Chapter V: Part 5

_The Four Errors._--Man has been reared by his errors: firstly, he saw himself always imperfect; secondly,-he attributed to himself--imaginary qualities; thirdly, he felt himself in a false position in relation to the animals and nature; fourthly, he always devised new tables of values, and accepted them for a time as eternal and unconditioned, so that at one time this, and at another time that human impulse or state stood first, and was ennobled in consequence. When one has deducted the effect of these four errors, one has also deducted humanity, humaneness, and "human dignity."

116.

_Herd-Instinct._--Wherever we meet with a morality we find a valuation and order of rank of the human impulses and activities. These valuations and orders of rank are always the expression of the needs of a community or herd: that which is in the first place to _its_ advantage--and in the second place and third place--is also the authoritative standard for the worth of every individual. By morality the individual is taught to become a function of the herd, and to ascribe to himself value only as a function. As the conditions for the maintenance of one community have been very different from those of another community, there have been very different moralities; and in respect to the future essential transformations of herds and communities, states and societies, one can prophesy that there will still be very divergent moralities. Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

117.

_The Herd's Sting of Conscience._--In the longest and remotest ages of the human race there was quite a different sting of conscience from that of the present day. At present one only feels responsible for what one intends and for what one does, and we have our pride in ourselves. All our professors of jurisprudence start with this sentiment of individual independence and pleasure, as if the source of right had taken its rise here from the beginning. But throughout the longest period in the life of mankind there was nothing more terrible to a person than to feel himself independent. To be alone, to feel independent, neither to obey nor to rule, to represent an individual--that was no pleasure to a person then, but a punishment; he was condemned "to be an individual." Freedom of thought was regarded as discomfort personified. While we feel law and regulation as constraint and loss, people formerly regarded egoism as a painful thing, and a veritable evil. For a person to be himself, to value himself according to his own measure and weight--that was then quite distasteful. The inclination to such a thing would have been regarded as madness; for all miseries and terrors were associated with being alone. At that time the "free will" had bad conscience in close proximity to it; and the less independently a person acted, the more the herd-instinct, and not his personal character, expressed itself in his conduct, so much the more moral did he esteem himself. All that did injury to the herd, whether the individual had intended it or not, then caused him a sting of conscience--and his neighbour likewise, indeed the whole herd!--It is in this respect that we have most changed our mode of thinking.

118.

_Benevolence--_Is it virtuous when a cell transforms itself into the function of a stronger cell? It must do so. And is it wicked when the stronger one assimilates the other? It must do so likewise: it is necessary, for it has to have abundant indemnity and seeks to regenerate itself. One has therefore to distinguish the instinct of appropriation and the instinct of submission in benevolence, according as the stronger or the weaker feels benevolent. Gladness and covetousness are united in the stronger person, who wants to transform something to his function: gladness and desire-to-be-coveted in the weaker person, who would like to become a function.--The former case is essentially pity, a pleasant excitation of the instinct of appropriation at the sight of the weak: it is to be remembered, however, that "strong" and "weak" are relative conceptions.

119.

_No Altruism!_/--I see in many men an excessive impulse and delight in wanting to be a function; they strive after it, and have the keenest scent for all those positions in which precisely _they_ themselves can be functions. Among such persons are those women who transform themselves into just that function of a man that is but weakly-developed in him, and then become his purse, or his politics, or his social intercourse. Such beings maintain themselves best when they insert themselves in an alien organism; if they do not succeed they become vexed, irritated, and eat themselves up.

120.

_Health of the Soul._--The favourite medico-moral formula (whose originator was Ariston of Chios), "Virtue is the health of the soul," would, for all practical purposes, have to be altered to this: "Thy virtue is the health of thy soul." For there is no such thing as health in itself, and all attempts to define a thing in that way have lamentably failed. It is necessary to know thy aim, thy horizon, thy powers, thy impulses, thy errors, and especially the ideals and fantasies of thy soul, in order to determine _what health_ implies even for thy _body._ There are consequently innumerable kinds of physical health; and the more one again permits the unique and unparalleled to raise its head, the more one unlearns the dogma of the "Equality of men," so much the more also must the conception of a normal health, together with a normal diet and a normal course of disease, be abrogated by our physicians. And then only would it be time to turn our thoughts to the health and disease of the _soul,_ and make the special virtue of everyone consist in its health; but, to be sure, what appeared as health in one person might appear as the contrary of health in another. In the end the great question might still remain open:--Whether we could _do without_ sickness for the development of our virtue, and whether our thirst for knowledge and self-knowledge would not especially need the sickly soul as well as the sound one; in short, whether the mere will to health is not a prejudice, a cowardice, and perhaps an instance of the subtlest barbarism and unprogressiveness?

121.

_Life no Argument._--We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we can live--by the postulating of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith no one could manage to live at present! But for all that they are still unproved. Life is no argument; error might be among the conditions of life.

122.

