Full English text of The Gay Science  

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{{Template}} This pages features translations of Nietzsche's The Gay Science, as well as the orginal German text.

Contents


Full text of the Thomas Common English translation [1]

Thomas Common, Oscar Levy

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

The First Complete and Authorised English Translation

EDITED BY

Dr OSCAR LEVY



VOLUME TEN


THE JOYFUL WISDOM

("LA GAYA SCIENZA")


First Edition, One Thousand Five Hundred Copies, pub- lished September igio

Second Reprint of Twelve

Hundred and Fifty Copies,

reprinted 191 5

Of the Third Reprint of

One Thousand Five Hundred

Copies this is

. 3743

No


FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE THE

JOYFUL WISDOM

("LA GAYA SCIENZA")


TRANSLATED BY

THOMAS COMMON

WITH POETRY RENDERED BY

PAUL V. COHN

AND

MAUDE D. PETRE

stay to mine own house confined.
Nor graft my wits on alien stock:
And mock at every master mind
That never at itself could mock.

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1924


First published . September 1910

Reprinted 1914

Reprinted 1924

504-Z7


i&-»-33


{All rights reserved)


Printed in Great Britain hy

THE EDINBURGH PRESS, EDINBURGH


CONTENTS


Editorial Note page vii

Preface to the Second Edition - - »» i

Jest, Ruse, and Revenge : A Prelude in

Rhyme „ n

Book First „ 29

Book Second „ 93

Book Third - - - - - - „ 149

Book Fourth: Sanctus J anuarius - - „ 211

Book Fifth: We Fearless Ones - „ 273

Appendix : Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird „ 355


EDITORIAL NOTE

"The Joyful Wisdom," written in 1882, just before " Zarathustra," is rightly judged to be one of Nietzsche's best books. Here the essentially grave and masculine face of the poet-philosopher is seen to light up and suddenly break into a delightful smile. The warmth and kindness that beam from his features will astonish those hasty psychologists who have never divined that behind the destroyer is the creator, and behind the blasphemer the lover of life. In the retrospective valuation of his work which appears in " Ecce Homo " the author him- self observes with truth that the fourth book, "Sanctus Januarius," deserves especial attention: "The whole book is a gift from the Saint, and the introductory verses express my gratitude for the most wonderful month of January that I have ever spent." Book fifth " We Fearless Ones," the Appendix " Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird," and the Preface, were added to the second edition in 1887.

The translation of Nietzsche's poetry has proved


vm EDITORIAL NOTE

to be a more embarrassing problem than that of his prose. Not only has there been a difficulty in finding adequate translators — a difficulty overcome, it is hoped, by the choice of Miss Petre and Mr Cohn, — but it cannot be denied that even in the original the poems are of unequal merit. By the side of such masterpieces as " To the Mistral " are several verses of comparatively little value. The Editor, however, did not feel justified in making a selection, as it was intended that the edition should be complete. The heading, "Jest, Ruse and Revenge," of the "Prelude in Rhyme" is borrowed from Goethe.


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

I.

Perhaps more than one preface would be necessary for this book; and after all it might still be doubtful whether any one could be brought nearer to the experiences in it by means of prefaces, without having himself experienced something similar. It seems to be written in the language of the thawing- wind : there is wantonness, restlessness, contra- diction and April-weather in it ; so that one is as constantly reminded of the proximity of winter as of the victory over it : the victory which is coming, which must come, which has perhaps already come. . . . Gratitude continually flows forth, as if the most unexpected thing had happened, the gratitude of a convalescent — for convalescence was this most unexpected thing. " Joyful Wisdom " : that implies the Saturnalia of a spirit which has patiently withstood a long, frightful pressure — patiently, strenuously, impassionately, without submitting, but without hope — and which is now suddenly o'erpowered with hope, the hope of health, the intoxication of convalescence. What wonder that much that i« unreasonable and foolish thereby comes to light : much wanton tenderness expended even on problems which


2 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

have a prickly hide, and are not therefore fit to be fondled and allured. The whole book is really nothing but a revel after long privation and im- potence : the frolicking of returning energy, of newly awakened belief in a to-morrow and after- to-morrow ; of sudden sentience and prescience of a future, of near adventures, of seas open once more, and aims once more permitted and believed in. And what was now all behind me! This track of desert, exhaustion, unbelief, and frigidity in the midst of youth, this advent of grey hairs at the wrong time, this tyranny of pain, surpassed, however, by the tyranny of pride which repudiated the consequences of pain — and conse- quences are comforts, — this radical isolation, as defence against the contempt of mankind become morbidly clairvoyant, this restriction upon principle to all that is bitter, sharp, and painful in knowledge, as prescribed by the disgust which had gradually resulted from imprudent spiritual diet and pamper- ing — it is called Romanticism, — oh, who could realise all those feelings of mine ! He, however, who could do so would certainly forgive me everything, and more than a little folly, boisterous- ness and " Joyful Wisdom " — for example, the handful of songs which are given along with the book on this occasion, — songs in which a poet makes merry over all poets in a way not easily pardoned. — Alas, it is not only on the poets and their fine " lyrical sentiments " that this reconvalescent must vent his malignity : who knows what kind of victim he seeks, what kind of monster of material for parody will allure him ere long?


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 3

Incipit tragcedia, it is said at the conclusion of this seriously frivolous book; let people be on their guard ! Something or other extraordinarily bad and wicked announces itself: incipit parodia^ there is no doubt. . .

2.

— But let us leave Herr Nietzsche ; what does it matter to people that Herr Nietzsche has got well again ? . . . A psychologist knows few questions so attractive as those concerning the relations of health to philosophy, and in the case when he himself falls sick, he carries with him all his scientific curiosity into his sickness. For, granting that one is a person, one has necessarily also the philosophy of one's personality; there is, however, an important distinction here. With the one it is his defects which philosophise, with the other it is his riches and powers. The former requires his philo- sophy, whether it be as support, sedative, or medicine, as salvation, elevation, or self-alienation ; with the latter it is merely a fine luxury, at best the voluptuousness of a triumphant gratitude, which must inscribe itself ultimately in cosmic capitals on the heaven of ideas. In the other more usual case, however, when states of distress occupy them- selves with philosophy (as is the case with all sickly thinkers— and perhaps the sickly thinkers pre- ponderate in the history of philosophy), what will happen to the thought itself which is brought under the pressure of sickness ? This is the im- portant question for psychologists : and here experiment is possible. We philosophers do just


4 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

like a traveller who resolves to awake at a given hour, and then quietly yields himself to sleep : we surrender ourselves temporarily, body and soul, to the sickness, supposing we become ill — we shut, as it were, our eyes on ourselves. And as the traveller knows that something does not sleep, that something counts the hours and will awake him, we also know that the critical moment will find us awake — that then something will spring forward and surprise the spirit in the very act, I mean in weakness, or reversion, or submission, or obduracy, or obscurity, or whatever the morbid conditions are called, which in times of good health have the pride of the spirit opposed to them (for it is as in the old rhyme: " The spirit proud, peacock and horse are the three proudest things of earthly source"). After such self-questioning and self-testing, one learns to look with a sharper eye at all that has hitherto been philosophised ; one divines better than before the arbitrary by-ways, side-streets, resting-places, and sunny places of thought, to which suffering thinkers, precisely as sufferers, are led and misled : one knows now in what direction the sickly body and its requirements unconsciously press, push, and allure the spirit — towards the sun, stillness, gentle- ness, patience, medicine, refreshment in any sense whatever. Every philosophy which puts peace higher than war, every ethic with a negative grasp of the idea of happiness, every metaphysic and physic that knows a finale, an ultimate condition of any kind whatever, every predominating, aesthetic or religious longing for an aside, a beyond, an out- side, an above — all these permit one to ask whether


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 5

sickness has not been the motive which inspired the philosopher. The unconscious disguising of physio- logical requirements under the cloak of the objective, the ideal, the purely spiritual, is carried on to an alarming extent, — and I have often enough asked myself, whether on the whole philosophy hitherto has not generally been merely an interpreta- tion of the body, and a misunderstanding of the body. Behind the loftiest estimates of value by which the history of thought has hitherto been governed, misunderstandings of the bodily constitu- tion, either of individuals, classes, or entire races are concealed. One may always primarily consider these audacious freaks of metaphysic, and especially its answers to the question of the worth of existence, as symptoms of certain bodily constitutions; and if, on the whole, when scientifically determined, not a particle of significance attaches to such affirma- tions and denials of the world, they nevertheless furnish the historian and psychologist with hints so much the more valuable (as we have said) as symptoms of the bodily constitution, its good or bad condition, its fullness, powerfulness, and sovereignty in history ; or else of its obstructions, exhaustions, and impoverishments, its premonition of the end, its will to the end. I still expect that a philo- sophical physician, in the exceptional sense of the word — one who applies himself to the problem of the collective health of peoples, periods, races, and mankind generally — will some day have the courage to follow out my suspicion to its ultimate con- clusions, and to venture on the judgment that in all philosophising it has not hitherto been a question


6 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

of " truth " at all, but of something else, — namely, of health, futurity, growth, power, life. . . .

3- It will be surmised that I should not like to take leave ungratefully of that period of severe sickness, the advantage of which is not even yet exhausted in me : for I am sufficiently conscious of what I have in advance of the spiritually robust generally, in my changeful state of health. A philosopher who has made the tour of many states of health, and always makes it anew, has also gone through just as many philosophies : he really cannot do otherwise than transform his condition on every occasion into the most ingenious posture and position, — this art of transfiguration is just philosophy. We philosophers are not at liberty to separate soul and body, as the people separate them ; and we are still less at liberty to separate soul and spirit. We are not thinking frogs, we are not objectifying and registering apparatuses with cold entrails, — our thoughts must be continu- ally born to us out of our pain, and we must, motherlike, share with them all that we have in us of blood, heart, ardour, joy, passion, pang, conscience, fate and fatality. Life — that means for us to transform constantly into light and flame all that we are, and also all that we meet with ; we cannot possibly do otherwise. And as regards sickness, should we not be almost tempted to ask whether we could in general dispense with it ? It is great pain only which is the ultimate emancipa- tor of the spirit ; for it is the teacher of the strong


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 7

suspicion which makes an X out of every U*, a true, correct X, i.e., the ante-penultimate letter. ... It is great pain only, the long slow pain which takes time, by which we are burned as it were with green wood, that compels us philosophers to de- scend into our ultimate depths, and divest ourselves of all trust, all good-nature, veiling, gentleness, and averageness, wherein we have perhaps formerly installed our humanity. I doubt whether such pain " improves " us ; but I know that it deepens us. Be it that we learn to confront it with our pride, our scorn, our strength of will, doing like the Indian who, however sorely tortured, revenges him- self on his tormentor with his bitter tongue ; be it that we withdraw from the pain into the oriental nothingness— it is called Nirvana, — into mute, benumbed, deaf self-surrender, self-forgetfulness, and self-effacement : one emerges from such long, dangerous exercises in self-mastery as another being, with several additional notes of interrogation, and above all, with the will to question more than ever, more profoundly, more strictly, more sternly, more wickedly, more quietly than has ever been ques- tioned hitherto. Confidence in life is gone: life itself has become 2. problem. — Let it not be imagined that one ha.s necessarily become a hypochondriac thereby ! Even love of life is still possible — only one loves differently. It is the love of a woman of whom one is doubtful. . . . The charm, how- ever, of all that is problematic, the delight in the

  • This means literally to put the numeral X instead of the

numeral V (formerly U) ; hence it means to double a number unfairly, to exaggerate, humbug, cheat.— Tr.


8 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

X, is too great in those more spiritual and more spiritualised men, not to spread itself again and again like a clear glow over all the trouble of the problematic, over all the danger of uncertainty, and even over the jealousy of the lover. We know a new happiness. . . ,

4.

Finally (that the most essential may not remain unsaid), one comes back out of such abysses, out of such severe sickness, and out of the sickness of strong suspicion — new-born, with the skin cast ; more sensitive, more wicked, with a finer taste for joy, with a more delicate tongue for all good things, with a merrier disposition, with a second and more dangerous innocence in joy ; more childish at the same time, and a hundred times more refined than ever before. Oh, how re- pugnant to us now is pleasure, coarse, dull, drab pleasure, as the pleasure-seekers, our "cultured" classes, our rich and ruling classes, usually under- stand it ! How malignantly we now listen to the great holiday-hubbub with which "cultured people" and city-men at present allow themselves to be forced to " spiritual enjoyment " by art, books, and music, with the help of spirituous liquors! How the theatrical cry of passion now pains our ear, how strange to our taste has all the romantic riot and sensuous bustle which the cultured populace love become (together with their aspirations after the exalted, the elevated, and the intricate)! No, if we convalescents need an art at all, it is another art — a mocking, light, volatile, divinely serene,


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 9

divinely ingenious art, which blazes up like a clear flame, into a cloudless heaven ! Above all, an art for artists, only for artists! We at last know better what is first of all necessary >r zV— namely, cheerfulness, every kind of cheerfulness, my friends ! also as artists :— I should like to prove it. We now know something too well, we men of knowledge : oh, how well we are now learning to forget and not know, as artists ! And as to our future, we are not likely to be found again in the tracks of those Egyptian youths who at night make the temples unsafe, embrace statues, and would fain unveil, uncover, and put in clear light, everything which for good reasons is kept concealed.* No, we have got disgusted with this bad taste, this will to truth, to "truth at all costs," this youthful madness in the love of truth : we are now too experienced, too serious, too joyful, too singed, too profound for that. . . . We no longer believe that truth remains truth when the veil is withdrawn from it : we have lived long enough to believe this. At present we regard it as a matter of propriety not to be anxious either to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and "know" everything. "Is it true that the good God is everywhere present ? " asked a little girl of her mother : " I think that is indecent " :— a hint to philosophers ! One should have more reverence for the shame- facedness with which nature has concealed herself behind enigmas and motley uncertainties. Per- haps truth is a woman who has reasons for not

  • An allusion to Schiller's poem : " The Veiled Image of

Sais."— Tr.


10 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

showing her reasons ? Perhaps her name is Baubo, to speak in Greek ? . . . Oh, those Greeks ! They knew how to live : for that purpose it is necessary to keep bravely to the surface, the fold and the skin ; to worship appearance, to believe in forms, tones, and words, in the whole Olympus of appearance ! Those Greeks were superficial — from profundity ! And are we not coming back precisely to this point, we dare-devils of the spirit, who have scaled the highest and most dangerous peak of contem- porary thought, and have looked around us from it, have looked down from it ? Are we not precisely in this respect — Greeks? Worshippers of forms, of tones, and of words? And precisely on that account — artists?

RuTA, near Genoa Autumn^ 1886.


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE.


A PRELUDE IN RHYME.


Y.

Invitation.

Venture, comrades, I implore you. On the fare I set before you, You will like it more to-morrow, Better still the following day : If yet more you're then requiring, Old success I'll find inspiring,

And fresh courage thence will borrow Novel dainties to display.


2.

My Good Luck.

Weary of Seeking had I grown, So taught myself the way to Find :

Back by the storm I once was blown, But follow now, where drives the wind.


3-

Undismayed.

Where you're standing, dig, dig out :

Down below's the Well : Let them that walk in darkness shout

" Down below— there's Hell ! "

13


14 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

4.

Dialogue.

A. Was I ill ? and is it ended ? Pray, by what physician tended ? I recall no pain endured !

B. Now I know your trouble's ended : He that can forget, is cured.

' 5.

To the Virtuous.

Let our virtues be easy and nimble-footed in motion, Like unto Homer's verse ought they to come and to go.

6.

Worldly Wisdom.

Stay not on level plain,

Climb not the mount too high.

But half-way up remain — The world you'll best descry !

7-

Vademecum — Vadetecum.

Attracted by my style and talk You'd follow, in my footsteps walk ? Follow yourself unswervingly. So — careful ! — shall you follow me.


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 15

8.

The Third Sloughing.

My skin bursts, breaks for fresh rebirth,

And new desires come thronging : Much I've devoured, yet for more earth

The serpent in me's longing. 'Twixt stone and grass I crawl once more.

Hungry, by crooked ways. To eat the food I ate before.

Earth-fare all serpents praise !

9. My Roses.

My luck's good — I'd make yours fairer, (Good luck ever needs a sharer). Will you stop and pluck my roses ?

Oft mid rocks and thorns you'll linger, Hide and stoop, suck bleeding iinger — Will you stop and pluck my roses ?

For my good luck's a trifle vicious. Fond of teasing, tricks malicious — Will you stop and pluck my roses ?

10.

The Scorner.

Many drops I waste and spill. So my scornful mood you curse : Who to brim his cup doth fill, Many drops must waste and spill- Yet he thinks the wine no worse.


l6 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

II.

The Proverb Speaks. Harsh and gentle, fine and mean, Quite rare and common, dirty and clean, The fools' and the sages' go-between : All this I will be, this have been, Dove and serpent and swine, I ween !

12.

To a Lover of Light. That eye and sense be not fordone E'en in the shade pursue the sun !

For Dancers. Smoothest ice, A paradise To him who is a dancer nice. •

14. The Brave Man. A feud that knows not flaw nor break, Rather then patched-up friendship, take.

15- Rust. Rust's needed : keenness will not satisfy ! " He is too young ! " the rabble loves to cry.

16. Excelsior. " How shall I reach the top ? " No time For thus reflecting ! Start to climb !


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE I7

17. The Man of Power Speaks. Ask never ! Cease that whining, pray ! Take without asking, take alway !

18. Narrow Souls. Narrow souls hate I like the devil, Souls wherein grows nor good nor evil.

19.

Accidentally a Seducer.* He shot an empty word

Into the empty blue ; But on the way it met

A woman whom it slew.

20. For Consideration. A twofold pain is easier far to bear Than one : so now to suffer wilt thou dare ?

21. Against Pride. Brother, to puff thyself up ne'er be quick : For burst thou shalt be by a tiny prick !

22.

Man and Woman. " The woman seize, who to thy heart appeals ! " Man's motto : woman seizes not, but steals.

  • Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.


ig THE JOYFUL WISDOM

23-

Interpretation.

If I explain my wisdom, surely 'Tis but entangled more securely,

I can't expound myself aright : But he that's boldly up and doing, His own unaided course pursuing,

Upon my image casts more light 1


24.

A Cure for Pessimism.

Those old capricious fancies, friend ! You say your palate naught can please, I hear you bluster, spit and wheeze.

My love, my patience soon will end !

Pluck up your courage, follow me —

Here's a fat toad ! Now then, don't blink. Swallow it whole, nor pause to think !

From your dyspepsia you'll be free !


25.

A Request.

Many men's minds 1 know full well, Yet what mine own is, cannot tell. I cannot see— my eye's too near— And falsely to myself appear. 'Twould be to me a benefit Far from myself if I could sit, Less distant than my enemy,


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 19

And yet my nearest friend's too nigh — 'Twixt him and me, just in the middle 1 What do I ask for ? Guess my riddle

26.

My Cruelty.

I must ascend an hundred stairs, I must ascend : the herd declares I'm cruel : " Are we made of stone ? " I must ascend an hundred stairs : All men the part of stair disown.

27.

The Wanderer.

" No longer path ! Abyss and silence chilling ! " Thy fault! To leave the path thou wast too

willing ! Now comes the test ! Keep cool — eyes bright and

clear ! Thou'rt lost for sure, if thou permittest — fear.

28. Encouragement for Beginners.

See the infant, helpless creeping —

Swine around it grunt swine-talk — Weeping always, naught but weeping,

Will it ever learn to walk ? Never fear ! Just wait, I swear it

Soon to dance will be inclined, And this babe, when two legs bear it,

Standing on its head you'll find.


20 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

29.

Planet Egoism.

Did I not turn, a rolling cask, Ever about myself, I ask. How could I without burning run Close on the track of the hot sun ?


30-

The Neighbour.

Too nigh, my friend my joy doth mar, I'd have him high above and far, Or how can he become my star ?

31-

The Disguised Saint.

Lest we for thy bliss should slay thee, In devil's wiles thou dost array thee,

Devil's wit and devil's dress. But in vain ! Thy looks betray thee

And proclaim thy holiness.

32. The Slave.

A. He stands and listens : whence his pain? What smote his ears ? Some far refrain ? Why is his heart with anguish torn ?

B. Like all that fetters once have worn. He always hears the clinking— chain !


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 21

33- The Lone One.

I hate to follow and I hate to lead. Obedience ? no ! and ruling ? no, indeed !

Wouldst fearful be in others' sight ?

Then e'en thyself thou must affright : The people but the Terror's guidance heed. I hate to guide myself, I hate the fray. Like the wild beasts I'll wander far afield.

In Error's pleasing toils I'll roam

Awhile, then lure myself back home, Back home, and — to my self-seduction yield.

34- Seneca et hoc Genus omne.

They write and write (quite maddening me) Their " sapient " twaddle airy, As if 'twere primum scribere^ Deinde philosophari.

35. Ice.

Yes ! I manufacture ice : Ice may help you to digest : If you had much to digest. How you would enjoy my ice !

36. Youthful Writings.

My wisdom's A and final O

Was then the sound that smote mine ear.


22 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

Yet now it rings no longer so, My youth's eternal Ah ! and Oh 1 Is now the only sound I hear.*

37- Foresight.

In yonder region travelling, take good care ! An hast thou wit, then be thou doubly ware ! They'll smile and lure thee ; then thy limbs they'll

tear: Fanatics' country this where wits are rare !

38. The Pious One Speaks. God loves MS, for he made us, sent us here ! — " Man hath made God 1 " ye subtle ones reply. His handiwork he must hold dear, And what he made shall he deny ? There sounds the devil's halting hoof, I fear.

39.

In Summer. In sweat of face, so runs the screed,

We e'er must eat our bread, Yet wise physicians if we heed

" Eat naught in sweat," 'tis said. The dog-star's blinking : what's his need ?

What tells his blazing sign ? In sweat of face (so runs his screed)

We're meant to drink our wine 1

  • A and O, suggestive of Ah ! and Oh ! refer of course to

Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. — Tr.


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 2$

40.

Without Envy. His look bewrays no envy : and ye laud him ? He cares not, asks not if your throng applaud him ! He has the eagle's eye for distance far, He sees you not, he sees but star on star I

41. Heraclitism.

Brethren, war's the origin

Of happiness on earth : Powder-smoke and battle-din

Witness friendship's birth ! Friendship means three things, you know,—

Kinship in luckless plight. Equality before the foe

Freedom — in death's sight 1

42.

Maxim of the Over-refined. " Rather on your toes stand high

Than crawl upon all fours, Rather through the keyhole spy

Than through the open doors ! "

43-

Exhortation. Renown you're quite resolved to earn ?

My thought about it Is this : you need not fame, must learn

To do without it !


24 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

44.

Thorough.

I an inquirer ? No, that's not my calling Only / weigh a lot — I'm such a lump ! —

And through the waters I keep falling, falling, Till on the ocean's deepest bed I bump.

45. The Immortals, " To-day is meet for me, I come to-day," Such is the speech of men foredoomed to stay.

" Thou art too soon," they cry, " thou art too late," What care the Immortals what the rabble say ?

46. Verdicts of the Weary. The weary shun the glaring sun, afraid. And only care for trees to gain the shade.

47. Descent. " He sinks, he falls," your scornful looks portend : The truth is, to your level he'll descend.

His Too Much Joy is turned to weariness, His Too Much Light will in your darkness end.

48. Nature Silenced.* Around my neck, on chain of hair, The timepiece hangs — a sign of care.

  • Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 25

For me the starry course is o'er,

No sun and shadow as before,

No cockcrow summons at the door,

For nature tells the time no more !

Too many clocks her voice have drowned,

And droning law has dulled her sound.

49. The Sage Speaks.

Strange to the crowd, yet useful to the crowd, I still pursue my path, now sun, now cloud. But always pass above the crowd !

50. He lost his Head. . . .

She now has wit — how did it come her way ? A man through her his reason lost, they say. His head, though wise ere to this pastime lent. Straight to the devil — no, to woman went !

51. A Pious Wish.

" Oh, might all keys be lost ! 'Twere better so And in all keyholes might the pick-lock go ! " Who thus reflects ye may as — picklock know.

52. Foot Writing.

I write not with the hand alone,

My foot would write, my foot that capers.

Firm, free and bold, it's marching on

Now through the fields, now through the papers.


26 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

" Human^ Ail-too- Human." . . . Shy, gloomy, when your looks are backward

thrust. Trusting the future where yourself you trust, Are you an eagle, mid the nobler fowl. Or are you like Minerva's darling owl ?

54- To my Reader.

Good teeth and a digestion good

I wish you — these you need, be sure !

And, certes, if my book you've stood. Me with good humour you'll endure.

55. The Realistic Painter. « To nature true, complete 1 " so he begins. Who complete Nature to his canvas wins? Her tiniest fragment's endless, no constraint Can know : he paints just what \{\s fancy pins : What does his fancy pin ? What he can paint !

56. Poets' Vanity.

Glue, only glue to me dispense,

The wood I'll find myself, don't fear!

To give four senseless verses sense— That's an achievement I revere !


JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 2/

Taste in Choosing. If to choose my niche precise

Freedom I could win from fate, I'd be in midst of Paradise —

Or, sooner still— before the gate !

58. The Crooked Nose. Wide blow your nostrils, and across The land your nose holds haughty sway : So you, unhorned rhinoceros, Proud mannikin, fall forward aye ! The one trait with the other goes : A straight pride and a crooked nose.

59. The Pen is Scratching. . . . The pen is scratching : hang the pen !

To scratching I'm condemned to sink 1 I grasp the inkstand fiercely then

And write in floods of flowing ink. How broad, how full the stream's career !

What luck my labours doth requite ! 'Tis true, the writing's none too clear —

What then ? Who reads the stufl" I write ?

60. Loftier Spirits. This man's climbing up — let us praise him— But that other we love From aloft doth eternally move, So above even praise let us raise him, He comes from above !


28 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

6i.

The Sceptic Speaks. Your life is half-way o'er ; The clock-hand moves ; your soul is thrilled with

fear, It roamed to distant shore And sought and found not, yet you — linger here !

Your life is half-way o'er ;

That hour by hour was pain and error sheer :

Why stay ? What seek you more ?

" That's what I'm seeking — reasons why I'm here ! "

62. Ecce Homo.

Yes, I know where I'm related, Like the flame, unquenched, unsated,

I consume myself and glow : All's turned to light I lay my hand on, All to coal that I abandon,

Yes, I am a flame, I know !

63. Star Morality*

Foredoomed to spaces vast and far, What matters darkness to the star ?

Roll calmly on, let time go by, Let sorrows pass thee — nations die !

Compassion would but dim the light That distant worlds will gladly sight.

To thee one law — be pure and bright !

  • Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.




BOOK FIRST


I.

The Teachers of the Object of Existence.— ySfhet\\Qr I look with a good or an evil eye upon men, I find them always at one problem, each and all of them : to do that which conduces to the conservation of the human species. And certainly not out of any sentiment of love for this species, but simply because nothing in them is older, stronger, more inexorable and more unconquerable than that instinct, — because it is precisely the essence of our race and herd. Although we are accustomed readily enough, with our usual short-sightedness, to separate our neighbours precisely into useful and hurtful, into good and evil men, yet when we make a general calculation, and reflect longer on the whole question, we become distrustful of this defining and separating, and finally leave it alone. Even the most hurtful man is still perhaps, in respect to the conservation of the race, the most useful of all ; for he conserves in himself, or by his effect on others, impulses without which mankind might long ago have lan- guished or decayed. Hatred, delight in mischief, rapacity and ambition, and whatever else is called evil — belong to the marvellous economy of the conservation of the race ; to be sure a costly, lavish,

3>


32 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

and on the whole very foolish economy : — which has, however, hitherto preserved our race, as is demonstrated to us. I no longer know, my dear fellow-man and neighbour, if thou canst at all live to the disadvantage of the race, and therefore, " un- reasonably " and "badly"; that which could have injured the race has perhaps died out many millenniums ago, and now belongs to the things which are no longer possible even to God. Indulge thy best or thy worst desires, and above all, go to wreck ! — in either case thou art still probably the furtherer and benefactor of mankind in some way or other, and in that respect thou mayest have thy panegyrists — and similarly thy mockers ! But thou wilt never find him who would be quite qualified to mock at thee, the individual, at thy best, who could bring home to thy conscience its h'mitless, buzzing and croaking wretchedness so as to be in accord with truth ! To laugh at oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh out of the veriest truth, — to do this, the best have not hitherto had enough of the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too little genius! There is perhaps still a future even for laughter ! When the maxim, " The race is all, the individual is nothing," — has incorporated itself in humanity, and when access stands open to every one at all times to this ultimate emancipa- tion and irresponsibility. — Perhaps then laughter will have united with wisdom, perhaps then there will be only "joyful wisdom." Meanwhile, however, it is quite otherwise, meanwhile the comedy of existence has not yet " become conscious " of itself,


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 33

meanwhile it is still the period of tragedy, the period of morals and religions. What does the ever new appearing of founders of morals and religions, of instigators of struggles for moral valua- tions, of teachers of remorse of conscience and religious war, imply? What do these heroes on this stage imply? For they have hitherto been the heroes of it, and all else, though solely visible for the time being, and too close to one, has served only as preparation for these heroes, whether as machinery and coulisse, or in the r61e of confidants and valets. (The poets, for example, have always been the valets of some morality or other.) — It is obvious of itself that these tragedians also work in the interest of the race, though they may believe that they work in the interest of God, and as emissaries of God. They also further the life of the species, in that they further the belief in life. " It is worth while to live " — each of them calls out, — "there is something of importance in this life ; life has something behind it and under it ; take care!" That impulse, which rules equally in the noblest and the ignoblest, the impulse to the conservation of the species, breaks forth from time to time as reason and passion of spirit ; it has then a brilliant train of motives about it, and tries with all its power to make us forget that fundamentally it is just impulse, instinct, folly and baselessness. Life j^^«/a? be loved, /^r . . . ! Man J^^w/a? benefit himself and his neighbour,/^/- . . . / And whatever all these shoulds and fors imply, and may imply in future! In order that that which necessarily and always happens of itself and 3


34 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

without design, may henceforth appear to be done by design, and may appeal to men as reason and ultimate command, — for that purpose the ethi- culturist comes forward as the teacher of design in existence ; for that purpose he devises a second and different existence, and by means of this new mechanism he lifts the old common existence off its old common hinges. No! he does not at all want us to laugh at existence, nor even at ourselves — nor at himself; to him an individual is always an individual, something first and last and immense, to him there are no species, no sums, no noughts. However foolish and fanatical his inventions and valuations may be, however much he may mis- understand the course of nature and deny its con- ditions — and all systems of ethics hitherto have been foolish and anti-natural to such a degree that mankind would have been ruined by any one of them had it got the upper hand, — at any rate, every time that " the hero " came upon the stage some- thing new was attained : the frightful counterpart of laughter, the profound convulsion of many in- dividuals at the thought, " Yes, it is worth while to live ! yes, I am worthy to live ! " — life, and thou, and I, and all of us together became for a while interest- ing to ourselves once more. — It is not to be denied that hitherto laughter and reason and nature have in the long run got the upper hand of all the great teachers of design : in the end the short tragedy always passed over once more into the eternal comedy of existence ; and the " waves of innu- merable laughters " — to use the expression of iEschylus — must also in the end beat over the great-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 35

est of these tragedies. But with all this corrective laughter, human nature has on the whole been changed by the ever new appearance of those teachers of the design of existence, — human nature has now an additional requirement, the very require- ment of the ever new appearance of such teachers and doctrines of " design." Man has gradually be- come a visionary animal, who has to fulfil one more condition of existence than the other animals : man must from time to time believe that he knows why he exists; his species cannot flourish without periodi- cally confiding in life ! Without the belief in reason in life ! And always from time to time will the human race decree anew that "there is something which really may not be laughed at." And the most clairvoyant philanthropist will add that " not only laughing and joyful wisdom, but also the tragic with all its sublime irrationality, counts among the means and necessities for the conserva- tion of the race ! " — And consequently ! Conse- quently ! Consequently ! Do you understand me, oh my brothers? Do you understand this new law of ebb and flow? We also shall have our time !

2, The Intellectual Conscience. — I h ave always th e same e xper i ence oveiL _again. and always make a new eff'ort against it ; for although it is evident to me I do not want to believe it: in the greater number of men the intellectual conscience is lacking; indeed, it would often seem to me that in demanding such a thing, one is as solitary in the largest cities as in the desert. Everyone looks at you with strange


36 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

eyes and continues to make use of his scales, calling this good and that bad ; and no one blushes for shame when you remark that these weights are not the full amount,-there is also no indignation against you ; perhaps they laugh at your doubt. I mean to say that the greater number of people do not find it contemptible to believe this or that, and live according to it, without having been previously aware of the ultimate and surest reasons for and against it, and without even giving themselves any trouble about such reasons afterwards,— the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this " greater number." But what is kind-hearted- ness, refinement and genius to me, if he who has these virtues harbours indolent sentiments in beliei and judgment, if the longing for certainty does not rule in him, as his innermost desire and profoundest need-as that which separates higher from lower men! In certain pious people I have found a hatred of reason, and have been favourably disposed to them for it: their bad intellectual conscience at least still betrayed itself,_ in this manner ' But to stand in the midst of this rerum Concordia discors and all the marvellous uncertainty and ambiguity of existence, and not to question, not to tremble with desire and delight in questioning, not even to hate the questioner-perhaps even to make merry over him to the extent of wea"ness- that is what I regard as contemptible, and it is this sentiment which I first of all search for in every one— some folly or other always persuades me anew that every man has this sentiment, as man. This is my special kind of unrighteousness.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 37

jV<?^/^ and Ignoble. — To ignoble natures all noble, magnanimous sentiments appear inexpedient, and on that account first and foremost, as incredible : they blink with their eyes when they hear of such matters, and seem inclined to say, "there will, no doubt, be some advantage therefrom, one cannot see through all walls;" — they are jealous of the noble person, as if he sought advantage by back- stair methods. When they are all too plainly convinced of the absence of selfish intentions and emoluments, the noble person is regarded by them as a kind of fool : they despise him in his gladness, and laugh at the lustre of his eye. " How can a person rejoice at being at a disadvantage, how can a person with open eyes want to meet with dis- advantage ! It must be a disease of the reason with which the noble affection is associated " ; — so they think, and they look depreciatingly thereon ; just as they depreciate the joy which the lunatic derives from his fixed idea. The ignoble nature is distinguished by the fact that it keeps its advantage steadily in view, and that this thought of the end and advantage is even stronger than its strongest impulse : not to be tempted to inexpedient activities by its impulses — that is its wisdom and inspiration. In comparison with the ignoble nature the higher nature is more irrational : — for the noble, magnanimous, and self-sacrificing person succumbs in fact to his impulses, and in his best moments his reason lapses altogether. An animal, which at the risk


38 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

of life protects its young, or in the pairing season follows the female where it meets with death, does not think of the risk and the death ; its reason pauses likewise, because its delight in its young, or in the female, and the fear of being deprived of this delight, dominate it exclusively ; it becomes stupider than at other times, like the noble and magnanimous person. He possesses feelings of pleasure and pain of such intensity that the intellect must either be silent before them, or yield itself to their service : his heart then goes into his head, and one henceforth speaks of "passions." (Here and there to be sure, the antithesis to this, and as it were the "reverse of passion," presents itself; for example in Fontenelle, to whom some one once laid the hand on the heart with the words, " What you have there, my dearest friend, is brain also.") It is the unreason, or perverse reason of passion, which the ignoble man despises in the noble individual, especially when it con- centrates upon objects whose value appears to him to be altogether fantastic and arbitrary. He is offended at him who succumbs to the passion of the belly, but he understands the allurement which here plays the tyrant ; but he does not understand, for example, how a person out of love of knowledge can stake his health and honour on the game. The taste of the higher nature devotes itself to exceptional matters, to things which usually do not affect people, and seem to have no sweetness ; the higher nature has a singular standard of value. Yet it is mostly of the belief that it has not a singular standard of value in its idiosyncrasies


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 39

of taste ; it rather sets up its values and non-values as the generally valid values and non-values, and thus becomes incomprehensible and impracticable. It is very rarely that a higher nature has so much reason over and above as to understand and deal with everyday men as such; for the most part it believes in its passion as if it were the concealed passion of every one, and precisely in this belief it is full of ardour and eloquence. If then such exceptional men do not perceive themselves as exceptions, how can they ever understand ^ the ignoble natures and estimate average men fairly 1 Thus it is that they also speak of the folly, inexpediency and fantasy of mankind, full of astonishment at the madness of the world, and that it will not recognise the " one thing needful for it"— This is the eternal unrighteousness of noble natures.

4. That which Preserves the Species.— The strongest and most evil spirits have hitherto advanced man- kind the most : they always rekindled the sleeping passions— all orderly arranged society lulls the passions to sleep ; they always reawakened the sense of comparison, of contradiction, of delight in the new, the adventurous, the untried ; they compelled men to set opinion against opinion, ideal plan against ideal plan. By means of arms, by upsetting boundary-stones, by violations of piety most of all : but also by new religions and morals ! The same kind of " wickedness " is in every teacher and preacher of the new— which makes a conqueror


40 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

infamous, although it expresses itself more refinedly, and does not immediately set the muscles in motion (and just on that account does not make so in- famous !). The new, however, is under all circum- stances the evil, as that which wants to conquer, which tries to upset the old boundary-stones and the old piety ; only the old is the good ! The good men of every age are those who go to the roots of the old thoughts and bear fruit with them, the agriculturists of the spirit. But every soil be- comes finally exhausted, and the ploughshare of evil must always come once more. — There is at present a fundamentally erroneous theory of morals which is much celebrated, especially in England : according to it the judgments " good " and " evil " are the accumulation of the experiences of that which is " expedient " and " inexpedient " ; accord- ing to this theory, that which is called good is conservative of the species, what is called evil, how- ever, is detrimental to it. But in reality the evil impulses are just in as high a degree expedient, indispensable, and conservative of the species as the good : — only, their function is different.

5.

