Chapter VII: Part 7

_The History of each Day.--_What is it that constitutes the history of each day for thee? Look at thy habits of which it consists: are they the product of numberless little acts of cowardice and laziness, or of thy bravery and inventive reason? Although the two cases are so different, it is possible that men might bestow the same praise upon thee, and that thou mightst also be equally useful to them in the one case as in the other. But praise and utility and respectability may suffice for him whose only desire is to have a good conscience,--not however for thee, the "trier of the reins," who hast a _consciousness of the conscience!_

309.

_Out of the Seventh Solitude._--One day the wanderer shut a door behind him, stood still, and wept. Then he said: "Oh, this inclination and impulse towards the true, the real, the non-apparent, the certain! How I detest it! Why does this gloomy and passionate taskmaster follow just _me?_ I should like to rest, but it does not permit me to do so. Are there not a host of things seducing me to tarry! Everywhere there are gardens of Armida for me, and therefore there will ever be fresh separations and fresh bitterness of heart! I must set my foot forward, my weary wounded foot: and because I feel I must do this, I often cast grim glances back at the most beautiful things which could not detain me--_because_ they could not detain me!"

310.

_Will and Wave._--How eagerly this wave comes hither, as if it were a question of its reaching something! How it creeps with frightful haste into the innermost corners of the rocky cliff! It seems that it wants to forestall some one; it seems that something is concealed there that has value, high value.--And now it retreats somewhat more slowly, still quite white with excitement,--is it disappointed? Has it found what it sought? Does it merely pretend to be disappointed?--But already another wave approaches, still more eager and wild than the first, and its soul also seems to be full of secrets, and of longing for treasure-seeking. Thus live the waves,--thus live we who exercise will!--I do not say more.--But what! Ye distrust me? Ye are angry at me, ye beautiful monsters? Do ye fear that I will quite betray your secret? Well! Just be angry with me, raise your green, dangerous bodies as high as ye can, make a wall between me and the sun--as at present! Verily, there is now nothing more left of the world save green twilight and green lightning-flashes. Do as ye will, ye wanton creatures, roar with delight and wickedness--or dive under again, pour your emeralds down into the depths, and cast your endless white tresses of foam and spray over them--it is all the same to me, for all is so well with you, and I am so pleased with you for it all: how could I betray _you!_ For--take this to heart!--I know you and your secret, I know your race! You and I are indeed of one race! You and I have indeed one secret!

311.

_Broken Lights._--We are not always brave, and when we are weary, people of our stamp are liable to lament occasionally in this wise:--"It is so hard to cause pain to men--oh, that it should be necessary! What good is it to live concealed, when we do not want to keep to ourselves that which causes vexation? Would it not be more advisable to live in the madding crowd, and compensate individuals for sins that are committed, and must be committed, against mankind in general? Foolish with fools, vain with the vain, enthusiastic with enthusiasts? Would that not be reasonable when there is such an inordinate amount of divergence in the main? When I hear of the malignity of others against me--is not my first feeling that of satisfaction? It is well that it should be so!--I seem to myself to say to them--I am so little in harmony with you, and have so much truth on my side: see henceforth that ye be merry at my expense as often as ye can! Here are my defects and mistakes, here are my illusions, my bad taste, my confusion, my tears, my vanity, my owlish concealment, my contradictions! Here you have something to laugh at! Laugh then, and enjoy yourselves! I am not averse to the law and nature of things, which is that defects and errors should give pleasure!--To be sure, there were once 'more glorious' times, when as soon as any one got an idea, however moderately new it might be, he would think himself so _indispensable_ as to go out into the street with it, and call to everybody: 'Behold! the kingdom of heaven is at hand!'--I should not miss myself, if I were a-wanting. We are none of us indispensable!"--As we have said, however, we do not think thus when we are brave; we do not think _about it_ at all.

312.

_My Dog._--I have given a name to my pain, and call it "a dog,"--it is just as faithful, just as importunate and shameless, just as entertaining, just as wise, as any other dog--and I can domineer over it, and vent my bad humour on it, as others do with their dogs, servants, and wives.

313.

_No Picture of a Martyr._--I will take my cue from Raphael, and not paint any more martyr-pictures. There are enough of sublime things without its being necessary to seek sublimity where it is linked with cruelty; moreover my ambition would not be gratified in the least if I aspired to be a sublime executioner.

314.

_New Domestic Animals._--I want to have my lion and my eagle about me, that I may always have hints and premonitions concerning the amount of my strength or weakness. Must I look down on them to-day, and be afraid of them? And will the hour come once more when they will look up to me, and tremble?--

315.

