Chapter VI: Book II (2)

DREAMING AND RESPONSIBILITY.—You would wish to be responsible for everything except your dreams! What miserable weakness, what lack of logical courage! Nothing contains more of your own work than your dreams! Nothing belongs to you so much! Substance, form, duration, actor, spectator—in these comedies you act as your complete selves! And yet it is just here that you are afraid and ashamed of yourselves, and even Oedipus, the wise Oedipus, derived consolation from the thought that we cannot be blamed for what we dream. From this I must conclude that the great majority of men must have some dreadful dreams to reproach themselves with. If it were otherwise, to how great an extent would these nocturnal fictions have been exploited in the interests of man’s pride! Need I add that the wise Oedipus was right, that we are really not responsible for our dreams any more than for our waking hours, and that the doctrine of free will has as its parents man’s pride and sense of power! Perhaps I say this too often; but that does not prove that it is not true.

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THE ALLEGED COMBAT OF MOTIVES.—People speak of the “combat of motives,” but they designate by this expression that which is not a combat of motives at all. What I mean is that, in our meditative consciousness, the consequences of different actions which we think we are able to carry out present themselves successively, one after the other, and we compare these consequences in our mind. We think we have come to a decision concerning an action after we have established to our own satisfaction that the consequences of this action will be favourable. Before we arrive at this conclusion, however, we often seriously worry because of the great difficulties we experience in guessing what the consequences are likely to be, and in seeing them in their full importance, without exception—and, after all this, we must reckon up any fortuitous elements that are likely to arise. Then comes the chief difficulty: all the consequences which we have with such difficulty determined one by one must be weighed on some scales against each other; and it only too often comes about that, owing to the difference in the quality of all the conceivable consequences, both scales and weights are lacking for this casuistry of advantage.

Even supposing, however, that in this case we are able to overcome the difficulty, and that mere hazard has placed in our scales results which permit of a mutual balance, we have now, in the idea of the consequences of a particular action, a motive for performing this very action, but only one motive! When we have finally decided to act, however, we are fairly often influenced by another order of motives than those of the “image of the consequences.” What brings this about may be the habitual working of our inner machinery, or some little encouragement on the part of a person whom we fear or honour or love, or the love of comfort which prefers to do that which lies nearest; or some stirring of the imagination provoked at the decisive moment by some event of trifling importance; or some physical influence which manifests itself quite unexpectedly; a mere whim brings it about; or the outburst of a passion which, as it accidentally happens, is ready to burst forth—in a word, motives operate which we do not understand very well, or which we do not understand at all, and which we can never balance against one another in advance.

It is probable that a contest is going on among these motives too, a driving backwards and forwards, a rising and lowering of the parts, and it is this which would be the real “contest of motives,” something quite invisible and unknown to us. I have calculated the consequences and the successes, and in doing so have set a very necessary motive in the line of combat with the other motives,—but I am as little able to draw up this battle line as to see it: the battle itself is hidden from my sight, as likewise is the victory, as victory; for I certainly come to know what I shall finally do, but I cannot know what motive has in the end proved to be the victor. Nevertheless, we are decidedly not in the habit of taking all these unconscious phenomena into account, and we generally conceive of the preliminary stages of an action only so far as they are conscious: thus we mistake the combat of the motives for a comparison of the possible consequences of different actions,—a mistake that brings with it most important consequences, and consequences that are most fatal to the development of morals.

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AIMS? WILL?—We have accustomed ourselves to believe in two kingdoms, the domain of purposes and volition, and the domain of chance. In this latter domain everything is done senselessly, there is a continual going to and fro without any one being able to say why or wherefore. We stand in awe of this powerful realm of the great cosmic stupidity, for in most instances we learn to know it when it falls down upon the other world, that of aims and intentions, like a slate from a roof, always overwhelming some beautiful purpose of ours.

This belief in these two kingdoms arises from ancient romanticism and legend: we clever dwarfs, with all our will and aims, are interfered with, knocked down, and very often crushed to death by those ultra-stupid giants, the accidents,—but in spite of this we should not like to be deprived of the fearful poetry of their proximity, for these monsters very often make their appearance when life in the spider’s web of definite aims has become too tiresome or too anxious for us, and they sometimes bring about a divine diversion when their hands for once tear the whole web in pieces,—not that these irrational beings ever intend to do what they do, or even observe it. But their coarse and bony hands rend our web as if it were thin air.