_The Element of Moral Scepticism in Christianity._--Christianity also has made a great contribution to enlightenment, and has taught moral scepticism --in a very impressive and effective manner, accusing and embittering, but with untiring patience and subtlety; it annihilated in every individual the belief in his virtues: it made the great virtuous ones, of whom antiquity had no lack, vanish for ever from the earth, those popular men, who, in the belief in their perfection, walked about with the dignity of a hero of the bull-fight. When, trained in this Christian school of scepticism, we now read the moral books of the ancients, for example those of Seneca and Epictetus, we feel a pleasurable superiority, and are full of secret insight and penetration,--it seems to us as if a child talked before an old man, or a pretty, gushing girl before La Rochefoucauld:--we know better what virtue is! After all, however, we have applied the same scepticism to all _religious_ states and processes, such as sin, repentance, grace, sanctification, &c., and have allowed the worm to burrow so well, that we have now the same feeling of subtle superiority and insight even in reading all Christian books:--we know also the religious feelings better! And it is time to know them well and describe them well, for the pious ones of the old belief die out also; let us save their likeness and type, at least for the sake of knowledge.

123.

_Knowledge more than a Means._--Also _without_ this passion--I refer to the passion for knowledge--science would be furthered: science has hitherto increased and grown up without it. The good faith in science, the prejudice in its favour, by which States are at present dominated (it was even the Church formerly), rests fundamentally on the fact that the absolute inclination and impulse has so rarely revealed itself in it, and that science is regarded _not_ as a passion, but as a condition and an "ethos." Indeed, _amour-plaisir_ of knowledge (curiosity) often enough suffices, _amour-vanité_ suffices, and habituation to it, with the afterthought of obtaining honour and bread; it even suffices for many that they do not know what to do with a surplus of leisure, except to continue reading, collecting, arranging, observing and narrating; their "scientific impulse" is their ennui. Pope Leo X once (in the brief to Beroaldus) sang the praise of science; he designated it as the finest ornament and the greatest pride of our life, a noble employment in happiness and in misfortune; "without it," he says finally, "all human undertakings would be without a firm basis,--even with it they are still sufficiently mutable and insecure!" But this rather sceptical Pope, like all other ecclesiastical panegyrists of science, suppressed his ultimate judgment concerning it. If one may deduce from his words what is remarkable enough for such a lover of art, that he places science above art it is alter all, however, only from politeness that he omits to speak of that which he places high above all science: the "revealed truth," and the "eternal salvation o the soul,"--what are ornament, pride, entertainment and security of life to him, in comparison thereto? "Science is something of secondary rank, nothing ultimate or unconditioned, no object of passion"--this judgment was kept back in Leos soul: the truly Christian judgment concerning science! In antiquity its dignity and appreciation were lessened by the fact that, even among its most eager disciples, the striving after _virtue_ stood foremost and that people thought they had given the highest praise to knowledge when they celebrated it as the best means to virtue. It is something new in history that knowledge claims to be more than a means.

124.

_In the Horizon of the Infinite._--We have left the land and have gone aboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us,--nay, more, the land behind us! Well, little ship! look out! Beside thee is the ocean; it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come when thou wilt feel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes against the walls of this cage! Alas, if home-sickness for the land should attack thee, as if there had been more _freedom_ there,--and there is no "land" any longer!

125.

_The Madman._--Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!"--As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated?--the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! _We have killed him,_--you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Back-wards, sideways, forewards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?--for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,--who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event,--and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!"--Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said, "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is travelling,--it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star,--_and yet they have done it!"--It_ is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his _Requiem æternam deo._ When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?"--

126.

_Mystical Explanations._--Mystical explanations are regarded as profound; the truth is that they do not even go the length of being superficial.

127.

_After-Effect of the most Ancient Religiousness.--_The thoughtless man thinks that the Will is the only thing that operates, that willing is something simple, manifestly given, underived, and comprehensible in itself. He is convinced that when he does anything, for example, when he delivers a blow, it is _he_ who strikes, and he has struck because he _willed_ to strike. He does not notice anything of a problem therein, but the feeling of _willing_ suffices to him, not only for the acceptance of cause and effect, but also for the belief that he _understands_ their relationship. Of the mechanism of the occurrence, and of the manifold subtle operations that must be performed in order that the blow may result, and likewise of the incapacity of the Will in itself to effect even the smallest part of those operations--he knows nothing. The Will is to him a magically operating force; the belief in the Will as the cause of effects is the belief in magically operating forces. In fact, whenever he saw anything happen, man originally believed in a Will as cause, and in personally _willing_ beings operating in the background,--the conception of mechanism was very remote from him. Because, however, man for immense periods of time believed only in persons (and not in matter, forces, things, &c.), the belief in cause and effect has become a fundamental belief with him, which he applies everywhere when anything happens,--and even still uses instinctively as a piece of atavism of remotest origin. The propositions, "No effect without a cause," and "Every effect again implies a cause," appear as generalisations of several less general propositions:--"Where there is operation there has been _willing_." "Operating is only possible on _willing_ beings." "There is never a pure, resultless experience of activity, but every experience involves stimulation of the Will" (to activity, defence, revenge or retaliation). But in the primitive period of the human race, the latter and the former propositions were identical, the first were not generalisations of the second, but the second were explanations of the first.--Schopenhauer, with his assumption that all that exists is something _volitional,_ has set a primitive mythology on the throne; he seems never to have attempted an analysis of the Will, because he _believed_ like everybody in the simplicity and immediateness of all volition:--while volition is in fact such a cleverly practised mechanical process that it almost escapes the observing eye. I set the following propositions against those of Schopenhauer:--Firstly, in order that Will may arise, an idea of pleasure and pain is necessary. Secondly, that a vigorous excitation may be felt as pleasure or pain, is the affair of the _interpreting_ intellect, which, to be sure, operates thereby for the most part unconsciously to us, and one and the same excitation _may_ be interpreted as pleasure or pain. Thirdly, it is only in an intellectual being that there is pleasure, displeasure and Will; the immense majority of organisms have nothing of the kind.