_The Last Hour._--Storms are my danger. Shall I have my storm in which I perish, as Oliver Cromwell perished in his storm? Or shall I go out as a light does, not first blown out by the wind, but grown tired and weary of itself--a burnt-out light? Or finally, shall I blow myself out, so as _not to burn out?_

316.

_Prophetic Men._--Ye cannot divine how sorely prophetic men suffer: ye think only that a fine "gift" has been given to them, and would fain have it yourselves,--but I will express my meaning by a simile. How much may not the animals suffer from the electricity of the atmosphere and the clouds! Some of them, as we see, have a prophetic faculty with regard to the weather, for example, apes (as one can observe very well even in Europe,--and not only in menageries, but at Gibraltar). But it never occurs to us that it is their _sufferings_--that are their prophets! When strong positive electricity, under the influence of an approaching cloud not at all visible, is suddenly converted into negative electricity, and an alteration of the weather is imminent, these animals then behave as if an enemy were approaching them, and prepare for defence, or flight: they generally hide themselves,--they do not think of the bad weather as weather, but as an enemy whose hand they already _feel!_

317.

_Retrospect._--We seldom become conscious of the real pathos of any period of life as such, as long as we continue in it, but always think it is the only possible and reasonable thing for us henceforth, and that it is altogether _ethos_ and not _pathos_[1]--to speak and distinguish like the Greeks. A few notes of music to-day recalled a winter and a house, and a life of utter solitude to my mind, and at the same time the sentiments in which I then lived: I thought I should be able to live in such a state always. But now I understand that it was entirely pathos and passion, something comparable to this painfully bold and truly comforting music,--it is not one's lot to have these sensations for years, still less for eternities: otherwise one would become too "ethereal" for this planet.

[1] The distinction between ethos and pathos in Aristotle is, broadly, that between internal character and external circumstance.--P. V. C.

318.

_Wisdom in Pain._--In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self-preservatives of a species. Were it not so, pain would long ago have been done away with; that it is hurtful is no argument against it, for to be hurtful is its very essence. In pain I hear the commanding call of the ship's captain: "Take in sail!" "Man," the bold seafarer, must have learned to set his sails in a thousand different ways, otherwise he could not have sailed long, for the ocean would soon have swallowed him up. We must also know how to live with reduced energy: as soon as pain gives its precautionary signal, it is time to reduce the speed--some great danger, some storm, is approaching, and we do well to "catch" as little wind as possible--It is true that there are men who, on the approach of severe pain, hear the very opposite call of command, and never appear more proud, more martial, or more happy than when the storm is brewing; indeed, pain itself provides them with their supreme moments! These are the heroic men, the great _pain-bringers_ of mankind: those few and rare ones who need just the same apology as pain generally,--and verily, it should not be denied them! They are forces of the greatest importance for preserving and advancing the species, be it only because they are opposed to smug ease, and do not conceal their disgust at this kind of happiness.

319.

_As Interpreters of our Experiences._--One form of honesty has always been lacking among founders of religions and their kin:--they have never made their experiences a matter of the intellectual conscience. "What did I really experience? What then took place in me and around me? Was my understanding clear enough? Was my will directly opposed to all deception of the senses, and courageous in its defence against fantastic notions?"--None of them ever asked these questions, nor to this day do any of the good religious people ask them. They have rather a thirst for things which are _contrary to reason,_ and they don't want to have too much difficulty in satisfying this thirst,--so they experience "miracles" and "regenerations," and hear the voices of angels! But we who are different, who are thirsty for reason, want to look as carefully into our experiences as in the case of a scientific experiment, hour by hour, day by day! We ourselves want to be our own experiments, and our own subjects of experiment.

320.

_On Meeting Again._--A: Do I quite understand you? You are in search of something? _Where,_ in the midst of the present, actual world, is _your_ niche and star? Where can _you_ lay yourself in the sun, so that you also may have a surplus of well-being, that your existence may justify itself? Let everyone do that for himself--you seem to say, --and let him put talk about generalities, concern for others and society, out of his mind!--B: I want more; I am no seeker. I want to create my own sun for myself.

321.

_A New Precaution._--Let us no longer think so much about punishing, blaming, and improving! We shall seldom be able to alter an individual, and if we should succeed in doing so, something else may also succeed, perhaps unawares: _we_ may have been altered by him! Let us rather see to it that our own influence on _all that is to come_ outweighs and overweighs his influence! Let us not struggle in direct conflict!--all blaming, punishing, and desire to improve comes under this category. But let us elevate ourselves all the higher! Let us ever give to our pattern more shining colours! Let us obscure, the other by our light! No! We do not mean to become _darker_ ourselves on his account, like those who punish and are discontented! Let us rather go aside! Let us look away!

