May 10, 2024 • 39 mins
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Chapter two, The Free Spirit twentyfour Osancta simplicatatus. In what strange simplification
and falsification man lives? One cannever cease wondering when once one has got
eyes for beholding this marble. Howwe have made everything around us so clear
and free and easy and simple.How we have been able to give our
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senses a passport to everything superficial,our thoughts a godlike desire for wanton pranks
and wrong inferences. How from thebeginning we have contrived to retain our ignorance
in order to enjoy an almost inconceivablefreedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness,
and gaiety, in order to enjoylife. And only on this solidified,
granite like foundation of ignorance could knowledgerear itself hitherto the will to knowledge in
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the foundation of a far more powerfulwill, the will to ignorance, to
the uncertain, to the untrue,not as its opposite, but as its
refinement. It is to be hoped, indeed, that language here is elsewhere
will not get over its awkwardness,and that it will continue to talk of
opposites where there are only degrees.In many refinements of gradiation, it is
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equally to be hooped, that theincarnated tartuffery of morals, which now belongs
to our unconquerable flesh and blood,will turn the words round in the mouths
of us discerning ones. Here andthere we understand it and laugh at the
way in which precisely the best knowledgeseeks most to retain us in this simplified,
thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, andsuitably falsified world, At the way
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in which, whether it will ornot, it loves error, because as
living itself, it loves life.Twenty five After such a cheerful commencement,
a serious word would fain be heard. It appeals to the most serious minds.
Take care of you, philosophers andfriends of knowledge, and beware of
martyrdom, of suffering for the truth'ssake. Even in your own defense.
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It spoils all the innocence and fineneutrality of your conscience. It makes you
headstrong against objections in red rags.It stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes.
When in the struggle with dangersander's suspicion, expulsion, and even worse consequence of
enmity, ye have at last toplay your last card, as protectors of
truth upon earth, as though thetruth were such an innocent and incompetent creature
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as to require protectors. And youof all people, ye knights of the
sorrowful countenance, Monsieur Loufer and cobwebspinners of the spirit. Finally, ye
know sufficiently well that it cannot beof any consequence if ye just carry your
point. Ye know that hitherto nophilosopher has carried his point, and that
there might be a more laudable truthfulnessin every little interrogative mark which you place
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after your special words and favorite doctrines, and occasionally after yourselves, than in
all the solemn pantomime and trumping gamesbefore accusers in law courts. Rather go
out of the way, flee intoconcealment, and have your masks and your
ruses, that ye may be mistakenfor what you are, or somewhat feared,
and pray, don't forget the garden, the garden with golden trelliswork,
and have people around you who areas a garden or as musical the waters
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at eventide, when the day becomesa memory, Choose the good solitude,
the free, wanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you the right still
to remain good in any sense whatsoever, how poisonous, how crafty, how
bad does every long war make onefor which cannot be waged openly by means
of force? How personal does along fear make one? A long watching
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of enemies, of possible enemies,these pariahs of society, these long pursued,
badly persecuted ones. Also the compulsoryrecklesses the Spinozas and Gordiano Bruno's,
always become in the end, evenunder the most intellectual masquerade, and perhaps
without being themselves aware of it,refined vengeance sickers and poison brewers just lay
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bare the foundations of Spinoza's ethics andtheology, not to speak of the stupidity
of moral indignation, which is theunfailing sign in a philosopher that the sense
of philosophical humor has left him.The martyrdom of the philosopher, his sacrifice
for the sake of truth, forcesinto the light whatever of the agitator.
An actor lurks with within him,and if one has hitherto contemplated him only
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with artistic curiosity. With regard tomany a philosopher, it is easy to
understand the dangerous desire to see himalso in his deterioration, deteriorated into a
martyr, into a stage and tribunebrawler, Only that it is necessary with
such desire to be clear what spectacleone will see, in any case,
merely a satiric play, merely anepilogue farce, and merely continued proof that
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the long real tragedy is at anend. Supposing that every philosophy has long
been a tragedy in its origin twentysix, Every select man strives instinctively for
a citadel and a privacy where heis free from the crowd, the many,
the majority, where he may forgetmen who are the rule as their
exception, exclusive only of the casein which he is pushed straight to such
men by still stronger instinct as adiscerner in the great and exceptional sense.
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Whoever, in intercourse with men doesnot occasionally glisten in all the green and
gray colors of distress, owing todiscuss satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and
solitariness, is assuredly not a manof elevated tastes. Supposing however, that
he does not voluntarily take all thisburden and discussed upon himself, that he
persistently avoids it and remains, asI said, quietly and proudly hidden in
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his citadel. One thing is thencertain. He was not made, He
was not predestined for knowledge. Foras such he would one day have to
say to himself, the devil takemy good taste. But the rule is
more interesting than the exception, thanmyself the exception, and he would go
down. And above all he wouldgo inside the long and serious study of
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the average man, and consequently muchdisguise self, overcoming familiarity and bad intercourse.
All intercourse is bad intercourse except withone's equals. That constitutes a necessary
part of the life history of everyphilosopher, perhaps the most disagreeable, odious,
and disappointing part. If he isfortunate, however, as a favorite
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child of knowledge should be, hewill meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten
enlighten his task. I mean socalled cynics, those who simply recognize the
animal, the commonplace, and therule in themselves, and at the same
time have so much spirituality and ticklishnessas to make them talk of themselves and
their like before witnesses. Sometimes theywallow even in books as on their own.
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Dunghill cynicism is the only form inwhich base souls approach what is called
honesty, and the higher man mustopen his ears to all the coarser or
finer cynicism, and congratulate himself whenthe clown becomes shameless right before him,
or the scientific sator speaks out.There are even cases where enchantment mixes with
the disgust, namely whereby freak ofnature, genius is bound to some indiscreet
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billygoat and ape, as in thecase of the Abbe Guiliani, the profoundest,
acutest, and perhaps also the filthiestman of his century. He was
far profounder than Voltaire, and consequentlyalso a good deal more silent. It
happens more frequently, as has beenhinted, that a scientific head is placed
on an ape's body, a fineexceptional understanding in a base soul in occurrence
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by no means rare, especially amongdoctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone
speaks without bitterness, or rather quiteinnocently, of man as a belly with
two requirements and a head with one. Whenever anyone sees seeks and wants to
see only hunger, sexual instinct,and vanity as the real and only motives
of human actions. In short,when anyone speaks badly and not even ill
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of man, then ought the loverof knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently.
He ought in general to have anopen ear wherever there is talk without indignation
for the indignant man. And hewho perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his
own teeth or in place of himself, the world, god or society may
indeed, morally speaking, stand higherthan the laughing and self satisfied satyr,
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But in every other sense he ismore ordinary, more indifferent, and less
instructive case, and no one issuch a liar as the indignant man.
Twenty seven. It is different cultto be understood, especially when one thinks
and lives ganghestragati footnote like the riverGanges presto. Among those who think and
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live otherwise, namely kromagati footnote likethe tortoise lento, or at best frog
like mandya Kegati footnote like the frogstaccato. I do everything to be difficultly
understood myself, and one should beheartily grateful for the good will, and
some refinement of interpretation. As regardsthe good friends, however, who are
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always too easy going and think thatas friends they have a right to ease,
one does well at the very firstto grant them a playground in brompin
place for misunderstanding. One can thuslaugh still or get rid of them altogether
these good friends and laugh then alsotwenty eight. What is most difficult to
render from one language into another isthe tempo of its style, which has
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its basis in the character of therace, or to speak more physiologically,
in the average tempo of the assimiof its nutriment. There are honestly meant
translations which, as in voluntary vogarizations, are almost falsifications of the original,
merely because its lively and merry tempo, which overleaps and obviates all the dangers
in word and expression, could notalso be rendered. A German is almost
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incapacitated for presto in his language.Consequently, also he may be reasonably inferred
for many of the most delightful anddaring nuances of free, free spirited thought,
and just as the buffoon and satyrare foreign to him in body and
conscience. So Aristophanes and Petronius areuntranslatable. For him. Everything ponderous,
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viscous, and pompously clumsy, Alllong winded and weary species of style are
developed in profuse variety among Germans.Part of me for stating the fact that
even Gotha's prose, in its mixtureof stiffness and elegance, is no exception,
as a reflection of the good oldtime to which it belongs, and
an expression of German taste at atime when there was still a German taste,
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which was a rocucotate in moribus atArchibas. Blessing is an exception,
owing to his histrionic nature, whichunderstood much and was versed in many things.