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_The Value of Prayer.--_Prayer has been devised for such men as have never any thoughts of their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul is unknown, or passes unnoticed; what shall these people do in holy places and in all important situations in life which require repose and some kind of dignity? In order at least that they may not _disturb,_ the wisdom of all the founders of religions, the small as well as the great, has commended to them the formula of prayer, as a long mechanical labour of the lips, united with an effort of the memory, and with a uniform, prescribed attitude of hands and feet--_and_ eyes! They may then, like the Tibetans, chew the cud of their "_om mane padme hum,"_ innumerable times, or, as in Benares, count the name of the God Ram-Ram-Ram (etc., with or without grace) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is that they are settled down for a time at this work, and present a tolerable appearance; their mode of prayer is devised for the advantage of the pious who have thought and elevation of their own. But even these have their weary hours when a series of venerable words and sounds, and a mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But supposing that these rare men--in every religion the religious man is an exception--know how to help themselves, the poor in spirit do not know, and to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean to take their religion from them, a fact which Protestantism brings more and more to light. All that religion wants with such persons is that they should _keep still_ with their eyes, hands, legs, and all their organs: they thereby become temporarily beautified and--more human-looking!

129.

_The Conditions for God.--_"God himself cannot subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with good reason; but "God can still less subsist without unwise men,"--good Luther did not say that!

130.

_A Dangerous Resolution.--_The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad, has made the world ugly and bad.

131.

_Christianity and Suicide._--Christianity made use of the excessive longing for suicide at the time of its origin as a lever for its power: it left only two forms of suicide, invested them with the highest dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all others with dreadful threatenings. But martyrdom and the slow self-annihilation of the ascetic were permitted.

132.

_Against Christianity._--It is now no longer our reason, but our taste that decides against Christianity.

133.

_Axioms._--An unavoidable hypothesis on which mankind must always fall back again, is in the long run _more powerful_ than the most firmly believed belief in something untrue (like the Christian belief). In the long run: that means a hundred thousand years hence.

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_Pessimists as Victims._--When a profound dislike of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect of a great error in diet of which a people has been long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism (_not_ its origin) is thus to a considerable extent dependent on the excessive and almost exclusive rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal enervation that results therefrom. Perhaps the modern, European discontentedness is to be looked upon as caused by the fact that the world of our forefathers, the whole Middle Ages, was given to drink, owing to the influence of German tastes in Europe: the Middle Ages, that means the alcoholic poisoning of Europe.--The German dislike of life (including the influence of the cellar-air and stove-poison in German dwellings), is essentially a cold-weather complaint.

135.

_Origin of Sin_--Sin, as it is at present felt wherever Christianity prevails or has prevailed is a Jewish feeling and a Jewish invention; and in respect to this background of all Christian morality Christianity has in fact aimed at "Judaising" the whole world. To what an extent this has succeeded in Europe is traced most accurately in our remarkable alienness to Greek antiquity--a world without the feeling of sin--in our sentiments even at present; in spite of all the good will to approximation and assimilation, which whole generations and many distinguished individuals have not failed to display. "Only when thou _repentest_ is God gracious to thee"--that would arouse the laughter or the wrath of a Greek: he would say, "Slaves may have such sentiments." Here a mighty being, an almighty being, and yet a revengeful being, is presupposed; his power is so great that no injury whatever can be done to him except in the point of honour. Every sin is an infringement of respect, a _crimen læsæ majestatis divinæ_?--and nothing more! Contrition, degradation, rolling-in-the-dust,--these are the first and last conditions on which his favour depends: the restoration, therefore, of his divine honour! If injury be caused otherwise by sin, if a profound, spreading evil be propagated by it, an evil which, like a disease, attacks and strangles one man after another--that does not trouble this honour-craving Oriental in heaven; sin is an offence against him, not against mankind!--to him on whom he has bestowed his favour he bestows also this indifference to the natural consequences of sin. God and mankind are here thought of as separated as so antithetical that sin against the latter cannot be at all possible,--all deeds are to be looked upon _solely with respect to their supernatural consequences,_ and not with respect to their natural results: it is thus that the Jewish feeling, to which all that is natural seems unworthy in itself, would have things. The _Greeks,_ on the other hand, were more familiar with the thought that transgression also may have dignity,--even theft, as in the case of Prometheus, even the slaughtering of cattle as the expression of frantic jealousy, as in the case of Ajax; in their need to attribute dignity to transgression and embody it therein, they invented _tragedy,_--an art and a delight, which in its profoundest essence has remained alien to the Jew, in spite of all his poetic endowment and taste for the sublime.