322.

_A Simile._--Those thinkers in whom all the stars move in cyclic orbits, are not the most profound. He who looks into himself, as into an immense universe, and carries Milky Ways in himself, knows also how irregular all Milky Ways are; they lead into the very chaos and labyrinth of existence.

323.

_Happiness in Destiny._--Destiny confers its greatest distinction upon us when it has made us fight for a time on the side of our adversaries. We are thereby _predestined_ to a great victory.

324.

_In Media Vita._--No! Life has not deceived me! On the contrary, from year to year I find it richer, more desirable and more mysterious--from the day on which the great liberator broke my fetters, the thought that life may be an experiment of the thinker--and not a duty, not a fatality, not a deceit!--And knowledge itself may be for others something different; for example, a bed of ease, or the path to a bed of ease, or an entertainment, or a course of idling,--for me it is a world of dangers and victories, in which even the heroic sentiments have their arena and dancing-floor. _"Life as a means to knowledge"_--with this principle in one's heart, one can not only be brave, but can even _live joyfully and laugh joyfully!_ And who could know how to laugh well and live well, who did not first understand the full significance of war and victory?

325.

_What Belongs to Greatness._--Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will _to inflict_ great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of it--that is great, that belongs to greatness.

326.

_Physicians of the Soul and Pain._--All preachers of morality, as also all theologians, have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary. And because mankind as a whole has for centuries listened too eagerly to those teachers, something of the superstition that the human race is in a very bad way has actually come over men: so that they are now far too ready to sigh; they find nothing more in life and make melancholy faces at each other, as if life were indeed very hard _to endure._ In truth, they are inordinately assured of their life and in love with it, and full of untold intrigues and subtleties for suppressing everything disagreeable, and for extracting the thorn from pain and misfortune. It seems to me that people always speak _with exaggeration_ about pain and misfortune, as if it were a matter of good behaviour to exaggerate here: on the other hand people are intentionally silent in regard to the number of expedients for alleviating pain; as for instance, the deadening of it, feverish flurry of thought, a peaceful position, or good and bad reminiscences, intentions, and hopes,--also many kinds of pride and fellow-feeling, which have almost the effect of anæsthetics: while in the greatest degree of pain fainting takes place of itself. We understand very well how to pour sweetness on our bitterness, especially on the bitterness of our soul; we find a remedy in our bravery and sublimity, as well as in the nobler delirium of submission and resignation. A loss scarcely remains a loss for an hour: in some way or other a gift from heaven has always fallen into our lap at the same moment--a new form of strength, for example: be it but a new opportunity for the exercise of strength! What have the preachers of morality not dreamt concerning the inner "misery" of evil men! What _lies_ have they not told us about the misfortunes of impassioned men! Yes, lying is here the right word: they were only too well aware of the overflowing happiness of this kind of man, but they kept silent as death about it; because it was a refutation of their theory, according to which happiness only originates through the annihilation of the passions and the silencing of the will! And finally, as regards the recipe of all those physicians of the soul and their recommendation of a severe radical cure, we may be allowed to ask: Is our life really painful and burdensome enough for us to exchange it with advantage for a Stoical mode of living, and Stoical petrification? We do _not_ feel _sufficiently miserable_ to have to feel ill in the Stoical fashion!

327.

_Taking Things Seriously._--The intellect is with most people an awkward, obscure and creaking machine, which is difficult to set in motion: they call it "_taking a thing seriously_" when they work with this machine and want to think well--oh, how burdensome must good thinking be to them! That delightful animal, man, seems to lose his good-humour whenever he thinks well; he becomes "serious"! And "where there is laughing and gaiety, thinking cannot be worth anything: "--so speaks the prejudice of this serious animal against all "Joyful Wisdom."--Well, then! Let us show that it is prejudice!

328.

_Doing Harm to Stupidity._--It is certain that the belief in the reprehensibility of egoism, preached with such stubbornness and conviction, has on the whole done harm to egoism (_in favour of the herd-instinct,_ as I shall repeat a hundred times!), especially by depriving it of a good conscience, and by bidding us seek in it the source of all misfortune. "Thy selfishness is the bane of thy life"--so rang the preaching for millenniums: it did harm, as we have said, to selfishness, and deprived it of much spirit, much cheerfulness, much ingenuity, and much beauty; it stultified and deformed and poisoned selfishness!--Philosophical antiquity, on the other hand, taught that there was another principal source of evil: from Socrates downwards, the thinkers were never weary of preaching that "your thoughtlessness and stupidity, your unthinking way of living according to rule, and your subjection to the opinion of your neighbour, are the reasons why you so seldom attain to happiness,--we thinkers are, as thinkers, the happiest of mortals." Let us not decide here whether this preaching against stupidity was more sound than the preaching against selfishness; it is certain, however, that stupidity was thereby deprived of its good conscience:--those philosophers _did harm to stupidity._

329.