He who was not the translator ofbail to no purpose, who took
refuge willingly in the shadow of Diteratand Voltaire, and still more willingly among
the Roman comedy writers. Lessing lovedalso free spiritism in the tempo and flight
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out of Germany. But how couldthe German language, even in the prose
of Lessing, imitate the tempo ofMachiavelli, who, in his principa makes
us breathe the dry, fine airof Florence, and cannot help presenting the
most serious events in a boisterous alagressimo, perhaps not without a malicious artistic sense
of the contrast, he ventures topresent long, heavy, difficult, dangerous
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thoughts and a tempo of the gallopand of the best wantonous humor. Finally,
who could venture on a German translationof Petronius, who, more than
any great musician hitherto was a masterof presto, in invention, ideas and
words. What matter in the endabout the swamps of the sick evie or
of the ancient world, when likehim one has the feet of the wind,
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the rush, the breath, theemancipating scorn of a wind which makes
everything healthy by making everything run.And with regard to Aristophanes, that transfiguring
complimentary genius, for whose sake onepardons all Hellenism for having existed, provided
one has understood in its whole profoundity, all that there requires pardon and transfiguration.
There is nothing that has caused meto meditate more on Plato's secrecy and
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spinslike nature than the happily preserved pettitfate that under the pillow of his death
bed, there was found no Bible, nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean or Platonic,
but a book of Aristophanes. Howcould even Plato have endured life,
a Greek life which he repudiated,without an Aristophanes twenty nine. It is
the business of the very few tobe independent. It is a privilege of
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the strong, And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but
without being obliged to do so,proves that he is probably not only strong,
but also daring beyond measure. Heenters into a labyrinth, he multiplies
a thousandfold the dangers which life initself already brings with it, not the
least of which is that no onecan see how and where he loses his
way, become isolated, and istorn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience.
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Suppose such a one comes to grief. It is so far from the comprehension
of men that they neither feel itnor sympathize with it. And he can
no longer go back. He cannoteven go back to the sympathy of men.
Thirty Our deepest insights must and shouldappear as follies, and under certain
circumstances as crimes when they are comeunauthorizedly to the ears of those who are
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not disposed and predestined for them.The exoteric and the esoteric, as they
were formally distinguished by philosophers among theIndians, as among the Greeks, Persians,
and Mussulmans. In short, whereverpeople believed in gradiations of rank,
not in equality and equal rights,are not so much in contradistinction to one
another. In respect to the exotericclass, standing without and viewing, estimating,
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measuring, and judging from the outsideand not from the inside. The
more essential distinction is that the classin question views things from below upwards,
while the esoteric class few things fromabove downwards. There are heights of the
soul from which tragedy itself no longerappears to operate tragically. And if all
the woe in the world were takentogether, who would dare to decide whether
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the sight of it would necessarily seduceand constrain to sympathy, and thus to
a doubling of the woe. Thatwhich serves the higher class of men for
nourishment or refreshment must also be poisonedto an entirely different and lower order.
Of human beings. The virtues ofthe common man would perhaps mean vice and
weakness in the philosopher. It mightbe possible for a highly developed man,
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supposing him to degenerate and go toRuin, to acquire qualities thereby alone,
for the sake of which he wouldhave been honored as a saint in the
lower world in which he had sunk. There are books which have an inverse
value for the soul and the health, according as the inferior soul and the
lower vitality, or the higher andmore powerful make use of them. In
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the former case, they are dangerous, disturbing, and unsettling books. In
the latter case there are herald callswhich summon the bravest to their bravery.
Books for the general reader are alwaysill smelling books. The odor of paltry
people clings to them. Where thepopulace eat and drink, and even where
they reverence, it is accustomed tostink. One should not go into churches
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if one wishes to breathe pure air. Thirty one, in our youthful years,
we still venerate and despise without theart of nuance, which is the
best gain of life, and wehave rightly to do hard penance for having
fallen upon men and things. Withthe A and A, everything is so
arranged that the worst of all tastes. The taste for the unconditional is cruelly
befooled and abused, until a manlearns to introduce a little art into a
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sentiments and prefers to try conclusions withthe artificial, as do the real artists
of life. The angry and reverencespirit peculiar to youth, appears to allow
itself no peace until it has suitablyfalsified men and things to be able to
vent its passion upon them. Youthin itself even is something falsifying and deceptive.
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Later on, when the young soul, tortured by continual disillusions, finally
turns suspiciously against itself, still ardentand savage even in its suspicion and remorse
of conscience, how it upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how
it revenges itself for its long selfblinding, as though it had been a
voluntary blindness. In this transition,one punishes one's self by distrust of one's
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sentiments. When tortures one's enthusiasm withdoubt, one feels even the good conscience
to be danger and if it were, the self concealment and lassitude of a
more refined uprightness. And above allone espouses upon the principle the cause against
youth. A decade later, andone comprehends that this was also still youth
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thirty two. Throughout the longest periodof human history, one calls it the
prehistoric period. The value or nonvalue of an action was inferred from its
consequence. The action in itself wasnot taken into consideration any more than its
origin. But pretty much as inChina at present, where the distinction or
disgrace of a child redounds to itsparents, the retro operating power of success
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or failure was what induced men tothink well or ill of an action.
Let us call this period the premoral period of mankind. The imperative know
thyself was then still unknown. Inthe last ten thousand years, on the
other hand, on certain large portionsof the earth, one has gradually got
so far that one no longer letsthe consequences of an action, but its
origin decide with regards to its worth. A great achievement as a whole and
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important refinement of vision and criterion,the unconscious effort of the supremacy of aristocratic
values and of the belief in originthe mark of a period which which may
be designated in the narrower sense asthe moral one. The first attempt at
self knowledge is thereby made instead ofthe consequence. The origin what an inversion
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of perspective, and assuredly an inversionaffected only after long struggle in wavering to
be sure, an ominous new superstition, a peculiar narrowness of interpretation, attained
supremacy. Precisely thereby the origin ofan action was interpreted in the most definite
sense possible, as origin out ofintention. People were agreed in the belief
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that the value of an action layin the value of its intention. The
intention is the sole origin and antecedenthistory of an action. Under the influence
of this prejudice, moral praise andblame have been bestowed, and men have
judged and even philosophized almost up tothe present day. Is it not possible,
however, that the necessity may nowhave arisen of again making up our
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minds with regards to the reversing andfundamental shifting of values, owing to a
new self consciousness. And acuteness inman. Is it not possible that we
may be standing on the threshold ofa period which, to begin with,
would be distinguished negatively as ultra moralnowadays, when at least among us immoralists,
the suspicion arises that the decisive valueof an action lies precisely in that
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which is not intentional, and thatall its intentionalness, all that is seen,
sensible, or sensed in it,belongs to its surface or skin,
which, like every skin, betrayssomething but conceals still more. In short,
we believe that the intention is onlya sign or symptom, which first
requires an explanation, a sign moreover, which has too many interpretations, and
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consequently hardly any meaning in itself alone. That morality in the sense in which
it has been understood hitherto as intentionmorality, has been a prejudice, perhaps
a prematureness or preliminariness, probably somethingof the same rank as astrology in alchemy.
But in a case something which mustbe surmounted. There's surmounting of morality
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in certain sense, even the selfmounting morality. Let that be the name
for the long secret labor which hasbeen reserved for the most refined the most
upright and also the most wicked consciencesof today, as the living touchstones of
the soul. Thirty three, Itcannot be helped the sentiment of surrender of
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sacrifice for one's neighbor, and allself renunciation. Morality must be mercilessly called
to account and brought to judgment,just as the aesthetics of disinterested contemplation under
which the emasculation of art nowadays seeksinsidiously enough to create it self good conscience.