Moira was the name given by the Greeks to this realm of the incalculable and of sublime and eternal limitedness; and they set it round their gods like a horizon beyond which they could neither see nor act,—with that secret defiance of the gods which one meets with in different nations; the gods are worshipped, but a final trump card is held in readiness to play against them. As instances of this we may recollect that the Indians and the Persians, who conceived all their gods as having to depend upon the sacrifices of mortals, so that if it came to the worst the mortals could, at least, let the gods die of starvation; or the gods of the stubborn and melancholy Scandinavians, who enjoyed a quiet revenge in the thought that a twilight of the gods was to come as some compensation for the perpetual fear which their evil gods caused them. The case of Christianity was very different, for its essential feelings were not those of the Indians, Persians, Greeks, or Scandinavians. Christianity commanded its disciples to worship in the dust the spirit of power, and to kiss the very dust. It gave the world to understand that this omnipotent “realm of stupidity” was not so stupid as it seemed, and that we, on the contrary, were stupid when we could not perceive that behind this realm stood God Himself: He who, although fond of dark, crooked and wonderful ways, at last brought everything to a “glorious end.” This new myth of God, who had hitherto been mistaken for a race of giants or Moira, and who was now Himself the spinner and weaver of webs and purposes even more subtle than those of our own intellect—so subtle, indeed, that they appear to be incomprehensible and even unreasonable—this myth was so bold a transformation and so daring a paradox that the over-refined ancient world could not resist it, however extravagant and contradictory the thing seemed: for, let it be said in confidence, there was a contradiction in it,—if our intellect cannot divine the intellect and aims of God, how did it divine this quality of its intellect and this quality of God’s intellect?

In more modern times, indeed, the doubt has increased as to whether the slate that falls from the roof is really thrown by “Divine love,” and mankind again harks back to the old romance of giants and dwarfs. Let us learn then, for it is time we did so, that even in our supposed separate domain of aims and reason the giants likewise rule. And our aims and reason are not dwarfs, but giants. And our own webs are just as often and as clumsily rent by ourselves as by the slate. And not everything is purpose that is called purpose, and still less is everything will that is called will. And if you come to the conclusion, “Then there is only one domain, that of stupidity and hazard?” it must be added that possibly there is only one domain, possibly there is neither will nor aim, and we may only have imagined these things. Those iron hands of necessity that shake the dice-box of chance continue their game indefinitely: hence, it must happen that certain throws perfectly resemble every degree of appropriateness and good sense. It may be that our own voluntary acts and purposes are merely such throws, and that we are too circumscribed and vain to conceive our extremely circumscribed state! that we ourselves shake the dice-box with iron hands, and do nothing in our most deliberate actions but play the game of necessity. Possibly! To rise beyond this “possibly” we should indeed have been guests in the Underworld, playing at dice and betting with Proserpine at the table of the goddess herself.

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MORAL FASHIONS.—How moral judgments as a whole have changed! The greatest marvels of the morality of antiquity, such as Epictetus, knew nothing of the glorification, now so common, of the spirit of sacrifice, of living for others: after the fashion of morality now prevailing we should really call them immoral; for they fought with all their strength for their own ego and against all sympathy for others, especially for the sufferings and moral imperfections of others. Perhaps they would reply to us by saying, “If you feel yourselves to be such dull and ugly people, by all means think of others more than yourselves. You will be quite right in doing so!”