_Leisure and Idleness._--There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work--the characteristic vice of the new world--already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange lack of intellectuality. One is now ashamed of repose: even long reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like men who are continually "afraid of letting opportunities slip." "Better do anything whatever, than nothing"--this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear. The proof of this is the _clumsy perspicuity_ which is now everywhere demanded in all positions where a person would like to be sincere with his fellows, in intercourse with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers, pupils, leaders and princes,--one has no longer either time or energy for ceremonies, for roundabout courtesies, for any _esprit_ in conversation, or for any _otium_ whatever. For life in the hunt for gain continually compels a person to consume his intellect, even to exhaustion, in constant dissimulation, overreaching, or forestalling: the real virtue nowadays is to do something in a shorter time than another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse _permitted:_ in them, however, people are tired, and would not only like "to let themselves go," but _to stretch their legs_ out wide in awkward style. The way people write their _letters_ nowadays is quite in keeping with the age; their style and spirit will always be the true "sign of the times." If there be still enjoyment in society and in art, it is enjoyment such as over-worked slaves provide for themselves. Oh, this moderation in "joy" of our cultured and uncultured classes! Oh, this increasing suspiciousness of all enjoyment! _Work_ is winning over more and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment already calls itself "need of recreation," and even begins to be ashamed of itself. "One owes it to one's health," people say, when they are caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could not yield to the desire for the _vita contemplativa_ (that is to say, excursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad conscience.--Well! Formerly it was the very reverse: it was "action" that suffered from a bad conscience. A man of good family _concealed_ his work when need compelled him to labour. The slave laboured under the weight of the feeling that he did something contemptible:--the "doing" itself was something contemptible. "Only in _otium_ and _bellum_ is there nobility and honour:" so rang the voice of ancient prejudice!

330.

_Applause._--The thinker does not need applause or the clapping of hands, provided he be sure of the clapping of his own hands: the latter, however, he cannot do without. Are there men who could also do without this, and in general without any kind of applause? I doubt it: and even as regards the wisest, Tacitus, who is no calumniator of the wise, says: _quando etiam sapientibus gloriæ cupido novissima exuitur_--that means with him: never.

331.

_Better Deaf than Deafened._--Formerly a person wanted to have his _calling,_ but that no longer suffices to-day, for the market has become too large,--there has now to be _bawling._ The consequence is that even good throats outcry each other, and the best wares are offered for sale with hoarse voices; without market-place bawling and hoarseness there is now no longer any genius.--It is, sure enough, an evil age for the thinker: he has to learn to find his stillness betwixt two noises, and has to pretend to be deaf until he finally becomes so. As long as he has not learned this, he is in danger of perishing from impatience and headaches.

332.

_The Evil Hour._--There has perhaps been an evil hour for every philosopher, in which he thought: What do I matter, if people should not believe my poor arguments!--And then some malicious bird has flown past him and twittered: "What do you matter? What do you matter?"

333.

_What does Knowing Mean?--Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere!_ says Spinoza, so simply and sublimely, as is his wont. Nevertheless, what else is this _intelligere_ ultimately, but just the form in which the three other things become perceptible to us all at once? A result of the diverging and opposite impulses of desiring to deride, lament and execrate? Before knowledge is possible each of these impulses must first have brought forward its one-sided view of the object or event. The struggle of these one-sided views occurs afterwards, and out of it there occasionally arises a compromise, a pacification, a recognition of rights on all three sides, a sort of justice and agreement: for in virtue of the justice and agreement all those impulses can maintain themselves in existence and retain their mutual rights. We, to whose consciousness only the closing reconciliation scenes and final settling of accounts of these long processes manifest themselves, think on that account that _intelligere_ is something conciliating, just and good, something essentially antithetical to the impulses; whereas it is only _a certain relation of the impulses to one another._ For a very long time conscious thinking was regarded as the only thinking: it is now only that the truth dawns upon us that the greater part of our intellectual activity goes on unconsciously and unfelt by us; I believe, however, that the impulses which are here in mutual conflict understand rightly how to make themselves felt by _one another,_ and how to cause pain:--the violent sudden exhaustion which overtakes all thinkers, may have its origin here (it is the exhaustion of the battle-field). Aye, perhaps in our struggling interior there is much concealed _heroism,_ but certainly nothing divine, or eternally-reposing-in-itself, as Spinoza supposed. _Conscious_ thinking, and especially that of the philosopher, is the weakest, and on that account also the relatively mildest and quietest mode of thinking: and thus it is precisely the philosopher who is most easily misled concerning the nature of knowledge.