There is far too much witchery andsugar in the sentiments for others and
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not for myself. For one notneeding to be doubly distrustful here, and
for one asking promptly, are theynot perhaps deceptions? They that please him
who has them, and him whoenjoys their fruit, and also the mere
spectator that is all no argument intheir favor, but just calls for caution.
Let us therefore be cautious at whateverstandpoint of philosophy one may place one's
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self. Nowadays, seen from everyposition, the erroneousness of the world in
which we think we live is thesurest and most certain thing our eyes can
light upon. We find proof afterproof thereof which would fain allure us into
surmises concerning a deceptive principle in thenature of things. He, however,
who makes thinking itself and consequently thespirit responsible for the falseness of the world,
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an honorable exit which every conscious orunconscious evacutus day avails himself of.
He who regards this world, includingspace, time, form, and movement,
as falsely deduced, would have atleast good reason in the end to
become distrustful. Also of all thinking. Has it not hitherto been playing upon
us the worst of scurvy tricks?And what guarantee would it give that it
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would not continue to do what ithas always been doing? In all seriousness,
the innocence of thinkers has something touchingand respect inspiring about it, even
nowadays, permits them to wait uponconsciousness with the request that it will give
them honest answers, for example,whether it be real or not, and
why it keeps the outer world soresolutely at a distance, and other questions
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of the same description. The beliefin immediate certainties is a moral ne avite,
which does honor to his philosophers.But we have now ceased being merely
moral men apart from morality. Suchbelief is a folly which does little honor
to us. If in middle classlife an ever ready distrusted is regarded as
the sign of a bad character,and consequently as imprudence. Here among us
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beyond the middle class world, inits ads and nays, what should prevent
our being imprudent? And saying thephilosopher has at length a right to bad
character. As the being who hashitherto been most befooled on earth, he
is now under obligation to distrustfulness throughthe wickedest squinting out of every abyss of
suspicion. Forgive me the joke ofthis gloomy grimace and turn of expression,
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For I myself have long ago learnedto think can estimate differently with regard to
deceiving and being deceived. And Ikeep at least a couple of pokes in
the ReBs ready for the blind ragewith which philosophers struggle against being deceived.
Why not it is nothing more thana moral prejudice that truth is worth more
than semblance. It is, infact the worst proof supposition in the world.
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So much must be conceded. Therecould have been no life at all
except on the basis of prospective estimationsand semblances. And if, with the
virtuous enthusiasm and stupidity of many philosophers, one wished to do away altogether with
the seeming world, well, grantedyou could do that. At least nothing
of your truth would thereby remain.Indeed, what is it that forces us,
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in general to the supposition that thereis an essential opposition of true and
false? Is it not enough tosuppose degrees of seemingness? And, as
it were, lighter and darker shadesand tones of semblances, different values.
As the painters say, why mightnot the world which concerns us be a
fiction? And to any one whosuggested, but to who if fiction belongs
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an originator, might it not bebluntly replied, why may this belong also
belong to the fiction? Why isit not at length permitted to be a
little ironical towards the subject, justas towards the predicate an object? Might
not the philosopher elevate himself above faithand grammar? All respect to governesses?
But is it not time that philosophyshould renounce governess faith? Thirty five O
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Voltaire, Oh humanity, Oh idiocy? There is something ticklish in the truth
and the search for the truth.And if man goes about it too humanely,
ernich cherie nevre qui pour Philippienne,I wager he finds nothing. Thirty
six. Supposing that nothing else isgiven as real but our world of desires
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and passions, that we cannot sinkor rise to any other reality, but
just that of our impulses. Forthinking is only a relation of these impulses
to one another. Are we notpermitted to make the attempt and to ask
the question whether this which is givendoes not suffice by means of our counterparts
for the understanding of the so calledmechanical or material world. I do not
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mean as an illusion, a semblance, a representation in the Berkeleyan and Schopenhaueren
sense, but as possessing the samedegree of reality as our emotions themselves,
as a more primitive form of theworld of emotions, in which everything still
lies locked in a mighty unity,which afterwards branches off and develops itself in
organic processes, naturally also refines anddebilitates as a kind of instinctive life,
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in which all organic functions, includingself regulation, as simulation, nutrition,
secretion, and change of matter arestill synthetically united with one another as a
primary form of life. In theend, is it not only permitted to
make this attempt, It is commandedby the conscience of logical method not to
assume several kinds of cause, solong as the attempt to get along with
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a single one has not been pushedto its furthest extent to absurdity. If
I may be allowed to say so, that is morality of method, which
one may not repudiate. Nowadays,it follows from its definition, as mathematicians
say, the question is ultimately whetherwe recognize the will as operating, whether
we believe in the causality of thiswill. If we do so, and
fundamentally our belief in this is justour belief in causality itself, we must
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make an attempt to posit hypothetically thecausality of the will as the only causality.
Will can naturally only operate on will, and not on matter, not
on nerves, for instance. Inshort, the hypothesis must be hazarded whether
will does not operate on will wherevereffects are recognized, and whether all mechanical
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action, inasmuch as power operates thereinis not the power of will, the
effect of will. Granted finally,that we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive
life as the development and ramification ofone fundamental form of will, namely the
will to power. As my thesisputs it, granted that all organic functions
could be traced back to this willto power, and that the solution of
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this problem of generation and nutrition,it is one problem, could also be
found therein. One would thus haveacquired the right to define all active force
unequivocally as will to power, theworld seen from within, the world,
defined and designated according to its intelligiblecharacter, it would simply be will to
power and nothing else. Thirty seven. What does not that mean? In
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popular language? God has disproved,but not the devil. On the contrary,
On the contrary, my friends,and who the devil also compels you
to speak popularly? Thirty eight?As happened finally, in all the enlightenment
of modern times with the French Revolution, that terrible farce, quite superfluous when
judged close to hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary spectators
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of all Europe have interpreted from adistance their own indignation and enthusiasm so long
and passionately until the text has disappearedunder the interpretation, so a noble posterity
might once more misunderstand the whole ofthe part, and perhaps only thereby make
its aspect endurable. Or rather,has not this already happened? Have we
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not ourselves been that noble posterity?And in so far as we now comprehend
this, is it not thereby alreadypast thirty nine? Nobody will very readily
regard a doctrine as true merely becauseit makes the people happy or virtuous,
excepting perhaps the amiable idealists, whoare enthusiastic about the good, true,
and beautiful, and let all kindsof motley course and good natured desirabilities swim
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about promiscuously in their pond. Happinessand virtue are no arguments. It is
willingly forgotten, however, even onthe part of thoughtful minds, that to
make unhappy and to make bad arejust as little counter arguments. A thing
could be true although it were thehighest degree injury and dangerous. Indeed,
the fundamental constitution of existence might besuch that once is succumbed by a full
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knowledge of it, so that thestrength of a mind might be measured by
the amount of truth that could endureor speak, more plainly, by the
extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, dampened, and
falsified. But there is no doubtfor the discovery of certain portions of truth.
The wicked and unfortunate are more favorablysituated and have greater likelihood of success,
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not to speak of the wicked whoare happy, a species about whom
moralists are silent. Perhaps severity andcraft are more favorable conditions for the development
of strong, independent spirits and philosophersthan the gentle, refined, yielding good
nature and habit of taking things easilywhich are prized and rightly prized in a
learned man. Presupposing always to beginwith that the term philosopher be not confined
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to the philosopher who writes books oreven introduces his philosophy into books, Stenthall
furnishes a last feature of the portraitof the free spirited philosopher, for which
the sake of German taste I willnot omit to underline, for it is
opposed to German taste pour tre broundphilosophy says this last great psychologist. If
foltetrisec Claire soon de lejon umbonquisque fiochune un parti de queratiriqui peufeverre des couvertis
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In philosophy ciestidia pouvot claire Tons sequesforty. Everything that is profound loves the
mass. The profoundest things have ahatred, even of figure and likeness.
