compliment. One here sees at once that it
is not only shame that this divinity lacks;--and in general there
are good grounds for supposing that in some things the Gods could
all of them come to us men for instruction. We men are--more
human.--
296. Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted
thoughts! Not long ago you were so variegated, young and
malicious, so full of thorns and secret spices, that you made me
sneeze and laugh--and now? You have already doffed your novelty,
and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths, so immortal
do they look, so pathetically honest, so tedious! And was it ever
otherwise? What then do we write and paint, we
mandarins with
Chinese brush, we immortalisers of things which LEND themselves
to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only
that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour!
Alas, only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow
sentiments! Alas, only birds strayed and fatigued by flight,
which now let themselves be captured with the hand--with OUR
hand! We immortalize what cannot live and fly much longer, things
only which are exhausted and mellow! And it is only for your
AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone
I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated
softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds;--
but nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you
sudden sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved--
EVIL thoughts!