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_The Chosen People._--The Jews, who regard themselves as the chosen people among the nations, and that too because they are the moral genius among the nations (in virtue of their capacity for _despising_ the human in themselves _more_ than any other people)--the Jews have a pleasure in their divine monarch and saint similar to that which the French nobility had in Louis XIV. This nobility had allowed its power and autocracy to be taken from it, and had become contemptible: in order not to feel this, in order to be able to forget it, an _unequalled_ royal magnificence, royal authority and plenitude of power was needed, to which there was access only for the nobility. As in accordance with this privilege they raised themselves to the elevation of the court, and from that elevation saw everything under them,--saw everything contemptible,--they got beyond all uneasiness of conscience. They thus elevated intentionally the tower of the royal power more and more into the clouds, and set the final coping-stone of their own power thereon.

137.

_Spoken in Parable._--A Jesus Christ was only possible in a Jewish landscape--I mean in one over which the gloomy and sublime thunder-cloud of the angry Jehovah hung continually. Here only was the rare, sudden flashing of a single sunbeam through the dreadful, universal and continuous nocturnal-day regarded as a miracle of "love," as a beam of the most unmerited "grace." Here only could Christ dream of his rainbow and celestial ladder on which God descended to man; everywhere else the clear weather and the sun were considered the rule and the commonplace.

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_The Error of Christ.--_The founder of Christianity thought there was nothing from which men suffered so much as from their sins:--it was his error, the error of him who felt himself without sin, to whom experience was lacking in this respect! It was thus that his soul filled with that marvellous, fantastic pity which had reference to a trouble that even among his own people, the inventors of sin, was rarely a great trouble! But Christians understood subsequently how to do justice to their master, and how to sanctify his error into a "truth."

139.

_Colour of the Passions.--_Natures such as the apostle Paul, have an evil eye for the passions; they learn to know only the filthy, the distorting, and the heart-breaking in them,--their ideal aim, therefore, is the annihilation of the passions; in the divine they see complete purification from passion. The Greeks, quite otherwise than Paul and the Jews, directed their ideal aim precisely to the passions, and loved, elevated, embellished and deified them: in passion they evidently not only felt themselves happier, but also purer and diviner than otherwise.--And now the Christians? Have they wished to become Jews in this respect? Have they perhaps become Jews?

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_Too Jewish.--_If God had wanted to become an object of love, he would first of all have had to forgo judging and justice:-a judge, and even a gracious judge, is no object of love. The founder of Christianity showed too little of the finer feelings in this respect--being a Jew.

141.

_Too Oriental._--What? A God who loves men provided that they believe in him, and who hurls frightful glances and threatenings at him who does not believe in this love! What? A conditioned love as the feeling of an almighty God! A love which has not even become master of the sentiment of honour and of the irritable desire for vengeance! How Oriental is all that! "If I love thee, what does it concern thee?"[1] is already a sufficient criticism of the whole of Christianity.

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_Frankincense.--Buddha_ says: "Do not flatter thy benefactor!" Let one repeat this saying in a Christian church:--it immediately purifies the air.

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_The Greatest Utility of Polytheism._--For the individual to set up his _own_ ideal and derive from it his laws, his pleasures and his rights--_that_ has perhaps been hitherto regarded as the most monstrous of all human aberrations, and as idolatry in itself; in fact, the few who have ventured to do this have always needed to apologise to themselves, usually in this wise: "Not I! not I! but _a God,_ through my instrumentality!" It was in the marvellous art and capacity for creating Gods--in polytheism--that this impulse was permitted to discharge itself, it was here that it became purified, perfected, and ennobled; for it was originally a commonplace and unimportant impulse, akin to stubbornness, disobedience and envy. To be _hostile_ to this impulse towards the individual ideal,--that was formerly the law of every morality. There was then only one norm, "the man"--and every people believed that it _had_ this one and ultimate norm. But above himself, and outside of himself, in a distant over-world, a person could see a _multitude of norms:_ the one God was not the denial or blasphemy of the other Gods! It was here that individuals were first permitted, it was here that the right of individuals was first respected. The inventing of Gods, heroes, and supermen of all kinds, as well as co-ordinate men and undermen--dwarfs, fairies, centaurs, satyrs, demons, devils--was the inestimable preliminary to the justification of the selfishness and sovereignty of the individual: the freedom which was granted to one God in respect to other Gods, was at last given to the individual himself in respect to laws, customs and neighbours. Monotheism, on the contrary, the rigid consequence of the doctrine of one normal human being--consequently the belief in a normal God, beside whom there are only false, spurious Gods--has perhaps been the greatest danger of mankind in the past: man was then threatened by that premature state of inertia, which, so far as we can see, most of the other species of animals reached long ago, as creatures who all believed in one normal animal and ideal in their species, and definitely translated their morality of custom into flesh and blood. In polytheism man's free-thinking and many-sided thinking had a prototype set up: the power to create for himself new and individual eyes, always newer and more individualised: so that these are no _eternal_ horizons and perspectives.