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THE LAST ECHOES OF CHRISTIANITY IN MORALS.—“On n’est bon que par la pitié: il faut donc qu’il y ait quelque pitié dans tous nos sentiments”—so says morality nowadays. And how does this come about? The fact that the man who performs social, sympathetic, disinterested, and benevolent actions is now considered as the moral man: this is perhaps the most general effect, the most complete transformation, that Christianity has produced in Europe; perhaps in spite of itself, and not by any means because this was part of its essential doctrine. But this was the residuum of those Christian feelings that prevailed at the time when the contrary and thoroughly selfish faith in the “one thing needful,” the absolute importance of eternal and personal salvation, together with the dogmas upon which this belief had rested, were gradually receding, and when the auxiliary beliefs in “love” and “love of one’s neighbour,” harmonising with the extraordinary practice of charity by the Church, were thereby coming to the front. The more people gradually became separated from the dogmas, the more did they seek some sort of justification for this separation in a cult of the love of humanity: not to fall short in this respect of the Christian ideal, but to excel it if possible, was the secret stimulus of all the French free-thinkers from Voltaire to Auguste Comte; and this latter with his famous moral formula “vivre pour autrui” has indeed out-christianised even Christianity!

It was Schopenhauer in Germany and John Stuart Mill in England who were the means of bringing into the greatest prominence this doctrine of sympathetic affections and of pity or utility to others as a principle of action; but these men themselves were only echoes. From about the time of the French Revolution these doctrines have manifested themselves in various places with enormous force. Since then they have shown themselves in their coarsest as well has their most subtle form, and all Socialistic principles have almost involuntarily taken their stand on the common ground of this doctrine. At the present time there is perhaps no more widely spread prejudice than that of thinking that we know what really and truly constitutes morality. Every one now seems to learn with satisfaction that society is beginning to adapt the individual to the general needs, and that it is at the same time the happiness and sacrifice of each one to consider himself as a useful member and instrument of the whole. They have still, however, doubts as to the form in which this whole is to be looked for, whether in a state already existing, or in one which has yet to be established, or in a nation, or in an international brotherhood, or in new and small economic communities. On this point there is still much reflection, doubt, struggling, excitement, and passion; but it is pleasant and wonderful to observe the unanimity with which the “ego” is called upon to practice self-denial, until, in the form of adaptation to the whole, it once again secures its own fixed sphere of rights and duties,—until, indeed, it has become something quite new and different. Nothing else is being attempted, whether admitted or not, than the complete transformation, even the weakening and suppression of the individual: the supporters of the majority never tire of enumerating and anathematising all that is bad, hostile, lavish, expensive, and luxurious in the form of individual existence that has hitherto prevailed; they hope that society may be administered in a cheaper, less dangerous, more uniform, and more harmonious way when nothing is left but large corporations and their members. All that is considered as good which in any way corresponds to this desire for grouping men into one particular society, and to the minor cravings which necessarily accompany this desire,—this is the chief moral current of our time; sympathy and social feelings are working hand in glove. (Kant is still outside of this movement: he expressly teaches that we should be insensible to the sufferings of others if our benevolence is to have any moral value,—a doctrine which Schopenhauer, very angrily, as may easily be imagined, described as the Kantian absurdity.)

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“NO LONGER THINKING OF ONE’S SELF.”—Let us seriously consider why we should jump into the water to rescue some one who has just fallen in before our eyes, although we may have no particular sympathy for him. We do it for pity’s sake; no one thinks now but of his neighbour,—so says thoughtlessness. Why do we experience grief and uneasiness when we see some one spit blood, although we may be really ill-disposed towards him and wish him no good? Out of pity; we have ceased to think of ourselves,—so says thoughtlessness again. The truth is that in our pity—I mean by this what we erroneously call “pity”—we no longer think consciously of ourselves, but quite unconsciously, exactly as when slipping we unconsciously make the best counter-motions possible in order to recover our balance, and in doing so clearly use all our intelligence. A mishap to another offends us; it would bring our impotence, or perhaps our cowardice, into strong relief if we could do nothing to help him; or in itself it would give rise to a diminution of our honour in the eyes of others and of ourselves. Or again, accidents that happen to others act as finger-posts to point out our own danger, and even as indications of human peril and frailty they can produce a painful effect upon us. We shake off this kind of pain and offence, and balance it by an act of pity behind which may be hidden a subtle form of self-defence or even revenge. That at bottom we strongly think of ourselves may easily be divined from the decision that we arrive at in all cases where we can avoid the sight of those who are suffering or starving or wailing. We make up our minds not to avoid such people when we can approach them as powerful and helpful ones, when we can safely reckon upon their applause, or wish to feel the contrast of our own happiness, or, again, when we hope to get rid of our own boredom. It is misleading to call the suffering that we experience at such a sight, and which may be of a very different kind, commiseration. For in all cases it is a suffering from which the suffering person before us is free: it is our own suffering, just as his suffering is his own. It is thus only this personal feeling of misery that we get rid of by acts of compassion. Nevertheless, we never act thus from one single motive: as it is certain that we wish to free ourselves from suffering thereby, it is also certain that by the same action we yield to an impulse of pleasure. Pleasure arises at the sight of a contrast to our own condition, at the knowledge that we should be able to help if only we wished to do so, at the thought of the praise and gratitude which we should gain if we did help, at the very act of helping, in so far as this might prove successful (and because something which is gradually seen to be successful gives pleasure to the doer); but even more particularly at the feeling that our intervention brings to an end some deplorable injustice,—even the outburst of one’s indignation is invigorating.

