May 10, 2024 • 55 mins
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This is a LibriVox recording. AllLibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer,please visit LibriVox dot org. Beyond Good
and Evil by Frederic Nietzsche, Chapterone, Prejudices of Philosophers, read by
Hugh Maguire one. The will totruth, which is to tempt us to
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many a hazardous enterprise, the famoustruthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken
with respect. What questions has thiswill to truth not laid before us?
What strange, perplexing, questionable questions? It is already a long story,
yet it seems as if it werehardly commenced. Is it any wonder if
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we at last grow distrustful, losepatience, and turn impatiently away, that
the Sphinx teaches us at last toask questions ourselves. Who is it really
that puts questions to us here?What really is this will to truth?
In us? In fact, wemade a long halt at the questions as
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to the origin of this will,until at last we came to an absolute
standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the value of this
will. Granted that we want thetruth, why not rather untruth and uncertainty,
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even ignorance. The problem of thevalue of truth presented itself before us?
Or was it we who presented ourselvesbefore the problem? Which of us
is the Oedipus? Here which thesphinx? It would seem to be a
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rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it
at last seems to us as ifthe problem had never been propounded before,
as if we were the first todiscern it, Get a sight of it,
and risk raising it, For thereis risk in raising it, perhaps
there is no greater risk. Two, How could anything originate out of its
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opposite? For example, truth outof error, or the will to truth
out of the will to deception,or the generous deed out of selfishness,
or the pure sun bright vision ofthe wise man out of covetousness. Such
genesis is impossible. Whoever dreams ofit is a fool, nay worse than
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a fool. Things of the highestvalue must have a different origin, an
origin of their own. In thistransitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world,
in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source,
but rather in the lap of being, in the intransitory, in the concealed
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God, in the thing in itself, there must be their source, and
nowhere else. This mode of reasoningdiscloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of
all times can be recognized. Thismode of valuation is at the back of
all their logical procedure. Through thisbelief of theirs, they exert themselves for
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their knowledge for something that is,in the end solemnly christened the truth.
The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is thebelief in antithesis of values. It never
occurred even to the wariest of themto doubt here, on the very threshold
where doubt, however, was mostnecessary, though they had made a solemn
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vow de omnibus dubitundum. For itmay be doubted firstly whether antithesis exists at
all, and secondly, whether thepopular valuations and antithesis of value upon which
metaphysicians have set their seal are notperhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives,
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besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from below frog perspectives,
as it were, to borrow anexpression current among painters. In spite of
all the value which may belong tothe true, the positive, and the
unselfish, it might be possible thata higher and more fundamental value for life
generally should be assigned to pretense,to the will, to delusion, to
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selfishness and cupidity. It might evenbe possible that what constitutes the value of
those good and respected things consists preciselyin their being insidiously related, natted,
and crotcheted to these evil and apparentlyopposed things, perhaps even in being essentially
identical with them. Perhaps, Butwho wishes to concern himself with such dangerous
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perhapses that investigation One must await theadvent of a new order of philosophers,
such as will have other tastes andinclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalent
philosophers of the dangerous, perhaps inevery sense of the term, and to
speak, in all seriousness, Isee such new philosophers beginning to appear.
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Three. Having kept a sharp eyeon philosophers, and having read between their
lines long enough, I now sayto myself that the greater part of conscious
thinking must be counted among the instinctivefunctions, and it is so even in
the case of philosophical thinking, onehas here to learn anew as one learned
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new about heredity and innateness. Aslittle as the act of birth comes into
consideration in the whole process and procedureof heredity, just as little is being
conscious opposed the instinctive in any decisivesense. The greater part of the conscious
thinking of a philosopher is secretly influencedby his instincts and forced into definite channels.
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And behind all logic and its seemingsovereignty of movement, there are valuations,
or, to speak more plainly,physiological demands for the maintenance of a
definite mode of life, for example, that the certain is worth more than
the uncertain, that the illusion isless valuable than the truth. Such valuations,
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in spite of their regulative importance forus, might notwithstanding, be only
superficial valuations, special kinds of mayiseri, such as may be necessary for the
maintenance of beings such as ourselves.Supposing in effect, that man is not
just the measure of things. Four, the falseness of an opinion is not
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for us any objection to it.It is here, perhaps that our new
language sounds most strangely, the questionis how far an opinion is life furthering,
life, persevering, species persevering,perhaps species rearing. And we are
fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsestopinions to which the synthetic judgments a priority
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belong, are the most indispensable tous. That without a recognition of logical
fictions, without a comparison of realitywith the purely imagined world of the absolute
and immutable, without a constant counterfeitingof the world by means of numbers,
man could not live. That therenunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation
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of life, a negation of life. To recognize untruth as a condition of
life, that is certainly to impungethe traditional ideas of value in a dangerous
manner. And a philosophy which venturesto do so, has thereby alone placed
itself beyond good and evil. Five. That which causes philosophers to be regarded
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half distrustfully and half mockingly is notthe oft repeated discovery, how innocent they
are, how often and easily theymake mistakes and lose their way. In
short, how childish and childlike theyare. But that there is not enough
honest dealing with them, whereas theyall raise a loud and virtuous outcry when
the problem of truthfulness is even hintedat in the remotest manner. They all
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pose as though their real opinions hadbeen discovered and attained through the self evolving
of a cold, pure, divinelyindifferent dialectic. In contrast to all sorts
of mystics, who fairer and foolishertalk of inspiration, whereas in fact a
prejudice, proposition, idea, orsuggestion, which is generally their heart's desire,
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abstracted and refined, is defended bythem, with arguments sought out after
the event. They are all advocateswho do not wish to be regarded as
such, generally astute defenders also oftheir prejudices, which they dub truths,
and very far from having the consciencewhich bravely admits this to itself, very
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far from having the good taste ofthe courage, which goes so far as
to let this be understood, perhapsto warm friend or foe, or in
ch cheerful confidence and self grecule.The spectacle of the tartufery of old Kant,
equally stiff and decent with which heentices us into the dialectic byways that
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lead more correctly mislead to his categoricalimperative. Makes us fasidious ones smile,
we who find no small amusement inspying out the subtle tricks of old moralists
and ethical preachers, or still moreso the hocus pocus in mathematical form,
by means of which Spinoza has,as it were, clad his philosophy in
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male and mask in fact the loveof his wisdom to translate the term fairly
and squarely, in order thereby tostrike terror at once into the heart of
the assailant, who should dare tocast a glance on the invincible maiden that
pallis athene. How much of personaltimidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a
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sickly recluse betray six It has graduallybecome clear to me what every great philosophy
up till now has consisted of,namely the confession of its originator and a
species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography.And moreover that the moral or immoral purpose
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in every philosophy has constituted the truevital germ, out of which the entire
plant has always grown. Indeed,to understand how the abstrusist metaphysical assertions of
a philosopher have been arrived at,it is always well and wise to first
ask oneself what morality do they ordoes he aim at? Accordingly, I
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do not believe that an impulse toknowledge is the father of philosophy, but
that another impulse here is elsewhere,has only made use of knowledge, and
mistaken knowledge as an instrument. Butwhoever considers the fundamental impulses of man with
a view to determining how far theymay have here acted as inspiring Jenny or
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as demons and Cobald's, will findthat they have all practiced philosophy at one
time or another, and that eachone of them would have been only too
glad to look upon itself as theultimate end of existence and the legitimate lord
over all other impulses. For everyimpulse is imperious, and as such attempts
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to philosophye. To be sure,in the case of scholars, in the
case of really scientific men, itmay be otherwise better if you will there
there may really be such a thingas an impulse to knowledge, some kind
of small, independent clockwork which whenwell wound up, works away industriously to
that end, without the rest ofthe scholarly impulses taking any material part therein.
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The actual interests of the scholar,therefore, are generally in quite another
direction, in the family, perhaps, or in money making, or in
politics. It is in fact almostindifferent at what point of research his little
machine is placed, and whether thehopeful young worker becomes a good philologist,
a mushroom specialist, or a chemist. He is not characterized by becoming this
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or that. In the philosopher,on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing
impersonal, and above all his moralityfurnishes a decide and decisive testimony as to
who he is. That is tosay, in what order the deepest impulses
of his nature stand to each other. Seven How malicious philosophers can be,
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I know of nothing more stinging thanthe joke Epicurius took the liberty of making
on Plato and Platonists. He calledthem Dionysio colakes in its original sense,
and on the face of it,the word signifies flatterers of Dionysius. Consequently,
tyrants, accessories, and lickspittles.Besides this, however, it is
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as much to say they are allactors. There is nothing genuine about them.
For Dionysio Collas was a popular namefor an actor, and the latter
is really the malignant reproach that Epicuriuscast upon Plato. He was annoyed by
the grandiose manner the Mesoncene's style,of which Plato and his scholars were masters,
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of which Epicurius was not a master. He the old school teacher of
Samos, who sat concealed in hislittle garden at Athens and wrote three hundred
books, perhaps out of rage andambitious envy of Plato. Who knows Greece
took a hundred years to find outwho the garden god Epicurius really was.