Should not the contrary only be theright disguise for the shame of a god
to go about in a question worthasking? It would be strange if some
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mystic has not already ventured on thesame kind of thing. There are proceedings
of such a delicate nature that itis well to overwhelm them with a coarseness
and make them unrecognizable their actions oflove and of an extravagant magnanimy, after
which nothing can be wiser than totake a stick and thrash the witness soundly,
when thereby oscures his recollection. Manya one is able to obscure and
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abuse his own memory in order toat least have vengeance on this sole party
in the secret shame is inventive.They are not the worst things of which
one is most ashamed. There isnot only deceit behind a mask, there
is so much goodness and craft.I could imagine that a man with something
costly and fragile to conceal would rollthrough life clumsily and rotoundly like an old
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green heavily hooped wine cask, therefinement of his shame requiring it to be
so. A man who has depthsin his shame meets his destiny and his
delicate decisions upon paths which few everreach, and with regard to the existence
of which his nearest and most intimatefriends may be ignorant, his mortal danger
conceals itself from their eyes, andequally so has regained security. Such a
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hidden nature, which instinctively employs speechfor silence and concealment, and is inexhaustible
an evasion of communication, desires andinsists that a mask of himself shall ought
to by his place in the heartsand heads of his friends. And supposing
he does not desire it, hiseyes will some day be open to the
fact that there is nevertheless a maskof him there, and that it is
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well to be so. Every profoundspirit needs a mask, nay more around
every profound spirit. There continually growsa mask owing to the constantly false,
that is to say, superficial interpretationof every word he utters, every step
he takes, every sign of lifehe manifests Forty one. One must subject
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one's self to one's own tests thatone is destined for independence and command,
and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one's tests,
although they constitute perhaps the most dangerousgame one can play, and are in
the end, tests made only beforeourselves and before no other judge. Not
to cleave any person, but iteven the dearest. Every person is a
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prison and also a recess. Notto cleave to a fatherland, be it
even the most suffering and necessitous.It is even less difficult to detach one's
heart from a victorious fatherland. Notto cleave to sympathy, be it even
for higher men, in whose peculiartorture and helplessness chance has given us an
insight. Not to cleave to ascience, though attempt one with the most
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valuable discoveries apparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own liberation,
to the voluptuous distance and remoteness ofthe bird, which always flies further
aloft in order to theme. Moreunder it the danger of the flier not
to cleave to our own virtues,nor become as a whole victim to any
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of our specialties, to our hospitality, for instance, which is the danger
of dangers for highly developed and wealthysouls who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with
themselves, and push the virtue ofliberality so far that it becomes a vice.
One must know how to conserve one'sself the best test of independence.
Forty two. A new order ofphilosophers as appear, I shall venture to
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baptize them by a name not withoutdanger, as far as I understand them,
as far as they allow themselves tobe understood. For it is their
nature to wish to remain something ofa puzzle. These philosophers of the future
might rightly, perhaps also wrongly,claim to be designated as tempters. This
name itself is, after all,only an attempt, or, if it
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be preferred, a temptation. Fortythree Will they be new friends of truth?
These coming philosophers, very probably,for all philosophers hitherto have loved their
truths. But assuredly they will notbe dogmatists. It must be contrary to
their pride and also contrary to theirtaste, that their truths should still be
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truth for everyone, that which hashitherto been the secret wish and ultimate purpose
of all dogmatic efforts. My opinionis my opinion. Another person has not
easily a right to it. Sucha philosopher of the future will say,
perhaps one must renounce the bad tasteof wishing to agree with many people.
Good is no longer good when one'sneighbor takes it into his mouth, And
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how could there be a common good? The expression contradicts itself, that which
can be common is always of smallvalue. In the end, things must
be as they are and always havebeen. The great things remain for the
great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined,
And to sum up shortly, everythingrare for the rare. Forty four
need I say expressly after all this, that they will be free, very
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free spirits, these philosophers of thefuture. As certainly also they will not
merely free spirits, but something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different,
which does not wish to be misunderstoodand mistaken. But while I say
this, I feel under obligation almostas much to them as to ourselves,
we free spirits, who are theirheralds and forerunners, to sweep away from
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ourselves altogether a stupid old prejudice andmisunderstanding, which, like a fog,
has too long made the conception ofa free spirit obscure in every country of
Europe, and the same in America. There is at present something which makes
an abuse of this name, avery narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of
spirits who desire almost the opposite ofwhat our intentions and instincts prompt not to
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mention that, in respect to thenew philosophers who are appearing, they must
still more be closed windows and bolteddoors. Briefly, and regrettably they belong
to levelers. These wrongly named freespirits as glib, tongued and scribe fingered
slaves of the democratic taste in itsmodern ideals, all of them men without
solitude, without personal solitude, blunthonest fellows to whom neither courage nor honorable
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contact ought to be denied. Onlythey are not free, and are ludicrously
superficial, especially in their innate partiality. Foreseeing the cause of almost all human
misery and failure in the old formsin which society has hitherto existed, a
notion which happily inverts the truth entirely. What they would fain attain with all
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their strength is the universal, greenmeadowed happiness of the herd, together with
security, safety, comfort, andalleviation of life for everyone. Their two
most frequently chanted songs and doctrines arecalled equality of rights and sympathy with all
sufferers. And suffering itself is lookedupon by them as something which much be
done away with. We opposite ones, however, who have opened our eye
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and conscience to the question how andwhere the plant man has hitherto grown,
most vigorously believed that this has alwaystaken place under the opposite conditions, that
for this end, the dangerousness ofhis situation has to be increased enormously,
his inventive faculty and dissembling power.His spirit had to develop into subtlety and
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daring under long oppression and compulsion,and his will to life had to be
increased to the unconditioned will to power. We believe that severity, violent slavery,
danger in the street and in theheart, secrecy, stoicism, tempters,
art, and devilry of every kindthat everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical,
predatory, and so serpentine in manserves as well for the elevation of
the human species as its opposite.We do not even say enough, when
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we only say this much. Andin any case we find ourselves here,
both with our speech and our silence, at the other extreme of all modern
ideology and gregarious desirability as their antipodes. Perhaps what wonder that we free spirits
are not the exactly the most communicativespirits, that we do not wish to
betray in every respect what a spiritcan free itself from and where perhaps it
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will then be driven. And asto the import of the dangerous formula beyond
good and evil, with which weat least avoid confusion, we are something
else than librepensur, libin pensitory freethinkers, and whatever else these honest advocates of
modern ideas like to call themselves,having been at home, or at least
guests in many realms of the spirit, having escaped again and again from the
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gloomy, agreeable nooks in which preferencesand prejudices, youth origin and accident of
men in books, or even theweariness of travels seem to confine us full
of malice against the seductions of dependence, which he concealed in honors, money,
positions, or exaltations of the senses. Grateful even for the distress and
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vicissitudes of illness, because they alwaysfree us from some rule and its prejudice.