[1] This means that true love does not look for reciprocity.

144.

_Religious Wars._--The greatest advance of the masses hitherto has been religious war, for it proves that the masses have begun to deal reverently with conceptions of things. Religious wars only result when human reason generally has been refined by the subtle disputes of sects; so that even the populace becomes punctilious and regards trifles as important, actually thinking it possible that the "eternal salvation of the soul" may depend upon minute distinctions of concepts.

145.

_Danger of Vegetarians._--The immense prevalence of rice-eating impels to the use of opium and narcotics, in like manner as the immense prevalence of potato-eating impels to the use of brandy:--it also impels, however, in its more subtle after-effects to modes of thought and feeling which operate narcotically. This is in accord with the fact that those who promote narcotic modes of thought and feeling, like those Indian teachers, praise a purely vegetable diet, and would like to make it a law for the masses: they want thereby to call forth and augment the need which _they_ are in a position to satisfy.

146.

_German Hopes.--_Do not let us forget that the names of peoples are generally names of reproach. The Tartars, for example, according to their name, are "the dogs"; they were so christened by the Chinese. _"Deutschen"_ (Germans) means originally "heathen": it is thus that the Goths after their conversion named the great mass of their unbaptized fellow-tribes, according to the indication in their translation of the Septuagint, in which the heathen are designated by the word which in Greek signifies "the nations." (See Ulfilas.)--It might still be possible for the Germans to make an honourable name ultimately out of their old name of reproach, by becoming the first _non-Christian_ nation of Europe; for which purpose Schopenhauer, to their honour, regarded them as highly qualified. The work of _Luther_ would thus be consummated,--he who taught them to be anti-Roman, and to say: "Here _I_ stand! _I_ cannot do otherwise!"--

147.

_Question and Answer._--What do savage tribes at present accept first of all from Europeans? Brandy and Christianity, the European narcotics.--And by what means are they fastest ruined?--By the European narcotics.

148.

_Where Reformations Originate._--At the time of the great corruption of the church it was least of all corrupt in Germany: it was on that account that the Reformation originated _here,_ as a sign that even the beginnings of corruption were felt to be unendurable. For, comparatively speaking, no people was ever more Christian than the Germans at the time of Luther; their Christian culture was just about to burst into bloom with a hundred-fold splendour,--one night only was still lacking; but that night brought the storm which put an end to all.

149.

_The Failure of Reformations._--It testifies to the higher culture of the Greeks, even in rather early ages, that attempts to establish new Grecian religions frequently failed; it testifies that quite early there must have been a multitude of dissimilar individuals in Greece, whose dissimilar troubles were not cured by a single recipe of faith and hope. Pythagoras and Plato, perhaps also Empedocles, and already much earlier the Orphic enthusiasts, aimed at founding new religions; and the two first-named were so endowed with the qualifications for founding religions, that one cannot be sufficiently astonished at their failure: they just reached the point of founding sects. Every time that the Reformation of an entire people fails and only sects raise their heads, one may conclude that the people already contains many types, and has begun to free itself from the gross herding instincts and the morality of, custom,--a momentous state of suspense, which one is accustomed to disparage as decay of morals and corruption, while it announces the maturing of the egg and the early rupture of the shell. That Luther's Reformation succeeded in the north, is a sign that the north had remained backward in comparison with the south of Europe, and still had requirements tolerably uniform in colour and kind; and there would have been no Christianising of Europe at all, if the culture of the old world of the south had not been gradually barbarized by an excessive admixture of the blood of German barbarians, and thus lost its ascendency. The more universally and unconditionally an individual, or the thought of an individual, can operate, so much more homogeneous and so much lower must be the mass that is there operated upon; while counter-strivings betray internal counter-requirements, which also want to gratify and realise themselves. Reversely, one may always conclude with regard to an actual elevation of culture, when powerful and ambitious natures only produce a limited and sectarian effect: this is true also for the separate arts, and for the provinces of knowledge. Where there is ruling there are masses: where there are masses there is need of slavery. Where there is slavery the individuals are but few, and have the instincts and conscience of the herd opposed to them.

150.

_Criticism of Saints._--Must one then, in order to have a virtue, be desirous of having it precisely in its most brutal form?--as the Christian saints desired and needed;--those who only _endured_ life with the thought that at the sight of their virtue self-contempt might seize every man. A virtue with such an effect I call brutal.

151.

_The Origin of Religion._--The metaphysical requirement is not the origin of religions, as Schopenhauer claims, but only a _later sprout_ from them. Under the dominance of religious thoughts we have accustomed ourselves to the idea of "another (back, under, or upper) world," and feel an uncomfortable void and privation through the annihilation of the religious illusion;--and then "another world" grows out of this feeling once more, but now it is only a metaphysical world, and no longer a religious one. That however which in general led to the assumption of "another world" in primitive times, was _not_ an impulse or requirement, but an _error_ in the interpretation of certain natural phenomena, a difficulty of the intellect.