Did she ever find out? Eight? There is a point in every philosophy
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at which the conviction of the philosopherappears on the scene. Or, to
put it in the words of theancient mystery aventavit Asinos pulker A fortissimus.
Nine you desire to live according tonature, Oh, you noble stoics,
What fraud of words? Imagine toyourselves indifference as a power? How could
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you live in accordance with such indifference? To live, is not that just
endeavoring to be otherwise than this?Nature is not living valuing, preferring being
unjust being limited, endeavoring to bedifferent. And granted that your imperative living
according to nature means actually the sameas living according to life, how could
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you do differently? Why should youmake a principle out of what you yourselves
are and must be in reality?However, it is quite otherwise with you.
While you pretend to read with rapturethe canon of your law and nature,
you want something quite contrary. Youextraordinary stage players and self deluds in
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your pride. You wish to dictateyour morals and ideals to nature, to
nature herself, and to incorporate themtherein. You insist that it shall be
nature according to the Stoa, andwould like everything to be made after your
own image, as a vast eternalglorification and generalism of stoicism. With all
your love for truth, you haveforced yourselves so long, so persistently,
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and with hypnotic rigidity, to seenature falsely, that is to say,
stoically, that you are no longerable to see it otherwise, and to
crown all some unfathomable superciliousness gives youthe belamite hope that because you are able
to tyrannize over yourselves, stoicism isself tyranny. Nature will also allow herself
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to be tyrannized over. Is notthe stoic a part of nature? But
this is an old and everlasting story. What happened in old times with the
stoic still happens today. As soonas ever a philosophy begins to believe in
itself, it always creates the worldin its own image. It cannot do
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otherwise. Philosophy is this tyrannical impulseitself, the most spiritual will to power,
the will to creation of the world, the will to cause a prima
ten, the eerness and subtle,I should even say, craftiness with which
the problem of the real and theapparent world is dealt with. At present,
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throughout Europe furnishes food for thought andattention, And he who hears only
a will to truth in the backgroundand nothing else cannot certainly boast of the
sharpest ears. In rare and isolatedcases, it may really have happened that
such a will to truth a certainextravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition
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of the forlorn hope has participated thereinthat which, in the end always prefers
a handful of certainty to a wholecartload of beautiful possibilities. There may even
be puritanical fanatics of conscience who preferto put their last trust in assure nothing
rather than in an uncertain something.But that is nihilism and the sign of
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a despairing, morally wearied soul,notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue made
as say. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier
thinkers, who are still eager forlife, in that they side against appearance
and speak superciliously of perspective, inthat they rank the credibility of their own
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bodies about as low as the credibilityof the ocular evidence that the earth stands
still, and thus apparently allowing withcomplacency their securest possession to escape. For
what does one at present believe inmore firmly than in one's body. Who
knows if they are not really tryingto win back something which was formerly an
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even securer possession, something of theold domain of the faith of former times.
Perhaps the immortal soul, perhaps theold God, in short, ideas
by which they could live better,that is to say, more vigorously and
more joyously than by modern ideas.There is distrust of these modern ideas in
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this mode of looking at things,a disbelief in all that has been constructed
yesterday and today. There is perhapssome slight admixture of satiety and scorn which
can no longer endure the BRITA bractof ideas of the most varied origin,
such as so called positivism at presentthrows on the market a disgust at the
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more refined taste, at the villagefair motliness and patchiness of all these reality
philosophasters in whom there is nothing eithernew or true except this motleliness. Therein,
it seems to me that we shouldagree with those skeptical anti realists and
knowledge microscopists of the present day.Their instinct which repels them from modern reality
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is unrefuted. What do their retrogradebypaths concern us? The main thing about
them is not that they wish togo back, but that they wish to
get away therefrom little more strength,swing, courage, and artistic power,
and they would be off and notback eleven. It seems to me that
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there is everywhere an attempt at presentto divert attention from the actual influence which
Kant exercised on German philosophy, andespecially to ignore prudently the value which he
set upon himself. Kant was firstand foremost proud of his table of categories.
With it in his hand, hesaid, this is the most difficult
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thing that could ever be undertaken onbehalf of metaphysics. Let us only understand
this could be. He was proudof having discovered a new faculty in Man,
the faculty of synthetic judgment, apriory granting that he deceived himself in
this matter. The development and rapidflourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his
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pride and on the eager rivalry ofthe younger generation to discover, if possible,
something at all events, new facultiesof which to be still prouder.
But let us reflect for a momentit is high time to do so.
How are synthetic judgments a priority possible? Kant asks himself, and what is
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really his answer by means of ameans faculty, But unfortunately not in five
words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of German profundity
and verbal flourishes, that one altogetherloses sight of the comical niazeri a lamande
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involved in such an answer. Peoplewere beside themselves with delight over this new
faculty, and the jubilation reached itsclimax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty
in Man, for at that timeGermans were still moral, not yet dabbling
in the politics of hard fact.Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy.
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All the young theologians of the TubigeneInstitution went immediately into the groves, all
seeking for faculties. And what didthey not find in that innocent, rich
and still youthful period of the Germanspirit to which Romanticism the malicious fairy piped
and sang when one could not yetdistinguish between finding and inventing. Above all
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a faculty for the transcendental shell ichristenedit intellectual intuition and thereby gratified the most
earnest longings of the naturally pious inclineGermans. One can do no greater wrong
to the whole of this exuberant andecstatic movement, which was really youthfulness,
notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldlyin hoary and senile conceptions than to take
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it seriously or even treat it withmoral indignation. However, the world grew
older and the dream vanished. Atime came when people rubbed their foreheads,
and they still rubbed today. Peoplehad been dreaming, and first and foremost
old kant by means of a meansfaculty, he had said, or at
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least meant to say. But isthat an answer, an explanation, or
is it not rather merely a repetitionof the question, how does opium induce
sleep? By means of a faculty? Namely, the virtuous dormitiva, replies
the doctor in moliere kia s ineovitrus dormitiva kujus s natura census asuper.
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But such replies belong to the realmof comedy, and it is high time
to replace the Kantian question, howare synthetic judgments a priori possible? By
another question, why is belief insuch judgments necessary? In effect, it
is high time that we should understandthat such judgments must be believed to be
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true for the sake of the preservationof creatures like ourselves. Though they still
might naturally be false judgments or moreplainly spoken and roughly and readily synthetic judgments,
a priority should not be possible atall. We have no right to
them in our mouths. They arenothing but false judgments. Only, of
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course, the belief in their truthis necessary, as plausible belief and ocular
evidence belonging to the prospective view oflife. And finally, to call to
mind the enormous influence which German philosophyI hope you understand its right to inverted
commas goose feet, has exercised throughoutthe whole of Europe. There is no
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doubt that a certain virtuous dormitiva hada share in it thanks to German philosophy.
It was a delight to the noble, idlers, the virtuous, the
mystics, the artiste, the threefourths Christians, and the political obscurantists of
all nations to find an antidote tothe still overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the
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last centrally into this in short censusasupire twelve. As regards materialistic atomism,
It is one of the best refutedtheories that have been advanced, and in
Europe there is now perhaps no onein the learned world so unscholarly as to
attach serious signification to it, exceptfor convenient everyday use as an abbreviation of
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the means of expression. Thanks chieflyto the pole Boskovich, he and the
pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatestand most successful opponents of ocular evidence.
For while Copernicus has persuaded us tobelieve, contrary to all the senses,
that the Earth does not stand fast, Boskovich has taught us to abjure the
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belief in the last thing that stoodfast of the Earth, the belief in
substance in matter, in the earthresidum and particle atom. It is the
greatest triumph over the senses that hashitherto been gained on Earth. One must,
however, go still further and alsodeclare war, relentless war to the
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knife against the atomistic requirements, whichstill lead a dangerous after life in places
where no one suspects them, Likethe more celebrated metaphysical requirements. One must
also, above all give the finishingstroke to that other more portentous atomism,
which Christianity has taught best and longest, the soul atomism. Let it be
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permitted to designate by this expression thebelief which regards the soul as something in
destruction, eternal, indivisible, asa monad, as an atomon. This
belief ought to be expelled from sciencebetween ourselves. It is not at all
necessary to get rid of the soulthereby, and thus renounce one of the
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oldest and most venerated hypotheses. Hashappened frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists,
who can hardly touch on the soulwithout immediately losing it. But the way
is open for new acceptations and refinementsof the soul hypothesis, and such conceptions
as mortal soul and soul of subjectivemultiplicity, and soul as social structure of
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the instincts and passions want henceforth tohave legitimate rights in science. In that
new psychologist is about to put anend to the superstitions which have hitherto flourished
with almost tropical luxuriance around the ideaof the soul. He is really,
as it were, thrusting himself intoa new desert and a new distrust,
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it is possible that the older psychologistshad a merrier and more comfortable time of
it. Eventually, however, hefinds that precisely thereby he is also condemned
to invent, and who knows,perhaps to discover the new thirteen Psychologists should
bethink themselves before putting down the instinctof self preservation, As the cardinal instinct
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of an organic being, a livingthing seeks above all to discharge its strength.