Unconditional Duties. — All men who feel that they need the strongest words and intonations, the most eloquent gestures and attitudes, in order to operate at all — revolutionary politicians, socialists, preachers of repentance with or without Christianity, with all of whom there must be no mere half-success, — all these speak of "duties," and indeed, always of duties, which have the character of being uncon-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 41

ditional — without such they would have no right to their excessive pathos : they know that right well! They grasp, therefore, at philosophies of morality which preach some kind of categorical imperative, or they assimilate a good lump of religion, as, for example, Mazzini did. Because they want to be trusted unconditionally, it is first of all necessary for them to trust themselves uncon- ditionally, on the basis of some ultimate, undebat- able command, sublime in itself, as the ministers and instruments of which, they would fain feel and announce themselves. Here we have the most natural, and for the most part, very influential opponents of moral enlightenment and scepticism : but they are rare. On the other hand, there is always a very numerous class of those opponents wherever interest teaches subjection, while repute and honour seem to forbid it. He who feels himself dishonoured at the thought of being the instrument of a prince, or of a party and sect, or even of wealthy power (for example, as the descendant of a proud, ancient family), but wishes just to be this instrument, or must be so before himself and before the public — such a person has need of pathetic principles which can at all times be appealed to : — principles of an unconditional ought^ to which a person can subject himself without shame, and can show himself subjected. All more refined servility holds fast to the categorical impera- tive, and is the mortal enemy of those who want to take away the unconditional character of duty; propriety demands this from them, and not only propriety.


42 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I


6.


Loss of Dignity. — Meditation has lost all its dignity of form ; the ceremonial and solemn bearing of the meditative person have been made a mockery, and one would no longer endure a wise man of the old style. We think too hastily and on the way and while walking and in the midst of business of all kinds, even when we think on the most serious matters ; we require little preparation, even little quiet:— it is as if each of us carried about an unceasingly revolving machine in his head, which still works, even under the most unfavourable cir- cumstances. Formerly it was perceived in a person that on some occasion he wanted to think— it was perhaps the exception !— that he now wanted to become wiser and collected his mind on a thought : he put on a long face for it, as for a prayer, and arrested his step-nay, stood still for hours on the street when the thought "came"— on one ^ or on two legs. It was thus " worthy of the affair " !

7.

Something for the Laborious.— Yi^ who at present wants to make moral questions a subject of study has an immense field of labour before him. All kinds of passions must be thought about singly, and followed singly throughout periods, peoples, great and insignificant individuals ; all their ration- ality all their valuations and elucidations of things, ought to come to light! Hitherto all that has given colour to existence has lacked a history: where would one find a history of love, of avarice,


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 43

of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty ? Even a comparative history of law, as also of punish- ment, has hitherto been completely lacking. Have the different divisions of the day, the consequences of a regular appointment of the times for labour, feast, and repose, ever been made the object of investigation? Do we know the moral effects of the alimentary substances ? Is there a philosophy of nutrition? (The ever-recurring outcry for and against vegetarianism proves that as yet there is no such philosophy!) Have the experiences with regard to communal living, for example, in monasteries, been collected? Has the dialectic of marriage and friendship been set forth? The customs of the learned, of trades-people, of artists, and of mechanics — have they already found theii thinkers ? There is so much to think of thereon ! All that up till now has been considered as the " conditions of existence," of human beings, and all reason, passion and superstition in this considera- tion — have they been investigated to the end? The observation alone of the different degrees of development which the human impulses have attained, and, could yet attain, according to the different moral climates, would furnish too much work for the most laborious ; whole generations, and regular co-operating generations of the learned, would be needed in order to exhaust the points of view and the material here furnished. The same is true of the determining of the reasons for the differences of the moral climates (" on what account does this sun of a fundamental moral judg- ment and standard of highest value shine here — and


44 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

that sun there ? ")• And there is again a new labour which points out the erroneousness of all these reasons, and determines the entire essence of the moral judgments hitherto made. Supposing all these labours to be accomplished, the most critical of all questions would then come into the foreground : whether science is in a position to furnish goals for human action, after it has proved that it can take them away and annihilate them— and then would be the time for a process of experimenting, in which every kind of heroism could satisfy itself, an experimenting for centuries, which would put into the shade all the great labours and sacrifices of previous history. Science has not hitherto built its Cyclopic structures ; for that also the time will come.

8.

Unconscious Virtues. — All qualities in a man of which he is conscious— and especially when he presumes that they are visible and evident to his environment also— are subject to quite other laws of development than those qualities which are un- known to him, or imperfectly known, which by their subtlety can also conceal themselves from the subtlest observer, and hide as it were behind nothing,— as in the case of the delicate sculptures on the scales of reptiles (it would be an error to suppose them an adornment or a defence— for one sees them only with the microscope ; consequently, with an eye artificially strengthened to an extent of vision which similar animals, to which they might perhaps have meant adornment or defence,


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 45

do not possess !). Our visible moral qualities, and especially our moral qualities believed to be visible, follow their own course, — and our invisible qualities of similar name, which in relation to others neither serve for adornment nor defence, also follow their own course : quite a different course probably, and with lines and refinements, and sculptures, which might perhaps give pleasure to a God with a divine microscope. We have, for example, our diligence, our ambition, our acuteness : all the world knows about them, — and besides, we have probably once more our diligence, our ambition, our acuteness ; but for these — our reptile scales — the microscope has not yet been invented ! — And here the adherents of instinctive morality will say, "Bravo! He at least regards unconscious virtues as possible — that suffices us 1 " — Oh, ye unexacting creatures !

9.

Our Eruptions. — Numberless things which humanity acquired in its earlier stages, but so weakly and embryonically that it could not be noticed that they were acquired, are thrust suddenly into light long afterwards, perhaps after the lapse of centuries : they have in the interval become strong and mature. In some ages this or that talent, this or that virtue seems to be entirely lacking, as it is in some men ; but let us wait only for the grandchildren and grandchildren's children, if we have time to wait, — they bring the interior of their grandfathers into the sun, that interior of which the grandfathers themselves were unconscious. The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of his father ;


46 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

the latter understands himself better since he has got his son. We have all hidden gardens and plantations in us ; and by another simile, we are all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of. eruption : — how near or how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not even the good God.

10.

A Species of Atavism. — I like best to think of the rare men of an age as suddenly emerging after- shoots of past cultures, and of their persistent strength : like the atavism of a people and its civili- sation : — there is thus still something in them to think of! They now seem strange, rare, and extra- ordinary : and he who feels these forces in himself has to foster them in face of a different, opposing world ; he has to defend them, honour them, and rear them to maturity : and he either becomes a great man thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person, if he does not altogether break down betimes. Formerly these rare qualities were usual, and were conse- quently regarded as common : they did not dis- tinguish people. Perhaps they were demanded and presupposed ; it was impossible to become great with them, for indeed there was also no danger of becoming insane and solitary with them. — It is principally in the old-established families and castes of a people that such after-effects of old impulses present themselves, while there is no probability of such atavism where races, habits, and valuations change too rapidly. For the tempo of the evolutional forces in peoples implies just as much as in music ; for our case an andante of


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 47

evolution is absolutely necessary, as the tempo of a passionate and slow spirit : — and the spirit of con- serving families is certainly of that sort.

II.

Consciousness. — Consciousness is the last and latest development of the organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least powerful of these developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out of consciousness, which, " in spite of fate," as Homer says, cause an animal or a man to break down earlier than might be necessary. If the conserv- ing bond of the instincts were not very much more powerful, it would not generally serve as a regulator : by perverse judging and dreaming with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity, in short, just by consciousness, mankind would necessarily have broken down : or rather, without the former there would long ago have been nothing more of the latter ! Before a function is fully formed and matured, it is a danger to the organism : all the better if it be then thoroughly tyrannised over ! Consciousness is thus thoroughly tyrannised over — and not least by the pride in it ! It is thought that here is the quintessence of man ; that which is enduring, eternal, ultimate, and most original in him ! Consciousness is regarded as a fixed, given magnitude ! Its growth and intermit- tences are denied ! It is accepted as the " unity of the organism " ! — This ludicrous overvaluation and misconception of consciousness has as its result the great utility that a too rapid maturing of it has thereby been hindered. Because men believed that


48 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

they already possessed consciousness, they gave themselves very little trouble to acquire it— and even now it is not otherwise! It is still an entirely new problem just dawning on the human eye, and hardly yet plainly recognisable :^ to embody knowledge in ourselves and make it instinctive,— a problem which is only seen by those who have grasped the fact that hitherto our errors alone have been embodied in us, and that all our consciousness is relative to errors !


12.


The Goal of Science.— V^\\.'d!i ? The ultimate goal of science is to create the most pleasure possible to man, and the least possible pain? But what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who wants the greatest possible amount of the one must also have the greatest possible amount of the other,— that he who wants to experience the « heavenly high jubilation," * must also be ready to be " sorrowful unto death " ? * And it is so, perhaps ! The Stoics at least believed it was so, and they were consistent when they wished to have the least possible pleasure, in order to have the least possible pain from life. (When one uses the expression: " The virtuous man is the happiest," it is as much the sign-board of the school for the masses, as a casuistic subtlety for the subtle.) At present also ye have still the choice: either the least possible pain, in short painlessness— and after all,

♦ Allusions to the song of Clara in Goethe's " Egmont." — Tr.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 49

socialists and politicians of all parties could not honourably promise more to their people, — or the greatest possible amount of pain, as the price of the growth of a fullness of refined delights and enjoyments rarely tasted hitherto ! If ye decide for the former, if ye therefore want to depress and minimise man's capacity for pain, well, ye must also depress and minimise his capacity for enjoy- ment. In fact, one can further the one as well as the other goal by science! Perhaps science is as yet best known by its capacity for depriving man of enjoyment, and making him colder, more statuesque, and more Stoical. But it might also turn out to be the great pain-bringer ! — And then, perhaps, its counteracting force would be discovered simultaneously, its immense capacity for making new sidereal worlds of enjoyment beam forth !


13.

The Theory of the Sense of Power. — We exercise our power over others by doing them good or by doing them ill— that is all we care for! Doing ill to those on whom we have to make our power felt ; for pain is a far more sensitive means for that purpose than pleasure : — pain always asks concerning the cause, while pleasure is inclined to keep within itself and not look backward. Doing good and being kind to those who are in any way already dependent on us (that is, who are accustomed to think of us as their raison Sitre)\ we want to increase their power, because we thus increase our own; or we want to show 4


CO THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

them the advantage there is in being in our power,-they thus become more contented with their position, and more hostile to the enem.es of our power and readier to contend with them. If we make sacrifices in doing good or m doing lU, it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions ; even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs for the sake of our church, it is a sacrifice to our longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power. He who under these "rcum- stances feels that he "is in possession of ""«> how many possessions does he not '«' 6°. '" °'-der to preserve this feeling 1 What does he not throw oveAoard, in order to keep himsel "up,"-that to say. J.« the others who lack the "truth Certainly the condition we are in when we do lU is seldom so pleasant, so purely P e^^^n> ,^.=^ *^' in which we practise kindness,-it is an indication thaTwe still lack power, or it betrays ill-humour at this defect in us ; it brings with it new dangers tnd uncertainties as to the power we already possess, and clouds our horizon by the P-^,?;;,' ° revenge, scorn, punishment and failure. Perhaps only thise most susceptible to the sense of power and eager for it, will prefer to impress the seal of power In the resisting individual.-those to whom the sight of the already subjugated person as the Ob e t of benevolence is a burden and a teduin. It is a question how a person is accustomed to season his life; it is amctter of taste whether a p^on would ;ather have the slow or the sudden the safe or the dangerous and daring increase of power -he seeks this or that seasoning always


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 5 1

according to his temperament. An easy booty is something contemptible to proud natures ; they have an agreeable sensation only at the sight of men of unbroken spirit who could be enemies to them, and similarly, also, at the sight of all not easily accessible possession ; they are often hard toward the sufferer, for he is not worthy of their effort or their pride, — but they show themselves so much the more courteous towards their equals, with whom strife and struggle would in any case be full of honour, if at any time an occasion for it should present itself. It is under the agreeable feelings of this perspective that the members of the knightly caste have habituated themselves to ex- quisite courtesy toward one another. — Pity is the most pleasant feeling in those who have not much pride, and have no prospect of great conquests: the easy booty — and that is what every sufferer is — is for them an enchanting thing. Pity is said to be the virtue of the gay lady.

14.

What is called Love. — The lust of property, and love : what different associations each of these ideas evoke! — and yet it might be the same im- pulse twice named : on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint of those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained something of repose, — who are now apprehensive for the safety of their "possession"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of the unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as "good." Our


52 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

love of our neighbour, — is it not a striving after new property ? And similarly our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the striving after novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old and securely possessed, and again stretch out our hands ; even the finest landscape in which we live for three months is no longer certain of our love, and any kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness : the possession for the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our pleasure in ourselves seeks to maintain itself by always transforming something new into ourselves^ — that is just possess- ing. To become satiated with a possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves. (One can also suffer from excess, — even the desire to cast away, to share out, may assume the honourable name of " love.") When we see any one suffering, we willingly utilise the opportunity then afforded to take posses- sion of him ; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for example, does this ; he also calls the desire for new possession awakened in him, by the name of "love," and has enjoyment in it, as in a new acquisition suggesting itself to him. The love of the sexes, however, betrays itself most plainly as the striving after possession : the lover wants the unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed for by him ; he wants just as absolute power over her soul as over her body ; he wants to be loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as what is highest and most to be desired. When one considers that this means precisely to ex- clude all the world from a precious possession, a happiness, and an enjoyment ; when one considers


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 53

that the lover has in view the impoverishment and privation of all other rivals, and would like to become the dragon of his golden hoard, as the most inconsiderate and selfish of all " conquerors " and exploiters ; when one considers finally that to the lover himself, the whole world besides appears indifferent, colourless, and worthless, and that he is ready to make every sacrifice, disturb every arrangement, and put every other interest behind his own, — one is verily surprised that this ferocious lust of property and injustice of sexual love should have been glorified and deified to such an extent at all times ; yea, that out of this love the conception of love as the antithesis of egoism should have been derived, when it is perhaps precisely the most un- qualified expression of egoism. Here, evidently, the non-possessors and desirers have determined the usage of language, — there were, of course, always too many of them. Those who have been favoured with much possession and satiety, have, to be sure, dropped a word now and then about the " raging demon," as, for instance, the most lovable and most beloved of all the Athenians — Sophocles ; but Eros always laughed at such revilers, — they were always his greatest favourites. — There is, of course, here and there on this terrestrial sphere a kind of sequel to love, in which that covetous longing of two persons for one another has yielded to a new desire and covetousness, to a common, higher thirst for a superior ideal standing above them : but who knows this love? Who has experienced it? Its right name \s friendship.


54 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

15.

Out of the Distance. — This mountain makes the whole district which it dominates charming in every way, and full of significance. After we have said this to ourselves for the hundredth time, we are so irrationally and so gratefully disposed to- wards it, as the giver of this charm, that we fancy it must itself be the most charming thing in the district — and so we climb it, and are undeceived. All of a sudden, both it and the landscape around us and under us, are as it were disenchanted ; we had forgotten that many a great- ness, like many a goodness, wants only to be seen at a certain distance, and entirely from below, not from above, — it is thus only that it operates. Per- haps you know men in your neighbourhood who can only look at themselves from a certain distance to find themselves at all endurable, or attractive and enlivening ; they are to be dissuaded from self- knowledge.

16. Across the Plank.— On^ must be able to dis- simulate in intercourse with persons who are ashamed of their feelings ; they take a sudden aversion to anyone who surprises them in a state of tenderness, or of enthusiastic and high- running feeling, as if he had seen their secrets. If one wants to be kind to them in such moments one should make them laugh, or say some kind of cold, playful wickedness :— their feeling thereby congeals, and they are again self-possessed. But I give the moral before the story.— We were once


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 55

on a time so near one another in the course of our lives, that nothing more seemed to hinder our friendship and fraternity, and there was merely a small plank between us. While you were just about to step on it, I asked you : " Do you want to come across the plank to me?" But then you did not want to come any longer ; and when I again entreated, you were silent. Since then mountains and torrents, and whatever separates and alienates, have interposed between us, and even if we wanted to come to one another, we could no longer do so ! When, however, you now remember that small plank, you have no longer words,— but merely sobs and amazement.

17.

Motivation of Poverty. — We cannot, to be sure, by any artifice make a rich and richly-flowing virtue out of a poor one, but we can gracefully enough reinterpret its poverty into necessity, so that its aspect no longer gives pain to us, and we cease making reproachful faces at fate on account of it. It is thus that the wise gardener does who puts the tiny streamlet of his garden into the arms of a fountain-nymph, and thus motivates the poverty :— and who would not like him need the nymphs !


Ancient Pride. — The ancient savour of nobility is lacking in us, because the ancient slave is lacking in our sentiment. A Greek of noble descent found such immense intermediate stages, and such a distance betwixt his elevation and that ultimate


56 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

baseness, that he could hardly even see the slave plainly : even Plato no longer saw him entirely. It is otherwise with us, accustomed as we are to the doctrine of the equality of men, although not to the equality itself A being who has not the free disposal of himself and has not got leisure, — that is not regarded by us as anything con- temptible ; there is perhaps too much of this kind of slavishness in each of us, in accordance with the conditions of our social order and activity, which are fundamentally different from those of the ancients. — The Greek philosopher went through life with the secret feeling that there were many more slaves than people supposed — that is to say, that every one was a slave who was not a philosopher. His pride was puffed up when he considered that even the mightiest of the earth were thus to be looked upon as slaves. This pride is also unfamiliar to us, and impossible ; the word " slave " has not its full force for us even in simile.

19.

Evil. — Test the life of the best and most pro- ductive men and nations, and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly heaven- ward can dispense with bad weather and tempests : whether disfavour and opposition from without, whether every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubborn- ness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to the favouring circumstances without which a great growth even in virtue is hardly possible ? The poison by which the weaker nature


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I S7

is destroyed is strengthening to the strong indi- vidual — and he does not call it poison.

20. Dignity of Folly. — Several millenniums further on in the path of the last century ! — and in every- thing that man does the highest prudence will be exhibited : but just thereby prudence will have lost all its dignity. It will then, sure enough, be necessary to be prudent, but it will also be so usual and common, that a more fastidious taste will feel this necessity as vulgarity. And just as a tyranny of truth and science would be in a position to raise the value of falsehood, a tyranny of prudence could force into prominence a new species of noble- ness. To be noble — that might then mean, perhaps, to be capable of follies.

21.

To the Teachers of Unselfishness. — The virtues of a man are called good, not in respect to the results they have for himself, but in respect to the results which we expect therefrom for ourselves and for society: — we have all along had very little unselfish- ness, very little " non-egoism " in our praise of the virtues ! For otherwise it could not but have been seen that the virtues (such as diligence, obedience, chastity, piety, justice) are mostly injurious to their possessors, as impulses which rule in them too vehemently and ardently, and do not want to be kept in co-ordination with the other im- pulses by the reason. If you have a virtue, an actual, perfect virtue (and not merely a kind of


58 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

impulse towards virtue !)-you are its victim / But your neighbour praises your virtue precisely on that account ! One praises the diligent man though he injures his sight, or the originality and freshness of his spirit, by his diligence; the youth is honoured and regretted who has "worn himself out by work," because one passes the judgnient that "for society as a whole the loss of the best individual is only a small sacrifice! A pity that this sacrifice should be necessary ! A much greater pity it is true, if the individual should thmk differ- ently, and regard his preservation and development as more important than his work in the service of society'" And so one regrets this youth, not on his own account, but because a devoted instrument, regardless of self-a so-called "good man, has been lost to society by his death Perhaps one further considers the question, whether it would not have been more advantageous for the interests of society if he had laboured with less disregard of himself, and had preserved himself longer,-mdeed one readily admits an advantage therefrom but one esteems the other advantage, namely, that a sacrifice has been made, and that the disposition of the sacrificial animal has once more been obvtously endorsed-as higher and more enduring. It is accordingly, on the one part the instrumental character in the virtues which is praised when the virtues are praised, and on the other part the blind, ruling impulse in every virtue which refuses to let itself be kept within bounds by the general advantage to the individual; in short, _ what is praised is the unreason in the virtues, in conse-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 59

quencc of which the individual allows himself to be transformed into a function of the whole. The praise of the virtues is the praise of something which is privately injurious to the individual ; it is praise of impulses which deprive man of his noblest self-love, and the power to take the best care of himself. To be sure, for the teaching and embody- ing of virtuous habits a series of effects of virtue are displayed, which make it appear that virtue and private advantage are closely related, — and there is in fact such a relationship ! Blindly furious diligence, for example, the typical virtue of an instrument, is represented as the way to riches and honour, and as the most beneficial antidote to tedium and passion : but people are silent concern- ing its danger, its greatest dangerousness. Educa- tion proceeds in this manner throughout : it endeavours, by a series of enticements and advan- tages, to determine the individual to a certain mode of thinking and acting, which, when it has become habit, impulse and passion, rules in him and over him, in opposition to his ultimate advantage^ but " for the general good." How often do I see that blindly furious diligence does indeed create riches and honours, but at the same time deprives the organs of the refinement by virtue of which alone an enjoyment of riches and honours is possible ; so that really the main expedient for combating tedium and passion, simultaneously blunts the senses and makes the spirit refractory towards new stimuli ! (The busiest of all ages — our age — does not know how to make anything out of its great diligence and wealth, except always


6o THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

more and more wealth, and more and more diligence; there is even more genius needed for laying out wealth than for acquiring it!— Well, we shall have our "grandchildren"!) If the educa- tion succeeds, every virtue of the individual is a . public utility, and a private disadvantage in respect to the highest private end,— probably some psycho- aesthetic stunting, or even premature dissolution. One should consider successively from the same standpoint the virtues of obedience, chastity, piety, and justice. The praise of the unselfish, self- sacrificing, virtuous person— he, consequently, who does not expend his whole energy and reason for his own conservation, development, elevation, furtherance and augmentation of power, but lives as regards himself unassumingly and thoughtlessly, perhaps even indifferently or ironically,— this praise has in any case not originated out of the spirit of unselfishness ! The " neighbour " praises unselfish- ness because he profits by it! If the neighbour were "unselfishly" disposed himself, he would reject that destruction of power, that injury for his advantage, he would thwart such inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his unselfishness just by not giving it a good name! The fundamental contradiction in that morality which at present stands in high honour is here indicated : the motives to such a morality are in antithesis to its principle! That with which this morality wishes to prove itself, refutes it out of. its criterion of what is moral ! The maxim, " Thou Shalt renounce thyself and offer . thyself as a sacrifice," in order not to be inconsistent with its


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 6 1

own morality, could only be decreed by a being who himself renounced his own advantage thereby, and who perhaps in the required self-sacrifice of individuals brought about his own dissolution. As soon, however, as the neighbour (or society) recommended altruism on account of its utility, the precisely antithetical proposition, " Thou shalt seek thy advantage even at the expense of everybody else," was brought into use: accordingly, "thou shalt," and " thou shalt not," are preached in one breath !

22.

LOrdre du Jour pour le i?^/.— The day com- mences : let us begin to arrange for this day the business and fetes of our most gracious lord, who at present is still pleased to repose. His Majesty has bad weather to-day : we shall be careful not to call it bad; we shall not speak of the weather,— but we shall go through to-day's business somewhat more ceremoniously and make the fgtes somewhat more festive than would otherwise be necessary. His Majesty may perhaps even be sick : we shall give the last good news of the evening at breakfast, the arrival of M. Montaigne, who knows how to joke so pleasantly about his sickness,— he suffers from stone. We shall receive several persons (persons ! — what would that old inflated frog, who will be among them, say, if he heard this word ! " I am no person," he would say, "but always the thing itself ")— and the reception will last longer than is pleasant to anybody; a sufficient reason for telling about the poet who wrote over his door, " He who


62 THE JOYFUL WISDOM,

enters here will do me an honour ; he who does not— a favour."— That is, forsooth, saying a discour- teous thing in a courteous manner ! And perhaps this poet is quite justified on his part in being discourteous ; they say that his rhymes are better than the rhymester. Well, let him still make many of them, and withdraw himself as much as possible from the world: and that is doubtless the signi- ficance of his well-bred rudeness! A prince, on the other hand, is always of more value than his "verse," even when — but what are we about ? We gossip, and the whole court believes that we have already been at work and racked our brains : there is no light to be seen earlier than that which burns in our window.— Hark ! Was that not the bell? The devil! The day and the dance commence, and we do not know our rounds ! We must then improvise, — all the world improvises its day. To- day, let us for once do like all the world !— And therewith vanished my wonderful morning dream, probably owing to the violent strokes of the tower- clock, which just then announced the fifth hour with all the importance which is peculiar to it. It seems to me that on this occasion the God of dreams wanted to make merry over my habits,— it is my habit to commence the day by arranging » it properly, to make it endurable for myself, and it is possible that I may often have done this too formally, and too much like a prince.

23-

The Characteristics of Corruption.— 'LQt us observe the following characteristics in that condition of


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 63

society from time to time necessary, which is desig- nated by the word " corruption," I mmediately upon the appearance of corruption anywhere, a motley superstition gets the upper hand, and the hitherto universal belief of a people becomes colourless and impotent in comparison with it ; for superstition is freethinking of the second rank,— he who gives himself over to it selects certain forms and formulae which appeal to him, and permits himself a right of choice. The superstitious man is always much more of a " person," in comparison with the religious man, and a superstitious society will be one in which there are many individuals, and a delight in individuality. Seen from this standpoint supersti- tion always appears as a progress in comparison with belief, and as a sign that the intellect becomes more independent and claims to have its rights. Those who reverence the old religion and the religious disposition then complain of corruption, — they have hitherto also determined the usage of language, and have given a bad repute to supersti- tion, even among the freest spirits. Let us learn that it is a symptom of enlightenment. — Secondly, a society in which corruption takes a hold is blamed for effeminacy: for the appreciation of war, and the delight in war, perceptibly diminish in such a society, and the conveniences of life are now just as eagerly sought after as were military and gymnastic honours formerly. But one is accus- tomed to overlook the fact that the old national energy and national passion, which acquired a magnificent splendour in war and in the tourney, has now transferred itself into innumerable private


64 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

passions, and has merely become less visible; indeed in periods of " corruption " the quantity and quality of the expended energy of a people is prob- ably greater than ever, and the individual spends it lavishly, to such an extent as could not be done formerly — he was not then rich enough to do so ! And thus it is precisely in times of " effeminacy " that tragedy runs at large in and out of doors, it is then that ardent love and ardent hatred are born, and the flame of knowledge flashes heaven- ward in full blaze. — Thirdly, as if in amends for the reproach of superstition and effeminacy, it is cus- tomary to say of such periods of corruption that they are milder, and that cruelty has then greatly diminished in comparison with the older, more credulous, and stronger period. But to this praise I am just as little able to assent as to that reproach : I only grant so much — namely, that cruelty now becomes more refined, and its older forms are henceforth counter to the taste ; but the wounding and torturing by word and look reaches its highest development in times of corruption, — it is now only that wickedness is created, and the delight in wicked- ness. The men of the period of corruption are witty and calumnious ; they know that there are yet other ways of murdering than by the dagger and the ambush — they know also that all that is well said is believed in. — Fourthly, it is when " morals decay " that those beings whoTi one calls tyrants first make their appearance ; they are the forerunners of the individual, and as it were early matured firstlings. Yet a little while, and this fruit of fruits hangs ripe and yellow on the tree of


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 6$

a people, — and only for the sake of such fruit did this tree exist ! When the decay has reached its worst, and likewise the conflict of all sorts of tyrants, there always arises the Caesar, the final tyrant, who puts an end to the exhausted struggle for sove- reignty, by making the exhaustedness work for him. In his time the individual is usually most mature, and consequently the "culture" is highest and most fruitful, but not on his account nor through him : although the men of highest culture love to flatter their Caesar by pretending that they are Ms creation. The truth, however, is that they need quietness externally, because they have disquietude and labour internally. In these times bribery and treason are at their height : for the love of the e£^o, then first discovered, is much more powerful than the love of the old, used-up, hackneyed "father- land" ; and the need to be secure in one way or other against the frightful fluctuations of fortune, opens even the nobler hands, as soon as a richer and more powerful person shows himself ready to put gold into them. There is then so little certainty with regard to the future ; people live only for the day : a psychical condition which enables every deceiver to play an easy game, — people of course only let themselves be misled and bribed " for the present," and reserve for themselves futurity and virtue. The individuals, as is well known, the men who only live for themselves, provide for the moment more than do their opposites, the gregarious men, because they consider themselves just as incalcul- able as the future ; and similarly they attach them- selves willingly to despots, because they believe 5


65 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

themselves capable of activities and expedients, which can neither reckon on being understood by the multitude, nor on finding favour with them - but the tyrant or the C^sar understands the rights of the individual even in his excesses, and has an interest in speaking on behalf of a bolder private morality, and even in giving his hand to it For he thinks of himself, and wishes people to think of him what Napoleon once uttered in his classica style—" I have the right to answer by an eternal 'thus I am' to everything about which complaint is brought against me. I am apart from all the world. I accept conditions from nobody I wish people also to submit to my fancies, and to take it quite as a simple matter, if I should indulge in this or that diversion." Thus spoke Napoleon once to his wife, when she had reasons for calling in question the fidelity of her husband.-The times of corruption are the seasons when the apples fall from the tree: I mean the individuals, the seed- bearers of the future, the pioneers of spiritua colonisation, and of a new construction of national and social unions. Corruption is only an abusive term for the harvest time of a people.

24. Different Dissatisfactions.— 1\iQ feeble and as it were feminine dissatisfied people, have ingenuity for beautifying and deepening life; the strong dissatisfied people-the masculine persons among them to continue the metaphor— have ingenuity for improving and safeguarding life. The former


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 6/

show their weakness and feminine character by willingly letting themselves be temporarily deceived, and perhaps even by putting up with a little ecstasy and enthusiasm on a time, but on the whole they are never to be satisfied, and suffer from the incurability of their dissatisfaction ; moreover they are the patrons of all those who manage to concoct opiate and narcotic comforts, and on that account are averse to those who value the physician higher than the priest, — they thereby encourage the continuance of actual distress ! If there had not been a surplus of dissatisfied persons of this kind in Europe since the time of the Middle Ages, the remarkable capacity of Europeans for constant transformation would perhaps not have originated at all ; for the claims of the strong dissatisfied persons are too gross, and really too modest to resist being finally quieted down. China is an instance of a country in which dissatisfaction on a grand scale and the capacity for transformation have died out for many centuries ; and the Socialists and state-idolaters of Europe could easily bring things to Chinese conditions and to a Chinese " happiness," with their measures for the ameliora- tion and security of life, provided that they could first of all root out the sicklier, tenderer, more feminine dissatisfaction and Romanticism which are still very abundant among us. Europe is an invalid who owes her best thanks to her incurability and the eternal transformations of her sufferings ; these constant new situations, these equally con- stant new dangers, pains, and make-shifts, have at last generated an intellectual sensitiveness which is


68 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

almost equal to genius, and is in any case the mother of all genius.

25. Not Pre-ordained to Knowledge.— There is a pur- blind humility not at all rare, and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once for all disquahfied for being a disciple of knowledge. It is this in fact: the moment a man of this kind perceives anything striking, he turns as it were on his heel and says to himself: "You have deceived yourself! Where have your wits been! This cannot be the truth ! "-and then, instead of looking at it and listening to it with more attention, he runs out of the way of the striking object as if intimidated, and seeks to get it out of his head as q^ckly as oossible. For his fundamental rule runs thus : 1 want to see nothing that contradicts the "sual opinion concerning things ! Am / created for the purpose of discovering new truths? There are already too many of the old ones."

26.

What is i,Vm^?-Living-thatis to continually eliminate from ourselves what is about to die; L "ng-that is to be cruel and inexorable towards all that becomes weak and old in ourselves and not only in ourselves. Living-that means, there- ?ore to be without piety toward the dymg, the wretched and the old? To be continually a mur- derer p-And yet old Moses said : " Thou shalt not kill!"


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 69

27.

The Self-Renouncer. — What does the self- renouncer do? He strives after a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher than all men of affirmation — he throws away many things that would impede his flight, and several things among them that are not valueless, that are not unpleasant to him : he sacrifices them to his desire for elevation. Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the very thing which becomes visible in him : on that account one calls him a self- renouncer, and as such he stands before us, enveloped in his cowl, and as the soul of a hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which he makes upon us he is well content: he wants to keep concealed from us his desire, his pride, his intention of flying above us. — Yes ! He is wiser than we thought, and so courteous towards us — this aflfirmer! For that is what he is, like us, even in his self-renunciation.


28.

Injuring with one's best Qualities. — Our strong points sometimes drive us so far forward that we cannot any longer endure our weaknesses, and we perish by them : we also perhaps see this result beforehand, but nevertheless do not want it to be otherwise. We then become hard towards that which would fain be spared in us, and our pitiless - ness is also our greatness. Such an experience, which must in the end cost us our liie, is a symbol


i


70 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

of the collective effect of great men upon others and upon their epoch :— it is just with their best abilities, with that which only they can do, that they destroy much that is weak, uncertain, evolving, and willing, and are thereby injurious. Indeed, the case may happen in which, taken on the whole, they only do injury, because their best is accepted and drunk up as it were solely by those who lose their understanding and their egoism by it, as by too strong a beverage ; they become so intoxicated that they go breaking their limbs on all the wrong roads where their drunkenness drives them.

29.

Adventitious Liars. — ^hen people began to combat the unity of Aristotle in France, and con- sequently also to defend it, there was once more to be seen that which has been seen so often, but seen so unwillingly -.—people imposed false reasons on themselves on account of which those laws ought to exist, merely for the sake of not acknowledgmg to themselves that they had accustomed themselves to the authority of those laws, and did not want any longer to have things otherwise. And people do so in every prevailing morality and religion, and have always done so: the reasons and intentions behind the habit, are only added surreptitiously when people begin to combat the habit, and ask for reasons and intentions. It is here that the great dishonesty of the conservatives of all times hides : —they are adventitious liars.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 7*

30.

The Comedy of Celebrated Men. — Celebrated men who need their fame, as, for instance, all politicians, no longer select their associates and friends without fore-thought: from the one they want a portion of the splendour and reflection of his virtues ; from the other they want the fear-inspiring power of certain dubious qualities in him, of which every- body is aware ; from another they steal his reputa- tion for idleness and basking in the sun, because it is advantageous for their own ends to be regarded temporarily as heedless and lazy : — it conceals the fact that they lie in ambush; they now use the visionaries, now the experts, now the brooders, now the pedants in their neighbourhood, as their actual selves for the time; but very soon they do not need them any longer ! And thus while their en- vironment and outside die off continually, every- thing seems to crowd into this environment, and wants to become a " character " of it ; they are like great cities in this respect. Their repute is continually in process of mutation, like their character, for their changing methods require this change, and they show and exhibit sometimes this and sometimes that actual or fictitious quality on the stage ; their friends and associates, as we have said, belong to these stage properties. On the other hand, that which they aim at must remain so much the more steadfast, and burnished and resplendent in the distance,— and this also sometimes needs its comedy and its stage-play.


72 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

31-

Commerce and Nodth'iy.— Buying and selling is now regarded as something ordinary, like the art of reading and writing ; everyone is now trained to it even when he is not a tradesman exercising himself daily in the art ; precisely as formerly in the period of uncivilised humanity, everyone was a hunter and exercised himself day by day in the art of hunting. Hunting was then something common : but just as this finally became a privilege of the powerful and noble, and thereby lost the character of the commonplace and the ordinary — by ceasing to be necessary and by becoming an affair of fancy and luxury,— so it might become the same some day with buying and selling. Condi- tions of society are imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in which the necessity for this art will become quite lost ; perhaps it may then happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of the prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling as a luxury of sentiment. It is then only that commerce would acquire nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves just as readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and politics : while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then have entirely altered. Already even politics ceases to be the business of a gentleman ; and it is possible that one day it may be found to be so vulgar as to be brought, like all party literature and daily literature, under the rubric : " Prostitution of the intellect."


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 73

32.

Undesirable Disciples. — What shall I do with these two youths! called out a philosopher dejectedly, who "corrupted" youths, as Socrates had once corrupted them, — they are unwelcome disciples to me. One of them cannot say " Nay," and the other says " Half and half" to everything. Provided they grasped my doctrine, the former would suffer too much, for my mode of thinking requires a martial soul, willingness to cause pain, delight in denying, and a hard skin, — he would succumb by open wounds and internal injuries. And the other will choose the mediocre in every- thing he represents, and thus make a mediocrity of the whole, — I should like my enemy to have such a disciple.

33.

Outside the Lecture-room. — " In order to prove that man after all belongs to the good-natured animals, I would remind you how credulous he has been for so long a time. It is now only, quite late, and after an immense self-conquest, that he has become a distrustful animal, — yes ! man is now more wicked than ever." — I do not understand this ; why should man now be more distrustful and more wicked? — "Because now he has science, — because he needs to have it ! " —

34.

Historia abscondita. — Every great man has a power which operates backward ; all history is


74 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

again placed on the scales on his account, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their lurking-places— into his sunlight. There is ab- solutely no knowing what history may be some day The past is still perhaps undiscovered in its essence! There is yet so much reintrepretmg ability needed 1

35.

Heresy and Witchcraft-lo think otherwise than is customary-that is by no means so much the activity of a better intellect, as the activity of strong, wicked inclinations,— severing, isolating, refractory, mischief-loving, malicious inclinations. Heresy is the counterpart of witchcraft, and is certainly just as little a merely harmless affair, or a thing worthy of honour in itself. Heretics and sorcerers are two kinds of bad men ; they have it in common that they also feel themselves wicked; their unconquerable delight is to attack and injure whatever rules,-whether it be men or opinions. The Reformation, a kind of duplication of the spirit of the Middle Ages at a time when it had no longer a good conscience, produced both of these kinds of people in the greatest profusion.

36. Last Words.-lt will be recollected that the Emperor Augustus, that terrible man, who had himself as much in his own power and could be silent as well as any wise Socrates, became indiscreet about himself in his last words; for


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 75

the first time he let his mask fall, when he gave to understand that he had carried a mask and played a comedy, — he had played the father of his country and wisdom on the throne well, even to the point of illusion I Plaudite amiciy comoedia finita est ! — The thought of the dying Nero: qualis artifex pereo ! was also the thought of the dying Augustus : histrionic conceit! histrionic loquacity! And the very counterpart to the dying Socrates! — But Tiberius died silently, that most tortured of all self-torturers, — he was genuine and not a stage- player! What may have passed through his head in the end ! Perhaps this : " Life — that is a long death. I am a fool, who shortened the lives of so many ! Was / created for the purpose of being a benefactor ? I should have given them eternal life : and then I could have seen them dying eternally. I had such good eyes for that : qualis spectator pereo!" When he seemed once more to regain his powers after a long death-struggle, it was considered advisable to smother him with pillows, — he died a double death.

