Chapter XII: Preface (10)

Errors are what mankind has had to pay for most dearly: and taking them all in all, the errors which have resulted from goodwill are those which have wrought the most harm. The illusion which makes people happy is more harmful than the illusion which is immediately followed by evil results: the latter increases keenness and mistrust, and purifies, the understanding; the former merely narcoticises....

Fine feelings and noble impulses ought, speaking physiologically, to be classified with the narcotics: their abuse is followed by precisely the same results as the abuse of any other opiate--_weak nerves_.

454.

Error is the most expensive luxury that man can indulge in: and if the error happen to be a physiological one, it is fatal to life. What has mankind paid for most dearly hitherto? For its "truths ": for every one of these were errors _in physiologicis>_....

455.

Psychological _confusions_: the _desire for belief_ is confounded with the "will to truth" (for instance, in Carlyle). But the _desire for disbelief_ has also been confounded with the "will to truth" (a need of ridding one's self of a belief for a hundred reasons: in order to carry one's point against certain "believers"). _What is it that inspires Sceptics?_ The hatred of dogmatists--or a need of repose, weariness as in Pyrrho's case.

The _advantages_ which were expected to come from truth, were the advantages resulting from a belief in _it_: for, in itself, truth could have been thoroughly painful, harmful, and even fatal. Likewise truth was combated only on account of the advantages which a victory over it would provide--for instance, emancipation from the yoke of the ruling powers.

The method of truth was _not_ based upon motives of truthfulness, but upon _motives of power, upon the desire to be superior._

_How is_ truth _proved_? By means of the feeling of increased power,--by means of utility,--by means of indispensability,--_in short, by means of its advantages_ (that is to say, hypotheses concerning what truth should be like in order that it may be embraced by us). But this involves _prejudice_: it is a sign that _truth_ does not enter the question at all....

What is the meaning of the "will to truth," for instance in the Goncourts? and in the _naturalists_?--A criticism of "objectivity."

Why should we know: why should we not prefer to be deceived?... But what was needed was always belief--and _not_ truth.... Belief is created by means which are quite _opposed_ to the method of investigation: _it even depends upon the exclusion of the latter._

456.

A certain degree of faith suffices to-day to give us an _objection_ to what is believed--it does more, it makes us question the spiritual healthiness of the believer.

457.

_Martyrs._--To combat anything that is based upon reverence, opponents must be possessed of both daring and recklessness, and be hindered by no scruples.... Now, if one considers that for thousands of years man has sanctified as truths only those things which were in reality errors, and that he has branded any criticism of them with the hall-mark of badness, one will have to acknowledge, however reluctantly, that a goodly amount of _immoral deeds_ were necessary in order to give the initiative to an attack--I mean to _reason...._ That these immoralists have always posed as the "martyrs of truth" should be forgiven them: the truth of the matter is that they did not stand up and deny owing to an instinct for truth; but because of a love of dissolution, criminal scepticism, and the love of adventure. In other cases it is personal rancour which drives them into the province of problems--they only combat certain points of view in order to be able to carry their point against certain people. But, above all, it is revenge which has become scientifically useful--the revenge of the oppressed, those who, thanks to the truth that happens to be ruling, have been pressed aside and even smothered....

Truth, that is to say the scientific method, was grasped and favoured by such as recognised that it was a useful weapon of war--an instrument of _destruction_....

In order to be honoured as opponents, they were moreover obliged to use an apparatus similar to that used by those whom they were attacking: they therefore brandished the concept "truth" as absolutely as their adversaries did--they became fanatics at least in their poses, because no other pose could be expected to be taken seriously. What still remained to be done was left to persecution, to passion, and the uncertainty of the persecuted--hatred waxed great, and the first impulse began to die away and to leave the field entirely to science. Ultimately all of them wanted to be right in the same absurd way as their opponents.... The word "conviction," "faith," the pride of martyrdom--these things are most unfavourable to knowledge. The adversaries of truth finally adopt the whole subjective manner of deciding about truth,--that is to say, by means of poses, sacrifices, and heroic resolutions,--and thus _prolong_ the _dominion_ of the anti-scientific method. As martyrs they compromise their very own deed.

458.

_The dangerous distinction between "theoretical" and "practical"_ in Kant for instance, but also in the ancient philosophers:--they behave as if pure intellectuality presented them with the problems of science and metaphysics;--they behave as if practice should be judged by a measure of its own, whatever the judgment of theory may be.

Against the first tendency I set up my _psychology of philosophers_: their strangest calculations and "intellectuality" are still but the last pallid impress of a physiological fact; spontaneity is absolutely lacking in them, everything is instinct, everything is intended to follow a certain direction from the first....