Life itself is will to power.Self preservation is only one of the
indirect and most frequent results thereof.In short, here as everywhere else,
let us beware of superfluous teleological principles, one of which is the instinct of
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self preservation. We owe it toSpinosa's inconsistency. It is thus, in
effect that method ordains, which mustbe essentially economy of principles fourteen. It
is perhaps just dawning on five orsix minds that natural philosophy is only a
world exposition and world arrangement according tous if I may say so, and
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not a world explanation. But inso far as it is based on belief
in the senses, it is regardedas more and for a long time to
come must be regarded as more namely, as an explanation. It has eyes
and fingers of its own. Ithas ocular evidence and palpableness of its own.
This operates fascinatingly, persuasively, andconvincingly upon an age with fundamentally plebeian
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tastes. In fact, it followsinstinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular
sensualism. What is clear, whatis explained, only that which can be
seen and felt. One must perusea every problem thus far. Aversely,
however, the charm of the Platonicmode of thought, which was an aristocratic
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mode, consisted precisely in resistance toobvious sense evidence, perhaps among men who
enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious sensesthan our contemporaries, but who knew how
to find a higher triumph in remainingmasters of them, and this by means
of pale, cold, gray conceptualnetworks, which they threw over the motley
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whirl of the senses, the mobof the senses. As Plato said,
in this Overcoming of the World andinterpreting of the World. In the manner
of Plato, there was an enjoymentdifferent from that which the physicist of today
offer us, and likewise the Darwinistsand anti teleologists among the physiological workers,
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with their principle of the smallest possibleeffort and the greatest possible blunder. Where
there is nothing more to see orgrasp, there is also nothing more for
men to do. That is certainlyan imperative different from the platonic one,
but it may notwithstanding be the rightimperative for a hardy, laborious race of
machinists and bridge builders of the future, who have nothing but rough work to
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perform. Fifteen. To study physiologywith a clear conscience, one must insist
on the fact that the sense organsare not phenomena in the sense of the
idealistic philosophy. As such, theycertainly could not be causes sensualism therefore,
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at least as regulative hypothesis, ifnot as euristic principle. What and others
say even that the external world isthe work of our organs, but then
our body, as a part ofthis external world, would be the work
of our organs. But then ourorgans themselves would be the work of our
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organs. It seems to me thatthis is a complete reductio ad absurdum.
If the conception causa sui is somethingfundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world
is not the work of our organs. Sixteen. There are still harmless self
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observers who believe that there are immediatecertainties. For instance, I think,
or as a superstition of Schopenhauer putsit, I will, as though cognition
here got hold of its object purelyand simply as the thing in itself,
without any falsification taking place, eitheron the part of the subject or the
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object. I would repeat it,however a hundred times that immediate certainty,
as well as absolute knowledge and thething in its involve a contradictio in adjecto.
We really ought to free ourselves fromthe misleading significance of words. The
people, on their part, maythink that cognition is knowing all about things,
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But the philosopher must say to himself, when I analyze the process that
is expressed in the sentence, Ithink, I find a whole series of
daring assertions, the argumentative proof ofwhich would be difficult, perhaps impossible.
For instance, that it is Iwho think that there must necessarily be something
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that thinks that thinking is an activityand an operation on the part of a
being who is thought of as acause, that there is an ego,
and finally, that it is alreadydetermined what is to be designated by thinking?
That I know what thinking is.For if I had not already done
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sided within myself what it is,by what standard could I determine whether that
which is just happening is not perhapswilling or feeling? In short, the
assertion I think assumes that I comparemy state at the present moment with other
states of myself which I know,in order to determine what it is.
On account of this retrospective connection withfurther knowledge, it has at any rate
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no immediate certainty for me, inplace of the immediate certainty in which the
people may believe in the special case. The philosopher thus finds a series of
metaphysical questions presented to him, veritableconscience questions of the intellect, to wit,
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whence did I get this notion ofthinking? Why do I believe in
cause and effect? What gives methe right to speak of an ego and
even of an ego as cause,and finally of an ego as cause of
thought? He who ventures to answerthese metaphysical questions at once by an appeal
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to a sort of intuitive perception,like the person who says, I think
and I know that this at leastis true, actual, and certain,
will encounter a smile and two notesof interrogation in a philosopher. Nowadays,
sir, the philosopher will perhaps givento understand, it is improbable that you
are not mistaken, But why shouldit be the truth? Seventeen With regard
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to the superstitions of logicians, Ishall never tire of emphasizing a small,
terse fact which is unwillingly recognized bythese credulous minds, namely, that a
thought comes when it wishes, andnot when I wish. So that it
is a perversion of the facts ofthe case to say that the subject I
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is the condition of the predicate thinkone thinks, but that this one is
precisely the famous old ego is toput it, mildly, only a supposition,
an assertion, and assuredly not animmediate certainty. After all, one
has even gone too far with this, one thinks, even the one contains
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an interpretation of the process and doesnot belong to the process itself. One
infers here, according to the usualgrammatical formula to think is an activity.
Every activity requires an agency that isactive. Consequently, it was pretty much
the same lines that the older atomistssought. Besides the operating power the material
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particle wherein it resides and out ofwhich it operates the atom. More rigorous
minds, however, learned it lastto get along without this earth residium.
And perhaps someday we shall accusts toourselves, even from the logician's point of
view, to get along without thelittle one to which the worthy old ego
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has refined itself. Eighteen. Itis certainly not the least charm of a
theory that it is refutable. Itis precisely thereby that it attracts the more
subtle minds. It seems that thehundred times refuted theory of the free will
owes its persistence to this charm alone. Someone is always appearing who feels himself
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strong enough to refute it. Nineteen. Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the
will as though it were the bestknown thing in the world. Indeed,
Schopenhauer has given us to understand thatthe will alone is really known to us,
absolutely and completely known, without deductionor addition. But it again and
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again seems to me that in thiscase Schopenhauer also only did what philosophers are
in the habit of doing. Heseems to have adopted a popular prejudice and
exaggerated it. Willing seems to meto be above all something complicated, something
that is a unity only in name. And it is precisely in a name
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that popular prejudice lurks, which hasgot the mastery over the inadequate precautions of
philosophers in all ages. So letus for once be more cautious. Let
us be unphilosophical. Let us saythat in all willing there is firstly a
plurality of sensations, namely the sensationof the condition away from which we go,
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the sensation of the condition towards whichwe go, the sensation of this
from and towards itself. And thenbesides an accompanying muscular sensation, which,
even without our putting in motion armsand legs, commences its action by force
of habit. Directly we will anythingtherefore, just as sensations, and indeed
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many kinds of sensations are to berecognized as ingredients of the will. So
in the second place, thinking isalso to be recognized in every act of
the will, there is a rulingthought. And let us not imagine it
possible to sever this thought from thewilling, as if the will would then
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remain over. In the third place, the will is not only a complex
of sensation and thinking, but itis above all an emotion, and in
fact the emotion of the command,that which is termed freedom of the will
is essentially the emotion of supremacy andrespect. To him who must obey,
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I am free, he must obey. This consciousness is inherent in every will
will, and equally so the strainingof the attention, the straight look,
which fixes itself exclusively on one thing, the unconditional judgment that this and nothing
else is necessary now, the inwardcertainty that obedience will be rendered, and
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whatever else pertains to the position ofthe commander. A man who wills commands
something within himself which renders obedience,or which he believes renders obedience. But
now let us notice what is thestrangest thing about the will, this affair
so extremely complex, for which thepeople have only one name. Inasmuch as,
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in the given circumstances, we are, at the same time the commanding
and the obeying parties, and asthe obeying party, we know the sensations
of constraint, impulsion, pressure,resistance, and motion, which usually commence
immediately after the act of wills.Much as on the other hand, we
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are accustomed to disregard this duality andto deceive ourselves about it by means of
the synthetic term I. A wholeseries of erroneous conclusions, and consequently of
false judgments about the will itself,has become attached to the act of willing,
to such a degree that he whowills believes firmly that willing suffices for
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action. Since in the majority ofcases there has only been exercise of will
when the effect of the command consequentlyobedience and therefore action was to be expected,
the appearance has translated itself into sentiment, as if there were a necessity
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of effect. In a word,he who wills believes with a fair amount
of certainty that will and action aresomehow won. He ascribes the success the
carrying out of the willing to thewill itself, and thereby enjoys an increase
of the sensation of power which accompaniesall success freedom of will, that is
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the expression for the complex state ofdelight of the person exercising volition, who
commands and at the same time identifieshimself with the executor of the order,
who as such enjoys also the triumphover obstacles, but thinks within himself that
it was really his own will thatovercame them. In this way, the
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person exercising volition adds feelings of delightof his successful executive instruments, the useful
under wills or under souls. Indeed, our body is but a social structure
composed of many souls. To hisfeelings of delight, as Commander le fessemis,
what happens here is what happens inevery well constructed and happy commonwealth,
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namely, that the governing class identifiesitself with the successes of the commonwealth.