All this, including even things still more subtle, comprises “pity.” How clumsily with this one word does language fall foul of such a complex and polyphonous organism! That pity, on the other hand, is identical with the suffering the sight of which brings it about, or that it has a particularly subtle and penetrating comprehension of it: this is in contradiction to experience, and he who has glorified pity under these two heads lacked sufficient experience in the domain of morals. That is why I am seized with some doubts when reading of the incredible things attributed by Schopenhauer to pity. It is obvious that he thereby wished to make us believe in the great novelty he brought forward, viz., that pity—the pity which he observed so superficially and described so badly—was the source of all and every past and future moral action,—and all this precisely because of those faculties which he had begun by attributing to it.

What is it in the end that distinguishes men without pity from men who are really compassionate? In particular, to give merely an approximate indication, they have not the sensitive feeling for fear, the subtle faculty for perceiving danger: nor yet is their vanity so easily wounded if something happens which they might have been able to prevent,—the caution of their pride commands them not to interfere uselessly with the affairs of others; they even act on the belief that every one should help himself and play his own cards. Again, in most cases they are more habituated to bearing pain than compassionate men, and it does not seem at all unjust to them that others should suffer, since they themselves have suffered. Lastly, the state of soft-heartedness is as painful to them as is the state of stoical impassability to compassionate men: they have only disdainful words for sensitive hearts, as they think that such a state of feeling is dangerous to their own manliness and calm bravery,—they conceal their tears from others and wipe them off, angry with themselves. They belong to a different type of egoists from the compassionate men,—but to call them, in a distinct sense, evil and the compassionate ones good, is merely a moral fashion which has had its innings, just as the reverse fashion had also its innings, and a long innings, too.

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TO WHAT EXTENT WE MUST BEWARE OF PITY.—Pity, in so far as it actually gives rise to suffering—and this must be our only point of view here—is a weakness, like every other indulgence in an injurious emotion. It increases suffering throughout the world, and although here and there a certain amount of suffering may be indirectly diminished or removed altogether as a consequence of pity, we must not bring forward these occasional consequences, which are on the whole insignificant, to justify the nature of pity which, as has already been stated, is prejudicial. Supposing that it prevailed, even if only for one day, it would bring humanity to utter ruin. In itself the nature of pity is no better than that of any other craving; it is only where it is called for and praised—and this happens when people do not understand what is injurious in it, but find in it a sort of joy—that a good conscience becomes attached to it; it is only then that we willingly yield to it, and do not shrink from acknowledging it. In other circumstances where it is understood to be dangerous, it is looked upon as a weakness; or, as in the case of the Greeks, as an unhealthy periodical emotion the danger of which might be removed by temporary and voluntary discharges. If a man were to undertake the experiment of deliberately devoting his attention to the opportunities afforded by practical life for the exercise of pity, and were over and over again to picture in his own mind the misery he might meet with in his immediate surroundings, he would inevitably become melancholy and ill. If, however, he wished in any sense of the word to serve humanity as a physician, he would have to take many precautions with respect to this feeling, as otherwise it would paralyse him at all critical moments, undermine the foundations of his knowledge, and unnerve his helpful and delicate hand.