37. Owingto three Errors. — Science has been furthered during recent centuries, partly because it was hoped that God's goodness and wisdom would be best understood therewith and thereby — the principal motive in the soul of great Englishmen (like Newton) ; partly because the absolute utility of knowledge was believed in, and especially the most intimate connection of morality, knowledge, and happiness — the principal motive in the soul of great


7^ THE JOYFUL WISDOM, 1

Frenchmen (like Voltaire) ; and partly because it was thought that in science there was something unselfish, harmless, self-sufficing, lovable, and truly innocent to be had, in which the evil human impulses did not at all participate — the principal motive in the soul of Spinoza, who felt himself divine, as a knowing being : — it is consequently owing to three errors that science has been furthered.

38.

Explosive People. — When one considers how ready are the forces of young men for discharge, one does not wonder at seeing them decide so uncritically and with so little selection for this or that cause : that which attracts them is the sight of eagerness for a cause, as ' it were the sight of the burning match — not the cause itself. The more ingenious seducers on that account operate by holding out the prospect of an explosion to such persons, and do not urge their cause by means of reasons ; these powder-barrels are not won over by means of reasons !

39. Altered Taste. — The alteration of the general taste is more important than the alteration of opinions ; opinions, with all their proving, refuting, and intellectual masquerade, are merely symptoms of altered taste, and are certainly not what they are still so often claimed to be, the causes of the altered taste. How does the general taste alter? By the fact of individuals, the powerful


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I ^7

and influential persons, expressing and tyrannically enforcing without any feeling of shame, their hoc est ridiculum, hoc est absurdum; the decisions, there- fore, of their taste and their disrelish : — they thereby lay a constraint upon many people, out of which there gradually grows a habituation for still more, and finally a necessity for all. The fact, however, that these individuals feel and " taste " differently, has usually its origin in a peculiarity of their mode of life, nourishment, or digestion, perhaps in a surplus or deficiency of the inorganic salts in their blood and brain, in short in their physis ; they have, however, the courage to avow their physical constitution, and to lend an ear even to the most delicate tones of its requirements : their aesthetic and moral judgments are those " most delicate tones " of their physis,

40.

The Lack of a noble Presence. — Soldiers and their leaders have always a much higher mode of com- portment toward one another than workmen and their employers. At present at least, all militarily established civilisation still stands high above all so-called industrial civilisation; the latter, in its present form, is in general the meanest mode of existence that has ever been. It is simply the law of necessity that operates here : people want to live, and have to sell themselves; but they despise him who exploits their necessity and purchases the workman. It is curious that the subjection to powerful, fear-inspiring, and even dreadful individuals, to tyrants and leaders of


78 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

armies, is not at all felt so painfully as the sub- jection to such undistinguished and uninteresting persons as the captains of industry ; in the em- ployer the workman usually sees merely a crafty, blood-sucking dog of a man, speculating on every necessity, whose name, form, character, and reputa- tion are altogether indifferent to him. It is prob- able that the manufacturers and great magnates of commerce have hitherto lacked too much all those forms and attributes of a superior race, which alone make persons interesting ; if they had had the nobility of the nobly-born in their looks and bearing, there would perhaps have been no socialism in the masses of the people. For these are really ready for slavery of every kind, provided that the superior class above them constantly shows itself legitimately superior, and born to command— by its noble presence ! The commonest man feels that nobility is not to be improvised, and that it is his part to honour it as the fruit of protracted race- culture,— but the absence of superior presence, and the notorious vulgarity of manufacturers with red, fat hands, brings up the thought to him that it is only chance and fortune that has here elevated the one above the other; well then — so he reasons with himself— let us in our turn tempt chance and fortune ! Let us in our turn throw the dice !— and socialism commences.

41.

Against Remorse. — The thinker sees in his own actions attempts and questionings to obtain information about something or other; success


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 79

and failure are answers to him first and foremost. To vex himself, however, because something does not succeed, or to feel remorse at all — he leaves that to those who act because they are commanded to do so, and expect to get a beating when their gracious master is not satisfied with the result.

42.

Work and Ennui. — In respect to seeking work for the sake of the pay, almost all men are alike at present in civilised countries ; to all of them work is a means, and not itself the end ; on which account they are not very select in the choice of the work, provided it yields an abundant profit. But still there are rarer men who would rather perish than work without delight in their labour : the fastidious people, difficult to satisfy, whose object is not served by an abundant profit, unless the work itself be the reward of all rewards. Artists and contemplative men of all kinds belong to this rare species of human beings ; and also the idlers who spend their life in hunting and travelling, or in love-affairs and adventures. They all seek toil and trouble in so far as these are associated with pleasure, and they want the severest and hardest labour, if it be necessary. In other respects, how- ever, they have a resolute indolence, even should impoverishment, dishonour, and danger to health and life be associated therewith. They are not so much afraid of ennui as of labour without pleasure ; indeed they require much ennui, if their work is to succeed with them. For the thinker and for all inventive spirits ennui is the unpleasant "calm"


8q the joyful wisdom, I

of the soul which precedes the happy voyage and the dancing breezes ; he must endure it, he must await the effect it has on him :— it is precisely this which lesser natures cannot at all experience ! It is common to scare away ennui in every way, just as it is common to labour without pleasure. It perhaps distinguishes the Asiatics above the Euro- peans, that they are capable of a longer and pro- founder repose ; even their narcotics operate slowly and require patience, in contrast to the obnoxious suddenness of the European poison, alcohol.

43- What the Laws Betray.— On& makes a great mis- take when one studies the penal laws of a people, as if they were an expression of its character ; the laws do not betray what a people is, but what appears to them foreign, strange, monstrous, and outlandish. The laws concern themselves with the exceptions to the morality of custom ; and the severest punishments fall on acts which conform to the customs of the neighbouring peoples. Thus among the Wahabites, there are only two mortal sms : having another God than the Wahabite God, and— smoking (it is designated by them as "the disgraceful kind of drinking"). "And how is it with regard to murder and adultery ? "-asked the Englishman with astonishment on learning these thmgs. Wei, God is gracious and pitiful!" answered the old chief —Thus among the ancient Romans there was the idea that a woman could only sin mortally in two ways : by adultery on the one hand, and— by wine-drinking on the other. Old Cato pretended


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, 1 8l

that kissing among relatives had only been made a custom in order to keep women in control on this point ; a kiss meant : did her breath smell of wine ? Wives had actually been punished by death who were surprised taking wine : and certainly not merely because women under the influence of wine sometimes unlearn altogether the art of saying No ; the Romans were afraid above all things of the orgi- astic and Dionysian spirit with which the women of Southern Europe at that time (when wine was still new in Europe) were sometimes visited, as by a monstrous foreignness which subverted the basis of Roman sentiments; it seemed to them treason against Rome, as the embodiment of foreignness.

44.

The Believed Motive. — However important it may be to know the motives according to which man- kind has really acted hitherto, perhaps the belief in this or that motive, and therefore that which mankind has assumed and imagined to be the actual mainspring of its activity hitherto, is some- thing still more essential for the thinker to know. For the internal happiness and misery of men have always come to them through their belief in this or that motive, — not however, through that which was actually the motive! All about the latter has an interest of secondary rank.

45. Epicurus, — Yes, I am proud of perceiving the character of Epicurus differently from anyone else 6


82 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

perhaps, and of enjoying the happiness of the afternoon of antiquity in all that I hear and read of him:— I see his eye gazing out on a broad whitish sea, over the shore-rocks on which the sunshine rests, while great and small creatures play in its light, secure and calm like this light and that eye itself. Such happiness could only have been devised by a chronic sufferer, the happiness of an eye before which the sea of existence has become calm, and which can no longer tire of gazing at the surface and at the variegated, tender, tremulous skin of this sea. Never previously was there such a moderation of voluptuousness.

46. Our Astonishment— There is a profound and fundamental satisfaction in the fact that science ascertains things that hold their ground, and again furnish the basis for new researches :— it could certainly be otherwise. Indeed, we are so much convinced of all the uncertainty and caprice of our judgments, and of the everlasting change of all human laws and conceptions, that we are really astonished how persistently the results of science hold their ground ! In earlier times people knew nothing of this changeability of all human things ; the custom of morality maintained the belief that the whole inner life of man was bound to iron necessity by eternal fetters :— perhaps people then felt a similar voluptuousness of astonishment when they listened to tales and fairy stories. The wonderful did so much good to those men, who might well get tired sometimes of the regular and


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 83

the eternal. To leave the ground for once 1 To soar ! To stray ! To be mad ! — that belonged to the paradise and the revelry of earlier times ; while our felicity is like that of the shipwrecked man who has gone ashore, and places himself with both feet on the old, firm ground — in astonishment that it does not rock.

47. The Suppression of the Passions. — When one continually prohibits the expression of the passions as something to be left to the " vulgar," to coarser, bourgeois, and peasant natures — that is, when one does not want to suppress the passions themselves, but only their language and demeanour, one never- theless realises therewith just what one does not want : the suppression of the passions themselves, or at least their weakening and alteration, — as the court of Louis XIV. (to cite the most instructive instance), and all that was dependent on it, ex- perienced. The generation that followed^ trained in suppressing their expression, no longer pos- sessed the passions themselves, but had a pleasant, superficial, playful disposition in their place, — a generation which was so permeated with the incapacity to be ill-mannered, that even an injury was not taken and retaliated, except with court- eous words. Perhaps our own time furnishes the most remarkable counterpart to this period : I see everywhere (in life, in the theatre, and not least in all that is written) satisfaction at all the coarser outbursts and gestures of passion ; a certain convention of passionateness is now desired, —


84 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

only not the passion itself! Nevertheless // will thereby be at last reached, and our posterity wil have a genuine savagery,^ and not merely a formal savagery and unmannerliness.

48. Knowledge of Distress. -Vexh^ps there is nothing by which men and periods are so much separated from one another, as by the different degrees of knowledge of distress which they possess ; distress of the soul as well as of the body. With respect to the latter, owing to lack of sufficient self- experience, we men of the present day (in spite of our deficiencies and infirmities), are perhaps all of us blunderers and visionaries in comparison with the men of the age of fear -the longest of all ages,— when the individual had to pro- tect himself against violence, and for that purpose had to be a man of violence himself At that time a man went through a long schooling of corporeal tortures and privations, and found even in a certain kind of cruelty toward himself, in a voluntary use of pain, a necessary means for his preservation; at that time a person trained his environment to the endurance of pain; at that time a Pe^^ori willingly inflicted pain, and saw the most frightful things of this kind happen to others, without having any other feeling than for his own security. As regards the distress of the soul however, I now look at every man with respect to whether he knows it by experience or by description ; whether he still regards it as necessary to simulate this knowledge, perhaps as an indica-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I ^5

tion of more refined culture ; or whether, at the bottom of his heart, he does not at all believe in great sorrows of soul, and at the naming of them calls to mind a similar experience as at the naming of great corporeal sufferings, such as tooth- aches, and stomach-aches. It is thus, however, that it seems to be with most people at present. Owing to the universal inexperience of both kinds of pain, and the comparative rarity of the spectacle of a sufferer, an important consequence results : people now hate pain far more than earlier man did, and calumniate it worse than ever ; indeed people nowadays can hardly endure the thought of pain, and make out of it an affair of con- science and a reproach to collective existence. The appearance of pessimistic philosophies is not at all the sign of great and dreadful miseries; for these interrogative marks regarding the worth of life appear in periods when the refinement and alleviation of existence already deem the unavoidable gnat-stings of the soul and body as altogether too bloody and wicked ; and in the poverty of actual experiences of pain, would now like to make painful general ideas appear as suffering of the worst kind. — There might indeed be a remedy for pessimistic philosophies and the excessive sensibility which seems to me the real " distress of the present " : — but perhaps this remedy already sounds too cruel, and would itself be reckoned among the symptoms owing to which people at present conclude that " existence is some- thing evil." Well 1 the remedy for " the distress " is distress.


gg THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

49- Magnanimity and allied e»«««^.-Those para- doxicfl phenomena, such as the sudden coldness in the demeanour of good-natured men, the humour of the melancholy, and above all magnantm.ty.^s a sudden renunciation of revenge or of the grat - fication of envy-appear in men m whom 'here .s a powerful inner impulsiveness, m men of sudden satiety and sudden disgust. Their satisfactions are so rapid and violent that satiety, aversion and Hight into the antithetical taste, immediately follow upon them : in this contrast the convulsion of filing liberates itself, in one person by sudden coldness, in another by laughter, and in a third by tear; and self-sacrifice. The -"-g"^"™"";, irson appears to me-at least that kmd of maranir^ous person who has always made most tapression-as a man with the strongest thirst for vengeance, to whom a gratification P«=«f '^^'^ cJe at hand, and who already drinks it off .«  imagination so copiously, thoroughly, and to the last drop, that an excessive, rapid disgust follows this rapid licentiousness ;-he now elevates himself 'abJve'himself." as one says, and forgiv^ his enemy, yea, blesses and honours him. With this vXce done to himself, however, with this mockery of his impulse to revenge, even still so powerM he merely yields to the new impulse, the disgust whi"h ha's become powerful, and does this jus as impatiently and licentiously, as a short time previously ^forestalled, and as it were exhausted the]oy of revenge with his fantasy. In magnanimity


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 87

there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge, but a different quality of egoism.

SO.

The Argument of Isolation. — The reproach of conscience, even in the most conscientious, is weak against the feeling: "This and that are contrary to the good morals oi your society." A cold glance or a wry mouth on the part of those among whom and for whom one has been educated, is sWW feared even by the strongest. What is really feared there ? Isolation \ as the argument which demolishes even the best arguments for a person or cause! — It is thus that the gregarious instinct speaks in us.

51.

Sense for Truth. — Commend me to all scepticism where I am permitted to answer : " Let us put it to the test ! " But I don't wish to hear anything more of things and questions which do not admit of being tested. That is the limit of my " sense for truth " : for bravery has there lost its right.

52. What others Know of «j.— That which we know of ourselves and have in our memory is not so decisive for the happiness of our life as is generally believed. One day it flashes upon our mind what others know of us (or think they know)— and then we acknowledge that it is the more powerful. We get on with our bad conscience more easily than with our bad reputation.


o8 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

Where Goodness Begins. — Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil impulse as such, on account of its refinement,— there man sets up the kingdom of goodness ; and the feeling of having now gone over into the kingdom of goodness brings all those impulses (such as the feelings of security, of com- fortableness, of benevolence) into simultaneous activity, which were threatened and confined by the evil impulses. Consequently, the duller the eye so much the further does goodness extend ! Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the populace and of children ! Hence the gloominess and grief (allied to the bad conscience) of great thinkers.

54. The Consciousness of Appearance. — How won- derfully and novelly, and at the same time how awfully and ironically, do I feel myself situated with respect to collective existence, with my know- ledge ! I have discovered for myself that the old humanity and animality, yea, the collective primeval age, and the past of all sentient being, continues to meditate, love, hate, and reason in me,— I have suddenly awoke in the midst of this dream, but merely to the consciousness that I just dream, and that I must dream on in order not to perish ; just as the sleep-walker must dream on in order not to tumble down. What is it that is now "appear- ance" to me! Verily, not the antithesis of any kind of essence,— what knowledge can I assert of any kind of essence whatsoever, except merely the


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 89

predicates of its appearance ! Verily not a dead mask which one could put upon an unknown X, and which to be sure one could also remove ! Appearance is for me the operating and living thing itself; which goes so far in its self-mockery as to make me feel that here there is appearance, and Will o' the Wisp, and spirit-dance, and nothing more, — that among all these dreamers, I also, the "thinker," dance my dance, that the thinker is a means of prolonging further the terrestrial dance, and in so far is one of the masters of ceremony of existence, and that the sublime con- sistency and connectedness of all branches of knowledge is perhaps, and will perhaps, be the best means for maintaining the universality of the dreaming, the complete, mutual understandability of all those dreamers, and thereby tha duration of the dream.

55-

The Ultimate Nobility of Character. — What then makes a person " noble " ? Certainly not that he makes sacrifices ; even the frantic libertine makes sacrifices. Certainly not that he generally follows his passions ; there are contemptible passions. Certainly not that he does something for others, and without selfishness ; perhaps the effect of selfishness is precisely at its greatest in the noblest persons. — But that the passion which seizes the noble man is a peculiarity, without his knowing that it is so: the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy : the feel- ing of heat in things which feel cold to all othqr


90 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I

persons : a divining of values for which scales have not yet been invented : a sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God : a bravery without the desire for honour: a self-sufficiency which has superabundance, and imparts to men and things. Hitherto, therefore, it has been the rare in man, and the unconsciousness of this rareness, that has made men noble. Here, however, let us consider that everything ordinary, immediate, and indispensable, in short, what has been most pre- servative of the species, and generally the rulem mankind hitherto, has been judged unreasonable and calumniated in its entirety by this standard, in favour of the exceptions. To become the advocate of the rule-that may P^^haps be the ultimate form and refinement in which nobility of character will reveal itself on earth.

56. The Desire for Suffering.-V^h^v^ I think of the desire to do something, how it continually tickles and stimulates millions of young Europeans, who cannot endure themselves and all their ennui.- I conceive that there must be a desire in them to suffer something, in order to derive from their suffering a worthy motive for acting, for doing something. Distress is necessary ! Hence the cry of the politicians, hence the many false trumped- up, exaggerated "states of distress" of all possible kinds, and the blind readiness to believe in them This young world desires that there should arrive or appear from the outside-not happmess-but misfortune; and their imagination is already


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I pi

busy beforehand to form a monster out of it, so that they may afterwards be able to fight with a monster. If these distress-seekers felt the power to benefit themselves, to do something for themselves from internal sources, they would also understand how to create a distress of their own, specially their own, from internal sources. Their inventions might then be more refined, and their gratifications might sound like good music : while at present they fill the world with their cries of distress, and conse- quently too often with the feeling of distress in the first place 1 They do not know what to make of themselves — and so they paint the misfortune of others on the wall ; they always need others ! And always again other others ! — Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.


BOOK SECOND


S7'

To the Realists. — Ye sober beings, who feel your- selves armed against passion and fantasy, and would gladly make a pride and an ornament out of your emptiness, ye call yourselves realists, and give to understand that the world is actually constituted as it appears to you ; before you alone reality stands unveiled, and ye yourselves would perhaps be the best part of it, — oh, ye dear images of Sais! But are not ye also in your unveiled condition still extremely passionate and dusky beings compared with the fish, and still all too like an enamoured artist ? * — and what is " reality " to an enamoured artist! Ye still carry about with you the valuations of things which had their origin in the passions and infatuations of earlier centuries ! There is still a secret and ineffaceable drunken- ness embodied in your sobriety! Your love of " reality," for example— oh, that is an old, primitive " love " ! In every feeling, in every sense-impres- sion, there is a portion of this old love: and similariy also some kind of fantasy, prejudice, irrationality, ignorance, fear, and whatever else has become mingled and woven into it. There is that mountain ! There is that cloud ! What

  • Schiller's poem, "The Veiled Image oi Sais," is again

referred to here. — Tr.

95


96 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

is " real " in them ? Remove the phantasm and the whole human element therefrom, ye sober ones! Yes, if ye could do that! If ye could forget your origin, your past, your preparatory schooling, — your whole history as man and beast ! There is no " reality " for us — nor for you either, ye sober ones, — we are far from being so alien to one another as ye suppose ; and perhaps our good-will to get beyond drunkenness is just as respectable as your belief that ye are altogether incapable of drunkenness.

58.

Only as Creators ! — It has caused me the greatest trouble, and for ever causes me the greatest trouble, to perceive that unspeakably more depends upon what things are called, than on what they are. The reputation, the name and appearance, the importance, the usual measure and weight of things — each being in origin most frequently an error and arbitrariness thrown over the things like a garment, and quite alien to their essence and even to their exterior — have gradually, by the belief therein and its continuous growth from generation to generation, grown as it were on- and-into things and become their very body ; the appearance at the very beginning becomes almost always the essence in the end, and operates as the essence! What a fool he would be who would think it enough to refer here to this origin and this nebulous veil of illusion, in order to annihilate that which virtually passes for the world— namely, so-called " reality " 1 It is only as


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II 97

creators that we can annihilate! — But let us not forget this : it suffices to create new names and valuations and probabilities, in order in the long run to create new " things."


59.

We Artists! — When we love a woman we have readily a hatred against nature, on recollecting all the disagreeable natural functions to which every woman is subject ; we prefer not to think of them at all, but if once our soul touches on these things it twitches impatiently, and glances, as we have said, contemptuously at nature : — we are hurt; nature seems to encroach upon our possessions, and with the profanest hands. We then shut our ears against all physiology, and we decree in secret that "we will hear nothing of the fact that man is something else than soul and form!" "The man under the skin" is an abomination and monstrosity, a blasphemy of God and of love to all lovers. — Well, just as the lover still feels with respect to nature and natural functions, so did every worshipper of God and his " holy omnipotence " feel formerly : in all that was said of nature by astronomers, geologists, physiolo- gists, and physicians, he saw an encroachment on his most precious possession, and consequently an attack, — and moreover also an impertinence of the assailant! The "law of nature" sounded to him as blasphemy against God ; in truth he would too willingly have seen the whole of mechanics traced back to moral acts of volition and arbitrari- 7


98 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

ness : — but because nobody could render him this service, he concealed nature and mechanism from himself as best he could, and lived in a dream. Oh, those men of former times understood how to

dream, and did not need first to go to sleep ! and

we men of the present day also still understand it too well, with all our good-will for wakefulness and daylight! It suffices to love, to hate, to desire, and in general to feel, — immediately the spirit and the power of the dream come over us, and we ascend, with open eyes and indifferent to all danger, the most dangerous paths, to the roofs and towers of fantasy, and without any giddiness, as persons born for climbing — we the night-walkers by day! We artists! We con- cealers of naturalness ! We moon-struck and God- struck ones ! We death-silent, untiring wanderers on heights which we do not see as heights, but as our plains, as our places of safety !

60.

Women and their Effect in the Distance. — Have I still ears? Am I only ear, and nothing else besides? Here I stand in the midst of the surging of the breakers, whose white flames fork up to my feet; — from all sides there is howling, threatening, crying, and screaming at me, while in the lowest depths the old earth-shaker sings his ari a hollow like a roaring bull ; he beats such an earth-' shaker's measure thereto, that even the hearts of these weathered rock-monsters tremble at the sound. Then, suddenly, as if born out of nothing-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II 99

ness, there appears before the portal of this hellish labyrinth, only a few fathoms distant, — a great sailing-ship gliding silently along like a ghost. Oh, this ghostly beauty ! With what enchantment it seizes me! What? Has all the repose and silence in the world embarked here? Does my happiness itself sit in this quiet place, my happier ego, my second immortalised self? Still not dead, but also no longer living ? As a ghost-like, calm, gazing, gliding, sweeping, neutral being? Similar to the ship, which, with its white sails, like an immense butterfly, passes over the dark sea! Yes ! Passing over existence ! That is it ! That

would be it ! It seems that the noise here has

made me a visionary ? All great noise causes one to place happiness in the calm and the distance. When a man is in the midst of his hubbub, in the midst of the breakers of his plots and plans, he there sees perhaps calm, enchanting beings glide past him, for whose happiness and retirement he longs — they are women. He almost thinks that there with the women dwells his better self ; that in these calm places even the loudest breakers become still as death, and life itself a dream of life. But still ! but still ! my noble enthusiast, there is also in the most beautiful sailing-ship so much noise and bustling, and alas, so much petty, piti- able bustling ! The enchantment and the most powerful effect of women is, to use the language of philosophers, an effect at a distance, an actio in distans ; there belongs thereto, however, primarily and above all, — distance !


100 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

6i.

In Honour of Friendship.— Thdl the sentiment of friendship was regarded by antiquity as the highest sentiment, higher even than the most vaunted pride of the self-sufficient and wise, yea, as it were its sole and still holier brotherhood, is very well expressed by the story of the Macedonian king who made the present of a talent to a cynical Athenian philosopher from whom he received it back again. "What?" said the king, "has he then no friend ? " He therewith meant to say, " I honour this pride of the wise and independent man, but I should have honoured his humanity still higher, if the friend in him had gained the victory over his pride. The philosopher has lowered himself in my estimation, for he showed that he did not know

one of the two highest sentiments— and in fact the

higher of them ! "

62. Love.— LovQ pardons even the passion of the

beloved.

63- Woman in Music— Uow does it happen that

warm and rainy winds bring the musical mood

and the inventive delight in melody with them ?

Are they not the same winds that fill the churches

and give women amorous thoughts ?

64. Sceptics.— I fear that women who have grown old are more sceptical in the secret recesses of their


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II lOI

hearts than any of the men ; they believe in the superficiality of existence as in its essence, and all virtue and profundity is to them only the dis- guising of this " truth," the very desirable disguising of a pudendum,— 2.n affair, therefore, of decency and modesty, and nothing more I

65. Devotedness. — There are noble women with a certain poverty of spirit, who, in order to express their profoundest devotedness, have no other alter- native but to offer their virtue and modesty : it is the highest thing they have. And this present is often accepted without putting the recipient under such deep obligation as the giver supposed, — a very melancholy story !

66. The Strength of the M^^<2/^.— Women are all skil- ful in exaggerating their weaknesses, indeed they are inventive in weaknesses, so as to seem quite fragile ornaments to which even a grain of dust does harm ; their existence is meant to bring home to man's mind his coarseness, and to appeal to his conscience. They thus defend themselves against the strong and all " rights of might."

67.

Self -dissembling. — She loves him now and has since been looking forth with as quiet confidence as a cow ; but alas ! It was precisely his delight that she seemed so fitful and absolutely incompre- hensible ! He had rather too much steady weather


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in himself already! Would she not do well to feign her old character? to feign indifference? Does not— love itself advise her to do so? Vivat comoedia !

68.

Will and Willingness. —Some one brought a youth to a wise man, and said, " See, this is one who is being corrupted by women!" The wise man shook his head and smiled. " It is men," he called out, "who corrupt women; and everything that women lack should be atoned for and improved in men,— for man creates for himself the ideal of woman, and woman moulds herself according to this ideal."—" You are too tender-hearted towards women," said one of the bystanders, " you do not know them ! " The wise man answered : " Man's attribute is will, woman's attribute is willingness,— such is the law of the sexes, verily 1 a hard law for woman ! All human beings are innocent of their existence, women, however, are doubly innocent; who could have enough of salve and gentleness for them ! "—"What about salve ! What about gentle- ness ! " called out another person in the crowd, " we must educate women better ! "— " We must educate men better," said the wise man, and made a sign to the youth to follow him.— The youth, however, did not follow him.

69.

Capacity for Revenge.— Th?^ a person cannot and consequently will not defend himself, does not yet cast disgrace upon him in our eyes ; but


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we despise the person who has neither the ability nor the good-will for revenge — whether it be a man or a woman. Would a woman be able to captivate us (or, as people say, to "fetter" us) whom we did not credit with knowing how to employ the dagger (any kind of dagger) skilfully against us under certain circumstances? Or against herself; which in a certain case might be the severest revenge (the Chinese revenge).


70.

The Mistresses oj the Masters. — A powerful con- tralto voice, as we occasionally hear it in the theatre, raises suddenly for us the curtain on possibilities in which we usually do not believe ; all at once we are convinced that somewhere in the world there may be women with high, heroic, royal souls, capable and prepared for magnificent remon- strances, resolutions, and self-sacrifices, capable and prepared for domination over men, because in them the best in man, superior to sex, has become a corporeal ideal. To be sure, it is not the inten- tion of the theatre that such voices should give such a conception of women ; they are usually intended to represent the ideal male lover, for example, a Romeo ; but, to judge by my experience, the theatre regularly miscalculates here, and the musician also, who expects such effects from such a voice. People do not believe in these lovers; these voices still contain a tinge of the motherly and housewifely character, and most of all when love is in their tone.


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On Female Chastity.— ThexQ is something quite astonishing and extraordinary in the education of women of the higher class ; indeed, there is perhaps nothing more paradoxical. All the world is agreed to educate them with as much ignorance as possible in eroticis, and to inspire their soul with a profound shame of such things, and the extremest impatience and horror at the suggestion of them. It is really here only that all the " honour " of woman is at stake ; what would one not forgive them in other respects! But here they are intended to remain ignorant to the very backbone : — they are intended to have neither eyes, ears, words, nor thoughts for this, their " wickedness " ; indeed knowledge here is already evil. And then! To be hurled as with an awful thunderbolt into reality and knowledge with marriage— and indeed by him whom they most love and esteem : to have to encounter love and shame in contradiction, yea, to have to feel rapture, abandonment, duty, sympathy, and fright at the unexpected proximity of God and animal, and whatever else besides! all at once! — There, in fact, a psychic entanglement has been effected which is quite unequalled ! Even the sympathetic curiosity of the wisest discerner of men does not suffice to divine how this or that woman gets along with the solution of this enigma and the enigma of this solution ; what dreadful, far-reaching sus- picions must awaken thereby in the poor unhinged soul; and forsooth, how the ultimate philosophy and scepticism of the woman casts anchor at this


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point! — Afterwards the same profound silence as be- fore : and often even a silence to herself, a shutting of her eyes to herself— Young wives on that account make great efforts to appear superficial and thought- less ; the most ingenious of them simulate a kind of impudence. — Wives easily feel their husbands as a question-mark to their honour, and their children as an apology or atonement, — they require children, and wish for them in quite another spirit than a husband wishes for them. — In short, one cannot be gentle enough towards women !

72.

Mothers. — Animals think differently from men with respect to females ; with them the female is regarded as the productive being. There is no paternal love among them, but there is such a thing as love of the children of a beloved, and habituation to them. In the young, the females find gratification for their lust of dominion ; the young are a property, an occupation, something quite comprehensible to them, with which they can chatter : all this conjointly is maternal love, — it is to be compared to the love of the artist for his work. Pregnancy has made the females gentler, more expectant, more timid, more submissively inclined ; and similarly intellectual pregnancy en- genders the character of the contemplative, who are allied to women in character: — they are the masculine mothers. — Among animals the masculine sex is regarded as the beautiful sex.


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Saintly Cruelty.— h man holding a newly born child in his hands came to a saint. « What should I do with this child," he asked, "it is wretched, deformed, and has not even enough o^ ^^fe ^^ die." "Kill it," cried the saint with a dreadful voice, "kill it, 'and then hold it in thy arms for three days and three nights to brand it on thy memory —thus wilt thou never again beget a child when it is not the time for thee to beget"— When the man had heard this he went away disappointed ; and many found fault with the saint because he had advised cruelty ; for he had advised to kill the child. "But is it not more cruel to let it live? asked the saint.

74. The Unsuccessful.— Those poor women always fail of success who become agitated and uncertain, and talk too much in presence of him whom they love ; for men are most successfully seduced by a certain subtle and phlegmatic tenderness.

75. The Third Sex.—"A small man is a paradox, but still a man,— but a small woman seems to me to be of another sex in comparison with well- grown ones"— said an old dancing-master. A small woman is never beautiful-said old Aristotle.

76. The greatest Danger.— "A^^ there not at all times been a larger number of men who regarded the


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cultivation of their mind — their "rationality" — as their pride, their obligation, their virtue, and were injured or shamed by all play of fancy and extravagance of thinking — as lovers of "sound common sense " : — mankind would long ago have perished ! Incipient insanity has hovered, and hovers continually over mankind as its greatest danger : it is precisely the breaking out of in- clination in feeling, seeing, and hearing ; the enjoy- ment of the unruliness of the mind ; the delight in human unreason. It is not truth and certainty that is the antithesis of the world of the insane, but the universality and all-obligatoriness of a belief, in short, non-voluntariness in forming opinions. And the greatest labour of human be- ings hitherto has been to agree with one another regarding a number of things, and to impose upon themselves a law of agreement — indifferent whether these things are true or false. This is the discipline of the mind which has preserved mankind ; — but the counter-impulses are still so powerful that one can really speak of the future of mankind with little confidence. The ideas of things still continually shift and move, and will perhaps alter more than ever in the future ; it is continually the most select spirits themselves who strive against universal obligatoriness — the investi- gators of truth above all ! The accepted belief, as the belief of all the world, continually engenders a disgust and a new longing in the more ingenious minds; and already the slow tempo which it de- mands for all intellectual processes (the imitation of the tortoise, which is here recognised as the rule)


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makes the artists and poets runaways : — it is in these impatient spirits that a downright deHght in delirium breaks out, because delirium has such a joyful tempo! Virtuous intellects, therefore, are needed — ah ! I want to use the least ambiguous word, — virtuous stupidity is needed, imperturbable conductors of the slow spirits are needed, in order that the faithful of the great collective belief may remain with one another and dance their dance further : it is a necessity of the first importance that here enjoins and demands. We others are the exceptions and the danger^ — we eternally need pro- tection ! — Well, there can actually be something said in favour of the exceptions provided that they never want to become the rule.

77-

The Animal with good Conscience. — It is not unknown to me that there is vulgarity in every- thing that pleases Southern Europe — whether it be Italian opera (for example, Rossini's and Bellini's), or the Spanish adventure-romance (most readily accessible to us in the French garb of Gil Bias) — but it does not offend me, any more than the vulgarity which one encounters in a walk through Pompeii, or even in the reading of every ancient book : what is the reason of this ? Is it because shame is lacking here, and because the vulgar always comes forward just as sure and certain of itself as anything noble, lovely, and passionate in the same kind of music or romance ? " The animal has its rights like man, so let it run about freely ; and you, my dear fellow-man,


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are still this animal, in spite of all!" — that seems to me the moral of the case, and the peculiarity of southern humanity. Bad taste has its rights like good taste, and even a prerogative over the latter when it is the great requisite, the sure satisfaction, and as it were a universal language, an immediately intelligible mask and attitude; the excellent, select taste on the other hand has always something of a seeking, tentative character, not fully certain that it understands,— it is never, and has never been popular ! The masque is and remains popular! So let all this masquerade run along in the melodies and cadences, in the leaps and merriment of the rhythm of these operas ! Quite the ancient life ! What does one understand of it, if one does not understand the delight in the masque, the good conscience of all masquerade! Here is the bath and the refreshment of the ancient spirit: — and perhaps this bath was still more necessary for the rare and sublime natures of the ancient world than for the vulgar.— On the other hand, a vulgar turn in northern works, for example in German music, offends me unutterably. There is shame in it, the artist has lowered himself in his own sight, and could not even avoid blushing : we are ashamed with him, and are so hurt because we surmise that he believed he had to lower him- self on our account.

78.

What we should be Grateful for.— It is only the artists, and especially the theatrical artists, who have furnished men with eyes and ears to hear and


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see with some pleasure what everyone is in him- self, what he experiences and aims at : it is only they who have taught us how to estimate the hero that is concealed in each of these common-place men, and the art of looking at ourselves from a distance as heroes, and as it were simplified and transfigured,— the art of " putting ourselves on the stage" before ourselves. It is thus only that we get beyond some of the paltry details in ourselves 1 Without that art we should be nothing but fore- ground, and would live absolutely under the spell of the perspective which makes the closest and the commonest seem immensely large and like reality

in itself. Perhaps there is merit of a similar kind

in the religion which commanded us to look at the sinfulness of every individual man with a magnify- ing-glass, and made a great, immortal criminal of the sinner; in that it put eternal perspec- tives around man, it taught him to see himself from a distance, and as something past, something entire.

79.

The Charm of Imperfection.— \ see here a poet, who, like so many men, exercises a higher charm by his imperfections than by all that is rounded off and takes perfect shape under his hands,— indeed, he derives his advantage and reputation far more from his actual limitations than from his abun- dant powers. His work never expresses altogether what he would really like to express, what he would like to have seen: he appears to have had the foretaste of a vision and never the vision




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itself :— but an extraordinary longing for this vision has remained in his soul ; and from this he derives his equally extraordinary eloquence of longing and craving. With this he raises those who listen to him above his work and above all " works," and gives them wings to rise higher than hearers have ever risen before, thus making them poets and seers themselves ; they then show an ad- miration for the originator of their happiness, as if he had led them immediately to the vision of his holiest and ultimate verities, as if he had reached his goal, and had actually seen and communicated his vision. It is to the advantage of his reputa- tion that he has not really arrived at his goal.

80. Art and Nature.— T^q Greeks (or at least the Athenians) liked to hear good talking : indeed they had an eager inclination for it, which dis- tinguished them more than anything else from non-Greeks. And so they required good talking even from passion on the stage, and submitted to the unnaturalness of dramatic verse with delight : —in nature, forsooth, passion is so sparing of words ! so dumb and confused ! Or if it finds words, so embarrassed and irrational and a shame to itself! We have now, all of us, thanks to the Greeks, accustomed ourselves to this unnaturalness on the stage, as we endure that other unnaturalness, the singing passion, and willingly endure it, thanks to the Italians.— It has become a necessity to us, which we cannot satisfy out of the resources of actuality, to hear men talk well and in full detail in the most


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trying situations : it enraptures us at present when the tragic hero still finds words, reasons, eloquent gestures, and on the whole a bright spirituality, where life approaches the abysses, and where the actual man mostly loses his head, and certainly his fine language. This kind of deviation from nature is perhaps the most agreeable repast for man's pride : he loves art generally on account of it, as the expression of high, heroic unnatural- ness and convention. One rightly objects to the dramatic poet when he does not transform every- thing into reason and speech, but always retains a remnant oi silence : — ^just as one is dissatisfied with an operatic musician who cannot find a melody for the highest emotion, but only an emotional, "natural" stammering and crying. Here nature has to be contradicted ! Here the common charm of illusion has to give place to a higher charm ! The Greeks go far, far in this direction — frightfully far! As they constructed the stage as narrow as possible and dispensed with all the effect of deep backgrounds, as they made panto- mime and easy motion impossible to the actor, and transformed him into a solemn, stiff", masked bogey, so they have also deprived passion itself of its deep background, and have dictated to it a law of fine talk ; indeed, they have really done everything to counteract the elementary effect of representa- tions that inspire pity and terror : they did not want pity and terror, — with due deference, with the highest deference to Aristotle! but he certainly did not hit the nail, to say nothing of the head of the nail, when he spoke about the


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final aim of Greek tragedy ! Let us but look at the Grecian tragic poets with respect to what most excited their diligence, their inventiveness, and their emulation, — certainly it was not the intention of subjugating the spectators by emotion! The Athenian went to the theatre to hear fine talking!