In all willing. It is absolutelya question of commanding and obeying on the
basis, as already said, ofa social structure composed of many souls,
on which account a philosopher should claimthe right to include willing as such within
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the sphere of morals regarded as thedoctrine of the relations of supremacy, under
which the phenomenon of life manifests itself. Twenty that the separate philosophical ideas are
not anything optional or autonomously evolving,but grow up in connection and relationship with
each other that, however suddenly andarbitrarily they seem to appear in the history
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of thought, they nevertheless belong justas much to a system as the collective
members of the fauna of a continent. Is betrayed in the end by the
circumstance. How unfailingly, the mostdiverse philosopher always fill in again a definite
fundamental scheme of possible philosophies under aninvisible spell. They always revolve once more
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in the same orbit. However,independent of each other they may feel themselves
with their critical or systematic wills,something within them leads them, something impels
them, in definite order, theone after the other, to wit the
innate methodology and relationship of their ideas. Their thinking is in fact, far
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less a discovery than a re recognizing, a remembering, a return and a
homecoming to far off ancient common householdof the soul out of which those ideas
formerly grew. Philosophizing is so fara kind of activism of the highest order.
The wonderful family resemblance of all Indian, Greek and German philosophizing is easily
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enough explained. In fact, wherethere is affinity of language owing to the
common philosophy of grammar, I mean, owing to the unconscious domination and guidance
of similar grammatical functions, it cannotbut be that everything is prepared at the
outset for a similar development and successionof philosophical systems. Just as the way
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seems barred against certain other possibilities ofworld interpretation, it is highly probable that
philosophers within the domain of the uralaltaic languages, where the conception of the
subject is least developed, look otherwiseinto the world, and will be found
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on paths of thought different from thoseof the Indo Germans and Mussulmans. The
spell of certain grammatical functions is ultimatelyalso the spell of physiological valuations and racial
conditions. So much by way ofdaring Locke superficiality with regard to the origin
of ideas twenty one, the causasui is the best self contradiction that has
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yet been conceived. It is asort of logical violation and unnaturalness. But
the extravagant pride of man has managedto entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with this
very folly. The desire for freedomof will in the superlative metaphysical sense,
such as still holds sway unfortunately inthe minds of the half educated, the
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desire to bear the entire and ultimateresponsibility for one's actions oneself, and to
absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society. Therefrom involves
nothing less than to be precisely thiscausa sui, and with more than Munchausen
daring to pull oneself up into existenceby the hair out of the slough of
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nothingness. Very one should find outin this manner the crass stupidity of the
celebrated conception of free will, andput it out of his head altogether.
I beg of him to carry hisenlightenment a step further, and also put
out of his head the contrary ofthis monstrous conception of free will, I
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mean non free will, which istantamount to a misuse of cause and effect.
One should not wrongly materialize cause andeffect, as the natural philosophers do,
and whoever like them naturalize in thinkingat present according to the prevailing mechanical
doultishness, which makes the cause pressand push until it affects its end.
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One should use cause and effect onlyas pure conceptions, that is to say,
as conventional fictions for the purpose ofdesignation and mutual understanding, not for
explanation. In being in itself thereis nothing of causal connection, of nonses
necessity, or of psychological non freedom. There the effect does not follow the
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cause, their law does not obtain. It is we alone who have devised
cause, sequence, reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom,
motive, and purpose. And whenwe interpret and intermix this symbol world
as being in itself with things,we act once more as we have always
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acted. Mythologically, the non freewill is mythology. In real life,
it is only a question of strongand weak wills. It is almost always
a symptom of what is lacking inhimself. When a thinker, in every
causal connection and psychological necessity, manifestssomething of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness,
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oppression, and non freedom, itis suspicious to have somes the person betrays
himself. And in general, ifI have observed correctly, the non freedom
of the will is regarded as aproblem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but
always in a profoundly personal manner.Some will not give up their responsibility,
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their belief in themselves the personal rightto their merits at any price. The
vain races belong to this class.Others, on the contrary, do not
wish to be answerable for anything orblamed for anything, and, owing to
an inward self contempt, seek toget out of the business no matter how
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The latter, when they write books, are in the habit at present of
taking the side of criminals. Asort of socialistic sympathy is their favorite disguise,
and as a matter of fact,the fatalism of the weak willed embellishes
itself surprise when it compose as lareligion de las sufranc umene, that is
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its good taste. Twenty two.Let me be pardoned as an old philologist
who cannot desist from the mischief ofputting his finger on bad modes of interpretation.
But nature's conformity to law of whichyou physicists talk so proudly, as
though why it exists only owing toyour interpretation and bad philology, it is
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no matter of fact, no text, but rather just naively humanitarian adjustment and
perversion of meeting with which you makeabundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the
modern soul. Everywhere equality before thelaw. Nature is not different in that
respect, nor better than we afine instance of secret motive in which the
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vulgar antagonism to everything privileged and autocraticwise a second and more refined atheism,
in which a vulgar antagonism to everythingprivileged and autocratic. Likewise a second and
more refined atheism is once more disguised. Ni dieu nimehtre. That also is
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what you want, and therefore cheersfor natural law? Is it not so?
But as has been said, thatis interpretation, not text. And
somebody might come along who, withopposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could
read out of the same nature andwith regard to the same phenomena, just
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the tyrannically inconsiderate and relentless enforcement ofthe claims of power. An interpreter who
should so place the unexceptionalness and unconditionalnessof all will to power before your eyes,
that almost every word and the wordtyranny itself would eventually seem unsuitable,
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or like a weakening and softening metaphor, as being too human and who should
nevertheless end by asserting the same aboutthis world as you do, namely,
that it has a necessary and calculablecourse, not however, because laws obtain
in it, but because they areabsolutely lacking, and every power affects its
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ultimate consequences every moment. Granted thatthis also is only interpretation, and you
will be eager enough to make thisobjection well, so much the better.
Twenty three. All psychology hitherto hasrun aground on moral prejudices and timidities.
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It has not dared to launch outinto the depths. In so far as
it is allowable to recognize in thatwhich has hitherto been written evidence of that
which has hitherto been kept silent.It seems as if nobody had yet harbored
the notion of psychology as the morphologyand development doctrine of the will to power.
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As I conceive of it, thepower of moral prejudices has penetrated deeply
into the most intellectual world, theworld apparently most indifferent and unprejudiced, and
has obviously operated in an injurious,obstructive, blinding, and distorting manner.
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A proper physiopsychology has to contend withunconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator,
it has the heart against it.Even a doctrine of the reciprocal conditionalness
of the good and the bad impulsescauses as refined immorality, distress, and
aversion in a still strong and manlyconscience. Still more so, a doctrine
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of the derivation of all good impulsesfrom bad ones. If, however,
a person should regard even the emotionsof hatred, envy, covetousness, and
imperiousness as life conditioning emotions, asfactors which must be present fundamentally and essentially
in the general economy of life,which must therefore be further developed. If
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life is to be further developed,he will suffer from such a view of
things as from sea sickness. Andyet this hypothesis is far from being strangest
and most painful in this immense andalmost new domain of dangerous knowledge. And
there are in fact a hundred goodreasons why everyone should keep away from it.
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Who can do so. On theother hand, if one has once
drifted hither with one's bark, well, very good. Now, let us
set our teeth firmly, let usopen our eyes and keep our hands fast
on the helm, we sail awayright over morality we crush out, We
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destroy, perhaps the remains of ourown mortality by daring to make our voyage
thither. But what do we matter? Never yet did a profounder world of
insight reveal itself to daring travelers andadventurers. And the psychologist who thus makes
a sacrifice it is not the sacrificiodel intellecto. On the contrary, will
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at least be entitled to demand inreturn that psychology shall once more be recognized
as the queen of the sciences,for whose service and equipment the other sciences
exist, For psychology is once morethe path to the fundamental problems. End
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of Chapter one,
This is a LibriVox recording. AllLibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer,please visit LibriVox dot org. Beyond Good
and Evil by Frederic Nietzsche, Chapterone, Prejudices of Philosophers, read by
Hugh Maguire one. The will totruth, which is to tempt us to
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many a hazardous enterprise, the famoustruthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken
with respect. What questions has thiswill to truth not laid before us?
What strange, perplexing, questionable questions? It is already a long story,
yet it seems as if it werehardly commenced. Is it any wonder if
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we at last grow distrustful, losepatience, and turn impatiently away, that
the Sphinx teaches us at last toask questions ourselves. Who is it really
that puts questions to us here?What really is this will to truth?