334.

_One must Learn to Love.--_This is our experience in music: we must first _learn_ in general _to hear,_ to hear fully, and to distinguish a theme or a melody, we have to isolate and limit it as a life by itself; then we need to exercise effort and good-will in order _to endure_ it in spite of its strangeness we need patience towards its aspect and expression and indulgence towards what is odd in it:--in the end there comes a moment when we are _accustomed_ to it, when we expect it, when it dawns upon us that we should miss it if it were lacking; and then it goes on to exercise its spell and charm more and more, and does not cease until we have become its humble and enraptured lovers, who want it, and want it again, and ask for nothing better from the world.--It is thus with us, however, not only in music: it is precisely thus that we have _learned to love_ everything that we love. We are always finally recompensed for our good-will, our patience reasonableness and gentleness towards what is unfamiliar, by the unfamiliar slowly throwing off its veil and presenting itself to us as a new, ineffable beauty:--that is its _thanks_ for our hospitality. He also who loves himself must have learned it in this way: there is no other way. Love also has to be learned.

335.

_Cheers for Physics!_--How many men are there who know how to observe? And among the few who do know,--how many observe themselves? "Everyone is furthest from himself"--all the "triers of the reins" know that to their discomfort; and the saying, "Know thyself," in the mouth of a God and spoken to man, is almost a mockery. But that the case of self-observation is so desperate, is attested best of all by the manner in which _almost everybody_ talks of the nature of a moral action, that prompt, willing, convinced, loquacious manner, with its look, its smile, and its pleasing eagerness! Everyone seems inclined to say to you: "Why, my dear Sir, that is precisely _my_ affair! You address yourself with your question to him who _is authorised_ to answer, for I happen to be wiser with regard to this matter than in anything else. Therefore, when a man decides that '_this is right_,' when he accordingly concludes that '_it must therefore be done,_ and thereupon _does_ what he has thus recognised as right and designated as necessary--then the nature of his action is _moral!"_ But, my friend, you are talking to me about three actions instead of one: your deciding, for instance, that "this is right," is also an action,--could one not judge either morally or immorally? _Why_ do you regard this, and just this, as right?--"Because my conscience tells me so; conscience never speaks immorally, indeed it determines in the first place what shall be moral!"--But why do you _listen_ to the voice of your conscience? And in how far are you justified in regarding such a judgment as true and infallible? This _belief_--is there no further conscience for it? Do you know nothing of an intellectual conscience? A conscience behind your "conscience"? Your decision, "this is right," has a previous history in your impulses, your likes and dislikes, your experiences and non-experiences; "_how_ has it originated?" you must ask, and afterwards the further question: "_what_ really impels me to give ear to it?" You can listen to its command like a brave soldier who hears the command of his officer. Or like a woman who loves him who commands. Or like a flatterer and coward, afraid of the commander. Or like a blockhead who follows because he has nothing to say to the contrary. In short, you can give ear to your conscience in a hundred different ways. But _that_ you hear this or that judgment as the voice of conscience, consequently, _that_ you feel a thing to be right--may have its cause in the fact that you have never thought about your nature, and have blindly accepted from your childhood what has been designated to you as _right:_ or in the fact that hitherto bread and honours have fallen to your share with that which you call your duty,--it is "right" to you, because it seems to be _your_ "condition of existence" (that you, however, have a _right_ to existence seems to you irrefutable!). The _persistency_ of your moral judgment might still be just a proof of personal wretchedness or impersonality; your "moral force" might have its source in your obstinacy--or in your incapacity to perceive new ideals! And to be brief: if you had thought more acutely, observed more accurately, and had learned more, you would no longer under all circumstances call this and that your "duty" and your "conscience": the knowledge _how moral judgments have in general always originated_ would make you tired of these pathetic words,--as you have already grown tired of other pathetic words, for instance "sin," "salvation," and "redemption."--And now, my friend, do not talk to me about the categorical imperative! That word tickles my ear, and I must laugh in spite of your presence and your seriousness. In this connection I recollect old Kant, who, as a punishment for having _gained possession surreptitiously_ of the "thing in itself"--also a very ludicrous affair!--was imposed upon by the categorical imperative, and with that in his heart _strayed back again_ to "God," the "soul," "freedom," and "immortality," like a fox which strays back into its cage: and it had been _his_ strength and shrewdness which had _broken open_ this cage!--What? You admire the categorical imperative in you? This "persistency" of your so-called moral judgment? This absoluteness of the feeling that "as I think on this matter, so must everyone think"? Admire rather your _selfishness_ therein! And the blindness, paltriness, and modesty of your selfishness! For it is selfishness in a person to regard _his_ judgment as universal law, and a blind, paltry and modest selfishness besides, because it betrays that you have not yet discovered yourself, that you have not yet created for yourself any personal, quite personal ideal:--for this could never be the ideal of another, to say nothing of all, of every one!--He who still thinks that "each would have to act in this manner in this case," has not yet advanced half a dozen paces in self-knowledge: otherwise he would know that there neither are, nor can be, similar actions,--that every action that has been done, has been done in an entirely unique and inimitable manner, and that it will be the same with regard to all future actions; that all precepts of conduct (and even the most esoteric and subtle precepts of all moralities up to the present), apply only to the coarse exterior,--that by means of them, indeed, a semblance of equality can be attained, _but only a semblance,_--that in outlook and retrospect, _every_ action is, and remains, an impenetrable affair, --that our opinions of the "good," "noble" and "great" can never be proved by our actions, because no action is cognisable,--that our opinions, estimates, and tables of values are certainly among the most powerful levers in the mechanism of our actions, that in every single case, nevertheless, the law of their mechanism is untraceable. Let us _confine_ ourselves, therefore, to the purification of our opinions and appreciations, and to the _construction of new tables of value of our own:_--we will, however, brood no longer over the "moral worth of our actions"! Yes, my friends! As regards the whole moral twaddle of people about one another, it is time to be disgusted with it! To sit in judgment morally ought to be opposed to our taste! Let us leave this nonsense and this bad taste to those who have nothing else to do, save to drag the past a little distance further through time, and who are never themselves the present,--consequently to the many, to the majority! We, however, _would seek to become what we are,--_the new, the unique, the incomparable, making laws for ourselves and creating ourselves! And for this purpose we must become the best students and discoverers of all the laws and necessities in the world. We must be _physicists_ in order to be _creators_ in that sense--whereas hitherto all appreciations and ideals have been based on _ignorance_ of physics, or in _contradiction_ thereto. And therefore, three cheers for physics! And still louder cheers for that which _impels_ us thereto--our honesty.