And fine talking was arrived at by Sophocles !

pardon me this heresy ! — It is very different with serious opera : all its masters make it their business to prevent their personages being understood. " An occasional word picked up may come to the assistance of the inattentive listener ; but on the

whole the situation must be self-explanatory,

the talking is of no account ! " — so they all think, and so they have all made fun of the words. Perhaps they have only lacked courage to express fully their extreme contempt for words : a little additional insolence in Rossini, and he would have allowed la-la-la-la to be sung throughout — and it might have been the rational course ! The person- ages of the opera are not meant to be believed " in their words," but in their tones ! That is the difference, that is the fine unnaturalness on account of which people go to the opera ! Even the recita- tivo secco is not really intended to be heard as words and text : this kind of half-music is meant rather in the first place to give the musical ear a little repose (the repose from melody, as from the sublimest, and on that account the most straining enjoyment of this art),— but very soon something different results, namely, an increasing impatience, an increasing resistance, a new longing for entire music, for melody.— How is it with the art of 8


Hi THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

Richard Wagner as seen from this standpoint? Is uLhaps the same? Perhapsotherw.se? I would oton seem to me as if one needed to have learned by heart both the words and the »"='^ jf J"= Jeations before the performances; ^^ «*°" that-so it seemed to me-one may hear neither the words, nor even the music.

8l.

Grecian Taste.-" ^h^A is beautiful in it?"- asked a certain geometrician, after a P-forman e of the iphigenia-" there is nothmg proved in it . CouH the Greeks have been so far from th^ taste? In Sophocles at least "everything is proved.

82. Esprit Un-Grecian-the Greeks were exceed ingly logical and plain in all their thmk.ng; hey did not get tired of it, at least durmg their long flourlhing period, as is so often the case with the French; Iho too willingly made a little excursion into the opposite, and in fact endure the spir t of loric only when it betrays its ..««*& courtesy its sociable self-renunciation, by a n>"ltitude of such little excursions into its opposite. Logic appears to them as necessary as bread and water bufalso like these as a kind of prison-fare, as soon as it is to be taken pure and by itself. In good soclty one must never want to be in the right absolutely and solely, as aU.pure logic requ-res^ h..nce the little dose of irrationality in all French ^;;^:ilThe social sense of the Greeks was far tSs developed than that of the French m the


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present and the past ; hence, so little esprit in their cleverest men, hence, so little wit, even in their wags, hence — alas! But people will not readily believe these tenets of mine, and how much of the kind I have still on my soul ! — Est res magna tacere — says Martial, like all garrulous people.

83. Translations. — One can estimate the amount of the historical sense which an age possesses by the way in which it makes translations and seeks to embody in itself past periods and literatures. The French of Corneille, and even the French of the Revolution, appropriated Roman antiquity in a manner for which we would no longer have the courage — owing to our superior historical sense. And Roman antiquity itself: how violently, and at the same time how naively, did it lay its hand on everything excellent and elevated belonging to the older Grecian antiquity ! How they trans- lated these writings into the Roman present ! How they wiped away intentionally and uncon- cernedly the wing-dust of the butterfly moment ! It is thus that Horace now and then translated Alcaeus or Archilochus, it is thus that Propertius translated Callimachus and Philetas (poets of equal rank with Theocritus, if we be allowed to judge) : of what consequence was it to them that the actual creator experienced this and that, and had inscribed the indication thereof in his poem ! — as poets they were averse to the antiquarian, inquisitive spirit which precedes the historical sense ; as poets they did not respect those essenti-


Il6 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

ally personal traits and names, nor anything peculiar to city, coast, or century, such as its costume and mask, but at once put the present and the Roman in its place. They seem to us to ask- "Should we not make the old new for our- selves, and adjust ourselves to it? Should we not be allowed to inspire this dead body with our soul? for it is dead indeed : how loathsome is everything dead ' "—They did not know the pleasure of the historical sense ; the past and the alien was painful to them, and as Romans it was an incitement to a Roman conquest. In fact, they conquered when they translated,-not only in that they omitted the historical: they added also allusions to the present ; above all, they struck out the name of the poet and put their own in its place -not with the feeling of theft, but with the very best conscience of the imperium Romanum.

84. The Origin of Poetry.— Th^ lovers of the fantastic in man, who at the same time represent the doctrine of instinctive morality, draw this conclusion: «' Granted that utility has been honoured at all times as the highest divinity, where then in all the world has poetry come from ?-this rhythmising of speech which thwarts rather than furthers plainness of communication, and which, nevertheless, has sprung up everywhere on the earth, and still springs up, as a mockery of all useful purpose! The wildly beautiful irrationality of poetry refutes you, ye utilitarians! The wish to get rid of "tUity in some way-that is precisely what has elevated


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man, that is what has inspired him to morality and art ! " Well, I must here speak for once to please the utilitarians, — they are so seldom in the right that it is pitiful ! In the old times which called poetry into being, people had still utility in view with respect to it, and a very important utility — at the time when rhythm was introduced into speech, that force which arranges all the particles of the sentence anew, commands the choosing of the words, recolours the thought, and makes it more obscure, more foreign, and more distant : to be sure a superstitious utility ! It was intended that a human entreaty should be more profoundly im- pressed upon the Gods by virtue of rhythm, after it had been observed that men could remember a verse better than an unmetrical speech. It was likewise thought that people could make them- selves audible at greater distances by the rhythmi- cal beat ; the rhythmical prayer seemed to come nearer to the ear of the Gods. Above all, however, people wanted to have the advantage of the elementary conquest which man experiences in himself when he hears music : rhythm is a con- straint ; it produces an unconquerable desire to yield, to join in ; not only the step of the foot, but also the soul itself follows the measure, — probably the soul of the Gods also, as people thought ! They attempted, therefore, to constrain the Gods by rhythm, and to exercise a power over them ; they threw poetry around the Gods like a magic noose. There was a still more wonderful idea, and it has perhaps operated most powerfully of all in the originating of poetry. Among the


Il8 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

Pythagoreans it made its appearance as a philoso- phical doctrine and as an artifice of teaching : but long before there were philosophers music was acknowledged to possess the power of unburdenmg the emotions, of purifying the soul, of soothing the ferocia animi—2.nd this was owing to the rhythmical element in music. When the proper tension and harmony of the soul were lost a person had to dance to the measure of the singer,— that was the recipe of this medical art. By means of it Terpander quieted a tumult, Empedocles calmed a maniac, Damon purged a love-sick youth ; by means of it even the maddened, revengeful Gods were treated for the purpose of a cure. This was effected by driving the frenzy and wantonness of their emotions to the highest pitch, by making the furious mad, and the revengeful intoxicated with vengeance :-all the orgiastic cults seek to discharge the ferocia of a deity all at once, and thus make an orgy, so that the deity may feel freer and quieter afterwards, and leave man m peace. Melos, according to its root, signifies a soothing aeency, not because the song is gentle itself, but because its after-effect is gentle.-And not only in the religious song, but also in the secular song of the most ancient times, the prerequisite is that the rhythm should exercise a magical influence; for example, in drawing water, or in rowing : the song is for the enchanting of the spirits supposed to be active thereby ; it makes them obliging, involun- tary and the instruments of man. And as often as a person acts he has occasion to sing, every action is dependent on the assistance of spirits :




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magic song and incantation appear to be the original form of poetry. When verse also came to be used in oracles— the Greeks said that the hexameter was invented at Delphi,— the rhythm was here also intended to exercise a compulsory influence.' To make a prophecy — that means originally (according to what seems to me the probable derivation of the Greek word) to deter- mine something ; people thought they could deter- mine the future by winning Apollo over to their side : he who, according to the most ancient idea, is far more than a foreseeing deity. According as the formula is pronounced with literal and rhythmical correctness, it determines the future : the formula, however, is the invention of Apollo, who as the God of rhythm, can also determine the goddesses of fate. — Looked at and investigated as a whole, was there ever anything more serviceable to the ancient superstitious species of human being than rhythm? People could do everything with it: they could make labour go on magically; they could compel a God to appear, to be near at hand, and listen to them ; they could arrange the future for themselves according to their will ; they could unburden their own souls of any kind of excess (of anxiety, of mania, of sympathy, of revenge), and not only their own souls, but the souls of the most evil spirits, — without verse a person was nothing, by means of verse a person became almost a God. Such a fundamental feeling no longer allows itself to be fully eradicated, — and even now, after mil- lenniums of long labour in combating such supersti- tion, the very wisest of us occasionally becomes the


I20 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

fool of rhythm, be it only that one perceives a thought to be ^r^^^r when it has a metrical form and approaches with a divine hopping. Is it not a very funny thing that the most serious philo- sophers, however anxious they are in other respects for strict certainty, still appeal to poetical sayings in order to give their thoughts force and credibility ?

and yet it is more dangerous to a truth when the

poet assents to it than when he contradicts it! For, as Homer says, " Minstrels speak much false- hood!"—

85.

The Good and the Beautiful.— hvtists glorify continually — they do nothing else, — and indeed they glorify all those conditions and things that have a reputation, so that man may feel himself good or great, or intoxicated, or merry, or pleased and wise by it. Those select things and conditions whose value for human happiness is regarded as secure and determined, are the objects of artists : they are ever lying in wait to discover such things, to transfer them into the domain of art. I mean to say that they are not themselves the valuers of happiness and of the happy ones, but they always press close to these valuers with the greatest curiosity and longing, in order immediately to use their valuations advantageously. As besides their impatience, they have also the big lungs of heralds and the feet of runners, they are generally always among the first to glorify the new excellency, and often seem to be the first who have called it good and valued it as good. This,


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however, as we have said, is an error ; they are only faster and louder than the actual valuers : — And who then are these ?— They are the rich and the leisurely.

86.

The Theatre. — This day has given me once more strong and elevated sentiments, and if I could have music and art in the evening, I know well what music and art I should not like to have ; namely, none of that which would fain intoxicate its hearers and excite them to a crisis of strong and high feeling, — those men with commonplace souls, who in the evening are not like victors on triumphal cars, but like tired mules to whom life has rather too often applied the whip. What would those men at all know of " higher moods," unless there were expedients for causing ecstasy and idealistic strokes of the whip! — and thus they have their inspirers as they have their wines. But what is their drink and their drunkenness to me! Does the inspired one need wine ? He rather looks with a kind of disgust at the agency and the agent which are here intended to produce an effect without sufficient reason, — an imitation of the high tide of the soul ! What ? One gives the mole wings and proud fancies — before going to sleep, before he creeps into his hole? One sends him into the theatre and puts great magnifying-glasses to his blind and tired eyes? Men, whose life is not "action" but business, sit in front of the stage and look at strange beings to whom life is more than business? "This is proper," you say, "this


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is entertaining, this is what culture wants ! "—Well then ' culture is too often lacking in me. for this sight is too often disgusting to me. He who has enough of tragedy and comedy m himself surely prefers to remain away from the theatre; or as an exception, the whole procedure— theatre and public and poet included— becomes for him a truly tragic and comic play, so that the performed piece counts for little in comparison. He who is something like Faust and Manfred, what does it matter to him about the Fausts and Manfreds of the theatre!— while it certainly gives him some- thing to think about that such figures are brought into the theatre at all. The strongest thoughts and passions before those who are not capable of thought and passion-but of intoxication only ! And^^^T^^ as a means to this end ! And theatre and music the hashish-smoking and betel-chewing of Europeans! Oh who will narrate to us the whole history of narcotics !-It is almost the history of "culture, the so-called higher culture !

87. The Conceit of Artisfs.-l think artists often do not know what they can do best, because they are too conceited, and have set their minds on some- thing loftier than those little plants appear to be, which can grow up to perfection on their soil, fresh, rare, and beautiful. The final value of their own garden and vineyard is superciliously under- estimated by them, and their love and their insight are not of the same quality. Here is a musician, • who, more than any one else, has the genius for


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discovering the tones peculiar to suffering, oppressed, tortured souls, and who can endow even dumb animals with speech. No one equals him in the colours of the late autumn, in the indescribably touching happiness of a last, a final, and all too short enjoyment ; he knows a chord for those secret and weird midnights of the soul when cause and effect seem out of joint, and when every instant something may originate "out of nothing." He draws his resources best of all out of the lower depths of human happiness, and so to speak, out of its drained goblet, where the bitterest and most nauseous drops have ultimately, for good or for ill, commingled with the sweetest. He knows the weary shuffling along of the soul which can no longer leap or fly, yea, not even walk ; he has the shy glance of concealed pain, of understanding without comfort, of leave-taking without avowal ; yea, as the Orpheus of all secret misery, he is greater than anyone ; and in fact much has been added to art by him which was hitherto inexpressible and not even thought worthy of art, and which was only to be scared away, by words, and not grasped — many small and quite microscopic features of the soul : yes, he is the master of miniature. But he does not wish to be so ! His character is more in love with large walls and daring frescoes ! He fails to see that his spirit has a different taste and inclination, and prefers to sit quietly in the corners of ruined houses : — concealed in this way, concealed even from himself, he there paints his proper master- pieces, all of which are very short, often only one bar in length, — there only does he become quite


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good, great, and perfect, perhaps there only. — But he does not know it! He is too conceited to know it.

88.

Earnestness for the Truth. — Earnest for the truth ! What different things men understand by these words ! Just the same opinions, and modes of demonstration and testing which a thinker regards as a frivolity in himself, to which he has succumbed with shame at one time or other, — just the same opinions may give to an artist, who comes in contact with them and accepts them temporarily, the consciousness that the profoundest earnestness for the truth has now taken hold of him, and that it is worthy of admiration that, although an artist, he at the same time exhibits the most ardent desire for the antithesis of the apparent. It is thus possible that a person may, just by his pathos of earnestness, betray how superficially and sparingly his intellect has hitherto operated in the domain of knowledge. — And is not everything that we con- sider important our betrayer? It shows where our motives lie, and where our motives are altogether lacking.

89.

Now and Formerly. — Of what consequence is all our art in artistic products, if that higher art, the art of the festival, be lost by us? Formerly all artistic products were exhibited on the great festive-path of humanity, as tokens of remembrance, and monuments of high and happy moments. One now seeks to allure the exhausted and sickly


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from the great suffering-path of humanity for a wanton moment by means of works of art ; one furnishes them with a little ecstasy and insanity.

90.

Lights and Shades,— ^ooVs and writings are different with different thinkers. One writer has collected together in his book all the rays of light which he could quickly plunder and carry home from an illuminating experience; while another gives only the shadows, and the grey and black replicas of that which on the previous day had towered up in his soul.

91.

Precaution.— K\?iGn, as is well known, told a great many falsehoods when he narrated the history of his life to his astonished contemporaries. He told falsehoods owing to the despotism toward himself which he exhibited, for example, in the way in which he created his own language, and tyrannised himself into a poet :— he finally found a rigid form of sublimity into which he forced his life and his memory ; he must have suffered much in the process. — I would also give no credit to a history of Plato's life written by himself, as little as to Rousseau's, or to the Vita nuova of Dante.

92.

Prose and Poetry. — Let it be observed that the great masters of prose have almost always been poets as well, whether openly, or only in secret and


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for the " closet " ; and in truth one only writes good prose in view of poetry ! For prose is an uninter- rupted, polite warfare with poetry ; all its charm consists in the fact that poetry is constantly avoided and contradicted ; every abstraction wants to have a gibe at poetry, and wishes to be uttered with a mocking voice ; all dryness and coolness is meant to bring the amiable goddess into an amiable despair ; there are often approximations and recon- ciliations for the moment, and then a sudden recoil and a burst of laughter ; the curtain is often drawn up and dazzling light let in just while the goddess is enjoying her twilights and dull colours ; the word is often taken out of her mouth and chanted to a melody while she holds her fine hands before her delicate little ears : — and so there are a thousand enjoyments of the warfare, the defeats included, of which the unpoetic, the so-called prose - men know nothing at all : — they conse- quently write and speak only bad prose ! Warfare is the father of all good things, it is also the father of good prose ! — There have been four very singular and -truly poetical men in this century who have arrived at mastership in prose, for which other- wise this century is not suited, owing to lack of poetry, as we have indicated. Not to take Goethe into account, for he is reasonably claimed by the century that produced him, I look only on Giacomo Leopardi, Prosper Merim6e, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walter Savage Landor the author of Imaginary Conversations, as worthy to be called masters of prose.


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But why, then, do you Write ? — A : I do not belong to those who think with the wet pen in hand ; and still less to those who yield themselves entirely to their passions before the open ink-bottle, sitting on their chair and staring at the paper. I am always vexed and abashed by writing ; writing is a necessity for me, — even to speak of it in a simile is disagreeable. B : But why, then, do you write ? A : Well, my dear Sir, to tell you in con- fidence, I have hitherto found no other means of getting rid of my thoughts. B : And why do you wish to get rid of them ? A : Why I wish ? Do I really wish ! I must. — B : Enough ! Enough !

94.

Growth after Death. — Those few daring words about moral matters which Fontenelle threw into his immortal Dialogues of the Dead, were regarded by his age as paradoxes and amusements of a not unscrupulous wit ; even the highest judges of taste and intellect saw nothing more in them, — indeed, Fontenelle himself perhaps saw nothing more. Then something incredible takes place: these thoughts become truths! Science proves them ! The game becomes serious ! And we read those dialogues with a feeling different from that with which Voltaire and Helvetius read them, and we involuntarily raise their originator into another and much higher class of intellects than they did. — Rightly ? Wrongly ?


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Chamfort. — That such a judge of men and of the multitude as Chamfort should side with the multitude, instead of standing apart in philo- sophical resignation and defence — I am at a loss to explain this, except as follows: — There was an instinct in him stronger than his wisdom, and it had never been gratified : the hatred against all noblesse of blood ; perhaps his mother's old and only too explicable hatred, which was consecrated in him by love of her, — an instinct of revenge from his boyhood, which waited for the hour to avenge his mother. But then the course of his life, his genius, and alas ! most of all, perhaps, the paternal blood in his veins, had seduced him to rank and consider himself equal to the noblesse — for many, many years ! In the end, however, he could not endure the sight of himself, the "old man " under the old regime, any longer ; he got into a violent, penitential passion, and in this state he put on the raiment of the populace as his special kind of hair-shirt! His bad conscience was the neglect of revenge. — If Chamfort had then been a little more of the philosopher, the Revolution would not have had its tragic wit and its sharpest sting ; it would have been regarded as a much more stupid affair, and would have had no such seductive influence on men's minds. But Chamfort's hatred and revenge educated an entire generation ; and the most illustrious men passed through his school. Let us but consider that Mirabeau looked up to Chamfort as to his higher and older self,


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from whom he expected (and endured) impulses, warnings, and condemnations, — Mirabeau, who as a man belongs to an entirely different order of greatness, as the very foremost among the states- man-geniuses of yesterday and to-day. — Strange, that in spite of such a friend and advocate — we possess Mirabeau's letters to Chamfort — this wittiest of all moralists has remained unfamiliar to the French, quite the same as Stendhal, who has perhaps had the most penetrating eyes and ears of any Frenchman of this century. Is it because the latter had really too much of the German and the Englishman in his nature for the Parisians to endure him? — while Chamfort, a man with ample knowledge of the profundities and secret motives of the soul, gloomy, suffering, ardent — a thinker who found laughter necessary as the remedy of life, and who almost gave himself up as lost every day that he had not laughed, — seems much more like an Italian, and related by blood to Dante and Leopardi, than like a French- man. One knows Chamfort's last words: Ah! nton ami" he said to Sieyes, "/<? m'en vais efifin de ce monde, oil il faut que le ccsur se brise ou se bronze — ." These were certainly not the words of a dying Frenchman.

96. Two Orators.—Oi these two orators the one arrives at a full understanding of his case only when he yields himself to emotion ; it is only this that pumps sufficient blood and heat into his brain to compel his high intellectuality to reveal itself 9


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The other attempts, indeed, now and then to do the same: to state his case sonorously, vehe- mently, and spiritedly with the aid of emotion, —but usually with bad success. He then very soon speaks obscurely and confusedly; he exagger- ates, makes omissions, and excites suspicion of the justice of his case : indeed, he himself feels this suspicion, and the sudden changes into the coldest and most repulsive tones (which raise a doubt in the hearer as to his passion ateness being genuine) are thereby explicable. With him emotion always drowns the spirit ; perhaps because it is stronger than in the former. But he is at the height of his power when he resists the impetuous storm of his feeling, and as it were scorns it ; it is then only that his spirit emerges fully from its concealment, a spirit logical, mocking and playful, but never- theless awe-inspiring.

97.

The Loquacity of Auikors.— There is a loquacity

of anger— frequent in Luther, also in Schopenhauer.

A loquacity which comes from too great a store

of conceptual formulae, as in Kant. A loquacity

which comes from delight in ever new modifications

of the same idea : one finds it in Montaigne. A

loquacity of malicious natures: whoever reads

writings of our period will recollect two authors in

this connection. A loquacity which comes from

delight in fine words and forms of speech : by no

means rare in Goethe's prose. A loquacity which

comes from pure satisfaction in noise and confusion

of feelings : for example in Carlyle.


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98.

In Honour of Shakespeare. — The best thing I could say in honour of Shakespeare, the man, is that he believed in Brutus, and cast not a shadow of suspicion on the kind of virtue which Brutus represents ! It is to him that Shakespeare conse- crated his best tragedy — it is at present still called by a wrong name, — to him, and to the most terrible essence of lofty morality. Independence of soul ! — that is the question at issue ! No sacrifice can be too great there : one must be able to sacrifice to it even one's dearest friend, although he be the grandest of men, the ornament of the world, the genius without peer, — if one really loves freedom as the freedom of great souls, and if this freedom be threatened by him : — it is thus that Shakespeare must have felt ! The elevation in which he places Caesar is the most exquisite honour he could confer upon Brutus ; it is thus only that he lifts into vastness the inner problem of his hero, and similarly the strength of soul which could cut this knot ! — And was it actually political freedom that impelled the poet to sympathy with Brutus, — and made him the accomplice of Brutus ? Or was political freedom merely a symbol for something inexpressible ? Do we perhaps stand before some sombre event or adventure of the poet's own soul, which has remained unknown, and of which he only cared to speak symbolically? What is all Hamlet-melancholy in comparison with the melancholy of Brutus ! — and perhaps Shakespeare also knew this, as he knew the other, by experience ! Perhaps he also had


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his dark hour and his bad angel, just as Brutus had them'— But whatever similarities and secret re- lationships of that kind there may have been, Shakespeare cast himself on the ground and felt unworthy and alien in presence of the aspect and virtue of Brutus :— he has inscribed the testimony thereof in the tragedy itself. He has twice brought in a poet in it, and twice heaped upon him such an impatient and extreme contempt, that it sounds like a cry,— like the cry of self-contempt. Brutus, even Brutus loses patience when the poet appears, self-important, pathetic and obtrusive, as poets usually are,— persons who seem to abound m the possibilities of greatness, even moral greatness, and nevertheless rarely attain even to ordinary uprightness in the philosophy of practice and of life " He may know the times, dui I know his temper,-z.^^y with the jigging fool '."-shouts Brutus. We may translate this back into the soul of the poet that composed it.

99. The Followers of Schopenhauer.— Wh^X one sees at the contact of civilized peoples with barbarians, —namely, that the lower civilization regularly accepts in the first place the vices, weaknesses, and excesses of the higher ; then, from that point onward, feels the influence of a charm ; and finally, by means of the appropriated vices and weaknesses also allows something of the valuable influence of the higher culture to leaven it:-one can also see this close at hand and without journeys to bar- barian peoples, to be sure, somewhat refined and


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spiritualised, and not so readily palpable. What are the German followers of Schopenhauer still accustomed to receive first of all from their master ? — those who, when placed beside his superior culture, must deem themselves sufficiently barbarous to be first of all barbarously fascinated and seduced by him. Is it his hard matter-of-fact sense, his inclination to clearness and rationality, which often makes him appear so English, and so unlike Germans? Or the strength of his intellectual conscience, which endured a life-long contradiction of "being" and "willing," and compelled him to contradict himself constantly even in his writings on almost every point ? Or his purity in matters relating to the Church and the Christian God ? — for here he was pure as no German philosopher had been hitherto, so that he lived and died " as a Voltairian." Or his immortal doctrines of the intellectuality of intuition, the apriority of the law of causality, the instrumental nature of the intellect, and the non-freedom of the will ? No, nothing of this enchants, nor is felt as enchanting ; but Schopenhauer's mystical embarrassments and shufflings in those passages where the matter-of- fact thinker allowed himself to be seduced and corrupted by the vain impulse to be the unraveller of the world's riddle : his undemonstrable doctrine of one will (" all causes are merely occasional causes of the phenomenon of the will at such a time and at such a place," "the will to live, whole and undivided, is present in every being, even in the smallest, as perfectly as in the sum of all that was, is, and will be"); his denial of the


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individual ("all lions are really only one lion," " plurality of individuals is an appearance," as also development is only an appearance : he calls the opinion of Lamarck "an ingenious, absurd error ") ; his fantasy about genius (" in aesthetic contemplation the individual is no longer an individual, but a pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge," " the subject, in that it entirely merges in the contemplated object, has become this object itself") ; his nonsense about sympathy, and about the outburst of the principium individuationis thus rendered possible, as the source of all morality ; including also such assertions as, "dying is really the design of existence," "the possibility should not be absolutely denied that a magical effect could proceed from a person already dead " : — these, and similar extravagances and vices of the philosopher, are always first accepted and made articles of faith ; for vices and extravagances are always easiest to imitate, and do not require a long preliminary practice. But let us speak of the most celebrated of the living Schopenhauerians, Richard Wagner. — It has happened to him as it has already happened to many an artist : he made a mistake in the interpretation of the characters he created, and misunderstood the unexpressed philosophy of the art peculiarly his own. Richard Wagner allowed himself to be misled by Hegel's influence till the middle of his life; and he did the same again when later on he read Schopenhauer's doctrine between the lines of his characters, and began to express himself with such terms as


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"will," "genius," and "sympathy." Nevertheless it will remain true that nothing is more counter to Schopenhauer's spirit than the essentially Wagnerian element in Wagner's heroes: I mean the innocence of the supremest selfishness, the belief in strong passion as the good in itself, in a word, the Siegfried trait in the countenances of his heroes. " All that still smacks more of Spinoza than of me," — Schopenhauer would probably have said. Whatever good reasons, therefore, Wagner might have had to be on the outlook for other philosophers than Schopenhauer, the enchantment to which he succumbed in respect to this thinker, not only made him blind towards all other philo- sophers, but even towards science itself; his entire art is more and more inclined to become the counterpart and complement of the Schopen- hauerian philosophy, and it always renounces more emphatically the higher ambition to become the counterpart and complement of human knowledge and science. And not only is he allured thereto by the whole mystic pomp of this philosophy (which would also have allured a Cagliostro), the peculiar airs and emotions of the philosopher have all along been seducing him as well ! For example, Wagner's indignation about the corruption of the German language is Schopenhauerian ; and if one should commend his imitation in this respect, it is nevertheless not to be denied that Wagner's style itself suffers in no small degree from all the tumours and turgidities, the sight of which made Schopenhauer so furious ; and that, in respect to the German-writing Wagnerians, Wagneromania


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is beginning to be as dangerous as only some kinds of Hegelomania have been. From Schopenhauer comes Wagner's hatred of the Jews, to whom he cannot do justice even in their greatest exploit: are not the Jews the inventors of Christianity ! The attempt of Wagner to construe Christianity as a seed blown away from Buddhism, and his endeavour to initiate a Buddhistic era in Europe, under a temporary approximation tc Catholic-Christian formulas and sentiments, are both Schopenhauerian. Wagner's preaching in favour of pity in dealing with animals is Schopen- hauerian; Schopenhauer's predecessor here, as is well known, was Voltaire, who already perhaps, like his successors, knew how to disguise his hatred of certain men and things as pity towards animals. At least Wagner's hatred of science, which mani- fests itself in his preaching, has certainly not been inspired by the spirit of charitableness and kindness — nor by the spirit at all, as is sufficiently obvious. — Finally, it is of little importance what the philosophy of an artist is, provided it is only a supplementary philosophy, and does not do any injury to his art itself. We cannot be sufficiently on our guard against taking a dislike to an artist on account of an occasional, perhaps very unfortunate and presumptuous masquerade; let us not forget that the dear artists are all of them something of actors — and must be so ; it would be difficult for them to hold out in the long run without stage- playing. Let us be loyal to Wagner in that which is true and original in him, — and especially in this point, that we, his disciples, remain loyal


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, 11 1 37

to ourselves in that which is true and original in us. Let us allow him his intellectual humours and spasms, let us in fairness rather consider what strange nutriments and necessaries an art like his t's entitled to, in order to be able to live and grow ! It is of no account that he is often wrong as a thinker ; justice and patience are not his affair. It is sufficient that his life is right in his own eyes, and maintains its right, — the life which calls to each of us : " Be a man, and do not follow me — but thyself! thyself!" Our life, also ought to main- tain its right in our own eyes ! We also are to grow and blossom out of ourselves, free and fearless, in innocent selfishness ! And so, on the contem- plation of such a man, these thoughts still ring in my ears to-day, as formerly: "That passion is better than stoicism or hypocrisy ; that straight- forwardness, even in evil, is better than losing oneself in trying to observe traditional morality ; that the free man is just as able to be good as evil, but that the unemancipated man is a disgrace to nature, and has no share in heavenly or earthly bliss ; finally, that all who wish to be free must become so through themselves, and that freedom falls to nobody's lot as a gift from Heaven." {^Richard Wagner in Bayreuth^ Vol. I. of this Translation, pp. 199-200).

100.

Learning to do Homage. — One must learn the art of homage, as well as the art of contempt. Whoever goes in new paths and has led many persons therein, discovers with astonishment how


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awkward and incompetent all of them are in the expression of their gratitude, and indeed how rarely gratitude is able even to express itself. It is always as if something comes into people's throats when their gratitude wants to speak so that it only hems and haws, and becomes silent again The way in which a thinker succeeds in tracing the effect of his thoughts, and their trans- forming and convulsing power, is almost a comedy : it sometimes seems as if those who have been operated upon felt profoundly injured thereby, and could only assert their independence, which they suspect to be threatened, by all kinds of impro- prieties. It needs whole generations in order merely to devise a courteous convention of gratefulness; it is only very late that the period arrives when something of spirit and genius enters into gratitude Then there is usually some one who is the great receiver of thanks, not only for the good he himself has done, but mostly for that which has been gradually accumulated by his predecessors, as a treasure of what is highest and best.


lOI.


r^//^/m-Wherever there has been a court, it has furnished the standard of good-speaking, and with this also the standard of style for writers The court language, however, is the language of the courtier who has no profession, and who even in conversations on scientific subjects avoids all con- venient, technical expressions, because they smack of the profession; on that account the technical expression, and everything that betrays the special-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, 11 I39

ist, is a blemish of style in countries which have a court culture. At present, when all courts have become caricatures of past and present times, one is astonished to find even Voltaire unspeakably reserved and scrupulous on this point (for example, in his judgments concerning such stylists as Fon- tenelle and Montesquieu), — we are now, all of us, emancipated from court taste, while Voltaire was its perfecter !

102.

A Word for Philologists. — It is thought that there are books so valuable and royal that whole generations of scholars are well employed when through their efforts these books are kept genuine and intelligible, — to confirm this belief again and again is the purpose of philology. It presupposes that the rare men are not lacking (though they may not be visible), who actually know how to use such valuable books : — those men perhaps who write such books themselves, or could write them. I mean to say that philology presupposes a noble belief, — that for the benefit of some few who are always " to come," and are not there, a very great amount of painful, and even dirty labour has to be done beforehand : it is all labour in usum Delphinorum.

103.

German Music. — German music, more than any other, has now become European music ; because the changes which Europe experienced through the Revolution have therein alone found expres- sion : it is only German music that knows how to


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express the agitation of popular masses, the tre- mendous artificial uproar, which does not even need to be very noisy,— while Italian opera, for example, knows only the choruses of domestics or soldiers, but not "the people." There is the additional fact that in all German music a profound bourgeois jealousy of the noblesse can be traced, especially a jealousy of esprit and ^Ugance, as the expressions of a courtly, chivalrous, ancient, and self-confident society. It is not music like that of Goethe's musician at the gate, which was pleasing also "in the hall," and to the king as well; it is not here said: "The knights looked on with martial air ; with bashful eyes the ladies." Even the Graces are not allowed in German music without a touch of remorse ; it is only with Pleasantness, the country sister of the Graces that the German begins to feel morally at ease— and from this point up to his enthusiastic, learned, and often gruff " sublimity" (the Beethoven- like sublimity), he feels more and more so. If we want to imagine the man of tkis music,— well, let us just imagine Beethoven as he appeared beside Goethe, say, at their meeting at Teplitz : as semi- barbarism beside culture, as the masses beside the nobility, as the good-natured man beside the good and more than "good" man, as the visionary beside the artist, as the man needing comfort beside the comforted, as the man given to exaggeration and distrust beside the man of reason, as the crank and self-tormenter, as the foolishly enraptured, blessedly unfortunate, sincerely immoderate man[ as the pretentious and awkward man,— and alto-


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gather as the "untamed man": it was thus that Goethe conceived and characterised him, Goethe, the exceptional German, for whom a music of equal rank has not yet been found ! — Finally, let us consider whether the present continually extending contempt of melody and the stunting of the sense for melody among Germans should not be understood as a democratic impropriety and an after-effect of the Revolution? For melody has such an obvious delight in conformity to law, and such an aversion to everything evolving, unformed and arbitrary, that it sounds like a note out of the ancient European regime, and as a seduction and guidance back to it.

104.

The Tone of the German Language. — We know whence the German originated which for several centuries has been the universal literary language of Germany. The Germans, with their reverence for everything that came from the court, intentionally took the chancery style as their pattern in all that they had to write, especially in their letters, records, wills, &c. To write in the chancery style, that was to write in court and government style, — that was regarded as something select, compared with the language of the city in which a person lived. People gradually drew this inference, and spoke also as they wrote, — they thus became still more select in the forms of their words, in the choice of their terms and modes of expression, and finally also in their tones : they affected a court tone when they spoke, and the affectation at last became


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natural Perhaps nothing quite similar has ever happened elsewhere: — the predominance of the literary style over the talk, and the formality and affectation of an entire people becoming the basis of a common and no longer dialectical language. I believe that the sound of the German language in the Middle Ages, and especially after the Middle Ages, was extremely rustic and vulgar; it has ennobled itself somewhat during the last centuries, principally because it was found necessary to imitate so many French, Italian, and Spanish sounds, and particularly on the part of the German (and Austrian) nobility, who could not at all content themselves with their mother-tongue. But notwithstanding this practice, German must have sounded intolerably vulgar to Montaigne, and even to Racine : even at present, in the mouths of travellers among the Italian populace, it still sounds very coarse, sylvan, and hoarse, as if it had origi- nated in smoky rooms and outlandish districts. — Now I notice that at present a similar striving after selectness of tone is spreading among the former admirers of the chancery style, and that the Germans are beginning to accommodate themselves to a peculiar " witchery of sound," which might in the long run become an actual danger to the German language, — for one may seek in vain for more execrable sounds in Europe. Something mocking, cold, indifferent and careless in the voice : that is what at present sounds " noble " to the Germans — and I hear the approval of this nobleness in the voices of young officials, teachers, women, and trades-people; indeed, even


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II I43

the little girls already imitate this German of the officers. For the officer, and in fact the Prussian officer is the inventor of these tones : this same officer, who as soldier and professional man pos- sesses that admirable tact for modesty which the Germans as a whole might well imitate (German professors and musicians included !). But as soon as he speaks and moves he is the most immodest and inelegant figure in old Europe — no doubt unconsciously to himself! And unconsciously also to the good Germans, who gaze at him as the man of the foremost and most select society, and willingly let him " give them his tone." And indeed he gives it to them !— in the first place it is the sergeant-majors and non-commissioned officers that imitate his tone and coarsen it. One should note the roars of command, with which the German cities are absolutely surrounded at present, when there is drilling at all the gates: what presump- tion, furious imperiousness, and mocking coldness speaks in this uproar ! Could the Germans actually be a musical people?— It is certain that the Germans martialise themselves at present in the tone of their language : it is probable that, being exercised to speak martially, they will finally write martially also. For habituation to definite tones extends deeply into the character :— people soon have the words and modes of expression, and finally also the thoughts which just suit these tones! Perhaps they already write in the officers' style; perhaps I only read too little of what is at present written in Germany to know this. But one thing I know all the surer : the German public declara-


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tions which also reach places abroad, are not inspired by German music, but just by that new tone of tasteless arrogance. Almost in every speech of the foremost German statesman, and even when he makes himself heard through his imperial mouth-piece, there is an accent which the ear of a foreigner repudiates with aversion : but the Germans endure it,— they endure themselves.

105. The Germans as Artists. — When once a German actually experiences passion (and not only, as is usual, the mere inclination to it), he then behaves just as he must do in passion, and does not think further of his behaviour. The truth is, however, that he then behaves very awkwardly and uglily, and as if destitute of rhythm and melody ; so that onlookers are pained or moved thereby, but nothing mox&— unless he elevate himself to the sublimity and enrapturedness of which certain passions are capable. Then even the German becomes beautiful. The consciousness of the height at which beauty begins to shed its charm even over Germans, forces German artists to the height and the super-height, and to the extravagances of passion: they have an actual, profound longing, therefore, to get beyond, or at least to look beyond the ugliness and awkwardness — into a better, easier, more southern, more sunny world. And thus their convulsions are often merely indications that they would like to dance : these poor bears in whom hidden nymphs and satyrs, and sometimes still higher divinities, carry on their game !


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II I4S

106.

Music as Advocate. — "I have a longing for a master of the musical art," said an innovator to his disciple, " that he may learn from me my ideas and speak them more widely in his language : I shall thus be better able to reach men's ears and hearts. For by means of tones one can seduce men to every error and every truth: who could refute a tone ? " — " You would, therefore, like to be regarded as irrefutable?" said his disciple. The innovator answered : " I should like the germ to become a tree. In order that a doctrine may become a tree, it must be believed in for a con- siderable period ; in order that it may be believed in it must be regarded as irrefutable. Storms and doubts and worms and wickedness are necessary to the tree, that it may manifest its species and the strength of its germ ; let it perish if it is not strong enough! But a germ is always merely annihilated, — not refuted!" — When he had said this, his disciple called out impetuously; "But I believe in your cause, and regard it as so strong that I will say everything against it, everything that I still have in my heart." — The innovator laughed to himself and threatened the disciple with his finger. "This kind of discipleship," said he then, "is the best, but it is dangerous, and not every kind of doctrine can stand it."