In us? In fact, wemade a long halt at the questions as
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to the origin of this will,until at last we came to an absolute
standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the value of this
will. Granted that we want thetruth, why not rather untruth and uncertainty,
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even ignorance. The problem of thevalue of truth presented itself before us?
Or was it we who presented ourselvesbefore the problem? Which of us
is the Oedipus? Here which thesphinx? It would seem to be a
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rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it
at last seems to us as ifthe problem had never been propounded before,
as if we were the first todiscern it, Get a sight of it,
and risk raising it, For thereis risk in raising it, perhaps
there is no greater risk. Two, How could anything originate out of its
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opposite? For example, truth outof error, or the will to truth
out of the will to deception,or the generous deed out of selfishness,
or the pure sun bright vision ofthe wise man out of covetousness. Such
genesis is impossible. Whoever dreams ofit is a fool, nay worse than
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a fool. Things of the highestvalue must have a different origin, an
origin of their own. In thistransitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world,
in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source,
but rather in the lap of being, in the intransitory, in the concealed
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God, in the thing in itself, there must be their source, and
nowhere else. This mode of reasoningdiscloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of
all times can be recognized. Thismode of valuation is at the back of
all their logical procedure. Through thisbelief of theirs, they exert themselves for
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their knowledge for something that is,in the end solemnly christened the truth.
The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is thebelief in antithesis of values. It never
occurred even to the wariest of themto doubt here, on the very threshold
where doubt, however, was mostnecessary, though they had made a solemn
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vow de omnibus dubitundum. For itmay be doubted firstly whether antithesis exists at
all, and secondly, whether thepopular valuations and antithesis of value upon which
metaphysicians have set their seal are notperhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives,
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besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from below frog perspectives,
as it were, to borrow anexpression current among painters. In spite of
all the value which may belong tothe true, the positive, and the
unselfish, it might be possible thata higher and more fundamental value for life
generally should be assigned to pretense,to the will, to delusion, to
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selfishness and cupidity. It might evenbe possible that what constitutes the value of
those good and respected things consists preciselyin their being insidiously related, natted,
and crotcheted to these evil and apparentlyopposed things, perhaps even in being essentially
identical with them. Perhaps, Butwho wishes to concern himself with such dangerous
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perhapses that investigation One must await theadvent of a new order of philosophers,
such as will have other tastes andinclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalent
philosophers of the dangerous, perhaps inevery sense of the term, and to
speak, in all seriousness, Isee such new philosophers beginning to appear.
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Three. Having kept a sharp eyeon philosophers, and having read between their
lines long enough, I now sayto myself that the greater part of conscious
thinking must be counted among the instinctivefunctions, and it is so even in
the case of philosophical thinking, onehas here to learn anew as one learned
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new about heredity and innateness. Aslittle as the act of birth comes into
consideration in the whole process and procedureof heredity, just as little is being
conscious opposed the instinctive in any decisivesense. The greater part of the conscious
thinking of a philosopher is secretly influencedby his instincts and forced into definite channels.
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And behind all logic and its seemingsovereignty of movement, there are valuations,
or, to speak more plainly,physiological demands for the maintenance of a
definite mode of life, for example, that the certain is worth more than
the uncertain, that the illusion isless valuable than the truth. Such valuations,
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in spite of their regulative importance forus, might notwithstanding, be only
superficial valuations, special kinds of mayiseri, such as may be necessary for the
maintenance of beings such as ourselves.Supposing in effect, that man is not
just the measure of things. Four, the falseness of an opinion is not
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for us any objection to it.It is here, perhaps that our new
language sounds most strangely, the questionis how far an opinion is life furthering,
life, persevering, species persevering,perhaps species rearing. And we are
fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsestopinions to which the synthetic judgments a priority
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belong, are the most indispensable tous. That without a recognition of logical
fictions, without a comparison of realitywith the purely imagined world of the absolute
and immutable, without a constant counterfeitingof the world by means of numbers,
man could not live. That therenunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation
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of life, a negation of life. To recognize untruth as a condition of
life, that is certainly to impungethe traditional ideas of value in a dangerous
manner. And a philosophy which venturesto do so, has thereby alone placed
itself beyond good and evil. Five. That which causes philosophers to be regarded
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half distrustfully and half mockingly is notthe oft repeated discovery, how innocent they
are, how often and easily theymake mistakes and lose their way. In
short, how childish and childlike theyare. But that there is not enough
honest dealing with them, whereas theyall raise a loud and virtuous outcry when
the problem of truthfulness is even hintedat in the remotest manner. They all
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pose as though their real opinions hadbeen discovered and attained through the self evolving
of a cold, pure, divinelyindifferent dialectic. In contrast to all sorts
of mystics, who fairer and foolishertalk of inspiration, whereas in fact a
prejudice, proposition, idea, orsuggestion, which is generally their heart's desire,
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abstracted and refined, is defended bythem, with arguments sought out after
the event. They are all advocateswho do not wish to be regarded as
such, generally astute defenders also oftheir prejudices, which they dub truths,
and very far from having the consciencewhich bravely admits this to itself, very
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far from having the good taste ofthe courage, which goes so far as
to let this be understood, perhapsto warm friend or foe, or in
ch cheerful confidence and self grecule.The spectacle of the tartufery of old Kant,
equally stiff and decent with which heentices us into the dialectic byways that
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lead more correctly mislead to his categoricalimperative. Makes us fasidious ones smile,
we who find no small amusement inspying out the subtle tricks of old moralists
and ethical preachers, or still moreso the hocus pocus in mathematical form,
by means of which Spinoza has,as it were, clad his philosophy in
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male and mask in fact the loveof his wisdom to translate the term fairly
and squarely, in order thereby tostrike terror at once into the heart of
the assailant, who should dare tocast a glance on the invincible maiden that
pallis athene. How much of personaltimidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a
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sickly recluse betray six It has graduallybecome clear to me what every great philosophy
up till now has consisted of,namely the confession of its originator and a
species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography.And moreover that the moral or immoral purpose
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in every philosophy has constituted the truevital germ, out of which the entire
plant has always grown. Indeed,to understand how the abstrusist metaphysical assertions of
a philosopher have been arrived at,it is always well and wise to first
ask oneself what morality do they ordoes he aim at? Accordingly, I
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do not believe that an impulse toknowledge is the father of philosophy, but
that another impulse here is elsewhere,has only made use of knowledge, and
mistaken knowledge as an instrument. Butwhoever considers the fundamental impulses of man with
a view to determining how far theymay have here acted as inspiring Jenny or
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as demons and Cobald's, will findthat they have all practiced philosophy at one
time or another, and that eachone of them would have been only too
glad to look upon itself as theultimate end of existence and the legitimate lord
over all other impulses. For everyimpulse is imperious, and as such attempts
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to philosophye. To be sure,in the case of scholars, in the
case of really scientific men, itmay be otherwise better if you will there
there may really be such a thingas an impulse to knowledge, some kind
of small, independent clockwork which whenwell wound up, works away industriously to
that end, without the rest ofthe scholarly impulses taking any material part therein.
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The actual interests of the scholar,therefore, are generally in quite another
direction, in the family, perhaps, or in money making, or in
politics. It is in fact almostindifferent at what point of research his little
machine is placed, and whether thehopeful young worker becomes a good philologist,
a mushroom specialist, or a chemist. He is not characterized by becoming this
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or that. In the philosopher,on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing
impersonal, and above all his moralityfurnishes a decide and decisive testimony as to
who he is. That is tosay, in what order the deepest impulses
of his nature stand to each other. Seven How malicious philosophers can be,
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I know of nothing more stinging thanthe joke Epicurius took the liberty of making
on Plato and Platonists. He calledthem Dionysio colakes in its original sense,
and on the face of it,the word signifies flatterers of Dionysius. Consequently,
tyrants, accessories, and lickspittles.Besides this, however, it is
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as much to say they are allactors. There is nothing genuine about them.
For Dionysio Collas was a popular namefor an actor, and the latter
is really the malignant reproach that Epicuriuscast upon Plato. He was annoyed by
the grandiose manner the Mesoncene's style,of which Plato and his scholars were masters,
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of which Epicurius was not a master. He the old school teacher of
Samos, who sat concealed in hislittle garden at Athens and wrote three hundred
books, perhaps out of rage andambitious envy of Plato. Who knows Greece
took a hundred years to find outwho the garden god Epicurius really was.
Did she ever find out? Eight? There is a point in every philosophy
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at which the conviction of the philosopherappears on the scene. Or, to
put it in the words of theancient mystery aventavit Asinos pulker A fortissimus.