152.

_The greatest Change._--The lustre and the hues of all things have changed! We no longer quite understand how earlier men conceived of the most familiar and frequent things,--for example, of the day, and the awakening in the morning: owing to their belief in dreams the waking state seemed to them differently illuminated. And similarly of the whole of life, with its reflection of death and its significance: our "death" is an entirely different death. All events were of a different lustre, for a God shone forth in them; and similarly of all resolutions and peeps into the distant future: for people had oracles, and secret hints, and believed in prognostication. "Truth" was conceived in quite a different manner, for the insane could formerly be regarded as its mouthpiece--a thing which makes _us_ shudder, or laugh. Injustice made a different impression on the feelings: for people were afraid of divine retribution, and not only of legal punishment and disgrace. What joy was there in an age when men believed in the devil and tempter! What passion was there when people saw demons lurking close at hand! What philosophy was there when doubt was regarded as sinfulness of the most dangerous kind, and in fact as an outrage on eternal love, as distrust of everything good, high, pure, and compassionate!--We have coloured things anew, we paint them over continually,--but what have we been able to do hitherto in comparison with the _splendid colouring_ of that old master!--I mean ancient humanity.

153.

_Homo poeta._--"I myself who have made this tragedy of tragedies altogether independently, in so far as it is completed; I who have first entwined the perplexities of morality about existence, and have tightened them so that only a God could unravel them--so Horace demands!--I have already in the fourth act killed all the Gods--for the sake of morality! What is now to be done about the fifth act? Where shall I get the tragic _dénouement!_ Must I now think about a comic _dénouement_?"

154.

_Differences in the Dangerousness of Life._--You don't know at all what you experience; you run through life as if intoxicated, and now and then fall down a stair. Thanks however to your intoxication you still do not break your limbs: your muscles are too languid and your head too confused to find the stones of the staircase as hard as we others do! For, us life is a greater danger: we are made of glass--alas, if we should _strike against_ anything! And all is lost if we should _fall_!

155.

_What we Lack._--We love the _grandeur_ of Nature, and have discovered it; that is because human grandeur is lacking in our minds. It was the reverse with the Greeks: their feeling towards Nature was quite different from ours.

156.

_The most Influential Person._--The fact that a person resists the whole spirit of his age, stops it at the door and calls it to account, _must_ exert an influence! It is indifferent whether he wishes to exert an influence; the point is that he _can_.

157.

_Mentiri._--Take care!--he reflects: he will have a lie ready immediately. This is a stage in the civilisation of whole nations. Consider only what the Romans expressed by _mentiri!_

158.

_An Inconvenient Peculiarity._--To find everything deep is an inconvenient peculiarity: it makes one constantly strain one's eyes, so that in the end one always finds more than one wishes.

159.

_Every Virtue has its Time._--The honesty of him who is at present inflexible often causes him remorse; for inflexibility is the virtue of a time different from that in which honesty prevails.

160.

_In Intercourse with Virtues._--One can also be undignified and flattering towards a virtue.

161.

_To the Admirers of the Age._--The runaway priest and the liberated criminal are continually making grimaces; what they want is a look without a past. But have you ever seen men who know that their looks reflect the future, and who are so courteous to you, the admirers of the "age," that they assume a look without a future?--

162.

_Egoism._--Egoism is the _perspective_ law of our sentiment, according to which the near appears large and momentous, while in the distance the magnitude and importance of all things diminish.

163.

_After a Great Victory._--The best thing in a great victory is that it deprives the conqueror of the fear of defeat. "Why should I not be worsted for once?" he says to himself, "I am now rich enough to stand it."

164.

_Those who Seek Repose._--I recognise the minds that seek repose by the many _dark_ objects with which they surround themselves: those who want to sleep darken their chambers, or creep into caverns. A hint to those who do not know what they really seek most, and would like to know!

165.

_The Happiness of Renunciation._--He who has absolutely dispensed with something for a long time will almost imagine, when he accidentally meets with it again, that he has discovered it,--and what happiness every discoverer has! Let us be wiser than the serpents that lie too long in the same sunshine.

166.

_Always in our own Society._--All that is akin to me in nature and history speaks to me, praises me, urges me forward and comforts me--: other things are unheard by me, or immediately forgotten. We are only in our own society always.

167.

_Misanthropy and Philanthropy._--We only speak about being sick of men when we can no longer digest them, and yet have the stomach full of them. Misanthropy is the result of a far too eager philanthropy and "cannibalism,"--but who ever bade you swallow men like oysters, my Prince Hamlet?

168.

_Concerning an Invalid._--"Things go badly with him!"--What is wrong?--" He suffers from the longing to be praised, and finds no sustenance for it."--Inconceivable! All the world does honour to him, and he is reverenced not only in deed but in word!--"Certainly, but he is dull of hearing for the praise. When a friend praises him it sounds to him as if the friend praised himself; when an enemy praises him, it sounds to him as if the enemy wanted to be praised for it; when, finally, some one else praises him--there are by no means so many of these, he is so famous!--he is offended because they neither want him for a friend nor for an enemy; he is accustomed to say: 'What do I care for those who can still pose as the all-righteous towards me!'"