107.

Our Ultimate Gratitude to Art. — If we had not approved of the Arts and invented this sort of cult


146 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II

of the untrue, the insight into the general untruth and falsity of things now given us by science — an insight into delusion and error as conditions of intelligent and sentient existence — would be quite unendurable. Honesty would have disgust and suicide in its train. Now, however, our honesty has a counterpoise which helps us to escape such consequences ; — namely. Art, as the good-will to illusion. We do not always restrain our eyes from rounding off and perfecting in imagination : and then it is no longer the eternal imperfection that we carry over the river of Becoming — for we think we carry a goddess^ and are proud and artless in rendering this service. As an aesthetic phenomenon existence is still endurable to us ; and by Art, eye and hand and above all the good conscience are given to us, to be able to make such a phenomenon out of ourselves. We must rest from ourselves occasionally by contemplating and looking down upon ourselves, and by laughing or weeping over ourselves from an artistic remote- ness : we must discover the hero, and likewise the fool, that is hidden in our passion for knowledge ; we must now and then be joyful in our folly, that we may continue to be joyful in our wisdom ! And just because we are heavy and serious men in our ultimate depth, and are rather weights than men, there is nothing that does us so much good as the fooVs cap and bells : we need them in pre- sence of ourselves — we need all arrogant, soaring, dancing, mocking, childish and blessed Art, in order not to lose Mk\&free dominion over things which our ideal demands of us. It would be backsliding for us.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, II I47

with our susceptible integrity, to lapse entirely into morality, and actually become virtuous monsters and scarecrows, on account of the over -strict requirements which we here lay down for our- selves. We ought also to be able to stand above morality, and not only stand with the painful stiffness of one who every moment fears to slip and fall, but we should also be able to soar and play above it ! How could we dispense with Art for that purpose, how could we dispense with the fool ? — And as long as you are still ashamed of your- selves in any way, you still do not belong to us !


BOOK THIRD


io8.

New Struggles. — After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave, — an immense frightful shadow. God is dead : - but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow. — And we — we have still to overcome his shadow ! ""'

109.

Let us be on our Guard. — Let us be on our guard against thinking that the world is a living being. Where could it extend itself? What could it nourish itself with? How could it grow and increase? We know tolerably well what the organic is ; and we are to reinterpret the emphati- cally derivative, tardy, rare and accidental, which we only perceive on the crust of the earth, into the essential, universal and eternal, as those do who call the universe an organism ? That disgusts me. Let us now be on our guard against believing that the universe is a machine ; it is assuredly not con- structed with a view to one end ; we invest it with far too high an honour with the word " machine." Let us be on our guard against supposing that anything so methodical as the cyclic motions of our neighbouring stars obtains generally and throughout the universe; indeed a glance at the


152 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

Milky Way induces doubt as to whether there are not many cruder and more contradictory motions there, and even stars with continuous, rectilinearly gravitating orbits, and the Hke. The astral arrange- ment in which we live is an exception; this arrangement, and the relatively long durability which is determined by it, has again made possible the exception of exceptions, the formation of organic life. The general character of the world, on the other hand, is to all eternity chaos ; not by the absence of necessity, but in the sense of the absence of order, structure, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever else our aesthetic humanities are called. Judged by our reason, the unlucky casts are far oftenest the rule, the exceptions are not the secret purpose ; and the whole musical box repeats eternally its air, which can never be called a melody, —and finally the very expression, " unlucky cast " is already an anthropomorphising which involves blame. But how could we presume to blame or praise the universe! Let us be on our guard against ascribing to it heartlessness and unreason, or their opposites ; it is neither perfect, nor beauti- ful, nor noble ; nor does it seek to be anything of the kind, it does not at all attempt to imitate man ! It is altogether unaffected by our aesthetic and moral judgments! Neither has it any self- preservative instinct, nor instinct at all ; it also knows no law. Let us be on our guard against saying that there are laws in nature. There are only necessities : there is no one who commands, no one who obeys, no one who transgresses. When you know that there is no design, you know


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 153

also that there is no chance: for it is only where there is a world of design that the word " chance " has a meaning. Let us be on our guard against saying that death is contrary to life. The living being is only a species of dead being, and a very rare species. — Let us be on our guard against thinking that the world eternally creates the new. There are no eternally enduring substances ; matter is just another such error as the God of the Eleatics. But when shall we be at an end with our foresight and precaution ! When will all these shadows of God cease to obscure us ? When shall we have nature entirely undeified ! When shall we be permitted to naturalise our- selves by means of the pure, newly discovered, newly redeemed nature ?

no.

Origin of Knowledge. — Throughout immense stretches of time the intellect produced nothing but errors ; some of them proved to be useful and preservative of the species : he who fell in with them, or inherited them, waged the battle for him- self and his offspring with better success. Those erroneous articles of faith which were successively transmitted by inheritance, and have finally become almost the property and stock of the human species, are, for example, the following : — that there are enduring things, that there are equal things, that there are things, substances, and bodies, that a thing is what it appears, that our will is free, that what is good for me is also good abso- lutely. It was only very late that the deniers and


154 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

doubters of such propositions came forward, — it was only very late that truth made its appear- ance as the most impotent form of knowledge. It seemed as if it were impossible to get along with truth, our organism was adapted for the very opposite; all its higher functions, the perceptions of the senses, and in general every kind of sensation, co-operated with those primevally embodied, funda- mental errors. Moreover, those propositions became the very standards of knowledge according to which the " true " and the " false " were determined — throughout the whole domain of pure logic. The strength of conceptions does not, therefore, depend on their degree of truth, but on their antiquity, their embodiment, their character as conditions of life. Where life and knowledge seemed to con- flict, there has never been serious contention ; denial and doubt have there been regarded as madness. The exceptional thinkers like the Eleatics, who, in spite of this, advanced and main- tained the antitheses of the natural errors, believed that it was possible also to live these counterparts : it was they who devised the sage as the man of immutability, impersonality and universality of intuition, as one and all at the same time, with a special faculty for that reverse kind of knowledge ; they were of the belief that their knowledge was at the same time the principle of life. To be able to afiirm all this, however, they had to deceive them- selves concerning their own condition : they had to attribute to themselves impersonality and un- changing permanence, they had to mistake the nature of the philosophic individual, deny the force


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 155

of the impulses in cognition, and conceive of reason generally as an entirely free and self-originating activity ; they kept their eyes shut to the fact that they also had reached their doctrines in contradiction to valid methods, or through their longing for repose or for exclusive possession or for domination. The subtler development of sincerity and of scepticism finally made these men impossible ; their life also, and their judgments, turned out to be dependent on the primeval impulses and fundamental errors of all sentient being. — The subtler sincerity and scepticism arose wherever two antithetical maxims appeared to be applicable to life, because both of them were compatible with the fundamental errors ; where, therefore, there could be contention con- cerning a higher or lower degree of utility for life ; and likewise where new maxims proved to be, not necessarily useful, but at least not injurious, as ex- pressions of an intellectual impulse to play a game that was like all games innocent and happy. The human brain was gradually filled with such judgments and convictions ; and in this tangled skein there arose ferment, strife and lust for power. Not only utility and delight, but every kind of impulse took part in the struggle for " truths " : the intellectual struggle became a business, an attrac- tion, a calling, a duty, an honour — : cognizing and striving for the true finally arranged themselves as needs among other needs. From that moment, not only belief and conviction, but also examination, denial, distrust and contradiction became forces ; all " evil " instincts were subordinated to know- ledge, were placed in its service, and acquired the


IS6 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

prestige of the permitted, the honoured, the useful, and finally the appearance and innocence of the good. Knowledge, thus became a portion of life itself, and as life it became a continually growing power: until finally the cognitions and those primeval, fundamental errors clashed with each other, both as life, both as power, both in the same man. The thinker is now the being in whom the impulse to truth and those life- preserving errors wage their first conflict, now that the impulse to truth has also proved itself to be a life-preserving power. In comparison with the importance of this conflict everything else is indifferent ; the final question concerning the con- ditions of life is here raised, and the first attempt is here made to answer it by experiment. How far is truth susceptible of embodiment? — that is the question, that is the experiment.

III.

Origin of the Logical. — Where has logic origin- ated in men's heads? Undoubtedly out of the illogical, the domain of which must originally lave been immense. But numberless beings who reasoned otherwise than we do at present, perished ; albeit that they may have come nearer to truth than we ! Whoever, for example, could not discern the " like " often enough with regard to food, and with regard to animals dangerous to him, whoever, therefore, deduced too slowly, or was too circum- spect in his deductions, had smaller probability of survival than he who in all similar cases immedi- ately divined the equality. The preponderating


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 157

inclination, however, to deal with the similar as f\ the equal — an illogical inclination, for there is no- thing e:qual in itself — first created the whole basis of logic. It was just so (in order that the con- ception of substance should originate, this being indispensable to logic, although in the strictest sense nothing actual corresponds to it) that for a long period the changing process in things had to be overlooked, and remain unperceived ; the beings not seeing correctly had an advantage over those who saw everything " in flux." In itself every high degree of circumspection in conclusions, every sceptical inclination, is a great danger to life. No living being might have been preserved unless the contrary inclination — to affirm rather than suspend judgment, to mistake and fabricate rather than wait, to assent rather than deny, to decide rather than be in the right — had been cultivated with extra- ordinary assiduity. — The course of logical thought and reasoning in our modern brain corresponds to a process and struggle of impulses, which singly and in themselves are all very illogical and un- just ; we experience usually only the result of the struggle, so rapidly and secretly does this primitive mechanism now operate in us.

1X2.

Cause and Effect. — We say it is " explanation " ; but it is only in "description" that we are in advance of the older stages of knowledge and science. We describe better, — we explain just as little as our predecessors. We have discovered a manifold succession where the naive man and


158 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

investigator of older cultures saw only two things, " cause " and " effect," as it was said ; we have per- fected the conception of becoming, but have not got a knowledge of what is above and behind the conception. The series of " causes " stands before us much more complete in every case ; we conclude that this and that must first precede in order that that other may follow — but we have not grasped anything thereby. The peculiarity, for example, in every chemical process seems a " miracle," the same as before, just like all locomotion ; nobody has " explained " impulse. How could we ever explain ! We operate only with things which do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible times, divisible spaces — how can explanation ever be possible when we first make everything a conception, our conception ! It is sufficient to regard science as the exactest humanising of things that is possible ; we always learn to describe ourselves more accurately by describing things and their successions. Cause and effect: there is probably never any such duality ; in fact there is a continuum before us, from which we isolate a few portions ; — just as we always observe a motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it, but infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads us into error ; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude of processes in that abrupt moment which escape us. An intellect which could see cause and effect as a continuum, which could see the flux of events not according to our mode of perception, as things arbitrarily separated and broken — would throw aside


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 1 59

the conception of cause and effect, and would deny all conditionality.

113.

The Theory of Poisons. — So many things have to be united in order that scientific thinking may arise, and all the necessary powers must have been devised, exercised, and fostered singly ! In their isolation, however, they have very often had quite a different effect than at present, when they are confined within the limits of scientific thinking and kept mutually in check : — they have operated as poisons ; for example, the doubting impulse, the denying impulse, the waiting impulse, the collect- ing impulse, the disintegrating impulse. Many hecatombs of men were sacrificed ere these impulses learned to understand their juxtaposition and regard themselves as functions of one organising force in one man ! And how far are we still from the point at which the artistic powers and the prac- tical wisdom of life shall co-operate with scientific thinking, so that a higher organic system may be formed, in relation to which the scholar, the physi- cian, the artist, and the lawgiver, as we know them at present, will seem sorry antiquities !

114.

The Extent of the Moral. — We construct a new picture, which we see immediately with the aid of all the old experiences which we have had, always according to the degree of our honesty and justice. The only experiences are moral experi- ences, even in the domain of sense-perception.


l60 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

115.

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 en- nobled 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 condi- tions for the maintenance of one community have been very different from those of another com- munity, there have been very different moralities ; and in respect to the future essential transforma- tions of herds and communities, states and societies, one can prophesy that there will still be very diver-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III l6l

gent 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 respon- sible for what one intends and for what one does, and we have our pride in ourselves. All our pro- fessors 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 distaste- ful. 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 II


l62 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 like- wise, indeed the whole herd !— It is in this respect that we have most changed our mode of thinking.

ii8. Benevolence.— \s it virtuous when a cell trans- forms 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 there- fore 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 trans- form 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 !—l 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 i/iey themselves can be functions. Among such persons


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 163

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 them- selves 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 whathealth. implies even for thy dody. 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 con-


1 64 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

trary 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 our- selves 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 1 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 Scept icism 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


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 165

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 know- ledge (curiosity) often enough suffices, amour-vaniti suffices, and habituation to it, with the afterthought of obtaining honour and bread ; it even suffices


l66 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, HI

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 employ- ment 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 pane- gyrists of science, suppressed his ultimate judg- ment 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 ot 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 Leo's 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.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 167

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


1 68 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 our- selves, 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


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 1 69

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 aeternam 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 comprehen- sible 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 any- thing 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 opera-


I/O THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

tions 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 funda- mental belief with him, which he applies every- where 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 retalia- tion). 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 primi- tive mythology on the throne ; he seems never to have attempted an analysis of the Will, because


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 171

he believed like everybody in the simph'city 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 Schopen- hauer :— 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 excita- tion 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.

128. The Value of Prayer.—? xd^y^r has been devised for such men as have never any thoughts of their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul is un- known, or passes unnoticed; what shall these people do in holy places and in all important situa- tions in life which require repose and some kind of dignity ? In order at least that they may not dis- turb, 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— ««^ 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


172 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 sup- posing 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 1

129.

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

130. A Dangerous Resolution.— 1\^^ Christian resolu- tion to find the world ugly and bad, has made the world ugly and bad.


»


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 173

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.

134. 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


174 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 poisonmg of Europe.— The German dislike of life (mcludmg the influence of the cellar-air and stove- poison in German dwellings), is essentially a cold- weather complaint.

^ 135. Origin of 5/«.-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 suc- ceeded 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 approxi- mation 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 re- vengeful 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 IcescB majestatis dzvtns— and nothing more ! Contrition, degrada- tion, rolling-in-the-dust,— these are the first and


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 175

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 indiffer- ence 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.

136.

The Chosen People. — The Jews, who regard them- selves 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


176 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 un- equalled 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 con- temptible, — they got beyond all uneasiness of con- science. 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.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 1^7

138. The Error of Christ— ThQ 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 under- stood subsequently how to do justice to their master, and how to sanctify his error into a " truth."

139- Colour of the Passio7is. — 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 them- selves 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 ?

140. Too fewish.~U God had wanted to become an object of love, he would first of all have had to 12


a


I7S THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

forgo judging and justice :-a judge, and even gracious judge, is no object of love. The founder of Christianity showed too h'ttle of the finer fedings in this respect— being a Jew.

141.

Too Onen^al-Wh^t? A God who loves men frf^M ! ' ^hey believe in him, and who hurls' frightful glances and threatenings at him who does not believe m 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 f How Oriental is all that ! « If I love thee, what does It concern thee ?" * is already a sufficient criticism ot the whole of Christianity.

142. Fmnh-ncmse.~Buddha says: "Do not flatter thy benefactor ! " Let one repeat this saying in a Christian church :-it immediately purifies the air of all Christianity.

143- ^ TAe Greatest Utility of Pofytkeism.~¥or the individual to set up his own ideal and derive from It his laws, his pleasures and his nghts—that has perhaps been hitherto regarded as the most mon- strous 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,

^* This means that true love does not look for reciprocity.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 1 79

usually in this wise : " Not I ! not I ! but a God, through my instrumentality ! " It was in the mar- vellous art and capacity for creating Gods — in poly- theism — that this impulsewas permitted todischarge itself, it was here that it became purified, perfected, and ennobled ; for it was originally a commonplace and unimportant impulse, akin to stubbornness, dis- obedience 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 pre- liminary 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 — con- sequently 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


I80 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

Other species of animals reached long a^o ;.. creatures who all bel.V^7^r? ;« ^ ^ ' ^^

and ideal r" .^^.^^^'^""^^ '^ one normal animal

lafeH hT r^ 'P^^^^ ^"^ definitely trans-

n no .T "'"'"^^, °' ^"^'°"^ ^'"^° fl-^h and blood hinkilC rT "^'" ^ free-thinking and many-sided

^ate for hfm' 1^°'^^!, "^ "^ ^ ^^^ P^-- to create for himself new and individual eyes alwav.

newer and more individualised: so that ^t L fo

man alone, of all the animals, that the re a ' -

^/.r«^/ horizons and perspectives. "°

144.

rr. f'^KTu ^^^-^-The greatest advance of the ma ses hitherto has been religious war. for It profes that the masses have begun to deal reverently Clth conceptions of things. Religious wars o'y felu t when human reason generally has been refined b he s bt e disputes of sects ; so that even the popu- lace becomes punctilious and regards trifles as

"tCiiar'r"" f v"'^^^^ possible :;fatth

eternal salvation of the soul" niay deoend unn^ minute distinctions of concepts. ""^^ "^^^^"^ "P°"

145. Danger of Vegetanans. - The immense ore valence of rice-eating impels to the us^of opC

prevalence of potato - eating impels to the use of brandy :_it also impels, however in ilrJ. subtle after-effects to modes'of tLught and feSi": which operate narcotically. This is in ...^ ^ I the fact i-h:,f f 1,^0 u -^ms IS in accord with

tWht and f , ^^°,r"^°te narcotic modes of thought and feeling, hke those Indian teachers,


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III l8l

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 pos- sible 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 / stand ! / 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.


1 82 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 dis- similar 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 can- not 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


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 1 83

herding instincts and the morality of custom, — a momentous state of suspense, which one is accus- tomed 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'^ Reformation succeeded in the north, is a sign that the north had remained backward in com- parison 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-require- ments, which also want to gratify and realise them- selves. 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 lew, 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


1 84 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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.

iSi. 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) worid," and feel an uncomfortable void and privation through the annihilation of the religious illusion; — and then "another worid" 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 require- ment, 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


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 1 85

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 be- lieved in prognostication. " Truth " was conceived in quite a different manner, for the insane could formerly be regarded as its mouthpiece — a thing which makes «j 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 every- thing 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


1 86 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

tragic denouement! Must I now think about a comic difnouement ? "

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 intoxi- cation you stiir 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;'^///

155.

What we Lack. — We love ^& grandeur oi'^^Xwxh^ 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 JOYFUL WISDOM, III 187

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.


1 88 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 He 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


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 189

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.


190 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

170.

Wifh 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 multi- tude 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 pub- lic permission to choose between five main political


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 191

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 preten- sions ! 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.


192 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 !


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 193

183. The Music of the Best Future.— ThQ 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 !

IBS. Poor. — He is now poor, but not because every- thing 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 ex- cellent and proper — and yet he has a bad con- science 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. 13


194 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

1 88.

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 per- fidious 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 kind- ness, 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.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III I95

193.

Kanfs 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 prob- ably 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 I

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


196 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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— Yi^ 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. Hie 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.

V7"^^^.— Need is supposed to be the cause of

things ; but in truth it is often only the result of things.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III I97

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 con- ceal ; all of them, therefore, ready and anxious to give pain to one another, and thus provide them- selves 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.


198 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III


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 Happijiess. — 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 !


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III I99

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 Ej^ect. — 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 punish- ment 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.


200 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

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 endan- gered by the loss of sound animal understand- ing ; — 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.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 20I

226.

The Distrustful and their Style. — We say the strongest things simply, provided people are about us who believe in our strength : — such an environ- ment educates to "simplicity of style." The distrustful, on the other hand, speak emphatically ; they make things emphatic.

227.

Fallacy^ Fallacy. — He cannot rule himself ; therefore that woman concludes that it will be easy to rule him, and throws out her lines to catch him ; — the poor creature, who in a short time will be his slave.

228.

Against Mediators. — He who attempts to mediate between two decided thinkers is rightly called mediocre : he has not an eye for seeing the unique ; similarising and equalising are signs of weak eyes.

229.

Obstinacy and Loyalty. — Out of obstinacy he holds fast to a cause of which the questionableness has become obvious, — he calls that, however, his " loyalty."

230.

Lack of Reserve. — His whole nature fails to convince — that results from the fact that he has never been reticent about a good action he has performed.


202 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

231.

The " Plodders^ — Persons slow of apprehension think that slowness forms part of knowledge.

232.

Dreaming. — Either one does not dream at all, or one dreams in an interesting manner. One must learn to be awake in the same fashion : — either not at all, or in an interesting manner.

233- The most Dangerous Point of View. — What I now do, or neglect to do, is as important y^;' all that is to come, as the greatest event of the past : in this immense perspective of effects all actions are equally great and small.

234.

Consolatory Words of a Musician. — "Your life does not sound into people's ears : for them you live a dumb life, and all refinements of melody, all fond resolutions in following or leading the way, are concealed from them. To be sure you do not parade the thoroughfares with regimental music, — but these good people have no right to say on that account that your life is lacking in music. He that hath ears let him hear."

235. Spirit and Character. — Many a one attains his full height of character, but his spirit is not adapted to the elevation, — and many a one reversely.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 203

236.

To Move the Multitude. — Is it not necessary for him who wants to move the multitude to give a stage representation of himself? Has he not first to translate himself into the grotesquely obvious, and then set forth his whole personality and cause in that vulgarised and simplified fashion ?

237- The Polite Man. — "He is so polite!" — Yes, he has always a sop for Cerberus with him, and is so timid that he takes everybody for Cerberus, even you and me, — that is his " politeness."

238.

Without Envy. — He is wholly without envy, but there is no merit therein : for he wants to conquer a land which no one has yet possessed and hardly any one has even seen.

239. The Joyless Person. — A single joyless person is enough to make constant displeasure and a clouded heaven in a household ; and it is only by a miracle that such a person is lacking! — Happiness is not nearly such a contagious disease ; — how is that ?

240.

On the Sea-Shore. — I would not build myselr a house (it is an element of my happiness not to be a house-owner !). If I had to do so, however, I should build it, like many of the Romans, right


204 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

into the sea, — I should like to have some secrets in common with that beautiful monster.

241.

Work and Artist. — This artist is ambitious and nothing more; ultimately, however, his work is only a magnifying-glass, which he offers to every one who looks in his direction.

242.

Suum cuique. — However great be my greed of knowledge, I cannot appropriate aught of things but what already belongs to me, — the property of others still remains in the things. How is it possible for a man to be a thief or a robber ?

243- Origin of Good and " Bad."— He only will devise an improvement who can feel that " this is not good."

244.

Thoughts and Words. — Even our thoughts we are unable to render completely in words.

245. Praise in Choice. — The artist chooses his subjects ; that is his mode of praising.

246.

Mathematics. — We want to carry the refinement and rigour of mathematics into all the sciences, as far as it is in any way possible, not in the belief that


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 205

we shall apprehend things in this way, but in order thereby to assert our human relation to things. Mathematics is only a means to general and ultimate human knowledge.

247. Habits. — All habits m^ke our hand wittier and our wit unhandier.

248.

Books. — Of what account is a book that never carries us away beyond all books ?


vay bs]


249.

The Sigh of the Seeker of Knowledge. — " Oh, my covetousness ! In this soul there is no disinterested- ness — but an all-desiring self, which, by means of many individuals, would fain see as with its own eyes, and grasp as with its own hands — a self bringing back even the entire past, and wanting to lose nothing that could in any way belong to it! Oh, this flame of my covetousness ! Oh, that I were reincarnated in a hundred individuals ! " — He who does not know this sigh by experience, does not know the passion of the seeker of knowledge either.

250.

Guilt. — Although the most intelligent judges ot the witches, and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchcraft, the guilt, nevertheless, was not there. So it is with all guilt.


206 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

251.

Misunderstood Sufferers. — Great natures suffer otherwise than their worshippers imagine; they suffer most severely from the ignoble, petty emo- tions of certain evil moments ; in short, from doubt of their own greatness ; — not however from the sacrifices and martyrdoms which their tasks require of them. As long as Prometheus sympathises with men and sacrifices himself for them, he is happy and proud in himself; but on becoming envious of Zeus and of the homage which mortals pay him — then Prometheus suffers !

252. Better to be in Debt. — " Better to remain in debt than to pay with money which does not bear our stamp ! " — that is what our sovereignty prefers.

253.

Always at Home. — One day we attain our goal — and then refer with pride to the long journeys we have made to reach it. In truth, we did not notice that we travelled. We got into the habit of think- ing that we were at home in every place.

254. Against Embarrassment. — He who is always thoroughly occupied is rid of all embarrassment.

255.

Imitators. — A : " What ? You don't want to have imitators ? " B : " I don't want people to do any-


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 207

thing after me ; I want every one to do something before himself (as a pattern to himself)— just as / do." A: "Consequently—?"

256. Skinniness. — All profound men have their happi- ness in imitating the flying-fish at times, and playing on the crests of the waves ; they think that what is best of all in things is their surface : their skinniness — sit venia verbo.

257. From Experience. — A person often does not know how rich he is, until he learns from experience what rich men even play the thief on him.

258. The Deniers of Chance. — No conqueror believes in chance.

259. From Paradise. — "Good and Evil are God's prejudices " — said the serpent.

260. One times One. — One only is always in the wrong, but with two truth begins. — One only cannot prove himself right ; but two are already beyond refutation.

261. Originality. — What is originality ? To see some- thing that does not yet bear a name, that cannot yet be named, although it is before everybody's


208 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III

eyes. As people are usually constituted, it is the name that first makes a thing generally visible to them. — Original persons have also for the most part been the namers of things.

262.

Sub specie aeterni. — A : " You withdraw faster and faster from the living; they will soon strike you out of their lists ! " — B : " It is the only way to participate in the privilege of the dead." A : " In what privilege ? " — B : " No longer having to die."

263.

Without Vanity. — When we love we want our defects to remain concealed, — not out of vanity, but lest the person loved should suffer therefrom. Indeed, the lover would like to appear as a God, — and not out of vanity either.

264.

What we Do. — What we do is never understood, but only praised and blamed.

265.

Ultimate Scepticism. — But what after all are man's truths ? — They are his irrefutable errors.

266.

Where Cruelty is Necessary. — He who is great is cruel to his second-rate virtues and judgments.


THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 209

267. With a high Aiin.—W\t\i a high aim a person is superior even to justice, and not only to his deeds and his judges.

268. What makes Heroic?— To face simultaneously one's greatest suffering and one's highest hope.

269. What dost thou Believe in ?— In this : That the weights of all things must be determined anew.

270.

WhatSaith thy Conscience ?— Thou shalt become what thou art."

271.

Where are thy Greatest Dangers ?— In pity.

272. What dost thou Love in others P— My hopes.

273- Whom dost thou call Bad P— Him who always wants to put others to shame.

274.

What dost thou think most humane ?~To spare a person shame.

275.

What is the Seal of Attained Liberty P— To be no longer ashamed of oneself. 14


BOOK FOURTH


SANCTUS JANUARIUS


Thou who with cleaving fiery lances The stream of my soul from its ice dost free, Till with a rush and a roar it advances To enter with glorious hoping the sea : Brighter to see and purer ever, Free in the bonds of thy sweet constraint, — So it praises thy wondrous en- deavour, January, thou beauteous saint !


Genoa, January 1882.


276.

For the New Year.~\ still live, I still think ; I must still live, for I must still think. Sum, ergo cogiio: cogiio, ergo sum. To-day everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favourite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself to-day, and what thought first crossed my mind this year,— a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful: — I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati : let that henceforth be my love ! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation ! And all in all, to sum up : I wish to be at any time hereafter only 3 yea-sayer !

277.

Personal Providence.—ThQxe is a certain climax m life, at which, notwithstanding all our freedom, and however much we may have denied all direct- mg reason and goodness in the beautiful chaos of existence, we are once more in great danger of intellectual bondage, and have to face our

•13


214 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

hardest test. For now the thought of a personal Providence first presents itself before us with its most persuasive force, and has the best of advocates, apparentness, in its favour, now when it is obvious that all and everything that happens to us always turns out for the best. The life of every day and of every hour seems to be anxious for nothing else but always to prove this proposition anew ; let it be what it will, bad or good weather, the loss of a friend, a sickness, a calumny, the non-receipt of a letter, the spraining of one's foot, a glance into a shop-window, a counter- argument, the opening of a book, a dream, a deception :— it shows itself immediately, or very soon afterwards, as something "not permitted to be absent,"— it is full of profound significance and utility precisely /^^ us ! Is there a more dangerous temptation to rid ourselves of the belief in the Gods of Epicurus, those careless, unknown Gods, and believe in some anxious and mean Divinity, who knows personally every little hair on our heads, and feels no disgust in rendering the most wretched services ? Well— I mean in spite of all this! we want to leave the Gods alone (and the serviceable genii likewise), and wish to content ourselves with the assumption that our own practical and theoretical skilfulness in explaining and suitably arranging events has now reached its highest point. We do not want either to think too highly of this dexterity of our wisdom, when the wonderful harmony which results from play- ing on our instrument sometimes surprises us too much : a harmony which sounds too well for


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 21$

US to dare to ascribe it to ourselves. In fact, now and then there is one who plays with us— beloved Chance : he leads our hand occasionally, and even the all-wisest Providence could not devise any finer music than that of which our foolish hand is then capable.

278.

The Thought of Death.— \t gives me a melancholy happiness to live in the midst of this confusion of streets, of necessities, of voices : how much en- joyment, impatience and desire, how much thirsty life and drunkenness of life comes to light here every moment! And yet it will soon be so still for all these shouting, lively, life-loving people! How everyone's shadow, his gloomy travelling- companion stands behind him ! It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emi- grant-ship : people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise — so greedy, so certain of its prey ! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self - deafening and self- overreaching! Everyone wants to be foremost in this future, — and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future ! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brother- hood of death ! It makes me happy to see that


2l6 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

men do not want to think at all of the idea of death t I would fa,n do something to make the idea of We -en a hundred times „.ore .ortky of tttr'l^l


279.


Stellar Pnendshtp.-SN^ were friends, and have become strangers to each other. But this is as ft ought to be, and we do not want either to clcea or obscure the fact as if we had to be ashamX

Ind It. r *'P "^* "^"•'■■^h has its goal

and .ts course; we may, to be sure, cross one another m our paths, and celebrate a feast toLh^r

ruiltlv in'o^'T;:"' "'^" *^ galla^sh^f £' ftat It n,°h. \"°"'^"d in one sunshine, so that It might have been thought thev were

tTZtTr^'r" "'^' «>^' had ifad^;:

fo°ced us In^T ' "■"•^'"y ^'^^"S'h of our tasks into riiff' ^T °"'^ "'°'^ '"'° ■■ff^'-^"' =eas and

ee one Totr""' '"^ P'=^P^ "^ =hall never see one another agam,_or perhaps we may see one another, but not know one anoLr agSn"^ ^e different seas and suns have altered us! That vve

to wtvh""'"' '"' '° "" -°'her is t': law to which we are suijecl: just by that shall we become more sacred to one another! Just Z that shall the thought of our former fr/endship

"%„Tgoals"'s;'tMer'd-ff" '^■^'^ °"

tTsh°or r '° ^'^ "^°"^'"-' But our life i too short, and our power of vision too limited for


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 217

US to be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility. — And so we will believe in our stellar friendship, though we should have to be terrestrial enemies to one another.


280.

Architecture for Thinkers. — An insight is needed (and that probably very soon) as to what is specially lacking in our great cities — namely, quiet, spacious, and widely extended places for reflection, places with long, lofty colonnades for bad weather, or for too sunny days, where no noise of wagons or of shouters would penetrate, and where a more refined propriety would prohibit loud praying even to the priest : buildings and situations which as a whole would express the sublimity of self-communion and seclusion from the world. The time is past when the Church possessed the monopoly of reflection, when the vita contemplativa had always in the first place to be the vita religiosa : and everything that the Church has built expresses this thought. I know not how we could content ourselves with their structures, even if they should be divested of their ecclesiastical purposes : these structures speak a far too pathetic and too biassed speech, as houses of God and places of splendour for super- natural intercourse, for us godless ones to be able to think our thoughts in them. We want to have ourselves translated into stone and plant, we want to go for a walk in ourselves when we wander in these halls and gardens.


2l8 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

281. Knowing how to Find the ^«^. -Masters of the first rank are recognised by knowing in a perfect manner how to find the end, in the whole as well as in the part ; be it the end of a melody or of a thought, be it the fifth act of a tragedy or of a state affair. The masters of the second degree always become restless towards the end, and seldom dip down into the sea with such proud, quiet equilibrium as, for example, the mountain-ridge at Porto fino— where the Bay of Genoa sings its melody to an end.

282. The Gait.~-T\iQXQ are mannerisms of the intellect by which even great minds betray that they originate from the populace, or from the semi- populace :-it is principally the gait and step of their thoughts which betray them ; they cannot walk. It was thus that even Napoleon, to his profound chagrin, could not walk "legitimately" and in princely fashion on occasions when it was necessary to do so properly, as in great coronation processions and on similar occasions : even there he was always just the leader of a column— proud and brusque at the same time, and very self-conscious of it all.— It is something laughable to see those writers who make the folding robes of their periods rustle around them : they want to cover their >^^.

283. Pioneers.~\ greet all the signs indicating that a more manly and wariike age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour !


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 219

For it has to prepare the way for a yet higher age, and gather the force which the latter will one day require, — the age which will carry heroism into know- ledge, and wage war for the sake of ideas and their consequences. For that end many brave pioneers are now needed, who, however, cannot originate out of nothing,— and just as little out of the sand and slime of present-day civilisation and the culture of great cities : men silent, solitary and resolute, who know how to be content and persistent in invisible activity: men who with innate disposition seek in all things that which is to be overcome in them : men to whom cheerfulness, patience, simplicity, and con- tempt of the great vanities belong just as much as do magnanimity in victory and indulgence to the trivial vanities of all the vanquished : men with an acute and independent judgment regarding all victors, and concerning the part which chance has played in the winning of victory and fame : men with their own holidays, their own work-days, and their own periods of mourning; accustomed to command with perfect assurance, and equally ready, if need be, to obey, proud in the one case as in the other, equally serving their own interests: men more imperilled, more productive, more happy ! For believe me !— the secret of realising the largest productivity and the greatest enjoyment of existence is to live in danger ! Build your cities on the slope of Vesuvius! Send your ships into unexplored seas ! Live in war with your equals and with yourselves ! Be robbers and spoilers, ye know- ing ones, as long as ye cannot be rulers and possessors! The time will soon pass when you


220 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

can be satisfied to live like timorous deer concealed in the forests. Knowledge will finally stretch out her hand for that which belongs to her : — she means to rule and possess^ and you with her !

284. Belief in Oneself. — In general, few men have belief in themselves : — and of those few some are endowed with it as a useful blindness or partial obscuration of intellect (what would they perceive if they could see to the bottom of themselves!'). The others must first acquire the belief for them- selves : everything good, clever, or great that they do, is first of all an argument against the sceptic that dwells in them : the question is how to con- vince or persuade this sceptic, and for that purpose genius almost is needed. They are signally dis- satisfied with themselves.

285. Excelsior ! — " Thou wilt never more pray, never more worship, never more repose in infinite trust — thou refusest to stand still and dismiss thy thoughts before an ultimate wisdom, an ultimate virtue, an ultimate power, — thou hast no constant guardian and friend in thy seven solitudes — thou livest without the outlook on a mountain that has snow ' on its head and fire in its heart — there is no longer any requiter for thee, nor any amender with his finishing touch — there is no longer any reason in that which happens, or any love in that which will happen to thee — there is no longer any resting- place for thy weary heart, where it has only to find


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 221

and no longer to seek, thou art opposed to any kind of ultimate peace, thou desirest the eternal re cur-^ fence of war and peace:— man of renunciation, wilt thou renounce in all these things? Who will give thee the strength to do so ? No one has yet had this strength ! " — There is a lake which one day refused to flow away, and threw up a dam at the place where it had hitherto discharged : since then this lake has always risen higher and higher. Perhaps the very renunciation will also furnish us with the strength with which the renunciation itself can be borne; perhaps man will ever rise higher and higher from that point onward, when he no longer ^ows out into a God.

286.

A Digression. — Here are hopes ; but what will you see and hear of them, if you have not experi- enced glance and glow and dawn of day in your own souls ? I can only suggest — I cannot do more ! To move the stones, to make animals men — would you have me do that ? Alas, if you are yet stones and animals, you must seek your Orpheus !

287.

Love of Blindness. — " My thoughts," said the wanderer to his shadow, " ought to show me where I stand, but they should not betray to me whither I go. I love ignorance of the future, and do not want to come to grief by impatience and antici- patory tasting of promised things."


222 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

288.

Lofty Moods. — It seems to me that most men do not believe in lofty moods, unless it be for the moment, or at the most for a quarter of an hour, — except the few who know by experience a longer duration of high feeling. But to be absolutely a man with a single lofty feeling, the incarnation of a single lofty mood — that has hitherto been only a dream and an enchanting possibility : history does not yet give us any trustworthy example of it. Nevertheless one might also some day produce such men — when a multitude of favourable condi- tions have been created and established, which at present even the happiest chance is unable to throw together. Perhaps that very state which has hitherto entered into our soul as an exception, felt with horror now and then, may be the usual con- dition of those future souls : a continuous movement between high and low, and the feeling of high and low, a constant state of mounting as on steps, and at the same time reposing as on clouds.

289.

Aboard Ship ! — When one considers how a full philosophical justification of his mode of living and thinking operates upon every individual — namely, as a warming, blessing, and fructifying sun, specially shining on him ; how it makes him independent of praise and blame, self-sufficient, rich and generous in the bestowal of happiness and kindness ; how it unceasingly transforms the evil to the good, brings all the energies to bloom


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 223

and maturity, and altogether hinders the growth of the greater and lesser weeds of chagrin and dis- content :— one at last cries out importunately : Oh, that many such new suns were created ! The evil man, also, the unfortunate man, and the excep- tional man, shall each have his philosophy, his rights, and his sunshine ! It is not sympathy with them that is necessary ! — we must unlearn this arrogant fancy, notwithstanding that humanity has so long learned it and used it exclusively, — we have not to set up any confessor, exorcist, or pardoner for them ! It is a new justice, however, that is necessary ! And a new solution ! And new philosophers ! The moral earth also is round ! The moral earth also has its antipodes ! The anti- podes also have their right to exist! there is still another world to discover — and more than one ! Aboard ship ! ye philosophers !