Nine you desire to live according tonature, Oh, you noble stoics,
What fraud of words? Imagine toyourselves indifference as a power? How could
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you live in accordance with such indifference? To live, is not that just
endeavoring to be otherwise than this?Nature is not living valuing, preferring being
unjust being limited, endeavoring to bedifferent. And granted that your imperative living
according to nature means actually the sameas living according to life, how could
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you do differently? Why should youmake a principle out of what you yourselves
are and must be in reality?However, it is quite otherwise with you.
While you pretend to read with rapturethe canon of your law and nature,
you want something quite contrary. Youextraordinary stage players and self deluds in
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your pride. You wish to dictateyour morals and ideals to nature, to
nature herself, and to incorporate themtherein. You insist that it shall be
nature according to the Stoa, andwould like everything to be made after your
own image, as a vast eternalglorification and generalism of stoicism. With all
your love for truth, you haveforced yourselves so long, so persistently,
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and with hypnotic rigidity, to seenature falsely, that is to say,
stoically, that you are no longerable to see it otherwise, and to
crown all some unfathomable superciliousness gives youthe belamite hope that because you are able
to tyrannize over yourselves, stoicism isself tyranny. Nature will also allow herself
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to be tyrannized over. Is notthe stoic a part of nature? But
this is an old and everlasting story. What happened in old times with the
stoic still happens today. As soonas ever a philosophy begins to believe in
itself, it always creates the worldin its own image. It cannot do
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otherwise. Philosophy is this tyrannical impulseitself, the most spiritual will to power,
the will to creation of the world, the will to cause a prima
ten, the eerness and subtle,I should even say, craftiness with which
the problem of the real and theapparent world is dealt with. At present,
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throughout Europe furnishes food for thought andattention, And he who hears only
a will to truth in the backgroundand nothing else cannot certainly boast of the
sharpest ears. In rare and isolatedcases, it may really have happened that
such a will to truth a certainextravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition
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of the forlorn hope has participated thereinthat which, in the end always prefers
a handful of certainty to a wholecartload of beautiful possibilities. There may even
be puritanical fanatics of conscience who preferto put their last trust in assure nothing
rather than in an uncertain something.But that is nihilism and the sign of
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a despairing, morally wearied soul,notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue made
as say. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier
thinkers, who are still eager forlife, in that they side against appearance
and speak superciliously of perspective, inthat they rank the credibility of their own
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bodies about as low as the credibilityof the ocular evidence that the earth stands
still, and thus apparently allowing withcomplacency their securest possession to escape. For
what does one at present believe inmore firmly than in one's body. Who
knows if they are not really tryingto win back something which was formerly an
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even securer possession, something of theold domain of the faith of former times.
Perhaps the immortal soul, perhaps theold God, in short, ideas
by which they could live better,that is to say, more vigorously and
more joyously than by modern ideas.There is distrust of these modern ideas in
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this mode of looking at things,a disbelief in all that has been constructed
yesterday and today. There is perhapssome slight admixture of satiety and scorn which
can no longer endure the BRITA bractof ideas of the most varied origin,
such as so called positivism at presentthrows on the market a disgust at the
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more refined taste, at the villagefair motliness and patchiness of all these reality
philosophasters in whom there is nothing eithernew or true except this motleliness. Therein,
it seems to me that we shouldagree with those skeptical anti realists and
knowledge microscopists of the present day.Their instinct which repels them from modern reality
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is unrefuted. What do their retrogradebypaths concern us? The main thing about
them is not that they wish togo back, but that they wish to
get away therefrom little more strength,swing, courage, and artistic power,
and they would be off and notback eleven. It seems to me that
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there is everywhere an attempt at presentto divert attention from the actual influence which
Kant exercised on German philosophy, andespecially to ignore prudently the value which he
set upon himself. Kant was firstand foremost proud of his table of categories.
With it in his hand, hesaid, this is the most difficult
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thing that could ever be undertaken onbehalf of metaphysics. Let us only understand
this could be. He was proudof having discovered a new faculty in Man,
the faculty of synthetic judgment, apriory granting that he deceived himself in
this matter. The development and rapidflourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his
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pride and on the eager rivalry ofthe younger generation to discover, if possible,
something at all events, new facultiesof which to be still prouder.
But let us reflect for a momentit is high time to do so.
How are synthetic judgments a priority possible? Kant asks himself, and what is
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really his answer by means of ameans faculty, But unfortunately not in five
words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of German profundity
and verbal flourishes, that one altogetherloses sight of the comical niazeri a lamande
(21:40):
involved in such an answer. Peoplewere beside themselves with delight over this new
faculty, and the jubilation reached itsclimax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty
in Man, for at that timeGermans were still moral, not yet dabbling
in the politics of hard fact.Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy.
(22:02):
All the young theologians of the TubigeneInstitution went immediately into the groves, all
seeking for faculties. And what didthey not find in that innocent, rich
and still youthful period of the Germanspirit to which Romanticism the malicious fairy piped
and sang when one could not yetdistinguish between finding and inventing. Above all
(22:29):
a faculty for the transcendental shell ichristenedit intellectual intuition and thereby gratified the most
earnest longings of the naturally pious inclineGermans. One can do no greater wrong
to the whole of this exuberant andecstatic movement, which was really youthfulness,
notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldlyin hoary and senile conceptions than to take
(22:55):
it seriously or even treat it withmoral indignation. However, the world grew
older and the dream vanished. Atime came when people rubbed their foreheads,
and they still rubbed today. Peoplehad been dreaming, and first and foremost
old kant by means of a meansfaculty, he had said, or at
(23:18):
least meant to say. But isthat an answer, an explanation, or
is it not rather merely a repetitionof the question, how does opium induce
sleep? By means of a faculty? Namely, the virtuous dormitiva, replies
the doctor in moliere kia s ineovitrus dormitiva kujus s natura census asuper.
(23:49):
But such replies belong to the realmof comedy, and it is high time
to replace the Kantian question, howare synthetic judgments a priori possible? By
another question, why is belief insuch judgments necessary? In effect, it
is high time that we should understandthat such judgments must be believed to be
(24:10):
true for the sake of the preservationof creatures like ourselves. Though they still
might naturally be false judgments or moreplainly spoken and roughly and readily synthetic judgments,
a priority should not be possible atall. We have no right to
them in our mouths. They arenothing but false judgments. Only, of
(24:30):
course, the belief in their truthis necessary, as plausible belief and ocular
evidence belonging to the prospective view oflife. And finally, to call to
mind the enormous influence which German philosophyI hope you understand its right to inverted
commas goose feet, has exercised throughoutthe whole of Europe. There is no
(24:53):
doubt that a certain virtuous dormitiva hada share in it thanks to German philosophy.
It was a delight to the noble, idlers, the virtuous, the
mystics, the artiste, the threefourths Christians, and the political obscurantists of
all nations to find an antidote tothe still overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the
(25:17):
last centrally into this in short censusasupire twelve. As regards materialistic atomism,
It is one of the best refutedtheories that have been advanced, and in
Europe there is now perhaps no onein the learned world so unscholarly as to
attach serious signification to it, exceptfor convenient everyday use as an abbreviation of
(25:44):
the means of expression. Thanks chieflyto the pole Boskovich, he and the
pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatestand most successful opponents of ocular evidence.
For while Copernicus has persuaded us tobelieve, contrary to all the senses,
that the Earth does not stand fast, Boskovich has taught us to abjure the
(26:07):
belief in the last thing that stoodfast of the Earth, the belief in
substance in matter, in the earthresidum and particle atom. It is the
greatest triumph over the senses that hashitherto been gained on Earth. One must,
however, go still further and alsodeclare war, relentless war to the
(26:29):
knife against the atomistic requirements, whichstill lead a dangerous after life in places
where no one suspects them, Likethe more celebrated metaphysical requirements. One must
also, above all give the finishingstroke to that other more portentous atomism,
which Christianity has taught best and longest, the soul atomism. Let it be
(26:53):
permitted to designate by this expression thebelief which regards the soul as something in
destruction, eternal, indivisible, asa monad, as an atomon. This
belief ought to be expelled from sciencebetween ourselves. It is not at all
necessary to get rid of the soulthereby, and thus renounce one of the
(27:15):
oldest and most venerated hypotheses. Hashappened frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists,
who can hardly touch on the soulwithout immediately losing it. But the way
is open for new acceptations and refinementsof the soul hypothesis, and such conceptions
as mortal soul and soul of subjectivemultiplicity, and soul as social structure of
(27:38):
the instincts and passions want henceforth tohave legitimate rights in science. In that
new psychologist is about to put anend to the superstitions which have hitherto flourished
with almost tropical luxuriance around the ideaof the soul. He is really,
as it were, thrusting himself intoa new desert and a new distrust,
(28:03):
it is possible that the older psychologistshad a merrier and more comfortable time of
it. Eventually, however, hefinds that precisely thereby he is also condemned
to invent, and who knows,perhaps to discover the new thirteen Psychologists should
bethink themselves before putting down the instinctof self preservation, As the cardinal instinct
(28:29):
of an organic being, a livingthing seeks above all to discharge its strength.