Grateful to the God, Devil's sheepand worm in us, inquisitive to
a fault. Investigators to the pointof cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the
intangible, with teeth and stomachs forthe most indigestible, Ready for any business
that requires sageiacity and acute senses,ready for every adventure, owing to an
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excess of free will, with anteriorand posterior souls into the ultimate intentions of
which it is difficult to pry,with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of
which no foot may run, hiddenones under the mantles of light. Appropriators,
although we resemble errors and spread thrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till
night, mises of our wealth andfull cramp drawers, economical in learning and
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forgetting, invented and scheming, sometimesproud of tables of categories, sometimes pendants,
sometimes night owls of work even infull day. Yea, if necessary,
even scarecrows, and it is necessarynowadays. That is to say,
inasmuch as we are the born,sworn, jealous friends of solitude, of
our own profoundest midnight and mid daysolitude. Such kind of men are we,
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we free spirits, And perhaps yeare also something of the same kind,
Ye coming ones, ye New Philosophers, end Chapter two,
Chapter two, The Free Spirit twentyfour Osancta simplicatatus. In what strange simplification
and falsification man lives? One cannever cease wondering when once one has got
eyes for beholding this marble. Howwe have made everything around us so clear
and free and easy and simple.How we have been able to give our
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senses a passport to everything superficial,our thoughts a godlike desire for wanton pranks
and wrong inferences. How from thebeginning we have contrived to retain our ignorance
in order to enjoy an almost inconceivablefreedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness,
and gaiety, in order to enjoylife. And only on this solidified,
granite like foundation of ignorance could knowledgerear itself hitherto the will to knowledge in
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the foundation of a far more powerfulwill, the will to ignorance, to
the uncertain, to the untrue,not as its opposite, but as its
refinement. It is to be hoped, indeed, that language here is elsewhere
will not get over its awkwardness,and that it will continue to talk of
opposites where there are only degrees.In many refinements of gradiation, it is
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equally to be hooped, that theincarnated tartuffery of morals, which now belongs
to our unconquerable flesh and blood,will turn the words round in the mouths
of us discerning ones. Here andthere we understand it and laugh at the
way in which precisely the best knowledgeseeks most to retain us in this simplified,
thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, andsuitably falsified world, At the way
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in which, whether it will ornot, it loves error, because as
living itself, it loves life.Twenty five After such a cheerful commencement,
a serious word would fain be heard. It appeals to the most serious minds.
Take care of you, philosophers andfriends of knowledge, and beware of
martyrdom, of suffering for the truth'ssake. Even in your own defense.
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It spoils all the innocence and fineneutrality of your conscience. It makes you
headstrong against objections in red rags.It stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes.
When in the struggle with dangersander's suspicion, expulsion, and even worse consequence of
enmity, ye have at last toplay your last card, as protectors of
truth upon earth, as though thetruth were such an innocent and incompetent creature
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as to require protectors. And youof all people, ye knights of the
sorrowful countenance, Monsieur Loufer and cobwebspinners of the spirit. Finally, ye
know sufficiently well that it cannot beof any consequence if ye just carry your
point. Ye know that hitherto nophilosopher has carried his point, and that
there might be a more laudable truthfulnessin every little interrogative mark which you place
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after your special words and favorite doctrines, and occasionally after yourselves, than in
all the solemn pantomime and trumping gamesbefore accusers in law courts. Rather go
out of the way, flee intoconcealment, and have your masks and your
ruses, that ye may be mistakenfor what you are, or somewhat feared,
and pray, don't forget the garden, the garden with golden trelliswork,
and have people around you who areas a garden or as musical the waters
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at eventide, when the day becomesa memory, Choose the good solitude,
the free, wanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you the right still
to remain good in any sense whatsoever, how poisonous, how crafty, how
bad does every long war make onefor which cannot be waged openly by means
of force? How personal does along fear make one? A long watching
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of enemies, of possible enemies,these pariahs of society, these long pursued,
badly persecuted ones. Also the compulsoryrecklesses the Spinozas and Gordiano Bruno's,
always become in the end, evenunder the most intellectual masquerade, and perhaps
without being themselves aware of it,refined vengeance sickers and poison brewers just lay
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bare the foundations of Spinoza's ethics andtheology, not to speak of the stupidity
of moral indignation, which is theunfailing sign in a philosopher that the sense
of philosophical humor has left him.The martyrdom of the philosopher, his sacrifice
for the sake of truth, forcesinto the light whatever of the agitator.
An actor lurks with within him,and if one has hitherto contemplated him only
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with artistic curiosity. With regard tomany a philosopher, it is easy to
understand the dangerous desire to see himalso in his deterioration, deteriorated into a
martyr, into a stage and tribunebrawler, Only that it is necessary with
such desire to be clear what spectacleone will see, in any case,
merely a satiric play, merely anepilogue farce, and merely continued proof that
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the long real tragedy is at anend. Supposing that every philosophy has long
been a tragedy in its origin twentysix, Every select man strives instinctively for
a citadel and a privacy where heis free from the crowd, the many,
the majority, where he may forgetmen who are the rule as their
exception, exclusive only of the casein which he is pushed straight to such
men by still stronger instinct as adiscerner in the great and exceptional sense.
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Whoever, in intercourse with men doesnot occasionally glisten in all the green and
gray colors of distress, owing todiscuss satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and
solitariness, is assuredly not a manof elevated tastes. Supposing however, that
he does not voluntarily take all thisburden and discussed upon himself, that he
persistently avoids it and remains, asI said, quietly and proudly hidden in
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his citadel. One thing is thencertain. He was not made, He
was not predestined for knowledge. Foras such he would one day have to
say to himself, the devil takemy good taste. But the rule is
more interesting than the exception, thanmyself the exception, and he would go
down. And above all he wouldgo inside the long and serious study of
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the average man, and consequently muchdisguise self, overcoming familiarity and bad intercourse.
All intercourse is bad intercourse except withone's equals. That constitutes a necessary
part of the life history of everyphilosopher, perhaps the most disagreeable, odious,
and disappointing part. If he isfortunate, however, as a favorite
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child of knowledge should be, hewill meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten
enlighten his task. I mean socalled cynics, those who simply recognize the
animal, the commonplace, and therule in themselves, and at the same
time have so much spirituality and ticklishnessas to make them talk of themselves and
their like before witnesses. Sometimes theywallow even in books as on their own.
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Dunghill cynicism is the only form inwhich base souls approach what is called
honesty, and the higher man mustopen his ears to all the coarser or
finer cynicism, and congratulate himself whenthe clown becomes shameless right before him,
or the scientific sator speaks out.There are even cases where enchantment mixes with
the disgust, namely whereby freak ofnature, genius is bound to some indiscreet
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billygoat and ape, as in thecase of the Abbe Guiliani, the profoundest,
acutest, and perhaps also the filthiestman of his century. He was
far profounder than Voltaire, and consequentlyalso a good deal more silent. It
happens more frequently, as has beenhinted, that a scientific head is placed
on an ape's body, a fineexceptional understanding in a base soul in occurrence
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by no means rare, especially amongdoctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone
speaks without bitterness, or rather quiteinnocently, of man as a belly with
two requirements and a head with one. Whenever anyone sees seeks and wants to
see only hunger, sexual instinct,and vanity as the real and only motives
of human actions. In short,when anyone speaks badly and not even ill
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of man, then ought the loverof knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently.
He ought in general to have anopen ear wherever there is talk without indignation
for the indignant man. And hewho perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his
own teeth or in place of himself, the world, god or society may
indeed, morally speaking, stand higherthan the laughing and self satisfied satyr,
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But in every other sense he ismore ordinary, more indifferent, and less
instructive case, and no one issuch a liar as the indignant man.
Twenty seven. It is different cultto be understood, especially when one thinks
and lives ganghestragati footnote like the riverGanges presto. Among those who think and
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live otherwise, namely kromagati footnote likethe tortoise lento, or at best frog
like mandya Kegati footnote like the frogstaccato. I do everything to be difficultly
understood myself, and one should beheartily grateful for the good will, and
some refinement of interpretation. As regardsthe good friends, however, who are
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always too easy going and think thatas friends they have a right to ease,
one does well at the very firstto grant them a playground in brompin
place for misunderstanding. One can thuslaugh still or get rid of them altogether
these good friends and laugh then alsotwenty eight. What is most difficult to
render from one language into another isthe tempo of its style, which has
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its basis in the character of therace, or to speak more physiologically,
in the average tempo of the assimiof its nutriment. There are honestly meant
translations which, as in voluntary vogarizations, are almost falsifications of the original,
merely because its lively and merry tempo, which overleaps and obviates all the dangers
in word and expression, could notalso be rendered. A German is almost
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incapacitated for presto in his language.Consequently, also he may be reasonably inferred
for many of the most delightful anddaring nuances of free, free spirited thought,
and just as the buffoon and satyrare foreign to him in body and
conscience. So Aristophanes and Petronius areuntranslatable. For him. Everything ponderous,
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viscous, and pompously clumsy, Alllong winded and weary species of style are
developed in profuse variety among Germans.Part of me for stating the fact that
even Gotha's prose, in its mixtureof stiffness and elegance, is no exception,
as a reflection of the good oldtime to which it belongs, and
an expression of German taste at atime when there was still a German taste,
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which was a rocucotate in moribus atArchibas. Blessing is an exception,
owing to his histrionic nature, whichunderstood much and was versed in many things.