290.

One Thing is Needful.— To " give style " to one's character — that is a grand and a rare art! He who surveys all that his nature presents in its strength and in its weakness, and then fashions it into an ingenious plan, until everything appears artistic and rational, and even the weaknesses enchant the eye — exercises that admirable art. Here there has been a great amount of second nature added, there a portion of first nature has been taken away : — in both cases with long exer- cise and daily labour at the task. Here the ugly, which does not permit of being taken away, has been concealed, there it has been re-interpreted


224 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

into the sublime. Much of the vague, which re- fuses to take form, has been reserved and utilised for the perspectives : — it is meant to give a hint of the remote and immeasurable. In the end, when the work has been completed, it is revealed how it was the constraint of the same taste that organised and fashioned it in whole and in part : whether the taste was good or bad is of less importance than one thinks, — it is sufficient that it was a taste! — It will be the strong imperious natures which experience their most refined joy in such constraint, in such confinement and per- fection under their own law ; the passion of their violent volition lessens at the sight of all disciplined nature, all conquered and ministering nature : even when they have palaces to build and gardens to lay out, it is not to their taste to allow nature to be free. — It is the reverse with weak characters who have not power over themselves, and hate the restriction of style: they feel that if this repugnant constraint were laid upon them, they would necessarily become vulgarised under it : they become slaves as soon as they serve, they hate service. Such intellects — they may be intel- lects of the first rank — are always concerned with fashioning and interpreting themselves and their surroundings zs free nature— wild, arbitrary, fan- tastic, confused and surprising : and it is well for them to do so, because only in this manner can they please themselves ! For one thing is needful : namely, that man should attain to satisfaction with himself— be it but through this or that fable and artifice : it is only then that man's aspect \s at all


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 225

endurable ! He who is dissatisfied with himself is ever ready to avenge himself on that account : we others will be his victims, if only in having always to endure his ugly aspect. For the aspect of the ugly makes one mean and sad.

291.

Genoa. — I have looked upon this city, its villas and pleasure-grounds, and the wide circuit of its inhabited heights and slopes, for a considerable time : in the end I must say that I see countenances out of past generations, — this district is strewn with the images of bold and autocratic men. They have lived and have wanted to live on — they say so with their houses, built and decorated for centuries, and not for the passing hour : they were well disposed to life, however ill-disposed they may often have been towards themselves. I always see the builder, how he casts his eye on all that is built around him far and near, and likewise on the city, the sea, and the chain of mountains ; how he expresses power and conquest with his gaze : all this he wishes to fit into his plan, and in the end make it his property^ by its becoming a portion of the same. The whole district is over- grown with this superb, insatiable egoism of the desire to possess and exploit ; and as these men when abroad recognised no frontiers, and in their thirst for the new placed a new world beside the old, so also at home everyone rose up against everyone else, and devised some mode of expressing his superiority, and of placing between himself and his neighbour his personal illimitableness. Everyone 15


226 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

won for himself his home once more by over- powermg .t with his architectural though Ind

rfce wr'"^ " '"'°. ^ '^^"S'^'f"' -ght for ht race. Wlien we consider the mode of building. c.t.es m the north, the law, and the gene al deulf

" 'T'"? ""^ °'"='^^"=«. ™P°^e upon us we thereby divine the propensity to equality aL submission which must have ruled in those bSl/e^'

am!' kT" T '"'■"'■"g ^^^^y '=°™«f you find a man by himself, who knows the sea. knows ad venture, and knows the Orient a man „,h^: to lau, -„j » . , , ^""^n^' a man who is averse haviTo H^ t° ne-ghbour. as if it bored him to have to do with them, a man who scans all that IS aJready old and established with envious glances with a wonderful craftiness of fantasy, he^woutd .ke, at east in thought, to establish I thlslnew

afternlTn h  ?' '^' P'^"^ •">" of a sunny afternoon when for once his insatiable and melan-

ot:.::^ f^^^^-tiety, and when only whatTs hi hfeeye "^ ^"^ ""^"^'- ""^ "> "^^'f 'o 292. 7> M« /'^^a,,.^^^^ ofUorality.-l do not mean to moralise, but to those who do. I would le tWs advice : .f you mean ultimately to deprive the be ««J^s and the best conditions of all honou td worth, continue to speak of them in the same way as heretofore ! Put them at the head of yo"r morality, and speak from morning till night of X

ness and of reward and punishment in the nature of things : according as you go on in this manned


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 227

all these good things will finally acquire a popu- larity and a street-cry for themselves : but then all the gold on them will also be worn off, and more besides : all the gold in them will have changed into lead. Truly, you understand the reverse art of alchemy, the depreciating of the most valuable things ! Try, just for once, another recipe, in order not to realise as hitherto the opposite of what you mean to attain : deny those good things, withdraw from them the applause of the populace and discourage the spread of them, make them once more the concealed chastities of solitary souls, and say : morality is something for- bidden! Perhaps you will thus attract to your cause the sort of men who are only of any ac- count, I mean the heroic. But then there must be something formidable in it, and not as hitherto something disgusting! Might one not be in- clined to say at present with reference to morality what Master Eckardt says : " I pray God to deliver me from God ! "

293. Our Atmosphere. — We know it well : in him who only casts a glance now and then at science, as when taking a walk (in the manner of women, and alas ! also like many artists), the strictness in its service, its inexorability in small matters as well as in great, its rapidity in weighing, judging and condemning, produce something of a feeling of giddiness and fright. It is especially terriiying to him that the hardest is here demanded, that the best is done without the reward of praise or dis- tinction ; it is rather as among soldiers — almost


228 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

nothing but blame and sharp reprimand is heard ■ for doing wel prevails here as the rule, doing ill as the exception ; the rule, however, ha^, here as everywhere a silent tongue. It is the same with ths" severity of science" as with the manners and

unlSd °'„*; '"' ^°^'^'^^ ■■' frightens the unm.tiated He, however, who is accustomed to it does not hke to live anywhere but in this clea tonsparent powerful, and highly electrified at-' mosphere, th.s manly atmosphere. Anywhere else IZ M ""T ^""^ ^Ty enough for him : he suspects that there h.s best art would neither be properly advantageous to anyone else, nor a deHgh"^ o h|mself, that through misunderstandings half of

fore ,vltT h^"" *T^'> "^ "^-•'••-' --h lonstandvT ^°"^^^'™^"t ^"^ reticence would constantly be necessary.—nothing but great and useless losses of power! I„ ,^,/keen Ind clear

cinTv ■ ^Zri "^j'f •"■= ^""- P°-- here he can fly ! Why should he again go down into those muddy waters where he has to swim and wade and

o, h.s wmgs!_No! There it is too hard for us to hve ! we cannot help it that we are born for the atmosphere the pure atmosphere, we rivals of the

ay of hght ; and that we should like best to r de

un C r "T\ °' ^"'^^' "°' *™y fro" he cannot do "" """ T"'^ however, we

cannot do:_so we want to do the only thing that IS m our power : namely, to bring light to the earth we want to be « the light of theVrth ! ° ITt that purpose we have our wings and our swiftness and our seventy, on that account we are manly and even ternble like the fire. Let those fear us^who


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 229

do not know how to warm and brighten themselves by our influence !

294.

Against the Disparagers of Nature. — They are disagreeable to me, those men in whom every natural inclination forthwith becomes a disease, something disfiguring, or even disgraceful. They have seduced us to the opinion that the inclinations and impulses of men are evil ; they are the cause of our great injustice to our own nature, and to all nature ! There are enough of men who may yield to their impulses gracefully and carelessly : but they do not do so, for fear of that imaginary " evil thing " in nature ! That is the cause why there is so little nobility to be found among men : the indication of which will always be to have no fear of oneself, to expect nothing disgraceful from oneself, to fly without hesitation whithersoever we are impelled — we free-born birds ! Wherever we come, there will always be freedom and sunshine around us, , / / f{

295. / 1 ' ^ytjummA^

Short-lived Habits. — I love short-lived habits, ,|]si-7^ and regard them as an invaluable means for «h)1^(**^. getting a knowledge of many things and various AL-^/La) conditions, to the very bottom of their sweetness ' ' and bitterness ; my nature is altogether arranged for short-lived habits, even in the needs of its bodily health, and in general, as far as I can see, from the lowest up to the highest matters, I always think that this will at last satisfy me permanently (the short-lived habit has also this


k


230 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

characteristic belief of passion, the belief in ever- lasting duration ; I am to be envied for having found it and recognised it), and then it nourishes me at noon and at eve, and spreads a profound satisfaction around me and in me, so that I have no longing for anything else, not needing to compare, or despise, or hate. But one day the habit has had its time : the good thing separates from me, not as something which then inspires disgust in me — but peaceably, and as though satis- fied with me, as I am with it ; as if we had to be mutually thankful, and thus shook hands for farewell. And already the new habit waits at the door, and similarly also my belief — indestructible fool and sage that I am ! — that this new habit will be the right one, the ultimate right one. So it is with me as regards foods, thoughts, men, cities, poems, music, doctrines, arrangements of the day, and modes of life. — On the other hand, I hate 1)ermanent habits, and feel as if a tyrant came into my neighbourhood, and as if my life's breath condensed, when events take such a form that per- manent habits seem necessarily to grow out of them : for example, through an official position, through constant companionship with the same persons, through a settled abode, or through a uniform state of health. Indeed, from the bottom of my soul I am gratefully disposed to all my misery and sick- ness, and to whatever is imperfect in me, because such things leave me a hundred back-doors through which I can escape from permanent habits. The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 23 1

continually required improvisation : — that would be my banishment and my Siberia.

296. A Fixed Reputation. — A fixed reputation was formerly a matter of the very greatest utility ; and wherever society continues to be ruled by the herd - instinct, it is still most suitable for every individual to give to his character and business the appearance of unalterableness, — even when they are not so in reality. " One can rely on him, he remains the same" — that is the praise which has most significance in all dangerous conditions of society. Society feels with satisfaction that it has a reliable tool ready at all times in the virtue of this one, in the ambition of that one, and in the reflection and passion of a third one, — it honours this tool-like nature^ this self-constancy, this unchangeableness in opinions, efforts, and even in faults, with the highest honours. Such a valuation, which prevails and has prevailed everywhere simultaneously with the morality of custom, educates "characters," and brings all changing, re-learning, and self- transforming into disrepute. Be the advantage of this mode of thinking ever so great otherwise, it is in any case the mode of judging which is most injurious to knowledge: for precisely the good- will of the know- ing one ever to declare himself unhesitatingly as opposed to his former opinions, and in general to be distrustful of all that wants to be fixed in him — is here condemned and brought into disrepute. The disposition of the thinker, as incompatible with


232 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

a " fixed reputation," is regarded as dishonourable, while the petrifaction of opinions has all the honour to itself: — we have at present still to live under the interdict of such rules ! How difficult it is to live when one feels that the judgment of many millen- niums is around one and against one. It is prob- able that for many millenniums knowledge was afflicted with a bad conscience, and there must have been much self-contempt and secret misery in the history of the greatest intellects.

297.

Ability to Contradict. — Everyone knows at present that the ability to endure contradiction is a good indication of culture. Some people even know that the higher man courts opposition, and provokes it, so as to get a cue to his hitherto unknown parti- ality. But the ability to contradict, the attainment of a good conscience in hostility to the accustomed, the traditional and the hallowed, — that is more than both the above-named abilities, and is the really great, new and astonishing thing in our culture, the step of all steps of the emancipated intellect ; who knows that ? —

298.

A Sigh. — I caught this notion on the way, and rapidly took the readiest, poor words to hold it fast, so that it might not again fly away. But it has died in these dry words, and hangs and flaps about in them — and now I hardly know, when I look upon it, how I could have had such happiness when I caught this bird.


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 233

299.

What one should Learn from Artists. — What means have we for making things beautiful, at- tractive, and desirable, when they are not so? — and I suppose they are never so in themselves ! We have here something to learn from physicians, when, for example, they dilute what is bitter, or put wine and sugar into their mixing-bowl ; but we have still more to learn from artists, who in fact, are continually concerned in devising such in- ventions and artifices. To withdraw from things until one no longer sees much of them, until one has even to see things into them, in order to see them at all — or to view them from the side, and as in a frame — or to place them so that they partly disguise themselves and only permit of perspective views — or to look at them through coloured glasses, or in the light of the sunset — or to furnish them with a surface or skin which is not fully transparent: we should learn all this from artists, and moreover be wiser than they. For this fine power of theirs usually ceases with them where art ceases and life begins ; we, however, want to be the poets of our lives, and first of all in the smallest and most commonplace matters.

300.

Prelude to Science. — Do you believe then that the sciences would have arisen and grown up if the sorcerers, alchemists, astrologers and witches had not been their forerunners ; those who, with their promisings and foreshadowings, had first to


234 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

create a thirst, a hunger, and a taste for hidden and forbidden powers ? Yea, that infinitely more had to be promised than could ever be fulfilled, in order that something might be fulfilled in the domain of knowledge? Perhaps the whole of religion, also, may appear to some distant age as an exercise and a prelude, in like manner as the prelude and pre- paration of science here exhibit themselves, though not at all practised and regarded as such. Perhaps religion may have been the peculiar means for enabling individual men to enjoy but once the entire self-satisfaction of a God and all his self- redeeming power. Indeed ! — one may ask — would man have learned at all to get on the tracks of hunger and thirst for himself, and to extract satiety and fullness out of himself, without that religious schooling and preliminary history? Had Prome- theus first to fancy that he had stolen the light, and that he did penance for the theft. — in order finally to discover that he had created the light, in that he had longed for the light, and that not only nmn, but also God, had been the work of his hands and the\ clay in his hands ? All mere creations of the creator? — just as the illusion, the theft, the Caucasus, the vulture, and the whole tragic Prometheia of all thinkers ?

301. Illusion of the Contemplative. — Higher men are distinguished from lower, by seeing and hearing immensely more, and in a thoughtful manner — and it is precisely this that distinguishes man from the animal, and the higher animal from the lower. The world always becomes fuller for him


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 235

who grows up to the full stature of humanity ; there are always more interesting fishing-hooks, thrown out to him ; the number of his stimuli is continually on the increase, and similarly the varieties of his pleasure and pain, — the higher man becomes always at the same time happier and unhappier. An illusion^ however, is his constant accompaniment all along : he thinks he is placed as a spectator and auditor before the great pantomime and concert of life ; he calls his nature a contemplative nature, and thereby overlooks the fact that he himself is also a real creator, and continuous poet of life, — that he no doubt differs greatly from the actor in this drama, the so-called practical man, but differs still more from a mere onlooker or spectator before the stage. There is certainly vis contemplativa^ and re-examination of his work peculiar to him as poet, but at the same time, and first and foremost, he has the vis creativa, which the practical man or doer lacks, whatever appearance and current belief may say to the contrary. It is we, who think and feel, that actually and unceasingly make something which did not before exist : the whole eternally increas- ing world of valuations, colours, weights, per- spectives, gradations, affirmations and negations. This composition of ours is continually learnt, practised, and translated into flesh and actuality, and even into the commonplace, by the so-called practical men (our actors, as we have said). What- ever has value in the present world, has not it in itself, by its nature, — nature is always worthless : — but a value was once given to it, bestowed upon it


236 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

and it was we who gave and bestowed ! We only have created the world which is of any account to man ! — But it is precisely this knowledge that we lack, and when we get hold of it for a moment we have forgotten it the next : we misunderstand our highest power, we contemplative men, and estimate ourselves at too low a rate, — we are neither d& proud nor as happy as we might be.

302. The Danger of the Happiest Ones. — To have fine senses and a fine taste; to be accustomed to the select and the intellectually best as our proper and readiest fare; to be blessed with a strong, bold, and daring soul; to go through life with a quiet eye and a firm step, ever ready for the worst as for a festival, and full of longing for undiscovered worlds and seas, men and Gods ; to listen to all joyous music, as if there perhaps brave men, soldiers and seafarers, took a brief repose and enjoyment, and in the profoundest pleasure of the moment were overcome with tears and the whole purple melancholy of happiness : who would not like all this to be his possession, his condition ! It was the happiness of Homer ! The condition of him who invented the Gods for the Greeks, — nay, who invented his Gods for himself! But let us not conceal the fact that with this happiness of Homer in one's soul, one is more liable to suffering than any other creature under the sun ! And only at this price do we purchase the most precious pearl that the waves of existence have hitherto washed ashore 1 As its possessor one always becomes more


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 237

sensitive to pain, and at last too sensitive : a little displeasure and loathing sufficed in the end to make Homer disgusted with life. He was unable to solve a foolish little riddle which some young fishers proposed to him ! Yes, the little riddles are the dangers of the happiest ones ! —

303- Two Happy Ones. — Certainly this man, notwith- standing his youth, understands the improvisation of life, and astonishes even the acutest observers. For it seems that he never makes a mistake, although he constantly plays the most hazardous games. One is reminded of the improvising masters of the musical art, to whom even the listeners would fain ascribe a divine infallibility of the hand, notwithstanding that they now and then make a mistake, as every mortal is liable to do. But they are skilled and inventive, and always ready in a moment to arrange into the structure of the score the most accidental tone (where the jerk of a finger or a humour brings it about), and to animate the accident with a fine meaning and soul. — Here is quite a different man ; everything that he intends and plans fails with him in the long run. That on which he has now and again set his heart has already brought him several times to the abyss, and to the very verge of ruin ; and if he has as yet got out of the scrape, it certainly has not been merely with a "black eye." Do you think he is unhappy over it? He resolved long ago not to regard his own wishes and plans as of so much importance. "If this does not succeed with


238 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

me," he says to himself, " perhaps that will succeed ; and on the whole I do not know but that I am under more obligation to thank my failures than any of my successes. Am I made to be headstrong, and to wear the bull's horns? That which con- stitutes the worth and the sum of life for me, lies somewhere else ; I know more of life, because I have been so often on the point of losing it ; and just on that account I have more of life than any of you!"

304.

In Doing we Leave Undone. — In the main all those moral systems are distasteful to me which say : " Do not do this ! Renounce ! Overcome thyself! " On the other hand I am favourable to those moral systems which stimulate me to do something, and to do it again from morning till evening, to dream of it at night, and think of nothing else but to do it well^ as well as is possible for me alone! From him who so lives there fall off one after the other the things that do not pertain to such a life : without hatred or antipathy, he sees this take leave of him to-day, and that to-morrow, like the yellow leaves which every livelier breeze strips from the tree : or he does not see at all that they take leave of him, so firmly is his eye fixed upon his goal, and generally forward, not sideways, backward, or downward. " Our doing must determine what we leave undone ; in that we do, we leave undone " — so it pleases me, so runs my placitum. But I do not mean to strive with open eyes for my impoverishment ; I do not like any of the negative


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 239

virtues whose very essence is negation and self- renunciation.

305- Self-control. — ThosQ moral teachers who first and foremost order man to get himself into his own power, induce thereby a curious infirmity in him, — namely, a constant sensitiveness with refer- ence to all natural strivings and inclinations, and as it were, a sort of itching. Whatever may hence- forth drive him, draw him, allure or impel him, whether internally or externally— it always seems to this sensitive being as if his self-control were in danger: he is no longer at liberty to trust himself to any instinct, to any free flight, but stands constantly with defensive mien, armed against himself, with sharp distrustful eye, the eternal watcher of his stronghold, to which office he has appointed himself. Yes, he can be great in that position ! But how unendurable he has now become to others, how difficult even for himself to bear, how impoverished and cut off from the finest accidents of his soul ! Yea, even from all further instruction ! For we must be able to lose ourselves at times, if we want to learn something of what we have not in ourselves.

306.

Stoic and Epicurean. — The Epicurean selects the situations, the persons, and even the events which suit his extremely sensitive, intellectual constitu- tion ; he renounces the rest— that is to say, by far the greater part of experience — because it would be


240 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

too Strong and too heavy fare for him. The Stoic, on the contrary, accustoms himself to swallow stones and vermin, glass-splinters and scorpions, without feeling any disgust : his stomach is meant to become indifferent in the end to all that the accidents of existence cast into it: — he reminds one of the Arabic sect of the Assaua, with which the French became acquainted in Algiers; and like those insensible persons, he also likes well to have an invited public at the exhibition of his insensibility, the very thing the Epicurean willingly dispenses with : — he has of course his " garden " ! Stoicism may be quite advisable for men with whom fate improvises, for those who live in violent times and are dependent on abrupt and change- able individuals. He, however, who anticipates that fate will permit him to spin " a long thread," does well to make his arrangements in Epicurean fashion ; all men devoted to intellectual labour have done it hitherto ! For it would be a supreme loss to them to forfeit their fine sensibility, and to acquire the hard, stoical hide with hedgehog prickles in exchange.

307. In Favour of Criticism. — Something now appears to thee as an error which thou formerly lovedst as a truth, or as a probability : thou pushest it from thee and imaginest that thy reason has there gained a victory. But perhaps that error was then, when thou wast still another person— thou art always another person, — ^just as necessary to thee as all thy present " truths," like a skin, as it


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 24I

were, which concealed and veiled from thee much which thou still mayst not see. Thy new life, and not thy reason, has slain that opinion for thee: thou dost not require it any longer, and now it breaks down of its own accord, and the irra- tionality crawls out of it as a worm into the light. When we make use of criticism it is not something arbitrary and impersonal, — it is, at least very often, a proof that there are lively, active forces in us, which cast a skin. We deny, and must deny, because something in us wants to live and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do not as yet know, do not as yet see ! — So much in favour of criticism.

308.

The History of each Day. — What is it that con- stitutes 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 16


242 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 some- thing ! 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 some- thing 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


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 243

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 !

3".

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 com- pensate 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 —


244 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 contradic- tions! 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 him- self 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.

j^y 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.— \ will take my cue from Raphael, and not paint any more martyr-


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 245

pictures. There are enough of subh'me 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 itseli — 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 ot the atmosphere and the clouds ! Some of them, as we see, have a prophetic faculty with regard to the weather, for example, apes


246 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

(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 elec- tricity, 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 pre- pare 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 ^^//

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 * — 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 com- forting music, — it is not one's lot to have these

  • The distinction between ethos and pathos in ^ristotle

is, broadly, that between internal character and external circumstance. — P. V. C.


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 247

sensations for years, still less for eternities : other- wise one would become too "ethereal" for this

planet.

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-hringers

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.


248 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 con- science. " 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 fan- tastic 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 ex- periment, hour by hour, day by day! We our- selves 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,


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 249

— 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 obscur^ the other by our light ! No ! We do not mean to become darker ourselves on his account, like those who punish and are discontented I Let us rather go aside ! Let us look away I

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 great- est distinction upon us when it has made us fight


250 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 nne ! 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 prin- ciple in one's heart, one can not only be brave, but can even live joyfully and laugh joyfully I 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.


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 2$ I

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 ex- tracting the thorn from pain and misfortune. It seems to me that people always speak with ex- aggeration 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 alleviat- ing 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 anaesthetics : 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 sub-


252 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

mission 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


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 253

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 !), especi- ally 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 un- thinking 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 philoso- phers did harm to stupidity.


254 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

329.

Leisure and Idleness. — Th^r^ fc n„ t ^. savagery, a savagery peculiar to The Indfan itZ

Told ""'rr 'r'"^ *^ Americans strTve after' gold: and the breathless hurry of their work the characteristic vice of the New WorldlaTead^

lectuar on^, °'"' " ^ ^"-^"ge lack of intel- ectuality. One is now ashamed of repose- ev^n

Thfni:i„"r irdo'""'^^"^^ ■•^"■°- of r„:cie::

atraid of lett.ng opportunities slip." "Better L anythmg whatever, than nothing "-this or !.; 1 also ,s a noose with which al! cultu e Ind aH higher taste may be strangled. And just "s a form obviously disappears in this hurry o? worker

in ihterco^ se with friends"" ""' "^^ '"^"°"^'

C" fo°; Sn^ornLtr^u"; :f ■■- "-^

consume hfs intellect even fT u • P^°" ^° real virtue nowadays is to do something in a


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 255

shorter time than another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse per mt Ued : 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 theyare 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 belluni is there nobility and honour : " so rang the voice of ancient pre- judice I


2S6 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 glories cupido novissima exuitur — that means with him : never.

331. Better Deaf than Deafened, — Formerly a person wanted to have his callings 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 f'^


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 257

333-

WAat does Knowing Mean? — Non ridere^ non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere ! says Spinoza, so simply and sublimely, as is his wont. Neverthe- less, 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 agree- ment 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 ouf intellectual activity goes on unconsciously and unfelt by us ; I believe, however, that the im- pulses which are here in mutual conflict under- stand rightly how to make themselves felt by one 17


258 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 strugHinji interior there is much concealed heroism, hnX certanily 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.—TUs 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 m 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


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 259

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 \.o 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 there- fore 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


/

260 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 h'sfen to the voice of your conscience ? And in how far are you justified in regarding such a judgment as true and infallible? This belief—As, 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 after- wards 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, conse- quently, 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


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 26l

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 know- ledge 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 selfish- ness ! For it is selfishness in a person to regard his judgment as universal law, and a blind, paltry


263 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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, esti- mates, 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, how- ever, 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 I To sit in judgment


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 263

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, ww/^ seek to become what we are,— the new, the unique, the in- comparable, 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.— ^hy 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 " Hutnanityy—Wh&n 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


264 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

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 senti- ment, 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 some- thing 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


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 265

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 man- kind : 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


266 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV

most benefits which are conferred on the unfor- tunate there is something shocking in the intellec- tual levity with which the compassionate person plays the role 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 " mis- fortune," 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 mis- fortune; 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


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 267

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 laud- ^ able 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


26^ THE Joyful WISDOM, iv

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 deaths 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 conceal- ment 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 under - standest, because they have one sorrow and one hope in common with thee — ^y 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 : — m.vciQ\y, fellowship in Joy I

339- Vita femina. — To see the ultimate beauties in a work — all knowledge and good-will is not enough ;


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 269

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


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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 ! M/ 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


SANCTUS JANUARIUS 27 1

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 Tragcedia. — 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


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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 out- stretched 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


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" Carcasse, tu trembles ? Tu tremblerais bien davantage, si tu savais, oii je te mene."— Turenne.


i8 m


343. W/iai( our Cheerfulness Signifies. — The mosr^ 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 kw at least whose eye, whose suspecting g\^.nce^ 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 apprehen- sion, 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 crum- bling, 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


2/6 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

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, with- out 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 our- selves, 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, encourage- ment, and dawning day? ... In fact, we philo- sophers 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. To what Extent even We are still Pious. — It is said with good reason that convictions have no civic rights in the domain of science : it is only when a


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conviction voluntarily condescends to the modesty of an hypothesis, a preliminary standpoint for experi- ment, or a regulative fiction, that its access to the realm of knowledge, and a certain value therein, can be conceded, — always, however, with the re- striction that it must remain under police super- vision, under the police of our distrust. — Regarded more accurately, however, does not this imply that only when a conviction ceases to be a conviction can it obtain admission into science? Does not the discipline of the scientific spirit just commence when one no longer harbours any conviction ? . . . It is probably so : only, it remains to be asked whether, in order that this discipline may commence^ it is not necessary that there should already be a conviction, and in fact one so imperative and absolute, that it makes a sacrifice of all other convictions. One sees that science also rests on a belief : there is no science at all " without premises." The question whether truth is neces- sary, must not merely be affirmed beforehand, but must be affirmed to such an extent that the principle, belief, or conviction finds expres- sion, that " there is nothing more necessary than truth, and in comparison with it everything else has only secondary value." — This absolute will to truth: what is it? Is it the will not to allow ourselves to be deceived? Is it the will not io de- ceive ? For the will to truth could also be inter- preted in this fashion, provided one included under the generalisation, " I will not deceive " the special case, " I will not deceive myself" But why not deceive? Why not allow oneself to be


278 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

deceived ? — Let it be noted that the reasons for the former eventuality belong to a category quite differ- ent from those for the latter : one does not want to be deceived oneself, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived, — in this sense science would be a prolonged process of caution, foresight and utility; against which, however, one might reasonably make objec- tions. What ? is not-wishing-to-be-deceived really less injurious, less dangerous, less fatal ? What do you know of the character of existence in all its phases to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of absolute distrust, or of absolute trustfulness ? In case, however, of both being necessary, much trusting and much distrust- ing, whence then should science derive the abso- lute belief, the conviction on which it rests, that truth is more important than anything else, even than every other conviction? This conviction could not have arisen if truth and untruth had both continually proved themselves to be use- ful : as is the case. Thus — the belief in science, which now undeniably exists, cannot have had its origin in such a utilitarian calculation, but rather in spite of the fact of the inutility and dangerousness of the " Will to truth," of " truth at all costs," being continually demonstrated. " At all costs " : alas, we understand that sufficiently well, after having sacrificed and slaughtered one belief after another at this altar ! — Consequently, " Will to truth " does not imply, " I will not allow i myself to be deceived," but — there is no other lalternative — " I will not deceive, not even myself" :


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and thus we have reached the realm of morality. For let one just ask oneself fairly: "Why wilt thou not deceive?" especially if it should seem— and it does seem— as if life were laid out with a view to appearance, I mean, with a view to error, deceit, dissimulation, delusion, self-delusion ; and when on the other hand it is a matter of fact that the great type of life has always manifested itself on the side of the most unscrupulous TroXi^rpoTroi. Such an intention might perhaps, to express it mildly, be a piece of Quixotism, a little enthusiastic craziness ; it might also, however, be something worse, namely, a destructive principle,

hostile to life "Will to Truth,"^that might

be a concealed Will to Death.-Thus the question Why is there science? leads back to the moral problem : What in general is the purpose of morality, if life, nature, and history are « non-moral '^ ? There is no doubt that the conscientious man in the daring and extreme sense in which he is presupposed by the belief in science, affirms thereby a world other than that of life, nature, and history ; and in so far as he affirms this " other world," what? must he not just thereby— deny its counterpart, this world, our world? ... But what I have in view will now be understood, namely, that it is always a metaphysical belief on which our belief in science rests,— and that even we knowing ones of to-day, tV>lf2JJ^'^-^ ^^^ anti-metaphysical, still take our fire from the conflagration kindled by a belief a millennium old, the Christian belief, which was also the belief of Plato, that God is truth, that the truth is divine. ... But what if


28o THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

this itself always becomes more untrustworthy, what if nothing any longer proves itself divine, except it be error, blindness, and falsehood ;— what if God himself turns out to be our most persistent lie?—

345. Morality as a Problem.— K defect in personality revenges itself everywhere: an enfeebled, lank, obliterated, self-disavowing and disowning person- ality is no longer fit for anything good— it is least of all fit for philosophy. "Selflessness" has no value either in heaven or on earth ; the great \i problems all demand great love, and it is only the strong, well-rounded, secure spirits, those who have a solid basis, that are qualified for them. It makes the most material difference whether a thinker stands personally related to his problems, having his fate, his need, and even his highest happiness therein ; or merely impersonally, that is to say, if he can only feel and grasp them with the tentacles of cold, prying thought. In the latter case I warrant that nothing comes of it : for the great problems, grant- ing that they let themselves be grasped at all, do not let themselves be held by toads and weaklings : that has ever been their taste— a taste also which they share with all high-spirited women.— How is it that I have not yet met with any one, not even in books, who seems to have stood to morality in this position, as one who knew morality as a problem, and this problem as his own personal need, afflic- tion, pleasure and passion? It is obvious that up to the present morality has not been a problem at all; it has rather been the very ground on


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which people have met after all distrust, dissen- sion and contradiction, the hallowed place of peace, where thinkers could obtain rest. even from themselves, could recover breath and revive. I see no one who has ventured to criticise the estimates of moral worth. I miss in this con- nection even the attempts of scientific curiosity, and the fastidious, groping imagination of psycho- logists and historians, which easily anticipates a problem and catches it on the wing, without rightly knowing what it catches. With difficulty I have discovered some scanty data for the purpose of furnishing a history of the origin of these feelings and estimates of value (which is something different from a criticism of them, and also something differ- ent from a history of ethical systems). In an individual case I have done everything to encourage the inclination and talent for this kind of history — in vain, as it would seem to me at present. There is little to be learned from those historians of morality (especially Englishmen) : they themselves are usually, quite unsuspiciously, under the in- fluence of a definite morality, and act unwittingly as its armour-bearers and followers — perhaps still repeating sincerely the popular superstition of Christian Europe, that the characteristic of moral action consists in abnegation, self-denial, self- sacrifice, or in fellow-feeling and fellow-suffering. The usual error in their premises is their insist- ence on a certain consensus among human beings, at least among civilised human beings, with regard to certain propositions of morality, from thence they conclude that these propositions are


282 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

absolutely binding even upon you and me ; or reversely, they come to the conclusion that no morality is binding, after the truth has dawned upon them that among different peoples moral valuations are necessarily different : both of which conclusions are equally childish follies. The error of the more subtle amongst them is that they discover and criticise the probably foolish opinions of a people about its own morality, or the opinions of mankind about human morality generally (they treat accordingly of its origin, its religious sanctions, the superstition of free will, and such matters), and they think that just by so doing they have criticised the morality itself. But the worth of a precept, " Thou shalt," is fundamentally different from and independent of such opinions about it, and must be distinguished from the weeds of error with which it has perhaps been overgrown : just as the worth of a medicine to a sick person is altogether independent of the question whether he has a scientific opinion about medicine, or merely thinks about it as an old wife would do. A morality could even have grown oui of an error : but with this knowledge the problem of its worth would not even be touched. — Thus, no one hitherto has tested the value of that most cele- brated of all medicines, called morality : for which purpose it is first of all necessary for one — to call it in question. Well, that is just our work. —

346. Our Note of Interrogation. — But you don't under- stand it? As a matter of fact, an effort will be


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necessary in order to understand us. We seek for words ; we seek perhaps also for ears. Who are we after all ? If we wanted simply to call our- selves in older phraseology, atheists, unbelievers, or even immoralists, we should still be far from thinking ourselves designated thereby : we are all three in too late a phase for people generally to conceive, for fou, my inquisitive friends, to be able to conceive, what is our state of mind under the circumstances. No ! we have no longer the bitter- ness and passion of him who has broken loose, who has to make for himself a belief, a goal, and even a martyrdom out of his unbelief! We have become saturated with the conviction (and have grown cold and hard in it) that things are not at all divinely ordered in this world, nor even according to human standards do they go on rationally, mercifully, or justly : we know the fact that the world in which we live is ungodly, immoral, and " inhuman," — we have far too long interpreted it to ourselves falsely and mendaciously, according to the wish and will of our veneration, that is to say, according to our need. For man is a venerating animal ! But he is also a distrustful animal : and that the world is noi worth what we believed it to be worth is about the surest thing our dis- trust has at last managed to grasp. So much distrust, so much philosophy! We take good care not to say that the world is of /ess value : it seems to us at present absolutely ridiculous when man claims to devise values to surpass the values of the actual world, — it is precisely from that point that we have retraced our steps ;


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as from an extravagant error of human conceit and irrationality, which for a long period has not been recognised as such. This error had its last ex- pression in modern Pessimism ; an older and stronger manifestation in the teaching of Buddha ; but Christianity also contains it, more dubiously, to be sure, and more ambiguously, but none the less seductive on that account. The whole attitude of "man versus the world," man as world -denying principle, man as the standard of the value of things, as judge of the world, who in the end puts existence itself on his scales and finds it too light — the monstrous impertinence of this attitude has dawned upon us as such, and has disgusted us, — we now laugh when we find, "Man and World" placed beside one another, separated by the sublime presumption of the little word " and " ! But how is it ? Have we not in our very laugh- ing just made a further step in despising mankind ? And consequently also in Pessimism, in despising the existence cognisable by us? Have we not just thereby awakened suspicion that there is an opposition between the world in which we have hitherto been at home with our venerations — for the sake of which we perhaps endure life — and another world which we ourselves are: an inexor- able, radical, most profound suspicion concerning ourselves, which is continually getting us Euro- peans more annoyingly into its power, and could easily face the coming generation with the ter- rible alternative : Either do away with your venerations, or — with yourselves !" The latter would be Nihilism — but would not the former


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also be Nihilism? This is our note of interro- gation.

347. Believers and their Need of Belief. —Rovf much faith a person requires in order to flourish, how much " fixed opinion " he requires which he does not wish to have shaken, because he holds himself thereby— is a measure of his power (or more plainly speaking, of his weakness). Most people in old Europe, as it seems to me, still need Christianity at present, and on that account it still finds belief For such is man : a theological dogma might be refuted to him a thousand times,— provided, how- ever, that he had need of it, he would again and again accept it as " true,"— according to the famous "proof of power" of which the Bible speaks. Some have still need of metaphysics ; but also the impatient longing for certainty which at present discharges itself in scientific, positivist fashion among large numbers of the people, the longing by all means to get at something stable (while on account of the warmth of the longing the establishing of the certainty is more leisurely and negligently undertaken) :— even this is still the longing for a hold, a support ; in short, the instinct oj weakness, which, while not actually creating religions, metaphysics, and convictions of all kinds, nevertheless— preserves them. In fact, around all these positivist systems there fume the vapours of a certain pessimistic gloom, something of weari- ness, fatalism, disillusionment, and fear of new disillusionment— or else manifest animosity, ill- humour, anarchic exasperation, and whatever there


286 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

is of symptom or masquerade of the feeling of weakness. Even the readiness with which our cleverest contemporaries get lost in wretched corners and alleys, for example, in Vaterlanderei (so I designate Jingoism, called chauvinisme in France, and " deutsck" in Germany), or in petty aesthetic creeds in the manner of Parisian natura- lisme (which only brings into prominence and uncovers that aspect of nature which excites simultaneously disgust and astonishment — they like at present to call this aspect la viritd vraie), or in Nihilism in the St Petersburg style (that is to say, in the belief in unbelief, even to martyrdom for it) : — this shows always and above all the need of belief, support, backbone, and buttress. . . . Belief is always most desired, most pressingly needed, where there is a lack of will : for the will, as emotion of command, is the distin- guishing characteristic of sovereignty and power. That is to say, the less a person knows how to command, the more urgent is his desire for that j which commands, and commands sternly, — a God, / a prince, a caste, a physician, a confessor, a dogma, / a party conscience. From whence perhaps itj^^ could be inferred that the two world-religions, Buddhism and Christianity, might well have had the cause of their rise, and especially of their rapid extension, in an extraordinary maladx_ofjIi£-wUL^ And in truth it has been so : botfi"religions lighted upon a longing, monstrously exaggerated by malady of the will, for an imperative, a " Thou-shalt," a longing going the length of despair ; both religions were teachers of fanaticism in times of slackness


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of will-power, and thereby offered to innumerable persons a support, a new possibility of exercising will, an enjoyment in willing. For in fact fanati- cism is the sole "volitional strength" to which the weak and irresolute can be excited, as a sort of hypnotising of the entire sensory-intellectual system, in favour of the over-abundant nutrition (hypertrophy) of a particular point of view and a particular sentiment, which then dominates — the Christian calls it hxs faith. When a man arrives at the fundamental conviction that he requires to be commanded, he becomes "a believer." Reversely, one could imagine a delight and a power of self- determining, and a freedom of will, whereby a spirit \ could bid farewell to every belief, to every wish for \ certainty, accustomed as it would be to support itself on slender cords and possibilities, and to dance even on the verge of abysses. Such a spirit ^ would be Xki<tfree spirit par excellence.