336.

_Avarice of Nature_--Why has nature been so niggardly towards humanity that she has not let human beings shine, this man more and that man less, according to their inner abundance of light? Why have not great men such a fine visibility in their rising and setting as the sun? How much less equivocal would life among men then be!

337.

_Future "Humanity."--_When I look at this age with the eye of a distant future, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of the present day as his peculiar virtue and sickness called "the historical sense." It is a tendency to something quite new and foreign in history: if this embryo were given several centuries and more, there might finally evolve out of it a marvellous plant, with a smell equally marvellous, on account of which our old earth might be more pleasant to live in than it has been hitherto. We moderns are just beginning to form the chain of a very powerful, future sentiment, link by link,--we hardly know what we are doing. It almost seems to us as if it were not the question of a new sentiment, but of the decline of all old sentiments:--the historical sense is still something so poor and cold, and many are attacked by it as by a frost, and are made poorer and colder by it. To others it appears as the indication of stealthily approaching age, and our planet is regarded by them as a melancholy invalid, who, in order to forget his present condition, writes the history of his youth. In fact, this is one aspect of the new sentiment. He who knows how to regard the history of man in its entirety as _his own history,_ feels in the immense generalisation all the grief of the invalid who thinks of health, of the old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of the lover who is robbed of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is destroyed, of the hero on the evening of the indecisive battle which has brought him wounds and the loss of a friend. But to bear this immense sum of grief of all kinds, to be able to bear it, and yet still be the hero who at the commencement of a second day of battle greets the dawn and his happiness, as one who has an horizon of centuries before and behind him, as the heir of all nobility, of all past intellect, and the obligatory heir (as the noblest) of all the old nobles; while at the same time the first of a new nobility, the equal of which has never been seen nor even dreamt of: to take all this upon his soul, the oldest, the newest, the losses, hopes, conquests, and victories of mankind: to have all this at last in one soul, and to comprise it in one feeling:--this would necessarily furnish a happiness which man has not hitherto known,--a God's happiness, full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness which, like the sun in the evening, continually gives of its inexhaustible riches and empties into the sea,--and like the sun, too, feels itself richest when even the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars! This divine feeling might then be called--humanity!

338.