Against the second tendency I put my question: whether we know another method of acting correctly, besides that of thinking correctly; the last case _is_ action, the first presupposes thought Are we possessed of a means whereby we can judge of the value of a method of life differently from the value of a theory: through induction or comparison?... Guileless people imagine that in this respect we are better equipped, we know what is "good"--and the philosophers are content to repeat this view. We conclude that some sort of _faith_ is at work in this matter, and nothing more....

"Men must act; _consequently_ rules of conduct are necessary"--this is what even the ancient Sceptics thought. The _urgent need_ of a definite decision in this department of knowledge is used as an argument in favour of regarding something as _true_!...

"Men must not act"--said their more consistent brothers, the Buddhists, and then thought out a mode of conduct which would deliver man from the yoke of action....

To adapt one's self, to live as the "_common man_" lives, and to regard as right and proper what _he_ regards as right: this is _submission_ to the _gregarious instinct._ One must carry one's courage and severity so far as to learn to consider such submission a _disgrace._ One should not live according to two standards!... One should not separate theory and practice!...

459.

Of all that which was formerly held to be true, not one word is to be credited. Everything which was formerly disdained as unholy, forbidden, contemptible, and fatal--all these flowers now bloom on the most charming paths of truth.

The whole of this old morality concerns us no longer: it contains not one idea which is still worthy of respect. We have outlived it--we are no longer sufficiently coarse and guileless to be forced to allow ourselves to be lied to in this way.... In more polite language: we are too virtuous for it.... And if truth in the old sense were "true" only because the old morality said "yea" to it, and _had a right_ to say "yea" to it: it follows that no truth of the past can any longer be of use to us.... Our _criterion_ of truth is /certainly not morality: we _refute_ an assertion when we show that it is dependent upon morality and is inspired by noble feelings.

460.

All these values are empirical and conditioned. But he who believes in them and who honours them, _refuses_ to acknowledge this aspect of them. All philosophers believe in these values, and one form their reverence takes is the endeavour to make _a priori truths_ out of them. The falsifying nature of _reverence_....

Reverence is the supreme test of intellectual _honesty,_ but in the whole history of philosophy there is no such thing as intellectual honesty,--but the "love of goodness ..."

On the one hand, there is an absolute _lack of method_ in testing the value of these values; _secondly,_ there is a general disinclination either to test them or to regard them as conditioned at all.--All _anti-scientific_ instincts assembled round moral values in order to _keep science out_ of this department....

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS IN THE CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.

461.

_Why philosophers are slanderers._--The artful and blind hostility of philosophers towards the _senses_--what an amount of _mob_ and _middle-class_ qualities lie in all this hatred!

The crowd always believes that an abuse of which it feels the harmful results, constitutes an _objection_ to the thing which happens to be abused: all insurrectionary movements against principles, whether in politics or agriculture, always follow a line of argument suggested by this ulterior motive: the abuse must be shown to be necessary to, and, inherent in, the principle.

It is a _woeful_ history: mankind looks for a principle, from the standpoint of which he will be able to contemn man--he invents a world in order to be able to slander and throw mud at this world: as a matter of fact, he snatches every time at nothing, and construes this nothing as "God," as "Truth," and, in any case, as judge and detractor of _this_ existence....

If one should require a proof of how deeply and thoroughly the actually _barbarous_ needs of man, even in his present state of tameness and "civilisation," still seek gratification, one should contemplate the "leitmotifs" of the whole of the evolution of philosophy:--a sort of revenge upon reality, a surreptitious process of destroying the values by means of which men live, a _dissatisfied_ soul to which the conditions of discipline is one of torture, and which takes a particular pleasure in morbidly severing all the bonds that bind it to such a condition.

The history of philosophy is the story of a _secret and mad hatred_ of the prerequisities of Life, of the feelings which make for the real values of Life, and of all partisanship in favour of Life. Philosophers have never hesitated to affirm a fanciful world, provided it contradicted this world, and furnished them with a weapon wherewith they could calumniate this world. Up to the present, philosophy has been the _grand school of slander_: and its power has been so great, that even to-day our science, which pretends to be the advocate of Life, has _accepted_ the fundamental position of slander, and treats this world as "appearance," and this chain of causes as though it were only phenomenal. What is the hatred which is active here?

I fear that it is still the _Circe of philosophers--_Morality, which plays them the trick of compelling them to be ever slanderers.... They believed in moral "truths," in these they thought they had found the highest values; what alternative had they left, save that of denying existence ever more emphatically the more they got to know about it?... For this life is _immoral...._ And it is based upon immoral first principles: and morality says _nay_ to Life.

Let us suppress the real world: and in order to do this, we must first suppress the highest values current hitherto--morals.... It is enough to show that morality itself _is immoral,_ in the same sense as that in which immorality has been condemned heretofore. If an end be thus made to the tyranny of the former values, if we have suppressed the "real world," a _new order of values_ must follow of its own accord.