169.

_Avowed Enemies._--Bravery in presence of an enemy is a thing by itself: a person may possess it and still be a coward and an irresolute num-skull. That was Napoleon's opinion concerning the "bravest man" he knew, Murat:--whence it follows that avowed enemies are indispensable to some men, if they are to attain to _their_ virtue, to their manliness, to their cheerfulness.

170.

_With, the Multitude._--He has hitherto gone with the multitude and is its panegyrist; but one day he will be its opponent! For he follows it in the belief that his laziness will find its advantage thereby: he has not yet learned that the multitude is not lazy enough for him! that it always presses forward! that it does not allow any one to stand still!--And he likes so well to stand still!

171.

_Fame._--When the gratitude of many to one casts aside all shame, then fame originates.

172.

_The Perverter of Taste._--A: "You are a perverter of taste--they say so everywhere!" B: "Certainly! I pervert every one's taste for his party:--no party forgives me for that."

173.

_To be Profound and to Appear Profound._--He who knows that he is profound strives for clearness; he who would like to appear profound to the multitude strives for obscurity. The multitude thinks everything profound of which it cannot see the bottom; it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

174.

_Apart._--Parliamentarism, that is to say, the public permission to choose between five main political opinions, insinuates itself into the favour of the numerous class who would fain _appear_ independent and individual, and like to fight for their opinions. After all, however, it is a matter of indifference whether one opinion is imposed upon the herd, or five opinions are permitted to it.--He who diverges from the five public opinions and goes apart, has always the whole herd against him.

175.

_Concerning Eloquence._--What has hitherto had the most convincing eloquence? The rolling of the drum: and as long as kings have this at their command, they will always be the best orators and popular leaders.

176.

_Compassion._--The poor, ruling princes! All their rights now change unexpectedly into claims, and all these claims immediately sound like pretensions! And if they but say "we," or "my people," wicked old Europe begins laughing. Verily, a chief-master-of-ceremonies of the modern world would make little ceremony with them; perhaps he would decree that "_les souverains rangent aux parvenus._"

177.

_On "Educational Matters."_--In Germany an important educational means is lacking for higher men; namely, the laughter of higher men; these men do not laugh in Germany.

178.

_For Moral Enlightenment_.--The Germans must be talked out of their Mephistopheles--and out of their Faust also. These are two moral prejudices against the value of knowledge.

179.

_Thoughts.--_Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments--always however obscurer, emptier and simpler.

180.

_The Good Time for Free Spirits._--Free Spirits take liberties even with regard to Science--and meanwhile they are allowed to do so,--while the Church still remains!--In so far they have now their good time.

181.

_Following and Leading._--A: "Of the two, the one will always follow, the other will always lead, whatever be the course of their destiny. _And yet_ the former is superior to the other in virtue and intellect." B: "And yet? And yet? That is spoken for the others; not for me, not for us!--_Fit secundum regulam._"

182.

_In Solitude._--When one lives alone one does not speak too loudly, and one does not write too loudly either, for one fears the hollow reverberation--the criticism of the nymph Echo.--And all voices sound differently in solitude!

183.

_The Music of the Best Future._--The first musician for me would be he who knew only the sorrow of the profoundest happiness, and no other sorrow: there has not hitherto been such a musician.

184.

_Justice._--Better allow oneself to be robbed than have scarecrows around one--that is my taste. And under all circumstances it is just a matter of taste--and nothing more!

185.

_Poor._--He is now poor, but not because everything has been taken from him, but because he has thrown everything away:--what does he care? He is accustomed to find new things.--It is the poor who misunderstand his voluntary poverty.

186.

_Bad Conscience._--All that he now does is excellent and proper--and yet he has a bad conscience with it all. For the exceptional is his task.

187.

_Offensiveness in Expression._--This artist offends me by the way in which he expresses his ideas, his very excellent ideas: so diffusely and forcibly, and with such gross rhetorical artifices, as if he were speaking to the mob. We feel always as if "in bad company" when devoting some time to his art.

188.

_Work._--How closely work and the workers now stand even to the most leisurely of us! The royal courtesy in the words: "We are all workers," would have been a cynicism and an indecency even under Louis XIV.

189.

_The Thinker._--He is a thinker: that is to say, he knows how to take things more simply than they are.

190.

_Against Eulogisers._--A: "One is only praised by one's equals!" B: "Yes! And he who praises you says: 'You are my equal!'"

191.

_Against many a Vindication._--The most perfidious manner of injuring a cause is to vindicate it intentionally with fallacious arguments.

192.

_The Good-natured._--What is it that distinguishes the good-natured, whose countenances beam kindness, from other people? They feel quite at ease in presence of a new person, and are quickly enamoured of him; they therefore wish him well; their first opinion is: "He pleases me." With them there follow in succession the wish to appropriate (they make little scruple about the person's worth), rapid appropriation, joy in the possession, and actions in favour of the person possessed.

193.