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AROUSING PITY.—Among savages men think with a moral shudder of the possibility of becoming an object of pity, for such a state they regard as deprived of all virtue. Pitying is equivalent to despising: they do not want to see a contemptible being suffer, for this would afford them no enjoyment. On the other hand, to behold one of their enemies suffering, some one whom they look upon as their equal in pride, but whom torture cannot induce to give up his pride, and in general to see some one suffer who refuses to lower himself by appealing for pity—which would in their eyes be the most profound and shameful humiliation—this is the very joy of joys. Such a spectacle excites the deepest admiration in the soul of the savage, and he ends by killing such a brave man when it is in his power, afterwards according funeral honours to the unbending one. If he had groaned, however; if his countenance had lost its expression of calm disdain; if he had shown himself to be contemptible,—well, in such a case he might have been allowed to live like a dog: he would no longer have aroused the pride of the spectator, and pity would have taken the place of admiration.

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HAPPINESS IN PITY.—If, as is the case among the Hindus, we decree the end and aim of all intellectual activity to be the knowledge of human misery, and if for generation after generation this dreadful resolution be steadily adhered to, pity in the eyes of such men of hereditary pessimism comes to have a new value as a preserver of life, something that helps to make existence endurable, although it may seem worthy of being rejected with horror and disgust. Pity becomes an antidote to suicide, a sentiment which brings pleasure with it and enables us to taste superiority in small doses. It gives some diversion to our minds, makes our hearts full, banishes fear and lethargy, and incites us to speak, to complain, or to act: it is a relative happiness when compared with the misery of the knowledge that hampers the individual on every side, bewilders him, and takes away his breath. Happiness, however, no matter of what nature it may be, gives us air and light and freedom of movement.

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WHY DOUBLE THE “EGO”?—To view our own experiences in the same light as we are in the habit of looking at those of others is very comforting and an advisable medicine. On the other hand, to look upon the experiences of others and adopt them as if they were our own—which is called for by the philosophy of pity—would ruin us in a very short time: let us only make the experiment without trying to imagine it any longer! The first maxim is, in addition, undoubtedly more in accordance with reason and goodwill towards reason; for we estimate more objectively the value and significance of an event when it happens to others,—the value, for instance, of a death, loss of money or slander. But pity, taking as its principle of action the injunction, “Suffer the misfortune of another as much as he himself,” would lead the point of view of the ego with all its exaggerations and deviations to become the point of view of the other person, the sympathiser: so that we should have to suffer at the same time from our own ego and the other’s ego. In this way we would voluntarily overload ourselves with a double irrationality, instead of making the burden of our own as light as possible.

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BECOMING MORE TENDER.—Whenever we love some one and venerate and admire him, and afterwards come to perceive that he is suffering—which always causes us the utmost astonishment, since we cannot but feel that the happiness we derive from him must flow from a superabundant source of personal happiness—our feelings of love, veneration, and admiration are essentially changed: they become more tender; that is, the gap that separates us seems to be bridged over and there appears to be an approach to equality. It now seems possible to give him something in return, whilst we had previously imagined him as being altogether above our gratitude. Our ability to requite him for what we have received from him arouses in us feelings of much joy and pleasure. We endeavour to ascertain what can best calm the grief of our friend, and we give it to him; if he wishes for kind words, looks, attentions, services, or presents, we give them; but, above all, if he would like to see us suffering from the sight of his suffering, we pretend to suffer, for all this secures for us the enjoyment of active gratitude, which is equivalent in a way to good-natured revenge. If he wants none of these things, and refuses to accept them from us, we depart from him chilled and sad, almost mortified; it appears to us as if our gratitude had been declined, and on this point of honour even the best of men is still somewhat touchy. It results from all this that even in the best case there is something humiliating in suffering, and something elevating and superior in sympathy,—a fact which will keep the two feelings apart for ever and ever.

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HIGHER IN NAME ONLY.—You say that the morality of pity is a higher morality than that of stoicism? Prove it! But take care not to measure the “higher” and “lower” degrees of morality once more by moral yardsticks; for there are no absolute morals. So take your yardstick from somewhere else, and be on your guard!