He who was not the translator ofbail to no purpose, who took
refuge willingly in the shadow of Diteratand Voltaire, and still more willingly among
the Roman comedy writers. Lessing lovedalso free spiritism in the tempo and flight
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out of Germany. But how couldthe German language, even in the prose
of Lessing, imitate the tempo ofMachiavelli, who, in his principa makes
us breathe the dry, fine airof Florence, and cannot help presenting the
most serious events in a boisterous alagressimo, perhaps not without a malicious artistic sense
of the contrast, he ventures topresent long, heavy, difficult, dangerous
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thoughts and a tempo of the gallopand of the best wantonous humor. Finally,
who could venture on a German translationof Petronius, who, more than
any great musician hitherto was a masterof presto, in invention, ideas and
words. What matter in the endabout the swamps of the sick evie or
of the ancient world, when likehim one has the feet of the wind,
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the rush, the breath, theemancipating scorn of a wind which makes
everything healthy by making everything run.And with regard to Aristophanes, that transfiguring
complimentary genius, for whose sake onepardons all Hellenism for having existed, provided
one has understood in its whole profoundity, all that there requires pardon and transfiguration.
There is nothing that has caused meto meditate more on Plato's secrecy and
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spinslike nature than the happily preserved pettitfate that under the pillow of his death
bed, there was found no Bible, nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean or Platonic,
but a book of Aristophanes. Howcould even Plato have endured life,
a Greek life which he repudiated,without an Aristophanes twenty nine. It is
the business of the very few tobe independent. It is a privilege of
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the strong, And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but
without being obliged to do so,proves that he is probably not only strong,
but also daring beyond measure. Heenters into a labyrinth, he multiplies
a thousandfold the dangers which life initself already brings with it, not the
least of which is that no onecan see how and where he loses his
way, become isolated, and istorn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience.
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Suppose such a one comes to grief. It is so far from the comprehension
of men that they neither feel itnor sympathize with it. And he can
no longer go back. He cannoteven go back to the sympathy of men.
Thirty Our deepest insights must and shouldappear as follies, and under certain
circumstances as crimes when they are comeunauthorizedly to the ears of those who are
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not disposed and predestined for them.The exoteric and the esoteric, as they
were formally distinguished by philosophers among theIndians, as among the Greeks, Persians,
and Mussulmans. In short, whereverpeople believed in gradiations of rank,
not in equality and equal rights,are not so much in contradistinction to one
another. In respect to the exotericclass, standing without and viewing, estimating,
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measuring, and judging from the outsideand not from the inside. The
more essential distinction is that the classin question views things from below upwards,
while the esoteric class few things fromabove downwards. There are heights of the
soul from which tragedy itself no longerappears to operate tragically. And if all
the woe in the world were takentogether, who would dare to decide whether
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the sight of it would necessarily seduceand constrain to sympathy, and thus to
a doubling of the woe. Thatwhich serves the higher class of men for
nourishment or refreshment must also be poisonedto an entirely different and lower order.
Of human beings. The virtues ofthe common man would perhaps mean vice and
weakness in the philosopher. It mightbe possible for a highly developed man,
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supposing him to degenerate and go toRuin, to acquire qualities thereby alone,
for the sake of which he wouldhave been honored as a saint in the
lower world in which he had sunk. There are books which have an inverse
value for the soul and the health, according as the inferior soul and the
lower vitality, or the higher andmore powerful make use of them. In
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the former case, they are dangerous, disturbing, and unsettling books. In
the latter case there are herald callswhich summon the bravest to their bravery.
Books for the general reader are alwaysill smelling books. The odor of paltry
people clings to them. Where thepopulace eat and drink, and even where
they reverence, it is accustomed tostink. One should not go into churches
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if one wishes to breathe pure air. Thirty one, in our youthful years,
we still venerate and despise without theart of nuance, which is the
best gain of life, and wehave rightly to do hard penance for having
fallen upon men and things. Withthe A and A, everything is so
arranged that the worst of all tastes. The taste for the unconditional is cruelly
befooled and abused, until a manlearns to introduce a little art into a
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sentiments and prefers to try conclusions withthe artificial, as do the real artists
of life. The angry and reverencespirit peculiar to youth, appears to allow
itself no peace until it has suitablyfalsified men and things to be able to
vent its passion upon them. Youthin itself even is something falsifying and deceptive.
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Later on, when the young soul, tortured by continual disillusions, finally
turns suspiciously against itself, still ardentand savage even in its suspicion and remorse
of conscience, how it upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how
it revenges itself for its long selfblinding, as though it had been a
voluntary blindness. In this transition,one punishes one's self by distrust of one's
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sentiments. When tortures one's enthusiasm withdoubt, one feels even the good conscience
to be danger and if it were, the self concealment and lassitude of a
more refined uprightness. And above allone espouses upon the principle the cause against
youth. A decade later, andone comprehends that this was also still youth
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thirty two. Throughout the longest periodof human history, one calls it the
prehistoric period. The value or nonvalue of an action was inferred from its
consequence. The action in itself wasnot taken into consideration any more than its
origin. But pretty much as inChina at present, where the distinction or
disgrace of a child redounds to itsparents, the retro operating power of success
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or failure was what induced men tothink well or ill of an action.
Let us call this period the premoral period of mankind. The imperative know
thyself was then still unknown. Inthe last ten thousand years, on the
other hand, on certain large portionsof the earth, one has gradually got
so far that one no longer letsthe consequences of an action, but its
origin decide with regards to its worth. A great achievement as a whole and
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important refinement of vision and criterion,the unconscious effort of the supremacy of aristocratic
values and of the belief in originthe mark of a period which which may
be designated in the narrower sense asthe moral one. The first attempt at
self knowledge is thereby made instead ofthe consequence. The origin what an inversion
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of perspective, and assuredly an inversionaffected only after long struggle in wavering to
be sure, an ominous new superstition, a peculiar narrowness of interpretation, attained
supremacy. Precisely thereby the origin ofan action was interpreted in the most definite
sense possible, as origin out ofintention. People were agreed in the belief
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that the value of an action layin the value of its intention. The
intention is the sole origin and antecedenthistory of an action. Under the influence
of this prejudice, moral praise andblame have been bestowed, and men have
judged and even philosophized almost up tothe present day. Is it not possible,
however, that the necessity may nowhave arisen of again making up our
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minds with regards to the reversing andfundamental shifting of values, owing to a
new self consciousness. And acuteness inman. Is it not possible that we
may be standing on the threshold ofa period which, to begin with,
would be distinguished negatively as ultra moralnowadays, when at least among us immoralists,
the suspicion arises that the decisive valueof an action lies precisely in that
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which is not intentional, and thatall its intentionalness, all that is seen,
sensible, or sensed in it,belongs to its surface or skin,
which, like every skin, betrayssomething but conceals still more. In short,
we believe that the intention is onlya sign or symptom, which first
requires an explanation, a sign moreover, which has too many interpretations, and
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consequently hardly any meaning in itself alone. That morality in the sense in which
it has been understood hitherto as intentionmorality, has been a prejudice, perhaps
a prematureness or preliminariness, probably somethingof the same rank as astrology in alchemy.
But in a case something which mustbe surmounted. There's surmounting of morality
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in certain sense, even the selfmounting morality. Let that be the name
for the long secret labor which hasbeen reserved for the most refined the most
upright and also the most wicked consciencesof today, as the living touchstones of
the soul. Thirty three, Itcannot be helped the sentiment of surrender of
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sacrifice for one's neighbor, and allself renunciation. Morality must be mercilessly called
to account and brought to judgment,just as the aesthetics of disinterested contemplation under
which the emasculation of art nowadays seeksinsidiously enough to create it self good conscience.