_The Will to Suffering and the Compassionate._--Is it to your advantage to be above all compassionate? And is it to the advantage of the sufferers when you are so? But let us leave the first question for a moment without an answer.--That from which we suffer most profoundly and personally is almost incomprehensible and inaccessible to every one else: in this matter we are hidden from our neighbour even when he eats at the same table with us. Everywhere, however, where we are _noticed_ as sufferers, our suffering is interpreted in a shallow way; it belongs to the nature of the emotion of pity to _divest_ unfamiliar suffering of its properly personal character:--our "benefactors" lower our value and volition more than our enemies. In most benefits which are conferred on the unfortunate there is something shocking in the intellectual levity with which the compassionate person plays the rôle of fate: he knows nothing of all the inner consequences and complications which are called misfortune for _me_ or for _you!_ The entire economy of my soul and its adjustment by "misfortune," the uprising of new sources and needs, the closing up of old wounds, the repudiation of whole periods of the past--none of these things which may be connected with misfortune preoccupy the dear sympathiser. He wishes _to succour,_ and does not reflect that there is a personal necessity for misfortune; that terror, want, impoverishment, midnight watches, adventures, hazards and mistakes are as necessary to me and to you as their opposites, yea, that, to speak mystically, the path to one's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one's own hell. No, he knows nothing thereof. The "religion of compassion" (or "the heart") bids him help, and he thinks he has helped best when he has helped most speedily! If you adherents of this religion actually have the same sentiments towards yourselves which you have towards your fellows, if you are unwilling to endure your own suffering even for an hour, and continually forestall all possible misfortune, if you regard suffering and pain generally as evil, as detestable, as deserving of annihilation, and as blots on existence, well, you have then, besides your religion of compassion, yet another religion in your heart (and this is perhaps the mother of the former)--_the religion of smug ease._ Ah, how little you know of the _happiness_ of man, you comfortable and good-natured ones!--for happiness and misfortune are brother and sister, and twins, who grow tall together, or, as with you, _remain small_ together! But now let us return to the first question.--How is it at all possible for a person to keep to _his_ path! Some cry or other is continually calling one aside: our eye then rarely lights on anything without it becoming necessary for us to leave for a moment our own affairs and rush to give assistance. I know there are hundreds of respectable and laudable methods of making me stray _from my course,_ and in truth the most "moral" of methods! Indeed, the opinion of the present-day preachers of the morality of compassion goes so far as to imply that just this, and this alone is moral:--to stray from _our_ course to that extent and to run to the assistance of our neighbour. I am equally certain that I need only give myself over to the sight of one case of actual distress, and I, too, _am_ lost! And if a suffering friend said to me, "See, I shall soon die, only promise to die with me"--I might promise it, just as--to select for once bad examples for good reasons--the sight of a small, mountain people struggling for freedom,. would bring me to the point of offering them my hand and my life. Indeed, there is even a secret seduction in all this awakening of compassion, and calling for help: our "own way" is a thing too hard and insistent, and too far removed from the love and gratitude of others,--we escape from it and from our most personal conscience, not at all unwillingly, and, seeking security in the conscience of others, we take refuge in the lovely temple of the "religion of pity." As soon now as any war breaks out, there always breaks out at the same time a certain secret delight precisely in the noblest class of the people: they rush with rapture to meet the new danger of _death,_ because they believe that in the sacrifice for their country they have finally that long-sought-for permission--the permission _to shirk their aim:_--war is for them a detour to suicide, a detour, however, with a good conscience. And although silent here about some things, I will not, however, be silent about my morality, which says to me: Live in concealment in order that thou _mayest_ live to thyself. Live _ignorant_ of that which seems to thy age to be most important! Put at least the skin of three centuries betwixt thyself, and the present day! And the clamour of the present day, the noise of wars and revolutions, ought to be a murmur to thee! Thou wilt also want to help, but only those whose distress thou entirely _understandest,_ because they have _one_ sorrow and _one_ hope in common with thee--thy _friends:_ and only in _the_ way that thou helpest thyself:--I want to make them more courageous, more enduring, more simple, more joyful! I want to teach them that which at present so few understand, and the preachers of fellowship in sorrow least of all:--namely, _fellowship in joy!_

339.

_Vita femina._--To see the ultimate beauties in a work--all knowledge and good-will is not enough; it requires the rarest, good chance for the veil of clouds to move for once from the summits, and for the sun to shine on them. We must not only stand at precisely the right place to see this, our very soul itself must have pulled away the veil from its heights, and must be in need of an external expression and simile, so as to have a hold and remain master of itself. All these, however, are so rarely united at the same time that I am inclined to believe that the highest summit of all that is good, be it work, deed, man, or nature, has hitherto remained for most people, and even for the best, as something concealed and shrouded:--that, however, which unveils itself to us, _unveils itself to us but once._ The Greeks indeed prayed: "Twice and thrice, everything beautiful!" Ah, they had their good reason to call on the Gods, for ungodly actuality does not furnish us with the beautiful at all, or only does so once! I mean to say that the world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless poor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those beautiful things. But perhaps this is the greatest charm of life: it puts a gold-embroidered veil of lovely potentialities over itself, promising, resisting, modest, mocking, sympathetic, seductive. Yes, life is a woman!