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PRAISE AND BLAME.—When a war has come to an unsuccessful conclusion we try to find the man who is to blame for the war; when it comes to a successful conclusion we praise the man who is responsible for it. In all unsuccessful cases attempts are made to blame somebody, for non-success gives rise to dejection, against which the single possible remedy is involuntarily applied; a new incitement of the sense of power; and this incitement is found in the condemnation of the “guilty” one. This guilty one is not perhaps the scapegoat of the faults of others; he is merely the victim of the feeble, humiliated, and depressed people who wish to prove upon some one that they have not yet lost all their power. Even self-condemnation after a defeat may be the means of restoring the feeling of power.

On the other hand, glorification of the originator is often but an equally blind result of another instinct that demands its victim,—and in this case the sacrifice appears to be sweet and attractive even for the victim. This happens when the feeling of power is satiated in a nation or a society by so great and fascinating a success that a weariness of victory supervenes and pride wishes to be discharged: a feeling of self-sacrifice is aroused and looks for its object. Thus, whether we are blamed or praised we merely, as a rule, provide opportunities for the gratification of others, and are only too often caught up and whirled away for our neighbours to discharge upon us their accumulated feelings of praise or blame. In both cases we confer a benefit upon them for which we deserve no credit and they no thanks.

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MORE BEAUTIFUL BUT LESS VALUABLE.—Picturesque morality: such is the morality of those passions characterised by sudden outbursts, abrupt transitions; pathetic, impressive, dreadful, and solemn attitudes and gestures. It is the semi-savage stage of morality: never let us be tempted to set it on a higher plane merely on account of its æsthetic charms.

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SYMPATHY.—In order to understand our neighbour, that is, in order to reproduce his sentiments in ourselves, we often, no doubt, plumb the cause of his feelings, as, for example, by asking ourselves, Why is he sad? in order that we may become sad ourselves for the same reason. But we much more frequently neglect to act thus, and we produce these feelings in ourselves in accordance with the _effects_ which they exhibit in the person we are studying,—by imitating in our own body the expression of his eyes, his voice, his gait, his attitude (or, at any rate, the likeness of these things in words, pictures, and music), or we may at least endeavour to mimic the action of his muscles and nervous system. A like feeling will then spring up in us as the result of an old association of movements and sentiments which has been trained to run backwards and forwards. We have developed to a very high pitch this knack of sounding the feelings of others, and when we are in the presence of any one else we bring this faculty of ours into play almost involuntarily,—let the inquirer observe the animation of a woman’s countenance and notice how it vibrates and quivers with animation as the result of the continual imitation and reflection of what is going on around her.

It is music, however, more than anything else that shows us what past-masters we are in the rapid and subtle divination of feelings and sympathy; for even if music is only the imitation of an imitation of feelings, nevertheless, despite its distance and vagueness, it often enables us to participate in those feelings, so that we become sad without any reason for feeling so, like the fools that we are, merely because we hear certain sounds and rhythms that somehow or other remind us of the intonation and the movements, or perhaps even only of the behaviour, of sorrowful people. It is related of a certain Danish king that he was wrought up to such a pitch of warlike enthusiasm by the song of a minstrel that he sprang to his feet and killed five persons of his assembled court: there was neither war nor enemy; there was rather the exact opposite; yet the power of the retrospective inference from a feeling to the cause of it was sufficiently strong in this king to overpower both his observation and his reason. Such, however, is almost invariably the effect of music (provided that it thrills us), and we have no need of such paradoxical instances to recognise this,—the state of feeling into which music transports us is almost always in contradiction to the appearance of our actual state, and of our reasoning power which recognises this actual state and its causes.