Life itself is will to power.Self preservation is only one of the
indirect and most frequent results thereof.In short, here as everywhere else,
let us beware of superfluous teleological principles, one of which is the instinct of
(28:52):
self preservation. We owe it toSpinosa's inconsistency. It is thus, in
effect that method ordains, which mustbe essentially economy of principles fourteen. It
is perhaps just dawning on five orsix minds that natural philosophy is only a
world exposition and world arrangement according tous if I may say so, and
(29:18):
not a world explanation. But inso far as it is based on belief
in the senses, it is regardedas more and for a long time to
come must be regarded as more namely, as an explanation. It has eyes
and fingers of its own. Ithas ocular evidence and palpableness of its own.
This operates fascinatingly, persuasively, andconvincingly upon an age with fundamentally plebeian
(29:45):
tastes. In fact, it followsinstinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular
sensualism. What is clear, whatis explained, only that which can be
seen and felt. One must perusea every problem thus far. Aversely,
however, the charm of the Platonicmode of thought, which was an aristocratic
(30:07):
mode, consisted precisely in resistance toobvious sense evidence, perhaps among men who
enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious sensesthan our contemporaries, but who knew how
to find a higher triumph in remainingmasters of them, and this by means
of pale, cold, gray conceptualnetworks, which they threw over the motley
(30:33):
whirl of the senses, the mobof the senses. As Plato said,
in this Overcoming of the World andinterpreting of the World. In the manner
of Plato, there was an enjoymentdifferent from that which the physicist of today
offer us, and likewise the Darwinistsand anti teleologists among the physiological workers,
(30:57):
with their principle of the smallest possibleeffort and the greatest possible blunder. Where
there is nothing more to see orgrasp, there is also nothing more for
men to do. That is certainlyan imperative different from the platonic one,
but it may notwithstanding be the rightimperative for a hardy, laborious race of
machinists and bridge builders of the future, who have nothing but rough work to
(31:22):
perform. Fifteen. To study physiologywith a clear conscience, one must insist
on the fact that the sense organsare not phenomena in the sense of the
idealistic philosophy. As such, theycertainly could not be causes sensualism therefore,
(31:44):
at least as regulative hypothesis, ifnot as euristic principle. What and others
say even that the external world isthe work of our organs, but then
our body, as a part ofthis external world, would be the work
of our organs. But then ourorgans themselves would be the work of our
(32:07):
organs. It seems to me thatthis is a complete reductio ad absurdum.
If the conception causa sui is somethingfundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world
is not the work of our organs. Sixteen. There are still harmless self
(32:29):
observers who believe that there are immediatecertainties. For instance, I think,
or as a superstition of Schopenhauer putsit, I will, as though cognition
here got hold of its object purelyand simply as the thing in itself,
without any falsification taking place, eitheron the part of the subject or the
(32:50):
object. I would repeat it,however a hundred times that immediate certainty,
as well as absolute knowledge and thething in its involve a contradictio in adjecto.
We really ought to free ourselves fromthe misleading significance of words. The
people, on their part, maythink that cognition is knowing all about things,
(33:15):
But the philosopher must say to himself, when I analyze the process that
is expressed in the sentence, Ithink, I find a whole series of
daring assertions, the argumentative proof ofwhich would be difficult, perhaps impossible.
For instance, that it is Iwho think that there must necessarily be something
(33:38):
that thinks that thinking is an activityand an operation on the part of a
being who is thought of as acause, that there is an ego,
and finally, that it is alreadydetermined what is to be designated by thinking?
That I know what thinking is.For if I had not already done
(34:00):
sided within myself what it is,by what standard could I determine whether that
which is just happening is not perhapswilling or feeling? In short, the
assertion I think assumes that I comparemy state at the present moment with other
states of myself which I know,in order to determine what it is.
On account of this retrospective connection withfurther knowledge, it has at any rate
(34:24):
no immediate certainty for me, inplace of the immediate certainty in which the
people may believe in the special case. The philosopher thus finds a series of
metaphysical questions presented to him, veritableconscience questions of the intellect, to wit,
(34:45):
whence did I get this notion ofthinking? Why do I believe in
cause and effect? What gives methe right to speak of an ego and
even of an ego as cause,and finally of an ego as cause of
thought? He who ventures to answerthese metaphysical questions at once by an appeal
(35:06):
to a sort of intuitive perception,like the person who says, I think
and I know that this at leastis true, actual, and certain,
will encounter a smile and two notesof interrogation in a philosopher. Nowadays,
sir, the philosopher will perhaps givento understand, it is improbable that you
are not mistaken, But why shouldit be the truth? Seventeen With regard
(35:32):
to the superstitions of logicians, Ishall never tire of emphasizing a small,
terse fact which is unwillingly recognized bythese credulous minds, namely, that a
thought comes when it wishes, andnot when I wish. So that it
is a perversion of the facts ofthe case to say that the subject I
(35:55):
is the condition of the predicate thinkone thinks, but that this one is
precisely the famous old ego is toput it, mildly, only a supposition,
an assertion, and assuredly not animmediate certainty. After all, one
has even gone too far with this, one thinks, even the one contains
(36:21):
an interpretation of the process and doesnot belong to the process itself. One
infers here, according to the usualgrammatical formula to think is an activity.
Every activity requires an agency that isactive. Consequently, it was pretty much
the same lines that the older atomistssought. Besides the operating power the material
(36:46):
particle wherein it resides and out ofwhich it operates the atom. More rigorous
minds, however, learned it lastto get along without this earth residium.
And perhaps someday we shall accusts toourselves, even from the logician's point of
view, to get along without thelittle one to which the worthy old ego
(37:07):
has refined itself. Eighteen. Itis certainly not the least charm of a
theory that it is refutable. Itis precisely thereby that it attracts the more
subtle minds. It seems that thehundred times refuted theory of the free will
owes its persistence to this charm alone. Someone is always appearing who feels himself
(37:32):
strong enough to refute it. Nineteen. Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the
will as though it were the bestknown thing in the world. Indeed,
Schopenhauer has given us to understand thatthe will alone is really known to us,
absolutely and completely known, without deductionor addition. But it again and
(37:54):
again seems to me that in thiscase Schopenhauer also only did what philosophers are
in the habit of doing. Heseems to have adopted a popular prejudice and
exaggerated it. Willing seems to meto be above all something complicated, something
that is a unity only in name. And it is precisely in a name
(38:17):
that popular prejudice lurks, which hasgot the mastery over the inadequate precautions of
philosophers in all ages. So letus for once be more cautious. Let
us be unphilosophical. Let us saythat in all willing there is firstly a
plurality of sensations, namely the sensationof the condition away from which we go,
(38:42):
the sensation of the condition towards whichwe go, the sensation of this
from and towards itself. And thenbesides an accompanying muscular sensation, which,
even without our putting in motion armsand legs, commences its action by force
of habit. Directly we will anythingtherefore, just as sensations, and indeed
(39:09):
many kinds of sensations are to berecognized as ingredients of the will. So
in the second place, thinking isalso to be recognized in every act of
the will, there is a rulingthought. And let us not imagine it
possible to sever this thought from thewilling, as if the will would then
(39:32):
remain over. In the third place, the will is not only a complex
of sensation and thinking, but itis above all an emotion, and in
fact the emotion of the command,that which is termed freedom of the will
is essentially the emotion of supremacy andrespect. To him who must obey,
(39:54):
I am free, he must obey. This consciousness is inherent in every will
will, and equally so the strainingof the attention, the straight look,
which fixes itself exclusively on one thing, the unconditional judgment that this and nothing
else is necessary now, the inwardcertainty that obedience will be rendered, and
(40:16):
whatever else pertains to the position ofthe commander. A man who wills commands
something within himself which renders obedience,or which he believes renders obedience. But
now let us notice what is thestrangest thing about the will, this affair
so extremely complex, for which thepeople have only one name. Inasmuch as,
(40:39):
in the given circumstances, we are, at the same time the commanding
and the obeying parties, and asthe obeying party, we know the sensations
of constraint, impulsion, pressure,resistance, and motion, which usually commence
immediately after the act of wills.Much as on the other hand, we
(41:00):
are accustomed to disregard this duality andto deceive ourselves about it by means of
the synthetic term I. A wholeseries of erroneous conclusions, and consequently of
false judgments about the will itself,has become attached to the act of willing,
to such a degree that he whowills believes firmly that willing suffices for
(41:23):
action. Since in the majority ofcases there has only been exercise of will
when the effect of the command consequentlyobedience and therefore action was to be expected,
the appearance has translated itself into sentiment, as if there were a necessity
(41:44):
of effect. In a word,he who wills believes with a fair amount
of certainty that will and action aresomehow won. He ascribes the success the
carrying out of the willing to thewill itself, and thereby enjoys an increase
of the sensation of power which accompaniesall success freedom of will, that is
(42:10):
the expression for the complex state ofdelight of the person exercising volition, who
commands and at the same time identifieshimself with the executor of the order,
who as such enjoys also the triumphover obstacles, but thinks within himself that
it was really his own will thatovercame them. In this way, the
(42:31):
person exercising volition adds feelings of delightof his successful executive instruments, the useful
under wills or under souls. Indeed, our body is but a social structure
composed of many souls. To hisfeelings of delight, as Commander le fessemis,
what happens here is what happens inevery well constructed and happy commonwealth,
(42:55):
namely, that the governing class identifiesitself with the successes of the commonwealth.