The world of appearance and the world _of lies_: this constitutes the contradiction. The latter hitherto has been the "real world," "truth," "God." This is the one which we still have to suppress.

The _logic of my conception_:

(1) _Morality as the highest value_ (it is master of _all_ the phases of philosophy, even of the Sceptics). _Result_: this world is no good, it is not the "real world."

(2) _What_ is it that determines the highest value here? What, in sooth, is morality?--It is the instinct of _decadence_; it is the means whereby the exhausted and the degenerate _revenge themselves._ _Historical_ proof: philosophers have always been decadents ... in the service of _nihilistic_ religions.

(3) It is the instinct of decadence coming to the fore as _will to power._ Proof: the absolute _immorality_ of the means employed by morality throughout its history.

General aspect: the values which have been highest hitherto constitute a specific case of the will to power; morality itself is a specific case of immorality.

462.

_The principal innovations_: Instead of "moral values," nothing but _naturalistic values._ Naturalisation of morality.

In the place of "sociology," a _doctrine of the forms of dominion._

In the place of "society," the _complex whole of culture,_ which is _my_ chief interest (whether in its entirety or in parts).

In the place of the "theory of knowledge," a _doctrine which laid down the value of the passions_ (to this a hierarchy of the passions would belong: the passions _transfigured_; their _superior rank,_ their "_spirituality_").

In the place of "metaphysics" and religion, the doctrine of _Eternal Recurrence_ (this being regarded as a means to the breeding and selection of men).

463.

My precursors: Schopenhauer. To what extent I deepened pessimism, and first brought its full meaning within my grasp, by means of its most extreme opposite.

Likewise: the higher Europeans, the pioneers of _great politics._

Likewise: the Greeks and their genesis.

464.

I have named those who were unconsciously my workers and precursors. But in what direction may I turn with any hope of finding my particular kind of philosophers themselves, or at least _my yearning for new philosophers_? In that direction, alone, where a _noble_ attitude of mind prevails, an attitude of mind which believes in slavery and in manifold orders of rank, as the prerequisites of any high degree of culture. In that direction, alone, where a _creative_ attitude of mind prevails, an attitude of mind which does not regard the world of happiness and repose, the "Sabbath of Sabbaths" as an end to be desired, and which, even in peace, honours the means which lead to new wars; an attitude of mind which would prescribe laws for the future, which for the sake of the future would treat everything that exists to-day with harshness and even tyranny; a daring and "immoral" attitude of mind, which would wish to see both the good and the evil qualities in man developed to their fullest extent, because it would feel itself able to put each in its right place--that is to say, in that place in which each would need the other. But what prospect has he of finding what he seeks, who goes in search of philosophers to-day? Is it not probable that, even with the best Diogenes-lantern in his hand, he will wander about by night and day in vain? This age is possessed of the _opposite_ instincts. What it wants, above all, is comfort; secondly, it wants publicity and the deafening din of actors' voices, the big drum which appeals to its Bank-Holiday tastes; thirdly, that every one should lie on his belly in utter subjection before the greatest of all lies--which is "the equality of men"--and should honour only those virtues which _make men equal and place them in equal positions._ But in this way, the rise of the philosopher, as I understand him, is made completely impossible--despite the fact that many may regard the present tendencies as rather favourable to his advent. As a matter of fact, the whole world mourns, to-day, the hard times that philosophers _used_ to have, hemmed in between the fear of the stake, a guilty conscience, and the presumptuous wisdom of the Fathers of the Church: but the truth is, that precisely these conditions were _ever so much more favourable_ to the education of a mighty, extensive, subtle, rash, and daring intellect than the conditions prevailing to-day. At present another kind of intellect, the intellect of the demagogue, of the actor, and perhaps of the beaver- and ant-like scholar too, finds the best possible conditions for its development. But even for artists of a superior calibre the conditions are already far from favourable: for does not every one of them, almost, perish owing to his want of discipline? They are no longer tyrannised over by an outside power--by the tables of absolute values enforced by a Church or by a monarch: and thus they no longer learn to develop their "inner tyrant," their _will._ And what holds good of artists also holds good, to a greater and more fatal degree, of philosophers. Where, then, are free spirits to be found to-day? Let any one show me a free spirit to-day!

465.

Under "Spiritual freedom" I understand something very definite: it is a state in which one is a hundred times superior to philosophers and other disciples of "truth" in one's severity towards one's self, in one's uprightness, in one's courage, and in one's absolute will to say nay even when it is dangerous to say nay. I regard the philosophers that have appeared heretofore as _contemptible libertines_ hiding behind the petticoats of the female "Truth."

END OF VOL. I.