If we inquire how it happened that this imitation of the feelings of others has become so common, there will be no doubt as to the answer: man being the most timid of all beings because of his subtle and delicate nature has been made familiar through his timidity with this sympathy for, and rapid comprehension of, the feelings of others, even of animals. For century after century he saw danger in everything that was unfamiliar to him, in anything that happened to be alive, and whenever the spectacle of such things and creatures came before his eyes he imitated their features and attitude, drawing at the same time his own conclusion as to the nature of the evil intentions they concealed. This interpretation of all movements and all facial characteristics in the sense of intentions, man has even brought to bear on things inanimate,—urged on as he was by the illusion that there was nothing inanimate. I believe that this is the origin of everything that we now call a feeling for nature, that sensation of joy which men experience at the sight of the sky, the fields, the rocks, the forests, the storms, the stars, the landscapes, and spring: without our old habits of fear which forced us to suspect behind everything a kind of second and more recondite sense, we should now experience no delight in nature, in the same way as men and animals do not cause us to rejoice if we have not first been deterred by that source of all understanding, namely, fear. For joy and agreeable surprise, and finally the feeling of ridicule, are the younger children of sympathy, and the much younger brothers and sisters of fear. The faculty of rapid perception, which is based on the faculty of rapid dissimulation, decreases in proud and autocratic men and nations, as they are less timid; but, on the other hand, every category of understanding and dissimulation is well known to timid peoples, and among them is to be found the real home of imitative arts and superior intelligence.

When, proceeding from the theory of sympathy such as I have just outlined, I turn my attention to the theory, now so popular and almost sacrosanct, of a mystical process by means of which pity blends two beings into one, and thus permits them immediately to understand one another, when I recollect that even so clear a brain as Schopenhauer’s delighted in such fantastic nonsense, and that he in his turn transplanted this delight into other lucid and semi-lucid brains, I feel unlimited astonishment and compassion. How great must be the pleasure we experience in this senseless tomfoolery! How near must even a sane man be to insanity as soon as he listens to his own secret intellectual desires!—Why did Schopenhauer really feel so grateful, so profoundly indebted to Kant? He revealed on one occasion the undoubted answer to this question. Some one had spoken of the way in which the _qualitias occulta_ of Kant’s Categorical Imperative might be got rid of, so that the theory itself might be rendered intelligible. Whereupon Schopenhauer gave utterance to the following outburst: “An intelligible Categorical Imperative! Preposterous idea! Stygian darkness! God forbid that it should ever become intelligible! The fact that there is actually something unintelligible, that this misery of the understanding and its conceptions is limited, conditional, final, and deceptive,—this is beyond question Kant’s great gift.” Let any one consider whether a man can be in possession of a desire to gain an insight into moral things when he feels himself comforted from the start by a belief in the inconceivableness of these things! one who still honestly believes in illuminations from above, in magic, in ghostly appearances, and in the metaphysical ugliness of the toad!

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WOE TO US IF THIS IMPULSE SHOULD RAGE!—Supposing that the impulse towards devotion and care for others (“sympathetic affection”) were doubly as strong as it now is, life on earth could not be endured. Let it only be considered how many foolish things every one of us does day by day and hour by hour, merely out of solicitude and devotion for himself, and how unbearable he seems in doing so: and what then would it be like if we were to become for other people the object of the stupidities and importunities with which up to the present they have only tormented themselves! Should we not then take precipitately to our heels as soon as one of our neighbours came towards us? And would it not be necessary to overwhelm this sympathetic affection with the abuse that we now reserve for egoism?

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CLOSING OUR EARS TO THE COMPLAINTS OF OTHERS.—When we let our sky be clouded by the complaints and suffering of other mortals, who must bear the consequences of such gloom? No doubt those other mortals, in addition to all their other burdens! If we are merely to be the echoes of their complaints, we cannot accord them either help or comfort; nor can we do so if we were continually keeping our ears open to listen to them,—unless we have learnt the art of the Olympians, who, instead of trying to make themselves unhappy, endeavoured to feel edified by the misfortunes of mankind. But this is something too Olympian for us, although, in our enjoyment of tragedy, we have already taken a step towards this ideal divine cannibalism.

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“UNEGOISTIC.”—This man is empty and wishes to be filled, that one is over-full and wishes to be emptied: both of them feel themselves urged on to look for an individual who can help them. And this phenomenon, interpreted in a higher sense, is in both cases known by the same name, “love.” Well? and could this love be something unegoistic?

146.