_Kant's Joke._--Kant tried to prove, in a way that dismayed "everybody," that "everybody" was in the right:--that was his secret joke. He wrote against the learned, in favour of popular prejudice; he wrote, however, for the learned and not for the people.

194.

_The "Open-hearted" Man._--That man acts probably always from concealed motives; for he has always communicable motives on his tongue, and almost in his open hand.

195.

_Laughable!_--See! See! He runs _away_ from men--: they follow him, however, because he runs _before_ them,--they are such a gregarious lot!

196.

_The Limits of our Sense of Hearing._--We hear only the questions to which we are capable of finding an answer.

197.

_Caution therefore!_--There is nothing we are fonder of communicating to others than the seal of secrecy--together with what is under it.

198.

_Vexation of the Proud Man._--The proud man is vexed even with those who help him forward: he looks angrily at his carriage-horses.

199.

_Liberality._--Liberality is often only a form of timidity in the rich.

200.

_Laughing._--To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good conscience.

201.

_In Applause._--In applause there is always some kind of noise: even in self-applause.

202.

_A Spendthrift._--He has not yet the poverty of the rich man who has counted all his treasure,--he squanders his spirit with the irrationalness of the spendthrift Nature.

203.

_Hic niger est_.--Usually he has no thoughts,--but in exceptional cases bad thoughts come to him.

204.

_Beggars and Courtesy._--"One is not discourteous when one knocks at a door with a stone when the bell-pull is awanting"--so think all beggars and necessitous persons, but no one thinks they are in the right.

205.

_Need._--Need is supposed to be the cause of things; but in truth it is often only the result of things.

206.

_During the Rain._--It rains, and I think of the poor people who now crowd together with their many cares, which they are unaccustomed to conceal; all of them, therefore, ready and anxious to give pain to one another, and thus provide themselves with a pitiable kind of comfort, even in bad weather. This, this only, is the poverty of the poor!

207.

_The Envious Man._--That is an envious man--it is not desirable that he should have children; he would be envious of them, because he can no longer be a child.

208.

_A Great Man!_--Because a person is "a great man," we are not authorised to infer that he is a man. Perhaps he is only a boy, or a chameleon of all ages, or a bewitched girl.

209.

_A Mode of Asking for Reasons._--There is a mode of asking for our reasons which not only makes us forget our best reasons, but also arouses in us a spite and repugnance against reason generally:-a very stupefying mode of questioning, and really an artifice of tyrannical men!

210.

_Moderation in Diligence._--One must not be anxious to surpass the diligence of one's father--that would make one ill.

211.

_Secret Enemies._--To be able to keep a secret enemy--that is a luxury which the morality even of the highest-minded persons can rarely afford.

212.

_Not Letting oneself be Deluded._--His spirit has bad manners, it is hasty and always stutters with impatience; so that one would hardly suspect the deep breathing and the large chest of the soul in which it resides.

213.

_The Way to Happiness._--A sage asked of a fool the way to happiness. The fool answered without delay, like one who had been asked the way to the next town: "Admire yourself, and live on the street!" "Hold," cried the sage, "you require too much; it suffices to admire oneself!" The fool replied: "But how can one constantly admire without constantly despising?"

214.

_Faith Saves._--Virtue gives happiness and a state of blessedness only to those who have a strong faith in their virtue:--not, however, to the more refined souls whose virtue consists of a profound distrust of themselves and of all virtue. After all, therefore, it is "faith that saves" here also!--and be it well observed, _not_ virtue!

215.

_The Ideal and the Material._--You have a noble ideal before your eyes: but are you also such a noble stone that such a divine image could be formed out of you? And without that--is not all your labour barbaric sculpturing? A blasphemy of your ideal?

216.

_Danger in the Voice._--With a very loud voice a person is almost incapable of reflecting on subtle matters.

217.

_Cause and Effect._--Before the effect one believes in other causes than after the effect.

218.

_My Antipathy._--I do not like those people who, in order to produce an effect, have to burst like bombs, and in whose neighbourhood one is always in danger of suddenly losing one's hearing--or even something more.

219.

_The Object of Punishment._--The object of punishment is to improve him _who punishes,_--that is the ultimate appeal of those who justify punishment.

220.

_Sacrifice._--The victims think otherwise than the spectators about sacrifice and sacrificing: but they have never been allowed to express their opinion.

221.

_Consideration._--Fathers and sons are much more considerate of one another than mothers and daughters.

222.

_Poet and Liar._--The poet sees in the liar his foster-brother whose milk he has drunk up; the latter has thus remained wretched, and has not even attained to a good conscience.

223.

_Vicariousness of the Senses._--"We have also eyes in order to hear with them,"--said an old confessor who had grown deaf; "and among the blind he that has the longest ears is king."

224.

_Animal Criticism._--I fear the animals regard man as a being like themselves, seriously endangered by the loss of sound animal understanding;--they regard him perhaps as the absurd animal, the laughing animal, the crying animal, the unfortunate animal.

225.

_The Natural._--"Evil has always had the great effect! And Nature is evil! Let us therefore be natural!"--so reason secretly the great aspirants after effect, who are too often counted among great men.

226.