340.

_The Dying Socrates.--_-I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in all that he did, said--and did not say. This mocking and amorous demon and rat-catcher of Athens, who made the most insolent youths tremble and sob, was not only the wisest babbler that has ever lived, but was just as great in his silence. I would that he had also been silent in the last moment of his life,--perhaps he might then have belonged to a still higher order of intellects. Whether it was death, or the poison, or piety, or wickedness--something or other loosened his tongue at that moment, and he said: "O Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepios." For him who has ears, this ludicrous and terrible "last word" implies: "O Crito, _life is a long sickness!"_ Is it possible! A man like him, who had lived cheerfully and to all appearance as a soldier,--was a pessimist! He had merely put on a good demeanour towards life, and had all along concealed his ultimate judgment, his profoundest sentiment! Socrates, Socrates _had suffered from life!_ And he also took his revenge for it--with that veiled, fearful, pious, and blasphemous phrase! Had even a Socrates to revenge himself? Was there a grain too little of magnanimity in his superabundant virtue? Ah, my friends! We must surpass even the Greeks!

341.

_The Heaviest Burden._--What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence--and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!"--Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!" If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favourably inclined to thyself and to life, so as _to long for nothing more ardently_ than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?--

342.

_Incipit Tragœdia._--When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the Lake of Urmi, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart changed,--and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the sun and spake thus to it: "Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest! For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave: thou wouldst have wearied of thy light and of the journey, had it not been for me, mine eagle, and my serpent. But we awaited thee every morning, took from thee thine overflow, and blessed thee for it. Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it. I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches. Therefore must I descend into the deep, as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea and givest light also to the nether-world, thou most rich star! Like thee must I _go down,_ as men say, to whom I shall descend. Bless me then, thou tranquil eye, that canst behold even the greatest happiness without envy! Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss! Lo! This cup is again going to empty itself, and Zarathustra is again going to be a man."--Thus began Zarathustra's down-going.

BOOK FIFTH

FEARLESS ONES

"Carcasse, tu trembles? Tu tremblerais bien davantage, tu savais, où je te mène." _Turenne._

343.

_What our Cheerfulness Signifies._--The most important of more recent events--that "God is dead," that the belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief--already begins to cast its first shadows over Europe. To the few at least whose eye, whose _suspecting_ glance, is strong enough and subtle enough for this drama, some sun seems to have set, some old, profound confidence seems to have changed into doubt: our old world must seem to them daily more darksome, distrustful, strange and "old." In the main, however, one may say that the event itself is far too great, too remote, too much beyond most people's power of apprehension, for one to suppose that so much as the report of it could have _reached_ them; not to speak of many who already knew _what_ had taken place, and what must all collapse now that this belief had been undermined,--because so much was built upon it, so much rested on it, and had become one with it: for example, our entire European morality. This lengthy, vast and uninterrupted process of crumbling, destruction, ruin and overthrow which is now imminent: who has realised it sufficiently to-day to have to stand up as the teacher and herald of such a tremendous logic of terror, as the prophet of a period of gloom and eclipse, the like of which has probably never taken place on earth before?... Even we, the born riddle-readers, who wait as it were on the mountains posted 'twixt to-day and to-morrow, and engirt by their contradiction, we, the firstlings and premature children of the coming century, into whose sight especially the shadows which must forthwith envelop Europe _should_ already have come--how is it that even we, without genuine sympathy for this period of gloom, contemplate its advent without any _personal_ solicitude or fear? Are we still, perhaps, too much under the _immediate effects_ of the event--and are these effects, especially as regards _ourselves,_ perhaps the reverse of what was to be expected--not at all sad and depressing, but rather like a new and indescribable variety of light, happiness, relief, enlivenment, encouragement, and dawning day?... In fact, we philosophers and "free spirits" feel ourselves irradiated as by a new dawn by the report that the "old God is dead"; our hearts overflow with gratitude, astonishment, presentiment and expectation. At last the horizon seems open once more, granting even that it is not bright; our ships can at last put out to sea in face of every danger; every hazard is again permitted to the discerner; the sea, _our_ sea, again lies open before us; perhaps never before did such an "open sea" exist.--

344.