348. The Origin of the Learned. — The learned man in Europe grows out of all the different ranks and social conditions, like a plant requiring no specific soil : on that account he belongs essentially and involuntarily to the partisans of democratic thought. But this origin betrays itself. If one has trained one's glance to some extent to recognise in a learned book or scientific treatise the intellectual idiosyncrasy of the learned man — all of them have such idiosyncrasy, — and if we take it by surprise, we shall almost always get a glimpse behind it of the "antecedent history" of the


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learned man and his family, especially of the nature of their callings and occupations. Where the feeling finds expression, " That is at last proved, I am now done with it," it is commonly the ancestor in the blood and instincts of the learned man that approves of the "accomplished work " in the nook from which he sees things ; — the belief in the proof is only an indication of what has been looked upon for ages by a laborious family as "good work." Take an example: the sons of registrars and office-clerks of every kind, whose main task has always been to arrange a variety of material, distribute it in drawers, and systematise it generally, evince, when they become learned men, an inclination to regard a problem as almost solved when they have systematised it. There are philosophers who are at bottom nothing but systematising brains — the formal part of the paternal occupation has become its essence to them. The talent for classifications, for tables of categories, betrays something; it is not for nothing that a person is the child of his parents. The son of an advocate will also have to be an advocate as investigator: he seeks as a first con- sideration, to carry the point in his case, as a second consideration, he perhaps seeks to be in the right. One recognises the sons of Protestant clergymen and schoolmasters by the nafve as- surance with which as learned men they already assume their case to be proved, when it has but been presented by them staunchly and warmly: they are thoroughly accustomed to people believing in them,— it belonged to their fathers' "trade"!


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A Jew, contrariwise, in accordance with his business surroundings and the past of his race, is least of all accustomed — to people believing him. Observe Jewish scholars with regard to this matter, — they all lay great stress on logic, that is to say, on compelling assent by means of reasons ; they know that they must conquer thereby, even when race and class antipathy is against them, even where people are unwilling to believe them. For in fact, nothing is more democratic than logic : it knows no respect of persons, and takes even the crooked nose as straight. (In passing we may remark that in respect to logical thinking, in respect to cleaner intellectual habits, Europe is not a little indebted to the Jews ; above all the Germans, as being a lamentably diraisonnable race, who, even at the present day, must always have their " heads washed "* in the first place. Wherever the Jews have attained to influence, they have taught to analyse more subtly, to argue more acutely, to write more clearly and purely : it has always been their problem to bring a people "to raisonV^

349- The Origin of the Learned once more. — To seek self-preservation merely, is the expression of a state of distress, or of limitation of the true, fundamental instinct of life, which aims at the extension of power, and with this in view often enough calls in question self-preservation and sacrifices it. It should be

♦ In German the expression Kopf zu waschen, besides the literal sense, also means "to give a person a sound drubbing." — Tr. 19


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taken as symptomatic when individual philosophers, as for example, the consumptive Spinoza, have seen and have been obliged to see the principal feature of life precisely in the so-called self- preservative instinct: — they have just been men in states of distress. That our modern natural sciences have entangled themselves so much with Spinoza's dogma (finally and most grossly in Darwinism, with its inconceivably one-sided doc- trine of the " struggle for existence " — ), is probably owing to the origin of most of the inquirers into nature : they belong in this respect to the people, their forefathers have been poor and humble persons, who knew too well by immediate experience the difficulty of making a living. Over the whole of English Darwinism there hovers something of the suffocating air of over-crowded England, some- thing of the odour of humble people in need and in straits. But as an investigator of nature, a person ought to emerge from his paltry human nook : and in nature the state of distress does not prevail, but superfluity, even prodigality to the extent of folly. The struggle for existence is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the will to live ; the struggle, be it great or small, turns every- where on predominance, on increase and expansion, on power, in conformity to the will to power, which is just the will to live.

350. In Honour of Homines Religiosi. — The struggle against the church is certainly (among other things — for it has a manifold significance) the


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Struggle of the more ordinary, cheerful, confiding, superficial natures against the rule of the graver, profounder, more contemplative natures, that is to say, the more malign and suspicious men, who with long continued distrust in the worth of life, brood also over their own worth : — the ordinary instinct of the people, its sensual gaiety, its " good heart," revolts against them. The entire Roman Church rests on a Southern suspicion of the nature of man (always misunderstood in the North), a suspicion whereby the European South has suc- ceeded to the inheritance of the profound Orient — the mysterious, venerable Asia — and its contem- plative spirit. Protestantism was a popular insurrection in favour of the simple, the respect- able, the superficial (the North has always been more good-natured and more shallow than the South), but it was the French Revolution that first gave the sceptre wholly and solemnly into the hands of the " good man " (the sheep, the ass, the goose, and everything incurably shallow, bawling, and fit for the Bedlam of " modern ideas "),

351.

In Honour of Priestly Natures. — I think that philosophers have always felt themselves very remote from that which the people (in all classes of society nowadays) take for wisdom : the prudent, bovine placidity, piety, and country-parson meek- ness, which lies in the meadow and gazes at life seriously and ruminatingly : — this is probably be- cause philosophers have not had sufficiently the taste of the "people," or of the country-parson,


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for that kind of wisdom. Philosophers will also perhaps be the last to acknowledge that the people should understand something of that which lies furthest from them, something of the great passion of the thinker, who lives and must live continually in the storm-cloud of the highest problems and the heaviest responsibilities (con- sequently, not gazing at all, to say nothing of doing so indifferently, securely, objectively). The people venerate an entirely different type of men when on their part they form the ideal of a "sage," and they are a thousand times justified in rendering homage with the highest eulogies and honours to precisely that type of men — namely, the gentle, serious, simple, chaste, priestly natures and those related to them, — it is to them that the praise falls due in the popular veneration of wisdom. And to whom should the multitude have more reason to be grateful than to these men who pertain to its class and rise from its ranks, but are persons consecrated, chosen, and sacrificed for its good — they themselves believe themselves sacrificed to God, — before whom every one can pour forth his heart with impunity, by whom he can get rid of his secrets, cares, and worse things (for the man who "communicates himself" gets rid of himself, and he who has " confessed " forgets). Here there exists a great need : for sewers and pure cleansing waters are required also for spiritual filth, and rapid currents of love are needed, and strong, lowly, pure hearts, who qualify and sacrifice themselves for such service of the non-public health-department — for it is a sacrificing, the priest is, and continues to


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be, a human sacrifice. . . . The people regard such sacrificed, silent, serious men of " faith " as " wisel' that is to say, as men who have become sages, as "reliable" in relation to their own unreliability. Who would desire to deprive the people of that expression and that veneration ? — But as is fair on the other side, among philosophers the priest also is still held to belong to the " people," and is not regarded as a sage, because, above all, they them- selves do not believe in " sages," and they already scent "the people" in this very belief and super- stition. It was modesty which invented in Greece the word "philosopher," and left to the play- actors of the spirit the superb arrogance of assuming the name " wise " — the modesty of such monsters of pride and self-glorification as Pythagoras and Plato.—

352. Why we can hardly Dispense with Morality. — The naked man is generally an ignominious spectacle — I speak of us European males (and by no means of European females!). If the most joyous company at table suddenly found themselves stripped and divested of their garments through the trick of an enchanter, I believe that not only would the joyousness be gone and the strongest appetite lost; — it seems that we Europeans cannot at all dispense with the masquerade that is called clothing. But should not the disguise of " moral men," the screening under moral formulae and notions of decency, the whole kindly concealment of our conduct under conceptions of duty, virtue, public sentiment, honourableness, and disinter-


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estedness, have just as good reasons in support of it? Not that I mean hereby that human wickedness and baseness, in short, the evil wild beast in us, should be disguised ; on the con- trary, my idea is that it is precisely as tame animals that we are an ignominious spectacle and require moral disguising, — that the "inner man" in Europe is far from having enough of intrinsic evil " to let himself be seen " with it (to be beautiful with it). The European disguises himself in morality because he has become a sick, sickly, crippled animal, who has good reasons for being " tame," because he is almost an abortion, an imper- fect, weak and clumsy thing. ... It is not the fierce- ness of the beast of prey that finds moral disguise necessary, but the gregarious animal, with its profound mediocrity, anxiety and ennui. Morality dresses up the European — let us acknowledge it ! — in more distinguished, more important, more con- spicuous guise — in " divine " guise —


353-

The Origin of Religions. — The real inventions of founders of religions are, on the one hand, to establish a definite mode of life and everyday custom, which operates as disciplina voluntatis, and at the same time does away with ennui ; and on the other hand, to give to that very niode of life an interpretation, by virtue of which it appears illumined with the highest value ; so that it henceforth becomes a good for which people struggle, and under certain circumstances lay down their lives. In truth, the


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second of these inventions is the more essential : the first, the mode of Hfe, has usually been there already, side by side, however, with other modes of life, and still unconscious of the value which it embodies. The import, the originality of the founder ot a religion, discloses itself usually in the fact that he sees the mode of life, selects it, and divines for the first time the purpose for which it can be used, how it can be interpreted. Jesus (or Paul) for example, found around him the life of the common people in the Roman province, a modest, virtuous, oppressed life : he interpreted it, he put the highest significance and value into it — and thereby the courage to despise every other mode of life, the calm fanaticism of the Moravians, the secret, subterranean self-confidence which goes on increasing, and is at last ready " to overcome the world " (that is to say, Rome, and the upper classes throughout the empire). Buddha, in like manner, found the same type of man, — he found it in fact dispersed among all the classes and social ranks of a people who were good and kind (and above all inoffensive), owing to indolence, and who likewise owing to indolence, lived abstemiously, almost without requirements. He understood that such a type of man, with all its vis inertiaey had inevitably to glide into a belief which promises to avoid the return of earthly ill (that is to say, labour and activity generally), — this " understanding " was his genius. The founder of a religion possesses psychological infallibility in the knowledge of a definite, average type of souls, who have not yet recognised themselves as akin. It is he who brings


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them together : the founding of a reh'gion, therefore, always becomes a long ceremony of recognition. —

354- The " Genius of the Species^ — The problem of consciousness (or more correctly : of becoming conscious of oneself) meets us only when we begin to perceive in what measure we could dispense with it : and it is at the beginning of this perception that we are now placed by physiology and zoology (which have thus required two centuries to over- take the hint thrown out in advance by Leibnitz). For we could in fact think, feel, will, and recollect, we could likewise " act " in every sense of the term, and nevertheless nothing of it all need necessarily " come into consciousness " (as one says meta- phorically). The whole of life would be possible without its seeing itself as it were in a mirror : as in fact even at present the far greater part of our life still goes on without this mirroring, — and even our thinking, feeling, volitional life as well, how- ever painful this statement may sound to an older philosopher. What then is the purpose of conscious- ness generally, when it is in the main superfluous .? — Now it seems to me, if you will hear my answer and its perhaps extravagant supposition, that the subtlety and strength of consciousness are always in proportion to the capacity for communication of a man (or an animal), the capacity for communication in its turn being in proportion to the necessity for communication : the latter not to be understood as if precisely the individual himself who is master in the art of communicating and making known his


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necessities would at the same time have to be most dependent upon others for his necessities. It seems to me, however, to be so in relation to whole races and successions of generations • where necessity and need have long compelled men to communicate with their fellows and understand one another rapidly and subtly, a surplus of the power and art of communication is at last acquired as if It were a fortune which had gradually accumu- lated, and now waited for an heir to squander it prodigally (the so-called artists are these heirs in like manner the orators, preachers, and authors: all of them men who come at the end of a long succession, "late-born" always, in the best sense of the word, and as has been said, squanderers by their very nature). Granted that this observation IS correct, I may proceed further to the conjecture that consciousness generally has only been developed under the pressure of the necessity for communica- tzon -that from the first it has been necessary and useful only between man and man (especially between those commanding and those obeying) and has only developed in proportion to its utility Consciousness is properly only a connecting net- work between man and man,— it is only as such that it has had to develop; the recluse and wild-beast species of men would not have needed it The very fact that our actions, thoughts, feelings and motions come within the range of our consciousness-at least a part of them —is the result of a terrible, prolonged "must" ruhng man's destiny: as the most endangered animal he needed hdp and protection; he needed


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his fellows, he was obliged to express his distress, he had to know how to make himself understood — and for all this he needed " consciousness " first of all : he had to " know " himself what he lacked, to " know " how he felt, and to " know " what he thought. For, to repeat it once more, man, like every living creature, thinks unceasingly, but does not know it; the thinking which is becoming conscious of itself \s only the smallest part thereof, we may say, the most superficial part, the worst part : — for this conscious thinking alone is done in words, that is to say, in the symbols for communica- tion, by means of which the origin of consciousness is revealed. In short, the development of speech and the development of consciousness (not of reason, but of reason becoming self-conscious) go hand in hand. Let it be further accepted that it is not only speech that serves as a bridge between man and man, but also the looks, the pressure and the gestures ; our becoming conscious of our sense impressions, our power of being able to fix them, and as it were to locate them outside of ourselves, has increased in proportion as the necessity has increased for communicating them to others by means of signs. The sign-inventing man is at the same time the man who is always more acutely self-conscious ; it is only as a social animal that man has learned to become conscious of himself, — he is doing so still, and doing so more and more. — As is obvious, my idea is that consciousness does not I properly belong to the individual existence of man, I but rather to the social and gregarious nature in him ; that, as follows therefrom, it is only in rela-


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tion to communal and gregarious utility that it is finely developed ; and that consequently each of us, in spite of the best intention of understanding himself as individually as possible, and of" knowing himself," will always just call into consciousness the non-individual in him, namely, his "average- ness " ; — that our thought itself is continuously as it were outvoted by the character of consciousness — by the imperious " genius of the species " therein — and is translated back into the perspective of the herd. Fundamentally our actions are in an incom- parable manner altogether personal, unique and absolutely individual — there is no doubt about it ; but as soon as we translate them into conscious- ness, they do not appear so any longer. . . . This is the proper phenomenalism and perspectivism as I understand it : the nature of animal consciousness involves the notion that the world of which we can become conscious is only a superficial and symbolic world, a generalised and vulgarised world ; — that everything which becomes conscious becomes just thereby shallow, meagre, relatively stupid, — a generalisation, a symbol, a characteristic of the herd ; that with the evolving of consciousness there is always combined a great, radical perversion, falsification, superficialisation, and generalisation. Finally, the growing consciousness is a danger, and whoever lives among the most conscious Europeans knows even that it is a disease. As may be conjectured, it is not the antithesis of subject and object with which I am here con- cerned : I leave that distinction to the episte- mologists who have remained entangled in the


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toils of grammar (popular metaphysics). It is still less the antithesis of "thing in itself" and phenomenon, for we do not " know " enough to be entitled even to make such a distinction. Indeed, we have not any organ at all for knowings or for "truth": we "know" (or believe, or fancy) just as much as may be of use in the interest of the human herd, the species ; and even what is here called "usefulness" is ultimately only a belief, a fancy, and perhaps precisely the most fatal stupidity by which we shall one day be ruined.

355. The Origin of our Conception of ^* Knowledge^ — I take this explanation from the street, I heard one of the people saying that "he knew me," so I asked myself: What do the people really under- stand by knowledge? what do they want when they seek "knowledge"? Nothing more than that what is strange is to be traced back to some- thing known. And we philosophers — have we really understood anything more by knowledge? The known, that is to say, what we are accustomed to so that we no longer marvel at it, the common- place, any kind of rule to which we are habituated, all and everything in which we know ourselves to be at home: — what? is our need of knowing not just this need of the known? the will to discover in everything strange, unusual, or questionable, some- thing which no longer disquiets us? Is it not possible that it should be the instinct of fear which enjoins upon us to know ? Is it not possible that the rejoicing of the discerner should be just his


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rejoicing in the regained feeling of security ? . . . One philosopher imagined the world " known " when he had traced it back to the " idea " : alas, was it not because the idea was so known, so familiar to him ? because he had so much less fear of the "idea" — Oh, this moderation of the dis- cerners ! let us but look at their principles, and at their solutions of the riddle 01 the world in this connection ! When they again find aught in things, among things, or behind things that is unfortunately very well known to us, for example, our multiplica- tion table, or our logic, or our willing and desiring, how happy they immediately are! For "what is known is understood": they are unanimous as to that. Even the most circumspect among them think that the known is at least more easily understood thaLn the strange ; that for example, it is methodically ordered to proceed outward from the "inner world," from " the facts of consciousness," because it is the world which is better known to us ! Error ol errors ! The known is the accustomed, and the accustomed is the most difficult of all to "understand," that is to say, to perceive as a problem, to perceive as strange, distant, " outside of us." . . . The great certainty of the natural sciences in comparison with psychology and the criticism of the elements of consciousness — unnatural sciences, as one might almost be entitled to call them — rests precisely on the fact that they take what is strange as their object: while it is almost like something contra- dictory and absurd to wish to take generally what is not strange as an object. . . .


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356.

In what Manner Europe will always become more Artisticr—YroVxdXnz a living still enforces even in the present day (in our transition period when so much ceases to enforce) a definite rdle on almost all male Europeans, their so-called callings ; some have the liberty, an apparent liberty, to choose this rdle themselves, but most have it chosen for them. The result is strange enough. Almost all Europeans confound themselves with their rdle when they advance in age; they themselves are the victims of their "good acting," they have forgotten how much chance, whim and arbitrariness swayed them when their "calling" was decided— and how many other roles they could perhaps have played : for it is now too late ! Looked at more closely, we see that their characters have actually evolved ont of their role, nature out of art. There were ages in which people believed with unshaken confidence, yea, with piety, in their predestination for this very business, for that very mode of livelihood, and would not at all acknowledge chance, or the fortuitous role, or arbitrariness therein. Ranks, guilds, and hereditary trade privileges succeeded' with the help of this belief, in rearing those extra- ordinary broad towers of society which distinguished the Middle Ages, and of which at all events one thing remains to their credit : capacity for duration (and duration is a thing of the first rank on earth !). But there are ages entirely the reverse, the properly democratic ages, in which people tend to become more and more oblivious of this belief, and a sort


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of impudent conviction and quite contrary mode of viewing things comes to the front, the Athenian conviction which is first observed in the epoch of Pericles, the American conviction of the present day, which wants also more and more to become a European conviction : whereby the individual is convinced that he can do almost anything, that he can play almost any rSle, whereby everyone makes ex- periments with himself, improvises, tries anew, tries with delight, whereby all nature ceases and becomes art. . . . The Greeks, having adopted this rdle- creed—an artist creed, if you will — underwent step by step, as is well known, a curious transformation, not in every respect worthy of imitation: t^ey became actual stage-players; and as such they enchanted, they conquered all the world, and at last even the conqueror of the world, (for the Graeculus histrio conquered Rome, and not Greek culture, as the nafve are accustomed to say . . .). What I fear, however, and what is at present obvious, if we desire to perceive it, is that we modern men are quite on the same road already; and whenever a man begins to discover in what respect he plays a role, and to what extent he can be a stage-player, he becomes a stage-player. ... A new flora and fauna of men thereupon springs up, which cannot grow in more stable, more restricted eras — or is left " at the bottom," under the ban and suspicion of infamy ; thereupon the most interesting and insane periods of history always make their appearance, in which " stage-players," all kinds of stage-players, are the real masters. Precisely thereby another species of man is always more and more injured, and in


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the end made impossible: above all the great "architects"; the building power is now being paralysed ; the courage that makes plans for the distant future is disheartened ; there begins to be a lack of organising geniuses. Who is there who would now venture to undertake works for the completion of which millenniums would have to be reckoned upon ? The fundamental belief is dying out, on the basis of which one could calculate, promise and anticipate the future in one's plan, and offer it as a sacrifice thereto, that in fact man has only value and significance in so far as he is a stone in a great building ; for which purpose he has first of all to be solid, he has to be a " stone." . . . Above all, not a— stage-player ! In short— alas! this fact will be hushed up for some considerable time to come ! — that which from henceforth will no longer be built, and can no longer be built, is — a society in the old sense of the term ; to build that structure everything is lacking, above all, the material. None of us are any longer material for a society: that is a truth which is seasonable at present! It seems to me a matter of indifference that mean- while the most short-sighted, perhaps the most honest, and at any rate the noisiest species of men of the present day, our friends the Socialists, believe, hope, dream, and above all scream and scribble almost the opposite ; in fact one already reads their watchword of the future: "free society," on all tables and walls. Free society? Indeed! Indeed! But you know, gentlemen, sure enough whereof one builds it? Out of wooden iron ! Out of the famous wooden iron I And not even out of wooden . . .


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357-

The old Problem : " What is German ? "—Let us

count up apart the real acquisitions of philosophical thought for which we have to thank German mtellects: are they in any allowable sense to be counted also to the credit of the whole race ? Can we say that they are at the same time the work of the German soul," or at least a symptom of it, in the sense in which we are accustomed to think for example, of Plato's ideomania, his almost relig ous

of the Greek soul"? Or would the reverse per- haps be trueP Were they individually as m^ch excepuons to the spirit of the race, as was for example, Goethe's Paganism with k good con science P Or as Bismarck's Macchiavelism was with a good conscience, his so-called "practical politics" in Germany;. Did our philosophers perhL even go counter to the need of the « German souP' ? I^ soohicri"^ ' ^T'" Ph"°=°Phers really philo- Zh V r^T- ' '^" '° -""d three cases, i' ■rstly,Z«te^ ^ incomparable insight-with which he obtained the advantage not only over Desclrtes but over all who had philosophised^up to his toe !!' that consciousness is only an accident of mental

Ittribut 1r; '"' ""' "^ necessary and essential attribute, that consequently what we call conscious- ness only constitutes a state of our spiritual and psychical world (perhaps a morbid state) and s>". from be^ng that ^orld ltsel/:-is there anythfg German in this thought, the profundity of Ch ch has not as yet been exhausted? Is there reason


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to think that a person of the Latin race would not readily have stumbled on this reversal of the apparent ? — for it is a reversal. Let us call to mind secondly, the immense note of interrogation which Kant wrote after the notion of causality. Not that he at all doubted its legitimacy, like Hume: on the contrary, he began cautiously to define the domain within which this notion has significance generally (we have not even yet got finished with the marking out of these limits). Let us take thirdly, the astonishing hit of Hegel, who stuck at no logical usage or fastidiousness when he ventured to teach that the conceptions of kinds develop out of one another : with which theory the thinkers in Europe were prepared for the last great scientific movement, for Darwinism — for without Hegel there would have been no Darwin. Is there anything German in this Hegelian innovation which first introduced the decisive conception of evolution into science? — Yes, without doubt we feel that there is something of ourselves " discovered " and divined in all three cases ; we are thankful for it, and at the same time surprised; each of these three principles is a thoughtful piece of German self-confession, self-understanding, and self-know- ledge. We feel with Leibnitz that "our inner world is far richer, ampler, and more concealed " ; as Germans we are doubtful, like Kant, about the ultimate validity of scientific knowledge of nature, and in general about whatever can be known caiisaliter : the knowable as such now appears to us of less worth. We Germans should still have been Hegelians, even though there had never been a


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Hegel, inasmuch as we (in contradistinction to all Latin peoples) instinctively attribute to becoming, to evolution, a profounder significance and higher value than to that which " is " — we hardly believe at all in the validity of the concept "being." This is all the more the case because we are not inclined to concede to our human logic that it is logic in itself, that it is the only kind of logic (we should rather like, on the contrary, to convince ourselves that it is only a special case, and perhaps one of the strangest and most stupid). — A fourth question would be whether also Schopenhauer with his Pessimism, that is to say, the problem of the worth of existence^ had to be a German. I think not. The event after which this problem was to be expected with certainty, so that an astronomer of the soul could have calculated the day and the hour for it — namely, the decay of the belief in the Christian God, the victory of scientific atheism, — is a universal European event, in which all races are to have their share of service and honour. On the contrary, it has to be ascribed precisely to the Germans — those with whom Schopenhauer was contemporary, — that they de- layed this victory of atheism longest, and en- dangered it most. Hegel especially was its retarder par excellence, in virtue of the grandiose attempt which he made to persuade us at the very last of the divinity of existence, with the help of our sixth sense, " the historical sense." As philosopher, Schopenhauer was the first avowed and infllexible atheist we Germans have had : his hostility to Hegel had here its motive. The non-divinity


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of existence was regarded by him as something understood, palpable, indisputable ; he always lost his philosophical composure and got into a passion when he saw anyone hesitate and beat about the bush here. It is at this point that his thorough uprightness of character comes in : unconditional, honest atheism is precisely the preliminary condition for his raising the problem, as a final and hardwon victory of the European conscience, as the most prolific act of two thousand years' discipline to truth, which in the end no longer tolerates the lie of the belief in a God. . . . One sees what has really gained the victory over the Christian God — , Christian morality itself, the conception of veracity, taken ever more strictly, the confessional subtlety of the Christian conscience, translated and sub- limated to the scientific conscience, to intellectual purity at any price. To look upon nature as if it were a proof of the goodness and care of a God ; to interpret history in honour of a divine reason, as a constant testimony to a moral order in the world and a moral final purpose ; to explain personal experiences as pious men have long enough explained them, as if everything were a dispensation or intimation of Providence, some- thing planned and sent on behalf of the salvation of the soul : all that is no^ past, it has conscience against it, it is regarded by all the more acute consciences as disreputable and dishonourable, as mendaciousness, femininism, weakness, and cowardice, — by virtue of this severity, if by any- thing, we are good Europeans, the heirs of Europe's longest and bravest self-conquest. When we thus


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reject the Christian interpretation, and condemn its "significance" as a forgery, we are immediately confronted in a striking manner with the Schopen- hauerian question : Has existence then a significance at all? — the question which will require a couple of centuries even to be completely heard in all its profundity. Schopenhauer's own answer to this

question was— if I may be forgiven for saying so

a premature, juvenile reply, a mere compromise, a stoppage and sticking in the very same Christian- ascetic, moral perspectives, the belief in which had got notice to quit along with the belief in God. But he raised the question— as a good European, as we have said, and not as a German.— Or did the Germans prove at least by the way in which they seized on the Schopenhauerian question, their inner connection and relationship to him, their preparation for his problem, and their need of it ? That there has been thinking and printing even in Germany since Schopenhauer's time on the problem raised by him,— it was late enough!— does not at all suffice to enable us to decide in fLivour of this closer relationship; one could, on the contrary, lay great stress on the peculiar awk- wardness of this post-Schopenhauerian Pessimism —Germans evidently do not behave themselves here as in their element. I do not at all allude here to Eduard von Hartmann ; on the contrary, my old suspicion is not vanished even at present that he is too clever for us ; I mean to say that as arrant rogue from the very first, he did not perhaps make merry solely over German Pessimism— and that in the end he might probably "bequeathe"


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to them the truth as to how far a person could bamboozle the Germans themselves in the age of bubble companies. But further, are we perhaps to reckon to the honour of Germans, the old humming-top, Bahnsen, who all his life spun about with the greatest pleasure around his realistically dialectic misery and " personal ill-luck," — was that German? (In passing I recommend his writings for the purpose for which I myself have used them, as anti-pessimistic fare, especially on account of his elegantia psychologica, which, it seems to me, could alleviate even the most constipated body and soul). Or would it be proper to count such dilettanti and old maids as the mawkish apostle of virginity, Mainlander, among the genuine Germans? After all he was probably a Jew (all Jews become mawkish when they moralise). Neither Bahnsen, nor Mainlander, nor even Eduard von Hartmann, give us a reliable grasp of the question whether the pessimism of Schopenhauer (his frightened glance into an undeified world, which has become stupid, blind, deranged and problematic, his honourable fright) was not only an exceptional case among Germans, but a German event : while everything else which stands in the foreground, like our valiant politics and our joyful Jingoism (which decidedly enough regards everything with refer- ence to a principle sufficiently unphilosophical : ^* Deutschland, Deutschland, fiber A lies, ^'* conse- quently sub specie speciei, namely, the German species), testifies very plainly to the contrary. No !

  • ^'^ Germany, Germany, above alP' : the first line of the

German national song. — Tr.


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The Germans of to-day are not pessimists ! And Schopenhauer was a pessimist, I repeat it once more, as a good European, and not as a German.

358. The Peasant Revolt of the Spirit. — We Europeans find ourselves in view of an immense world of ruins, where some things still tower aloft, while other objects stand mouldering and dismal, where most things however already lie on the ground, pic- turesque enough — where were there ever finer ruins? — overgrown with weeds, large and small. It is the Church which is this city of decay: we see the religious organisation of Christianity shaken to its deepest foundations. The belief in God is overthrown, the belief in the Christian ascetic ideal is now fighting its last fight. Such a long and solidly built work as Christianity — it was the last construction of the Romans ! — could not of course be demolished all at once ; every sort of earthquake had to shake it, every sort of spirit which perforates, digs, gnaws and moulders had to assist in the work of destruction. But that which is strangest is that those who have exerted themselves most to retain and preserve Christianity, have been precisely those who did most to destroy it, — the Germans. It seems that the Germans do not understand the essence of a Church. Are they not spiritual enough, or not distrustful enough to do so? In any case the structure of the Church rests on a southern freedom and liberality of spirit, and similarly on a southern suspicion of nature, man, and spirit, — it rests on a knowledge of man


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an experience of man, entirely different from what the north has had. The Lutheran Reformation in all its length and breadth was the indignation of the simple against something "complicated." To speak cautiously, it was a coarse, honest mis- understanding, in which much is to be forgiven, — people did not understand the mode of expression of a victorious Church, and only saw corruption ; they misunderstood the noble scepticism, the luxury of scepticism and toleration which every victorious, self-confident power permits. . . . One overlooks the fact readily enough at present that as regards all cardinal questions concerning power Luther was badly endowed ; he was fatally short-sighted, superficial and imprudent — and above all, as a man sprung from the people, he lacked all the hereditary qualities of a ruling caste, and all the instincts for power ; so that his work, his intention to restore the work of the Romans, merely became involuntarily and unconsciously the commencement of a work of destruction. He unravelled, he tore asunder with honest rage, where the old spider had woven longest and most carefully. He gave the sacred books into the hands of everyone, — they thereby got at last into the hands of the philologists, that is to say, the annihilators of every belief based upon books. He demolished the conception of "the Church" in that he repudiated the belief in the inspiration of the Councils : for only under the supposition that the inspiring spirit which had founded the Church still lives in it, still builds it, still goes on building its house, does the conception of " the Church " retain its power. He gave back


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to the priest sexual intercourse : but three-fourths of the reverence of which the people (and above all the women of the people) are capable, rests on the belief that an exceptional man in this respect will also be an exceptional man in other respects. It is precisely here that the popular belief in some- thing superhuman in man, in a miracle, in the saving God in man, has its most subtle and insidi- ous advocate. After Luther had given a wife to the priest, he had to take from him auricular confes- sion ; that was psychologically right : but thereby he practically did away with the Christian priest him- self, whose profoundest utility has ever consisted! m his being a sacred ear, a silent well, and a grave' for secrets. « Every man his own priest "—behind such formula and their bucolic slyness, there was concealed in Luther the profoundest hatred of "higher men," and of the rule of "higher men," as the Church had conceived them. Luther disowned an ideal which he did not know how to attain, while he seemed to combat and detest the degenera- tion thereof. As a matter of fact, he, the impossible monk, repudiated the rule of the homines religiosi • he consequently brought about precisely the same thing within the ecclesiastical social order that he combated so impatiently in the civic order,— namely a "peasant insurrection."— As to all that grew out of his Reformation afterwards, good and bad, which can at present be almost counted up,— who would be naive enough to praise or blame Luther simply on account of these results? He is innocent of all; he knew not what he did. The art of making the European spirit shallower


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especially in the north, or more good-natured, if people would rather hear it designated by a moral expression, undoubtedly took a clever step m advance in the Lutheran Reformation ; and similarly there grew out of it the mobility and disquietude of the spirit, its thirst for independence, its belief in the right to freedom, and its " naturalness." If people wish to ascribe to the Reformation in the last instance the merit of having prepared and favoured that which we at present honour as « modern science," they must of course add that it is also accessory to bringing about the degenera- tion of the modern scholar, with his lack of reverence, of shame and of profundity ; and that it is also responsible for all nafve candour and plain-dealing in matters of knowledge, in short for the plebeianism of the spirit which is peculiar to the last two centuries, and from which even pessimism hitherto, has not in any way delivered us. " Modern ideas" also belong to this peasant insurrection of the north against the colder, more ambiguous, more suspicious spirit of the south, which has built itself its greatest monument in the Christian Church. Let us not forget in the end what a Church is, and especially in contrast to every "State"- a Church is above all an authoritative organisation which secures to the most spiritual men the highest rank, and believes in the power of spirituality so far as to forbid all grosser appliances of authority. Through this alone the Church is under all circumstances a nobler institution than the State.—


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Vengeance on Intellect, and other Backgrounds of i^^w/Z/j.—Morality— where do you think it has Its most dangerous and rancorous advocates?— There, for example, is an ill-constituted man, who does not possess enough of intellect to be able to take pleasure in it, and just enough of culture to be aware of the fact ; bored, satiated, and a self- despiser ; besides being cheated unfortunately by some hereditary property out of the last consolation, the "blessing of labour," the self-forgetfulness in the " day's work " ; one who is thoroughly ashamed of his existence— perhaps also harbouring some vices,— and who on the other hand (by means of books to which he has no right, or more intellectual society than he can digest), cannot help vitiating himself more and more, and making himself vain and irritable : such a thoroughly poisoned man— for intellect becomes poison, culture becomes poison, possession becomes poison, solitude becomes poison, to such ill-constituted beings— gets at last into a habitual state of vengeance and inclination for vengeance. . . . What do you think he finds necessary, absolutely necessary in order to give himself the appearance in his own eyes of superi- ority over more intellectual men, so as to give himself the delight of perfect revenge, at least in imagination? It is always morality that he requires, one may wager on it ; always the big moral words, always the high-sounding words: justice, wisdom, holiness, virtue ; always the Stoicism of gestures (how well Stoicism hides what one does not


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possess!); always the mantle of wise silence, of affability, of gentleness, and whatever else the idealist-mantle is called, in which the incurable self-despisers and also the incurably conceited walk about. Let me not be misunderstood : out of such born enemies of the spirit there arises now and then the rare specimen of humanity who is honoured by the people under the name of saint or sage : it is out of such men that there arise those prodigies of morality that make a noise, and make history, — St Augustine was one of these men. Fear of the intellect, vengeance on the intellect — Oh ! how often have these powerfully impelling vices become the root of virtues ! Yea, virtue itself ! — And asking the question among ourselves, even the philosopher's pretension to wisdom, which has occasionally been made here and there on the earth, the maddest and most immodest of all pretensions, — has it not always been above all in India as well as in Greece, a means of concealment ? Sometimes, perhaps, from the point of view of education which hallows so many lies, it is a tender regard for growing and evolving persons, for disciples who have often to be guarded against themselves by means of the belief in a person (by means of an error). In most cases, however, it is a means of concealment for a philo- sopher, behind which he seeks protection, owing to exhaustion, age, chilliness, or hardening; as a feeling of the approaching end, as the sagacity of the instinct which animals have before their death, — they go apart, remain at rest, choose solitude, creep into caves, become wise. . . . What ? Wisdom a means of concealment of the philosopher from — intellect ? —


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360,

Two Kinds of Causes which are Coiifsunded.— It seems to me one of my most essential steps and advances that I have learned to distinguish the cause of an action generally from the cause of an action in a particular manner, say, in this direction, with this aim. The first kind of cause is a quantum' of stored-up force, which waits to be used in some manner, for some purpose; the second kind of cause, on the contrary, is something quite unim- portant in comparison with the first, an insignifi- cant hazard for the most part, in conformity with which the quantum of force in question " discharges " itself in some unique and definite manner : the lucifer-match in relation to the barrel of gunpowder Among those insignificant hazards and lucifer- matches I count all the so-called "aims," and similarly the still more so-called " occupations " of people : they are relatively optional, arbitrary, and almost mdififerent in relation to the immense quantum of force which presses on, as we have said, to be used up in any way whatever. One generally looks at the matter in a different manner : one is accustomed to see the impelling force pre- cisely in the aim (object, calling, &c.), according to a primeval error,— but it is only the directing force • the steersman and the steam have thereby been confounded. And yet it is not even always a steersman, the directing force. ... Is the "aim" the "purpose," not often enough only an ex- tenuating pretext, an additional self-blinding of conceit, which does not wish it to be said that the


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^\-^ follows the stream into which it has accidentally run ? That it " wishes " to go that way, because it must go that way? That it has a direction, sure enough, but— not a steersman? We still require a criticism of the conception of " purpose."

361.