In all willing. It is absolutelya question of commanding and obeying on the
basis, as already said, ofa social structure composed of many souls,
on which account a philosopher should claimthe right to include willing as such within
(43:19):
the sphere of morals regarded as thedoctrine of the relations of supremacy, under
which the phenomenon of life manifests itself. Twenty that the separate philosophical ideas are
not anything optional or autonomously evolving,but grow up in connection and relationship with
each other that, however suddenly andarbitrarily they seem to appear in the history
(43:45):
of thought, they nevertheless belong justas much to a system as the collective
members of the fauna of a continent. Is betrayed in the end by the
circumstance. How unfailingly, the mostdiverse philosopher always fill in again a definite
fundamental scheme of possible philosophies under aninvisible spell. They always revolve once more
(44:09):
in the same orbit. However,independent of each other they may feel themselves
with their critical or systematic wills,something within them leads them, something impels
them, in definite order, theone after the other, to wit the
innate methodology and relationship of their ideas. Their thinking is in fact, far
(44:35):
less a discovery than a re recognizing, a remembering, a return and a
homecoming to far off ancient common householdof the soul out of which those ideas
formerly grew. Philosophizing is so fara kind of activism of the highest order.
The wonderful family resemblance of all Indian, Greek and German philosophizing is easily
(45:00):
enough explained. In fact, wherethere is affinity of language owing to the
common philosophy of grammar, I mean, owing to the unconscious domination and guidance
of similar grammatical functions, it cannotbut be that everything is prepared at the
outset for a similar development and successionof philosophical systems. Just as the way
(45:23):
seems barred against certain other possibilities ofworld interpretation, it is highly probable that
philosophers within the domain of the uralaltaic languages, where the conception of the
subject is least developed, look otherwiseinto the world, and will be found
(45:43):
on paths of thought different from thoseof the Indo Germans and Mussulmans. The
spell of certain grammatical functions is ultimatelyalso the spell of physiological valuations and racial
conditions. So much by way ofdaring Locke superficiality with regard to the origin
of ideas twenty one, the causasui is the best self contradiction that has
(46:09):
yet been conceived. It is asort of logical violation and unnaturalness. But
the extravagant pride of man has managedto entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with this
very folly. The desire for freedomof will in the superlative metaphysical sense,
such as still holds sway unfortunately inthe minds of the half educated, the
(46:34):
desire to bear the entire and ultimateresponsibility for one's actions oneself, and to
absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society. Therefrom involves
nothing less than to be precisely thiscausa sui, and with more than Munchausen
daring to pull oneself up into existenceby the hair out of the slough of
(46:58):
nothingness. Very one should find outin this manner the crass stupidity of the
celebrated conception of free will, andput it out of his head altogether.
I beg of him to carry hisenlightenment a step further, and also put
out of his head the contrary ofthis monstrous conception of free will, I
(47:19):
mean non free will, which istantamount to a misuse of cause and effect.
One should not wrongly materialize cause andeffect, as the natural philosophers do,
and whoever like them naturalize in thinkingat present according to the prevailing mechanical
doultishness, which makes the cause pressand push until it affects its end.
(47:43):
One should use cause and effect onlyas pure conceptions, that is to say,
as conventional fictions for the purpose ofdesignation and mutual understanding, not for
explanation. In being in itself thereis nothing of causal connection, of nonses
necessity, or of psychological non freedom. There the effect does not follow the
(48:06):
cause, their law does not obtain. It is we alone who have devised
cause, sequence, reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom,
motive, and purpose. And whenwe interpret and intermix this symbol world
as being in itself with things,we act once more as we have always
(48:30):
acted. Mythologically, the non freewill is mythology. In real life,
it is only a question of strongand weak wills. It is almost always
a symptom of what is lacking inhimself. When a thinker, in every
causal connection and psychological necessity, manifestssomething of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness,
(48:54):
oppression, and non freedom, itis suspicious to have somes the person betrays
himself. And in general, ifI have observed correctly, the non freedom
of the will is regarded as aproblem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but
always in a profoundly personal manner.Some will not give up their responsibility,
(49:21):
their belief in themselves the personal rightto their merits at any price. The
vain races belong to this class.Others, on the contrary, do not
wish to be answerable for anything orblamed for anything, and, owing to
an inward self contempt, seek toget out of the business no matter how
(49:44):
The latter, when they write books, are in the habit at present of
taking the side of criminals. Asort of socialistic sympathy is their favorite disguise,
and as a matter of fact,the fatalism of the weak willed embellishes
itself surprise when it compose as lareligion de las sufranc umene, that is
(50:06):
its good taste. Twenty two.Let me be pardoned as an old philologist
who cannot desist from the mischief ofputting his finger on bad modes of interpretation.
But nature's conformity to law of whichyou physicists talk so proudly, as
though why it exists only owing toyour interpretation and bad philology, it is
(50:30):
no matter of fact, no text, but rather just naively humanitarian adjustment and
perversion of meeting with which you makeabundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the
modern soul. Everywhere equality before thelaw. Nature is not different in that
respect, nor better than we afine instance of secret motive in which the
(50:54):
vulgar antagonism to everything privileged and autocraticwise a second and more refined atheism,
in which a vulgar antagonism to everythingprivileged and autocratic. Likewise a second and
more refined atheism is once more disguised. Ni dieu nimehtre. That also is
(51:15):
what you want, and therefore cheersfor natural law? Is it not so?
But as has been said, thatis interpretation, not text. And
somebody might come along who, withopposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could
read out of the same nature andwith regard to the same phenomena, just
(51:38):
the tyrannically inconsiderate and relentless enforcement ofthe claims of power. An interpreter who
should so place the unexceptionalness and unconditionalnessof all will to power before your eyes,
that almost every word and the wordtyranny itself would eventually seem unsuitable,
(52:00):
or like a weakening and softening metaphor, as being too human and who should
nevertheless end by asserting the same aboutthis world as you do, namely,
that it has a necessary and calculablecourse, not however, because laws obtain
in it, but because they areabsolutely lacking, and every power affects its
(52:23):
ultimate consequences every moment. Granted thatthis also is only interpretation, and you
will be eager enough to make thisobjection well, so much the better.
Twenty three. All psychology hitherto hasrun aground on moral prejudices and timidities.
(52:44):
It has not dared to launch outinto the depths. In so far as
it is allowable to recognize in thatwhich has hitherto been written evidence of that
which has hitherto been kept silent.It seems as if nobody had yet harbored
the notion of psychology as the morphologyand development doctrine of the will to power.
(53:05):
As I conceive of it, thepower of moral prejudices has penetrated deeply
into the most intellectual world, theworld apparently most indifferent and unprejudiced, and
has obviously operated in an injurious,obstructive, blinding, and distorting manner.
(53:27):
A proper physiopsychology has to contend withunconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator,
it has the heart against it.Even a doctrine of the reciprocal conditionalness
of the good and the bad impulsescauses as refined immorality, distress, and
aversion in a still strong and manlyconscience. Still more so, a doctrine
(53:53):
of the derivation of all good impulsesfrom bad ones. If, however,
a person should regard even the emotionsof hatred, envy, covetousness, and
imperiousness as life conditioning emotions, asfactors which must be present fundamentally and essentially
in the general economy of life,which must therefore be further developed. If
(54:16):
life is to be further developed,he will suffer from such a view of
things as from sea sickness. Andyet this hypothesis is far from being strangest
and most painful in this immense andalmost new domain of dangerous knowledge. And
there are in fact a hundred goodreasons why everyone should keep away from it.
(54:38):
Who can do so. On theother hand, if one has once
drifted hither with one's bark, well, very good. Now, let us
set our teeth firmly, let usopen our eyes and keep our hands fast
on the helm, we sail awayright over morality we crush out, We
(54:59):
destroy, perhaps the remains of ourown mortality by daring to make our voyage
thither. But what do we matter? Never yet did a profounder world of
insight reveal itself to daring travelers andadventurers. And the psychologist who thus makes
a sacrifice it is not the sacrificiodel intellecto. On the contrary, will
(55:24):
at least be entitled to demand inreturn that psychology shall once more be recognized
as the queen of the sciences,for whose service and equipment the other sciences
exist, For psychology is once morethe path to the fundamental problems. End
(55:45):
of Chapter one,
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