There is far too much witchery andsugar in the sentiments for others and
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not for myself. For one notneeding to be doubly distrustful here, and
for one asking promptly, are theynot perhaps deceptions? They that please him
who has them, and him whoenjoys their fruit, and also the mere
spectator that is all no argument intheir favor, but just calls for caution.
Let us therefore be cautious at whateverstandpoint of philosophy one may place one's
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self. Nowadays, seen from everyposition, the erroneousness of the world in
which we think we live is thesurest and most certain thing our eyes can
light upon. We find proof afterproof thereof which would fain allure us into
surmises concerning a deceptive principle in thenature of things. He, however,
who makes thinking itself and consequently thespirit responsible for the falseness of the world,
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an honorable exit which every conscious orunconscious evacutus day avails himself of.
He who regards this world, includingspace, time, form, and movement,
as falsely deduced, would have atleast good reason in the end to
become distrustful. Also of all thinking. Has it not hitherto been playing upon
us the worst of scurvy tricks?And what guarantee would it give that it
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would not continue to do what ithas always been doing? In all seriousness,
the innocence of thinkers has something touchingand respect inspiring about it, even
nowadays, permits them to wait uponconsciousness with the request that it will give
them honest answers, for example,whether it be real or not, and
why it keeps the outer world soresolutely at a distance, and other questions
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of the same description. The beliefin immediate certainties is a moral ne avite,
which does honor to his philosophers.But we have now ceased being merely
moral men apart from morality. Suchbelief is a folly which does little honor
to us. If in middle classlife an ever ready distrusted is regarded as
the sign of a bad character,and consequently as imprudence. Here among us
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beyond the middle class world, inits ads and nays, what should prevent
our being imprudent? And saying thephilosopher has at length a right to bad
character. As the being who hashitherto been most befooled on earth, he
is now under obligation to distrustfulness throughthe wickedest squinting out of every abyss of
suspicion. Forgive me the joke ofthis gloomy grimace and turn of expression,
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For I myself have long ago learnedto think can estimate differently with regard to
deceiving and being deceived. And Ikeep at least a couple of pokes in
the ReBs ready for the blind ragewith which philosophers struggle against being deceived.
Why not it is nothing more thana moral prejudice that truth is worth more
than semblance. It is, infact the worst proof supposition in the world.
(22:18):
So much must be conceded. Therecould have been no life at all
except on the basis of prospective estimationsand semblances. And if, with the
virtuous enthusiasm and stupidity of many philosophers, one wished to do away altogether with
the seeming world, well, grantedyou could do that. At least nothing
of your truth would thereby remain.Indeed, what is it that forces us,
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in general to the supposition that thereis an essential opposition of true and
false? Is it not enough tosuppose degrees of seemingness? And, as
it were, lighter and darker shadesand tones of semblances, different values.
As the painters say, why mightnot the world which concerns us be a
fiction? And to any one whosuggested, but to who if fiction belongs
(23:04):
an originator, might it not bebluntly replied, why may this belong also
belong to the fiction? Why isit not at length permitted to be a
little ironical towards the subject, justas towards the predicate an object? Might
not the philosopher elevate himself above faithand grammar? All respect to governesses?
But is it not time that philosophyshould renounce governess faith? Thirty five O
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Voltaire, Oh humanity, Oh idiocy? There is something ticklish in the truth
and the search for the truth.And if man goes about it too humanely,
ernich cherie nevre qui pour Philippienne,I wager he finds nothing. Thirty
six. Supposing that nothing else isgiven as real but our world of desires
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and passions, that we cannot sinkor rise to any other reality, but
just that of our impulses. Forthinking is only a relation of these impulses
to one another. Are we notpermitted to make the attempt and to ask
the question whether this which is givendoes not suffice by means of our counterparts
for the understanding of the so calledmechanical or material world. I do not
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mean as an illusion, a semblance, a representation in the Berkeleyan and Schopenhaueren
sense, but as possessing the samedegree of reality as our emotions themselves,
as a more primitive form of theworld of emotions, in which everything still
lies locked in a mighty unity,which afterwards branches off and develops itself in
organic processes, naturally also refines anddebilitates as a kind of instinctive life,
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in which all organic functions, includingself regulation, as simulation, nutrition,
secretion, and change of matter arestill synthetically united with one another as a
primary form of life. In theend, is it not only permitted to
make this attempt, It is commandedby the conscience of logical method not to
assume several kinds of cause, solong as the attempt to get along with
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a single one has not been pushedto its furthest extent to absurdity. If
I may be allowed to say so, that is morality of method, which
one may not repudiate. Nowadays,it follows from its definition, as mathematicians
say, the question is ultimately whetherwe recognize the will as operating, whether
we believe in the causality of thiswill. If we do so, and
fundamentally our belief in this is justour belief in causality itself, we must
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make an attempt to posit hypothetically thecausality of the will as the only causality.
Will can naturally only operate on will, and not on matter, not
on nerves, for instance. Inshort, the hypothesis must be hazarded whether
will does not operate on will wherevereffects are recognized, and whether all mechanical
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action, inasmuch as power operates thereinis not the power of will, the
effect of will. Granted finally,that we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive
life as the development and ramification ofone fundamental form of will, namely the
will to power. As my thesisputs it, granted that all organic functions
could be traced back to this willto power, and that the solution of
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this problem of generation and nutrition,it is one problem, could also be
found therein. One would thus haveacquired the right to define all active force
unequivocally as will to power, theworld seen from within, the world,
defined and designated according to its intelligiblecharacter, it would simply be will to
power and nothing else. Thirty seven. What does not that mean? In
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popular language? God has disproved,but not the devil. On the contrary,
On the contrary, my friends,and who the devil also compels you
to speak popularly? Thirty eight?As happened finally, in all the enlightenment
of modern times with the French Revolution, that terrible farce, quite superfluous when
judged close to hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary spectators
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of all Europe have interpreted from adistance their own indignation and enthusiasm so long
and passionately until the text has disappearedunder the interpretation, so a noble posterity
might once more misunderstand the whole ofthe part, and perhaps only thereby make
its aspect endurable. Or rather,has not this already happened? Have we
(27:18):
not ourselves been that noble posterity?And in so far as we now comprehend
this, is it not thereby alreadypast thirty nine? Nobody will very readily
regard a doctrine as true merely becauseit makes the people happy or virtuous,
excepting perhaps the amiable idealists, whoare enthusiastic about the good, true,
and beautiful, and let all kindsof motley course and good natured desirabilities swim
(27:42):
about promiscuously in their pond. Happinessand virtue are no arguments. It is
willingly forgotten, however, even onthe part of thoughtful minds, that to
make unhappy and to make bad arejust as little counter arguments. A thing
could be true although it were thehighest degree injury and dangerous. Indeed,
the fundamental constitution of existence might besuch that once is succumbed by a full
(28:06):
knowledge of it, so that thestrength of a mind might be measured by
the amount of truth that could endureor speak, more plainly, by the
extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, dampened, and
falsified. But there is no doubtfor the discovery of certain portions of truth.
The wicked and unfortunate are more favorablysituated and have greater likelihood of success,
(28:26):
not to speak of the wicked whoare happy, a species about whom
moralists are silent. Perhaps severity andcraft are more favorable conditions for the development
of strong, independent spirits and philosophersthan the gentle, refined, yielding good
nature and habit of taking things easilywhich are prized and rightly prized in a
learned man. Presupposing always to beginwith that the term philosopher be not confined
(28:49):
to the philosopher who writes books oreven introduces his philosophy into books, Stenthall
furnishes a last feature of the portraitof the free spirited philosopher, for which
the sake of German taste I willnot omit to underline, for it is
opposed to German taste pour tre broundphilosophy says this last great psychologist. If
foltetrisec Claire soon de lejon umbonquisque fiochune un parti de queratiriqui peufeverre des couvertis
(29:19):
In philosophy ciestidia pouvot claire Tons sequesforty. Everything that is profound loves the
mass. The profoundest things have ahatred, even of figure and likeness.