LOOKING BEYOND OUR NEIGHBOUR.—What? Ought the nature of true morality to consist for us in fixing our eyes upon the most direct and immediate consequences of our action for other people, and in our coming to a decision accordingly? This is only a narrow and bourgeois morality, even though it may be a morality: but it seems to me that it would be more superior and liberal to look beyond these immediate consequences for our neighbour in order to encourage more distant purposes, even at the risk of making others suffer,—as, for example, by encouraging the spirit of knowledge in spite of the certainty that our free-thought will have the instant effect of plunging others into doubt, grief, and even worse afflictions. Have we not at least the right to treat our neighbour as we treat ourselves? And if, where we are concerned, we do not think in such a narrow and bourgeois fashion of immediate consequences and sufferings, why should we be compelled to act thus in regard to our neighbour? Supposing that we felt ready to sacrifice ourselves, what is there to prevent us from sacrificing our neighbour together with ourselves,—just as States and Sovereigns have hitherto sacrificed one citizen to the others, “for the sake of the general interest,” as they say?

We too, however, have general interests, perhaps even more general than theirs: so why may we not sacrifice a few individuals of this generation for the benefit of generations to come? so that their affliction, anxiety, despair, blunders, and misery may be deemed essential because a new plough is to break up the ground and render it fertile for all. Finally, we communicate the disposition to our neighbour by which he is enabled to feel himself a victim: we persuade him to carry out the task for which we employ him. Are we then devoid of all pity? If, however, we wish to achieve a victory over ourselves beyond our pity, is not this a higher and more liberal attitude and disposition than that in which we only feel safe after having ascertained whether an action benefits or harms our neighbour? On the contrary, it is by means of such sacrifice—including the sacrifice of ourselves, as well as of our neighbours—that we should strengthen and elevate the general sense of human power, even supposing that we attain nothing more than this. But even this itself would be a positive increase of happiness. Then, if even this ... but not a word more! You have understood me at a glance.

147.

THE CAUSE OF “ALTRUISM.”—Men have on the whole spoken of love with so much emphasis and adoration because they have hitherto always had so little of it, and have never yet been satiated with this food: in this way it became their ambrosia. If a poet wished to show universal benevolence in the image of a Utopia, he would certainly have to describe an agonising and ridiculous state of things, the like of which was never seen on earth,—every one would be surrounded, importuned, and sighed for, not as at present, by one lover, but by thousands, by everybody indeed, as the result of an irresistible craving which would then be as vehemently insulted and cursed as selfishness has been by men of past ages. The poets of this new condition of things, if they had sufficient leisure to write, would be dreaming of nothing but the blissful and loveless past, the divine selfishness of yore, and the wonderful possibilities in former times of remaining alone, not being run after by one’s friends, and of even being hated and despised—or any other odious expressions which the beautiful animal world in which we live chooses to coin.

148.

LOOKING FAR AHEAD.—If, in accordance with the present definition, only those actions are moral which are done for the sake of others, and for their sake only, then there are no moral actions at all! If, in accordance with another definition, only those actions are moral which spring from our own free will, then there are no moral actions in this case either! What is it, then, that we designate thus, which certainly exists and wishes as a consequence to be explained? It is the result of a few intellectual blunders; and supposing that we were able to free ourselves from these errors, what would then become of “moral actions”? It is due to these errors that we have up to the present attributed to certain actions a value superior to what was theirs in reality: we separated them from “egoistic” and “non-free” actions. When we now set them once more in the latter categories, as we must do, we certainly reduce their value (their own estimate of value) even below its reasonable level, because “egoistic” and “non-free” actions have up to the present been under-valued owing to that alleged profound and essential difference.

In future, then, will these very actions be less frequently performed, since they will be less highly esteemed? Inevitably! Or at all events for a fairly long time, as long as the scale of valuations remains under the reacting influence of former mistakes! But we make some return for this by giving back to men their good courage for the carrying out of actions that are now reputed to be selfish, and thus restore their value,—we relieve men’s bad consciences! and as up to the present egoistic actions have been by far the most frequent, and will be so to all eternity, we free the whole conception of these actions and of life from its evil appearance! This is a very high and important result. When men no longer believe themselves to be evil, they cease to be so.