Should not the contrary only be theright disguise for the shame of a god
to go about in a question worthasking? It would be strange if some
(29:41):
mystic has not already ventured on thesame kind of thing. There are proceedings
of such a delicate nature that itis well to overwhelm them with a coarseness
and make them unrecognizable their actions oflove and of an extravagant magnanimy, after
which nothing can be wiser than totake a stick and thrash the witness soundly,
when thereby oscures his recollection. Manya one is able to obscure and
(30:04):
abuse his own memory in order toat least have vengeance on this sole party
in the secret shame is inventive.They are not the worst things of which
one is most ashamed. There isnot only deceit behind a mask, there
is so much goodness and craft.I could imagine that a man with something
costly and fragile to conceal would rollthrough life clumsily and rotoundly like an old
(30:25):
green heavily hooped wine cask, therefinement of his shame requiring it to be
so. A man who has depthsin his shame meets his destiny and his
delicate decisions upon paths which few everreach, and with regard to the existence
of which his nearest and most intimatefriends may be ignorant, his mortal danger
conceals itself from their eyes, andequally so has regained security. Such a
(30:48):
hidden nature, which instinctively employs speechfor silence and concealment, and is inexhaustible
an evasion of communication, desires andinsists that a mask of himself shall ought
to by his place in the heartsand heads of his friends. And supposing
he does not desire it, hiseyes will some day be open to the
fact that there is nevertheless a maskof him there, and that it is
(31:11):
well to be so. Every profoundspirit needs a mask, nay more around
every profound spirit. There continually growsa mask owing to the constantly false,
that is to say, superficial interpretationof every word he utters, every step
he takes, every sign of lifehe manifests Forty one. One must subject
(31:32):
one's self to one's own tests thatone is destined for independence and command,
and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one's tests,
although they constitute perhaps the most dangerousgame one can play, and are in
the end, tests made only beforeourselves and before no other judge. Not
to cleave any person, but iteven the dearest. Every person is a
(31:55):
prison and also a recess. Notto cleave to a fatherland, be it
even the most suffering and necessitous.It is even less difficult to detach one's
heart from a victorious fatherland. Notto cleave to sympathy, be it even
for higher men, in whose peculiartorture and helplessness chance has given us an
insight. Not to cleave to ascience, though attempt one with the most
(32:17):
valuable discoveries apparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own liberation,
to the voluptuous distance and remoteness ofthe bird, which always flies further
aloft in order to theme. Moreunder it the danger of the flier not
to cleave to our own virtues,nor become as a whole victim to any
(32:37):
of our specialties, to our hospitality, for instance, which is the danger
of dangers for highly developed and wealthysouls who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with
themselves, and push the virtue ofliberality so far that it becomes a vice.
One must know how to conserve one'sself the best test of independence.
Forty two. A new order ofphilosophers as appear, I shall venture to
(33:00):
baptize them by a name not withoutdanger, as far as I understand them,
as far as they allow themselves tobe understood. For it is their
nature to wish to remain something ofa puzzle. These philosophers of the future
might rightly, perhaps also wrongly,claim to be designated as tempters. This
name itself is, after all,only an attempt, or, if it
(33:22):
be preferred, a temptation. Fortythree Will they be new friends of truth?
These coming philosophers, very probably,for all philosophers hitherto have loved their
truths. But assuredly they will notbe dogmatists. It must be contrary to
their pride and also contrary to theirtaste, that their truths should still be
(33:43):
truth for everyone, that which hashitherto been the secret wish and ultimate purpose
of all dogmatic efforts. My opinionis my opinion. Another person has not
easily a right to it. Sucha philosopher of the future will say,
perhaps one must renounce the bad tasteof wishing to agree with many people.
Good is no longer good when one'sneighbor takes it into his mouth, And
(34:05):
how could there be a common good? The expression contradicts itself, that which
can be common is always of smallvalue. In the end, things must
be as they are and always havebeen. The great things remain for the
great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined,
And to sum up shortly, everythingrare for the rare. Forty four
need I say expressly after all this, that they will be free, very
(34:29):
free spirits, these philosophers of thefuture. As certainly also they will not
merely free spirits, but something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different,
which does not wish to be misunderstoodand mistaken. But while I say
this, I feel under obligation almostas much to them as to ourselves,
we free spirits, who are theirheralds and forerunners, to sweep away from
(34:51):
ourselves altogether a stupid old prejudice andmisunderstanding, which, like a fog,
has too long made the conception ofa free spirit obscure in every country of
Europe, and the same in America. There is at present something which makes
an abuse of this name, avery narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of
spirits who desire almost the opposite ofwhat our intentions and instincts prompt not to
(35:15):
mention that, in respect to thenew philosophers who are appearing, they must
still more be closed windows and bolteddoors. Briefly, and regrettably they belong
to levelers. These wrongly named freespirits as glib, tongued and scribe fingered
slaves of the democratic taste in itsmodern ideals, all of them men without
solitude, without personal solitude, blunthonest fellows to whom neither courage nor honorable
(35:38):
contact ought to be denied. Onlythey are not free, and are ludicrously
superficial, especially in their innate partiality. Foreseeing the cause of almost all human
misery and failure in the old formsin which society has hitherto existed, a
notion which happily inverts the truth entirely. What they would fain attain with all
(35:59):
their strength is the universal, greenmeadowed happiness of the herd, together with
security, safety, comfort, andalleviation of life for everyone. Their two
most frequently chanted songs and doctrines arecalled equality of rights and sympathy with all
sufferers. And suffering itself is lookedupon by them as something which much be
done away with. We opposite ones, however, who have opened our eye
(36:22):
and conscience to the question how andwhere the plant man has hitherto grown,
most vigorously believed that this has alwaystaken place under the opposite conditions, that
for this end, the dangerousness ofhis situation has to be increased enormously,
his inventive faculty and dissembling power.His spirit had to develop into subtlety and
(36:42):
daring under long oppression and compulsion,and his will to life had to be
increased to the unconditioned will to power. We believe that severity, violent slavery,
danger in the street and in theheart, secrecy, stoicism, tempters,
art, and devilry of every kindthat everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical,
predatory, and so serpentine in manserves as well for the elevation of
the human species as its opposite.We do not even say enough, when
(37:07):
we only say this much. Andin any case we find ourselves here,
both with our speech and our silence, at the other extreme of all modern
ideology and gregarious desirability as their antipodes. Perhaps what wonder that we free spirits
are not the exactly the most communicativespirits, that we do not wish to
betray in every respect what a spiritcan free itself from and where perhaps it
(37:30):
will then be driven. And asto the import of the dangerous formula beyond
good and evil, with which weat least avoid confusion, we are something
else than librepensur, libin pensitory freethinkers, and whatever else these honest advocates of
modern ideas like to call themselves,having been at home, or at least
guests in many realms of the spirit, having escaped again and again from the
(37:52):
gloomy, agreeable nooks in which preferencesand prejudices, youth origin and accident of
men in books, or even theweariness of travels seem to confine us full
of malice against the seductions of dependence, which he concealed in honors, money,
positions, or exaltations of the senses. Grateful even for the distress and
(38:13):
vicissitudes of illness, because they alwaysfree us from some rule and its prejudice.
Grateful to the God, Devil's sheepand worm in us, inquisitive to
a fault. Investigators to the pointof cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the
intangible, with teeth and stomachs forthe most indigestible, Ready for any business
that requires sageiacity and acute senses,ready for every adventure, owing to an
(38:36):
excess of free will, with anteriorand posterior souls into the ultimate intentions of
which it is difficult to pry,with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of
which no foot may run, hiddenones under the mantles of light. Appropriators,
although we resemble errors and spread thrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till
night, mises of our wealth andfull cramp drawers, economical in learning and
(38:59):
forgetting, invented and scheming, sometimesproud of tables of categories, sometimes pendants,
sometimes night owls of work even infull day. Yea, if necessary,
even scarecrows, and it is necessarynowadays. That is to say,
inasmuch as we are the born,sworn, jealous friends of solitude, of
our own profoundest midnight and mid daysolitude. Such kind of men are we,
(39:21):
we free spirits, And perhaps yeare also something of the same kind,
Ye coming ones, ye New Philosophers, end Chapter two,
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