The Problem of the Actor. — The problem of the actor has disquieted me the longest ; I was uncer- tain (and am sometimes so still) whether one could not get at the dangerous conception of " artist " — a conception hitherto treated with unpardonable leniency — from this point of view. Falsity with a good conscience ; delight in dissimulation breaking forth as power, pushing aside, overflowing, and sometimes extinguishing the so-called "character"; the inner longing to play a rdle, to assume a mask, to put on an appearance ; a surplus of capacity for adaptations of every kind, which can no longer gratify themselves in the service of the nearest and narrowest utility: all that perhaps does not pertain solely to the actor in himself? . . . Such an instinct would develop most readily in families of the lower class of the people, who have had to pass their lives in absolute dependence, under shifting pressure and constraint, who (to accommodate themselves to their conditions, to adapt themselves always to new circumstances) had again and again to pass themselves off and represent themselves as different persons, — thus having gradually quali- fied themselves to adjust the mantle to every wind, thereby almost becoming the mantle itself, as


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masters of the embodied and incarnated art of eternally playing the game of hide and seek, which one calls mimicry among the animals : — until at last this ability, stored up from generation to genera- tion, has become domineering, irrational and intractable, till as instinct it begins to command the other instincts, and begets the actor and "artist" (the buffoon, the pantaloon, the Jack- Pudding, the fool, and the clown in the first place, also the classical type of servant, Gil Bias : for in such types one has the precursors of the artist, and often enough even of the "genius"). Also under higher social conditions there grows under similar pressure a similar species of men : only the histrionic instinct is there for the most part held strictly in check by another instinqt, for example, among "diplomatists";— for the rest, I should think that it would always be open to a good diplomat- ist to become a good actor on the stage, provided his dignity "allowed" it. As regards the Jews, however, the adaptable people par excellence, we should, in conformity to this line of thought, expect to see among them a world-wide historical institution at the very first, for the rearing of actors, a proper breeding-place for actors; and in fact the question is very pertinent just now: what good actor at present is not—2L Jew? The Jew also, as a born literary man, as the actual ruler of the European press, exercises this power on the basis of his histrionic capacity: for the literary man is essentially an actor, — he plays the part of "expert," of " specialist." — Finally women. If we consider the whole history of


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women, are they not obliged first of all, and above all to be actresses? If we listen to doctors who have hypnotised women, or, finally, if we love them — and let ourselves be " hypnotised " by them,— what is always divulged thereby? That they "give themselves airs," even when they— "give them- selves." . . . Woman is so artistic . . .

362. My Belief in the Virilising of Europe.— V^Q owe it to Napoleon (and not at all to the French Revolution, which had in view the " fraternity " of the nations, and the florid interchange of good graces among people generally) that several warlike centuries, which have not had their like in past history, may now follow one another — in short, that we have entered upon the classical age of war, war at the same time scientific and popular, on the grandest scale (as regards means, talents and discipline), to which all coming millenniums will look back with envy and awe as a work of perfec- tion :— for the national movement out ot which this martial glory springs, is only the counter-^^^^ against Napoleon, and would not have existed without him. To him, consequently, one will one day be able to attribute the fact that man in Europe has again got the upper hand of the merchant and the Philistine; perhaps even of "woman" also, who has become pampered owing to Christianity and the extravagant spirit of the eighteenth century, and still more owing to " modern ideas." Napoleon, who saw in modern ideas, and accord- ingly in civilisation, something like a personal


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enemy, has by this hostility proved himself one of the greatest continuators of the Renaissance : he has brought to the surface a whole block of the ancient character, the decisive block perhaps, the block of granite. And who knows but that this block of ancient character will in the end get the upper hand of the national movement, and will have to make itself in 2i positive sense the heir and continuator of Napoleon : — who, as one knows, wanted one Europe, which was to be mistress of the world. —

363. How each Sex has its Prejudice about Love. — Notwithstanding all the concessions which I am inclined to make to the monogamic prejudice, I will never admit that we should speak of equal rights in the love of man and woman : there are no such equal rights. The reason is that man and woman understand something different by the term love, — and it belongs to the conditions of love in both sexes that the one sex does not presuppose the same feeling, the same conception of " love," in the other sex. What woman understands by love is clear enough: complete surrender (not merely devotion) of soul and body, without any motive, without any reservation, rather with shame and terror at the thought of a devotion restricted by clauses or associated with conditions. In this absence of conditions her love is precisely a faith : woman has no other. — Man, when he loves a woman, wants precisely this love from her; he is consequently, as regards himself, furthest re- moved from the prerequisites of feminine love; 21


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granted, however, that there should also be men to whom on their side the demand for complete devotion is not unfamiliar, — well, they are really — not men. A man who loves like a woman becomes thereby a slave ; a woman, however, who loves like a woman becomes thereby a more perfect woman. . . . The passion of woman in its unconditional renunciation of its own rights presupposes in fact that there does not exist on the other side an equal pathos, an equal desire for renunciation : for if both renounced themselves out of love, there would result — well, I don't know what, perhaps a horror vacui? Woman wants to be taken and accepted as a possession, she wishes to be merged in the conceptions of " possession " and " possessed " ; consequently she wants one who takes, who does not offer and give himself away, but who reversely is rather to be made richer in "himself" — by the increase of power, happiness and faith which the woman herself gives to him. Woman gives herself, man takes her. — I do not think one will get over this natural contrast by any social contract, or with the very best will to do justice, however desirable it may be to avoid bringing the severe, frightful, enigmatical, and unmoral elements of this antagonism constantly before our eyes. For love, regarded as complete, great, and full, is nature, and as nature, is to all eternity something "unmoral." — Fidelity is accordingly included in woman's love, it follows from the definition thereof; with man fidelity may readily result in consequence of his love, perhaps as gratitude or idiosyncrasy of taste, and so-called elective affinity, but it does not


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belong to the essence of his love — and indeed so little, that one might almost be entitled to speak of a natural opposition between love and fidelity in man, whose love is just a desire to possess, and not a renunciation and giving away ; the desire to possess, however, comes to an end every time with the possession. ... As a matter of fact it is the more subtle and jealous thirst for possession in a man (who is rarely and tardily convinced of having this " possession "), which makes his love continue ; in that case it is even possible that his love may increase after the surrender, — he does not readily own that a woman has nothing more to " surrender " to him. —

364. The Anchorite Speaks. — The art of associating with men rests essentially on one's skilfulness (which presupposes long exercise) in accepting a repast, in taking a repast, in the cuisine of which one has no confidence. Provided one comes to the table with the hunger of a wolf everything is easy ("the worst society gives thee experience — as Mephistopheles says) ; but one has not always this wolf s-hunger when one needs it ! Alas I how diffi- cult are our fellow-men to digest ! First principle : to stake one's courage as in a misfortune, to seize boldly, to admire oneself at the same time, to take one's repugnance between one's teeth, to cram down one's disgust. Second principle: to "improve" one's fellow-man, by praise for example, so that he may begin to sweat out his self-complacency ; or to seize a tuft of his good or " interesting " qualities, and pull at it till one gets his whole virtue out, and can


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put him under the folds of it. Third principle: self-hypnotism. To fix one's eye on the object of one's intercourse as on a glass knob, until, ceas- ing to feel pleasure or pain thereat, one falls asleep unobserved, becomes rigid, and acquires a fixed pose: a household recipe used in married life and in friendship, well tested and prized as indispens- able, but not yet scientifically formulated. Its proper name is — patience.—

365. The Anchorite Speaks once more.—'^^ also have intercourse with "men," we also modestly put on the clothes in which people know us {as such), respect us and seek us ; and we thereby mingle in society, that is to say, among the disguised who do not wish to be so called ; we also do like a prudent masqueraders, and courteously dismiss all curiosity which has not reference merely to our "clothes" There are however other modes and artifices for "going about" among men and associ- ating with them: for example, as a ghost,-which is very advisable when one wants to scare them, and get rid of them easily. An example : a person grasps at us, and is unable to seize us. That frightens him. Or we enter by a closed door. Or when the lights are extinguished. Or after we are dead The latter is the artifice oi posthumous men par excellence, ("What?" said such a one once im- patiently, "do you think we should d/ight m en- during this strangeness, coldness, death-stillness ^ about us, all this subterranean, hidden, dim, undis- covered solitude, which is called life with us, and


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might just as well be called death, if we were not conscious of what tvill arise out of us, — and that only after our death shall we attain to our life and become living, ah! very living! we posthumous men ! "— )

366. At the Sight of a Learned Book. — We do not belong to those who only get their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books, — it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful. Our first question concerning the value of a book, a man, or a piece of music is : Can it walk? or still better: Can it dance? . . . We seldom read ; we do not read the worse for that — oh, how quickly we divine how a person has arrived at his thoughts : — if it is by sitting before an ink-bottle with compressed belly and head bent over the paper : oh, how quickly we are then done with his book! The constipated bowels betray themselves, one may wager on it, just as the atmo- sphere of the room, the ceiling of the room, the smallness of the room, betray themselves. — These were my feelings when closing a straightforward, learned book, thankful, very thankful, but also relieved. ... In the book of a learned man there is almost always something oppressive and oppressed : the "specialist" comes to light somewhere, his ardour, his seriousness, his wrath, his over-estimation of the nook in which he sits and spins, his hump — every specialist has his hump. A learned book also always mirrors a distorted soul : every trade


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distorts. Look at our friends again with whom we have spent our youth, after they have taken possession of their science : alas ! how the reverse has always taken place ! Alas ! how they them- selves are now for ever occupied and possessed by their science ! Grown into their nook, crumpled into unrecognisability, constrained, deprived of their equilibrium, emaciated and angular everywhere, perfectly round only in one place, — we are moved and silent when we find them so. Every handi- craft, granting even that it has a golden floor,* has also a leaden ceiling above it, which presses and presses on the soul, till it is pressed into a strange and distorted shape. There is nothing to alter here. We need not think that it is at all possible to obviate this disfigurement by any educational artifice whatever. Every kind of perfection is pur- chased at a high price on earth, where everything is perhaps purchased too dear; one is an expert in one's department at the price of being also a victim of one's department. But you want to have it otherwise — "more reasonable," above all more convenient — is it not so, my dear contemporaries ? Very well ! But then you will also immediately get something different : instead of the craftsman and expert, you will get the literary man, the versatile, " many-sided " litterateur, who to be sure lacks the hump — not taking account of the hump or bow which he makes before you as the shopman of the intellect and the " porter " of culture — , the litterateur, who is really nothing, but " represents "

  • An allusion to the German Proverb, "Handwerk hat

einen goldenen Boden." — Tr.


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almost everything : he plays and " represents " the expert, he also takes it upon himself in all modesty to see that he is paid, honoured and celebrated in this position. — No, my learned friends! I bless you even on account of your humps ! And also because like me you despise the litterateurs and parasites of culture! And because you do not know how to make merchandise of your intellect ! And have so many opinions which cannot be ex- pressed in money value ! And because you do not represent anything which you are not ! Because your sole desire is to become masters of your craft ; because you reverence every kind of mastership and ability, and repudiate with the most relentless scorn everything of a make-believe, half-genuine, dressed-up, virtuoso, demagogic, histrionic nature in litteris et artibus — all that which does not con- vince you by its absolute genuineness of discipline and preparatory training, or cannot stand your test ! (Even genius does not help a person to get over such a defect, however well it may be able to deceive with regard to it : one understands this if one has once looked closely at our most gifted painters and musicians, — who almost without ex- ception, can artificially and supplementarily appro- priate to themselves (by means of artful inventions of style, make-shifts, and even principles), the appearance of that genuineness, that solidity of training and culture ; to be sure, without thereby deceiving themselves, without thereby imposing perpetual silence on their bad consciences. For you know of course that all great modern artists suffer from bad consciences ? . . .)


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367.

How one has to Distinguish first of all in Works (?/"y4^/'.— Everything that is thought, versi- fied, painted and composed, yea, even built and moulded, belongs either to monologic art, or to art before witnesses. Under the latter there is also to be included the apparently monologic art which involves the belief in God, the whole lyric of prayer; because for a pious man there is no solitude, — we, the godless, have been the first to devise this inven- tion. I know of no profounder distinction in all the perspective of the artist than this: Whether he looks at his growing work of art (at " himself — ") with the eye of the witness ; or whether he " has forgotten the world," as is the essential thing in all monologic art, — it rests on forgetting^ it is the music of forgetting.

368.

The Cynic Speaks. — My objections to Wagner's music are physiological objections. Why should I therefore begin by disguising them under aesthetic formulae? My "point" is that I can no longer breathe freely when this music begins to operate on me ; my foot immediately becomes indignant at it and rebels : for what it needs is time, dance and march ; it demands first of all from music the ecstasies which are in good walking, striding, leap- ing and dancing. But do not my stomach, my heart, my blood and my bowels also protest? Do I not become hoarse unawares under its influence? And then I ask myself what my body really wants from music generally. I be-


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lieve it wants to have relief: so that all animal functions should be accelerated by means of light, bold, unfettered, self-assured rhythms; so that brazen, leaden life should be gilded by means of golden, good, tender harmonies. My melancholy would fain rest its head in the hiding-places and abysses oi perfection : for this reason I need music. What do I care for the drama ! What do I care for the spasms of its moral ecstasies, in which the "people" have their satisfaction! What do I care for the whole pantomimic hocus-pocus of the actor ! . . . It will now be divined that I am essentially anti-theatrical at heart,— but Wagner on the contrary, was essentially a man of the stage and an actor, the most enthusiastic mummer-worshipper that has ever existed, even among musicians ! . . . And let it be said in passing that if Wagner's theory was that "drama is the object, and music is only the means to K—hX^ practice on the contrary from beginning to end has been to the effect that "attitude is the object, drama and even music can never be anything else but means to thisr Music as a means of elucidating, strengthening and inten- sifying dramatic poses and the actor's appeal to the senses, and Wagnerian drama only an opportunity for a number of dramatic attitudes! Wagner possessed, along with all other instincts, the dicta- torial instinct of a great actor in all and everything, and as has been said, also as a musician.— I once made this clear with some trouble to a thorough- going Wagnerian, and I had reasons for adding :— "Do be a little more honest with yourself: we are not now in the theatre. In the theatre we are only


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honest in the mass ; as individuals we lie, we belie even ourselves. We leave ourselves at home when we go to the theatre ; we there renounce the right to our own tongue and choice, to our taste, and even to our courage as we possess it and practise it within our own four walls in relation to God and man. No one takes his finest taste in art into the theatre with him, not even the artist who works for the theatre : there one is people, public, herd, woman, Pharisee, voting animal, democrat, neighbour, and fellow-creature ; there even the most personal conscience succumbs to the levelling charm of the 'great multitude'; there stupidity operates as wantonness and contagion ; there the neighbour rules, there one becomes a neighbour. . . ." (I have forgotten to mention what my enlightened Wagnerian answered to my physiological objec- tions : "So the fact is that you are really not healthy enough for our music ? " — )

369- Juxtapositions in us. — Must we not acknowledge to ourselves, we artists, that there is a strange discrepancy in us ; that on the one hand our taste, and on the other hand our creative power, keep apart in an extraordinary manner, continue apart, and have a separate growth ; — I mean to say that they have entirely different gradations and tempi of age, youth, maturity, mellowness and rotten- ness ? So that, for example, a musician could all his life create things which contradicted all that his ear and heart, spoilt for listening, prized, relished and preferred : — he would not even re-


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quire to be aware of the contradiction ! As an almost painfully regular experience shows, a person's taste can easily outgrow the taste of his power, even without the latter being thereby paralysed or checked in its productivity. The reverse, however, can also to some extent take place, — and it is to this especially that I should like to direct the attention of artists. A constant producer, a man who is a " mother " in the grand sense of the term, one who no longer knows or hears of anything except pregnancies and child- beds of his spirit, who has no time at all to reflect and make comparisons with regard to himself and his work, who is also no longer inclined to exercise his taste, but simply forgets it, letting it take its chance of standing, lying or falling, — perhaps such a man at last produces works on which he is then quite unfit to pass a judgment: so that he speaks and thinks foolishly about them and about himself. This seems to me almost the normal condition with fruitful artists, — nobody knows a child worse than its parents — and the rule applies even (to take an immense example) to the entire Greek world of poetry and art, which was never " conscious " of what it had done. . . .

370. What is Romanticism ? — It will be remembered perhaps, at least among my friends, that at first I assailed the modern world with some gross errors and exaggerations, but at any rate with hope in my heart. I recognised — who knows from what personal experiences? — the philosophical pessimism


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of the nineteenth century as the symptom of a higher power of thought, a more daring courage and a more triumphant plenitude of life than had been characteristic of the eighteenth century, the age of Hume, Kant, Condillac, and the sensualists : so that the tragic view of things seemed to me the peculiar luxury of our culture, its most precious, noble, and dangerous mode of prodigality ; but •f nevertheless, in view of its overflowing wealth, a justifiable luxury. In the same way I interpreted for myself German music as the expression of a Dionysian power in the German soul : I thought I heard in it the earthquake by means of which a primeval force that had been imprisoned for ages was finally finding vent — indifferent as to whether all that usually calls itself culture was thereby made to totter. It is obvious that I then mis- understood what constitutes the veritable character both of philosophical pessimism and of German music, — namely, their Romanticism. What is Romanticism? Every art and every philosophy may be regarded as a healing and helping appli- ance in the service of growing, struggling life : they always presuppose suffering and sufferers. But there are two kinds of sufferers : on the one hand those that suffer from overflowing vitality ^ who need Dionysian art, and require a tragic view and insight into life ; and on the other hand those who suffer from reduced vitality, who seek repose, quiet- ness, calm seas, and deliverance from themselves through art or knowledge, or else intoxication, spasm, bewilderment and madness. All Romanti- cism in art and knowledge responds to the twofold


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craving of the latter ; to them Schopenhauer as well as Wagner responded (and responds), — to name those most celebrated and decided romanticists, who were then misunderstood by me {not however to their disadvantage, as may be reasonably conceded to me). The being richest in overflowing vitality, the Dionysian God and man, may not only allow himself the spectacle of the horrible and question- able, but even the fearful deed itself, and all the luxury of destruction, disorganisation and negation. With him evil, senselessness and ugliness seem as it were licensed, in consequence of the overflowing plenitude of procreative, fructifying power, which can convert every desert into a luxuriant orchard. Conversely, the greatest sufferer, the man poorest in vitality, would have most need of mildness, peace and kindliness in thought and action : he would need, if possible, a God who is specially the God of the sick, a " Saviour " ; similarly he would have need of logic, the abstract intelligibility of exist- ence — for logic soothes and gives confidence ; — in short he would need a certain warm, fear-dispelling narrowness and imprisonment within optimistic horizons. In this manner I gradually began to understand Epicurus, the opposite of a Dionysian pessimist; — in a similar manner also the "Christian," who in fact is only a type of Epicurean, and like him essentially a romanticist : — and my vision has always become keener in tracing that most diffi- cult and insidious of all forms of retrospective inference, in which most mistakes have been made — the inference from the work to its author from the deed to its doer, from the ideal to him who


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needs it, from every mode of thinking and valuing to the imperative want behind it. — In regard to all aesthetic values I now avail myself of this radical distinction : I ask in every single case, " Has hunger or superfluity become creative here ? " At the out- set another distinction might seem to recommend itself more — it is far more conspicuous, — namely, to have in view whether the desire for rigidity, for perpetuation, for being is the cause of the creating, or the desire for destruction, for change, for the new, for the future — for becoming. But when looked at more carefully, both these kinds of desire prove themselves ambiguous, and are explicable precisely according to the before-mentioned, and, as it seems to me, rightly preferred scheme. The desire for destruction, change and becoming, may be the expression of overflowing power, pregnant with futurity (my terminus for this is of course the word "Dionysian"); but it may also be the hatred of the ill-constituted, destitute and unfortunate, which destroys, and must destroy, because the enduring, yea, all that endures, in fact all being, excites and provokes it. To understand this emotion we have but to look closely at our anarchists. The will to perpetuation requires equally a double inter- pretation. It may on the one hand proceed from gratitude and love : — art of this origin will always be an art of apotheosis, perhaps dithyrambic, as with Rubens, mocking divinely, as with Hafiz, or clear and kind-hearted as with Goethe, and spread- ing a Homeric brightness and glory over every- thing (in this case I speak of Apollonian art). It may also, however, be the tyrannical will of a


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sorely-suffering, struggling or tortured being, who would like to stamp his most personal, individual and narrow characteristics, the very idiosyn- crasy of his suffering, as an obligatory law and constraint on others; who, as it were, takes revenge on all things, in that he imprints, enforces and brands his image, the image of his torture, upon them. The latter is romantic pessimism in its most extreme form, whether it be as Schopen- hauerian will-philosophy, or as Wagnerian music : — romantic pessimism, the last great event in the destiny of our civilisation. (That there may be quite a different kind of pessimism, a classical pessimism — this presentiment and vision belongs to me, as something inseparable from me, as my proprium and ipsissimum ; only that the word " classical " is repugnant to my ears, it has become far too worn, too indefinite and indistinguish- able. I call that pessimism of the future, — for it is coming ! I see it coming ! — Dionysian pessimism.)

371. We Unintelligible Ones. — Have we ever com- plained among ourselves of being misunderstood, misjudged, and confounded with others ; of being calumniated, misheard, and not heard ? That is just our lot — alas, for a long time yet ! say, to be modest, until 1901 — , it is also our distinction ; we should not have sufficient respect for ourselves if we wished it otherwise. People confound us with others — the reason of it is that we ourselves grow, we change continually, we cast off old bark, we still slough every spring, we always become younger,


33^ THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

higher, stronger, as men of the future, we thrust our roots always more powerfully into the deep— into evil—, while at the same time we embrace the heavens ever more lovingly, more extensively, and suck in their light ever more eagerly with all our branches and leaves. We grow like trees —that is difficult to understand, like all life !— not in one place, but everywhere, not in one direction only, but upwards and outwards, as well as inwards and downwards. At the same time our force shoots forth in stem, branches, and roots ; we are really no longer free to do anything separately, or to be anything separately. . . . Such is our lot, as we have said : we grow in height; and even should it be our calamity — for we dwell ever closer to the lightning !— well, we honour it none the less on that account ; it is that which we do not wish to share with others, which we do not wish to bestow upon others, the fate of all elevation, our fate. . . .

Why we are not Idealists.— Formerly philosophers were afraid of the senses : have we, perhaps, been far too forgetful of this fear? We are at present all of us sensualists, we representatives of the present and of the future in philosophy,— «^/ according to theory, however, but in praxis, in practice. . . . Those former philosophers, on the contrary, thought that the senses lured them out of their world, the cold realm of "ideas," to a dan- gerous southern island, where they were afraid that their philosopher-virtues would melt away like snow in the sun. " Wax in the ears, was then almost a


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condition of philosophising ; a genuine philosopher no longer listened to life, in so far as life is music, he denied the music of life — it is an old philoso- phical superstition that all music is Sirens' music. — Now we should be inclined at the present day to judge precisely in the opposite manner (which in itself might be just as false), and to regard ideas, with their cold, anaemic appearance, and not even in spite of this appearance, as worse seducers than the senses. They have always lived on the " blood " of the philosopher, they always consumed his senses, and indeed, if you will believe me, his " heart " as well. Those old philosophers were heartless: philosophising was always a species of vampirism. At the sight of such figures even as Spinoza, do you not feel a profoundly enigma- tical and disquieting sort of impression ? Do you not see the drama which is here performed, the constantly increasing pallor — , the spiritualisation always more ideally displayed? Do you not imagine some long-concealed blood-sucker in the background, which makes its beginning with the senses, and in the end retains or leaves behind nothing but bones and their rattling ? — I mean categories, formulae, and words (for you will pardon me in saying that what remains Oii Spinoza, amor intellectualis dei, is rattling and nothing more! What is amor, what is deus, when they have lost every drop of blood ? . . .) In summa : all philo- sophical idealism has hitherto been something like a disease, where it has not been, as in the case of Plato, the prudence of superabundant and danger- ous healthfulness, the fear of overpowerful senses, 33


^,8 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

sound to require Plato's idealism ? And we a fear the senses because

373- « C^V^.." as Prejudice.-\t follows froni the

and desire mat uimg u^r.po are too soon

.„. -^ « -^' l^:r Vof exl le>at which quieted and set at rest, r „^^. Spencer,

makes the Pedantic EnghshmanHertert^p ,

so enthusiastic in h,s way and ^^^

draw a ""^^f !>°P%%^°" °^ and altruism" of '".^\Te"dtr-:that1lmo" causes nausea to which he dreams ^ . ^ ^ Spencenan

people hke us :--a humanity ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^

rurSv'g of cttemp' of eKtermination ! " But the /^that something has to be taken by

r- 1,;. highest hope, which is regarded, and

h.m as h s highest np , ^^^^j^ ^ ^

may well be "[ega^dea, oy interrogation

distasteful possibility, is a no ... u is

which Spencer ^^IX^^^,^':::^ at present '" *' Taleriitt natal-scientists are content, TbeKt^o^which is supposed to have its


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equivalent and measure in human thinking and human valuations, a " world of truth " at which we might be able ultimately to arrive with the help of our insignificant, four-cornered human reason ! What? do we actually wish to have existence debased in that fashion to a ready-reckoner exercise and calculation for stay-at-home mathe- maticians? We should not, above all, seek to divest existence of its ambiguous character: good taste forbids it, gentlemen, the taste of reverence for everything that goes beyond your horizon ! That a world-interpretation is alone right by which you maintain your position, by which investigation and work can go on scientifically in your sense (you really mean mechanically?), an interpretation which acknowledges numbering, calculating, weigh- ing, seeing and handling, and nothing more — such an idea is a piece of grossness and naivety, pro- vided it is not lunacy and idiocy. Would the reverse not be quite probable, that the most super- ficial and external characters of existence — its most apparent quality, its outside, its embodiment — should let themselves be apprehended first? per- haps alone allow themselves to be apprehended ? A " scientific " interpretation of the world as you understand it might consequently still be one of the stupidest, that is to say, the most destitute of significance, of all possible world-interpreta- tions : — I say this in confidence to my friends the Mechanicians, who to-day like to hobnob with philosophers, and absolutely believe that mechanics is the teaching of the first and last laws upon which, as upon a ground-floor, all existence must be


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built. But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world ! Supposing we valued the worth of a music with reference to how much it could be counted, calculated, or formulated — how absurd such a " scientific " estimate of music would be ! What would one have apprehended, understood, or discerned in it ! Nothing, absolutely nothing of what is really " music " in it ! . . .

374- Our nezv '^ Infim'te." — How far the perspective character of existence extends, or whether it have any other character at all, whether an existence without explanation, without "sense" does not just become "nonsense," whether, on the other hand, all existence is not essentially an explaining existence — these questions, as is right and proper, cannot be determined even by the most diligent and severely conscientious analysis and self- examination of the intellect, because in this analysis the human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself in its perspective forms, and only in them. We cannot see round our corner : it is hopeless curiosity to want to know what other modes of intellect and perspective there might be : for example, whether any kind of being could perceive time backwards, or alternately forwards and back- wards (by which another direction of life and another conception of cause and effect would be given). But I think that we are to-day at least far from the ludicrous immodesty of decreeing from our nook that there can only be legitimate perspectives from that nook. The world, on the contrary, has


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once more become " infinite " to us : in so far we cannot dismiss the possibility that it contains infinite interpretations. Once more the great horror seizes us — but who would desire forthwith to deify once more this monster of an unknown world in the old fashion ? And perhaps worship the unknown thing as the "unknown person" in future? Ah! there are too many ungodly possibilities of inter- pretation comprised in this unknown, too much devilment, stupidity and folly of interpretation, — our own human, all too human interpretation itself, which we know. . . .

375- Why we Seem to be Epicureans. — We are cautious, we modern men, with regard to final convictions, our distrust lies in wait for the enchantments and tricks of conscience involved in every strong belief, in every absolute Yea and Nay : how is this explained? Perhaps one may see in it a good deal of the caution of the "burnt child," of the disillusioned idealist ; but one may also see in it another and better element, the joyful curiosity of a former lingerer in a corner, who has been brought to despair by his nook, and now luxuriates and revels in its antithesis, in the un- bounded, in the "open air in itself" Thus there is developed an almost Epicurean inclination for knowledge, which does not readily lose sight of the questionable character of things; likewise also a repugnance to pompous moral phrases and attitudes, a taste that repudiates all coarse, square contrasts, and is proudly conscious of its habitual


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reserve. For this too constitutes our pride, this easy tightening of the reins in our headlong im- pulse after certainty, this self-control of the rider in his most furious riding : for now, as of old, we have mad, fiery steeds under us, and if we delay, it is certainly least of all the danger which causes us to delay. . . .

376. Our Slow Periods.— It is thus that artists feel, and all men of "works," the maternal species of men : they always believe at every chapter of their life— a work always makes a chapter— that they have now reached the goal itself; they would always patiently accept death with the feeling : "we are ripe for it." This is not the expression of exhaustion,-but rather that of a certain autumnal sunniness and mildness, which the work itself, the maturing of the work, always leaves behind in its originator. Then the tempo of life slows down— turns thick and flows with honey— mto long pauses, into the belief in the long pause

377- We Homeless Ones.—hmong the Europeans of to-day there are not lacking those who may call themselves homeless ones in a way which is at once a distinction and an honour ; it is by them that my secret wisdom and gaya scienza is especially to be laid to heart ! For their lot is hard, their hope un- certain ; it is a clever feat to devise consolation for them. But what good does it do! We children of the future, how could ^^ be at home in the present ?


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We are unfavourable to all ideals which could make us feel at home in this frail, broken-down, transition period ; and as regards the " realities " thereof, we do not believe in their endurance. The ice which still carries has become very thin : the thawing wind blows ; we ourselves, the homeless ones, are an agency that breaks the ice, and the other too thin "realities." ... We "preserve" nothing, nor would we return to any past age ; we are not at all " liberal," we do not labour for " pro- gress," we do not need first to stop our ears to the song of the market-place and the sirens of the future— their song of "equal rights," "free society," "no longer either lords or slaves," does not allure us ! We do not by any means think it desirable that the kingdom of righteousness and peace should be established on earth (because under any circumstances it would be the kingdom of the profoundest mediocrity and Chinaism); we rejoice in all men, who like our- selves love danger, war and adventure, who do not make compromises, nor let themselves be captured, conciliated and stunted; we count ourselves among the conquerors ; we ponder over the need of a new order of things, even of a new slavery — for every strengthening and elevation of the type " man " also involves a new form of slavery. Is it not obvious that with all this we must feel ill at ease in an age which claims the honour of being the most humane, gentle and just that the sun has ever seen ? What a pity that at the mere mention of these fine words, the thoughts at the bottom of our hearts are all the more unpleasant, that we


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see therein only the expression— or the masquerade —of profound weakening, exhaustion, age, and de- clining power ! What can it matter to us with what kind of tinsel an invalid decks out his weakness ? He may parade it as his virtue; there is no doubt whatever that weakness makes people gentle, alas, so gentle, so just, so inoffensive, so " humane " !— The " religion of pity," to which people would like to persuade us— yes, we know sufficiently well the hysterical little men and women who need this religion at present as a cloak and adornment! We are no humanitarians ; we should not dare to speak of our " love of mankind " ; for that, a person of our stamp is not enough of an actor ! Or not sufficiently Saint-Simonist, not sufficiently French. A person must have been affected with a Gallic excess of erotic susceptibility and amorous im- patience even to approach mankind honourably with his lewdness. . . . Mankind! Was there ever a more hideous old woman among all old women (unless perhaps it were "the Truth": a question for philosophers)? No, we do not love Mankind ! On the other hand, however, we are not nearly « German " enough (in the sense in which the word « German " is current at present) to advocate nationalism and race-hatred, or take delight in the national heart-itch and blood-poisoning, on account of which the nations of Europe are at present bounded off and secluded from one another as if by quarantines. We are too unprejudiced for that, too perverse, too fastidious ; also too well-informed,' and too much " travelled." We prefer much rather to live on mountains, apart and "out of season," in


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past or coming centuries, in order merely to spare ourselves the silent rage to which we know we should be condemned as witnesses of a system of politics which makes the German nation barren by making it vain, and which is a petty system besides: — will it not be necessary for this system to plant itself between two mortal hatreds, lest its own creation should immedi- ately collapse? Will it not be obliged to desire the perpetuation of the petty-state system of Europe? . . . We homeless ones are too diverse and mixed in race and descent for "modern men," and are consequently little tempted to participate in the falsified racial self-admiration and lewdness which at present display themselves in Germany, as signs of German sentiment, and which strike one as doubly false and unbecoming in the people with the " historical sense." We are, in a word — and it shall be our word of honour ! — good Europeans^ the heirs of Europe, the rich, over-wealthy heirs, but too deeply obligated heirs of millenniums of European thought. As such, we have also outgrown Christianity, and are disinclined to it — and just because we have grown out of it, because our forefathers were Christians uncompromising in their Christian in- tegrity, who willingly sacrificed possessions and positions, blood and country, for the sake of their belief We — do the same. For what, then ? For our unbelief? For all sorts of unbelief? Nay, you know better than that, my friends! The hidden Yea in you is stronger than all the Nays and Perhapses, of which you and your age are sick ;


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and when you are obliged to put out to sea, you emigrants, it is — once more a faith which urges you thereto ! . . ,

378.

" And once more Grow Clear." — We, the generous and rich in spirit, who stand at the sides of the streets like open fountains and would hinder no 1

one from drinking from us : we do not know, alas ! how to defend ourselves when we should like to do so ; we have no means of preventing ourselves being made turbid and dark, — we have no means of preventing the age in which we live casting its " up-to-date rubbish " into us, or of hindering filthy birds throwing their excrement, the boys their trash, and fatigued resting travellers their misery, great and small, into us. But we do as we have always done : we take whatever is cast into us down into our depths — for we are deep, we do not forget — and once more grow clear. . . .

379. The Foots Interruption. — It is not a misanthrope who has written this book : the hatred of men costs too dear to-day. To hate as they formerly hated man, in the fashion of Timon, completely, without qualification, with all the heart, from the pure love of hatred — for that purpose one would have to renounce contempt : — and how much refined pleasure, how much patience, how much bene- volence even, do we owe to contempt ! Moreover we are thereby the " elect of God " : refined con- tempt is our taste and privilege, our art, our virtue


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perhaps, we, the most modern amongst the moderns ! . . . Hatred, on the contrary, makes equal, it puts men face to face, in hatred there is honour ; finally, in hatred there is fear, quite a large amount of fear. We fearless ones, however, we, the most intellectual men of the period, know our advantage well enough to live without fear as the most intellectual persons of this age. People will not easily behead us, shut us up, or banish us ; they will not even ban or burn our books. The age loves intellect, it loves us, and needs us, even when we have to give it to understand that we are artists in despising ; that all intercourse with men is something of a horror to us ; that with all our gentleness, patience, humanity and courteousness, we cannot persuade our nose to abandon its prejudice against the proximity of man ; that we love nature the more, the less humanly things are done by her, and that we love art when it is the flight of the artist from man, or the raillery of the artist at man, or the raillery of the artist at himself. . . .

380. " 77^!^ Wanderer " Speaks. — In order for once to get a glimpse of our European morality from a distance, in order to compare it with other earlier or future moralities, one must do as the traveller who wants to know the height of the towers of a city: for that purpose he /eaves the city. "Thoughts concerning moral prejudices," if they are not to be prejudices concerning prejudices, presuppose a position outside of morality, some


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sort of world beyond good and evil, to which one must ascend, climb, or fly — and in the given case at any rate, a position beyond our good and evil, an emancipation from all " Europe," under- stood as a sum of inviolable valuations which have become part and parcel of our flesh and blood. That one does want to get outside, or aloft, is perhaps a sort of madness, a peculiar, un- reasonable " thou must " — for even we thinkers have our idiosyncrasies of "unfree will" — : the question is whether one can really get there. That may depend on manifold conditions : in the main it is a question of how light or how heavy we are, the problem of our "specific gravity." One must be very light in order to impel one's will to knowledge to such a distance, and as it were beyond one's age, in order to create eyes for oneself for the survey of millenniums, and a pure heaven in these eyes besides ! One must have freed oneself from many things by which we Europeans of to-day are oppressed, hindered, held down, and made heavy. The man of such a " Beyond," who wants to get even in sight of the highest standards of worth of his age, must first of all "surmount" this age in him- self — it is the test of his power — and consequently not only his age, but also his past aversion and opposition to his age, his suffering caused by his age, his unseasonableness, his Romanticism. . . .

381. The Question of Intelligibility. — One not only wants to be understood when one writes, but also — quite as certainly — not to be understood. It is


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by no means an objection to a book when someone finds it unintelligible : perhaps this might just have been the intention of its author, — perhaps he did not want to be understood by "anyone." A distinguished intellect and taste, when it wants to communicate its thoughts, always selects its hearers; by selecting them, it at the same time closes its barriers against " the others." It is there that all the more refined laws of style have their origin : they at the same time keep off, they create distance, they prevent "access" (intelligibility, as we have said,) — while they open the ears of those who are acoustically related to them. And to say it between ourselves and with reference to my own case, — I do not desire that either my ignorance, or the vivacity of my temperament, should prevent me being understood by you, my friends : I certainly do not desire that my vivacity should have that effect, however much it may impel me to arrive quickly at an object, in order to arrive at it at all. For I think it is best to do with profound problems as with a cold bath — quickly in, quickly out. That one does not thereby get into the depths, that one does not get deep enough down — is a superstition of the hydrophobic, the enemies of cold water ; they speak without experience. Oh ! the great cold makes one quick ! — And let me ask by the way : Is it a fact that a thing has been misunderstood and unrecognised when it has only been touched upon in passing, glanced at, flashed at? Must one absolutely sit upon it in the first place? Must one have brooded on it as on an &^^ ? Diu noctuque incubando, as Newton said of himself? At


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least there are truths of a peculiar shyness and ticklishness which one can only get hold of suddenly, and in no other way, — which one must either take by surprise, or leave alone. . . . Finally, my brevity has still another value : on those questions which pre-occupy me, I must say a great deal briefly, in order that it may be heard yet more briefly. For as immoralist, one has to take care lest one ruins innocence, I mean the asses and old maids of both sexes, who get nothing from life but their in- nocence ; moreover my writings are meant to fill them with enthusiasm, to elevate them, to encourage them in virtue. I should be at a loss to know of anything more amusing than to see enthusiastic old asses and maids moved by the sweet feelings of virtue: and "that have I seen"— spake Zara- thustra. So much with respect to brevity; the matter stands worse as regards my ignorance, of which I make no secret to myself. There are hours in which I am ashamed of it ; to be sure there are likewise hours in which I am ashamed of this shame. Perhaps we philosophers, all of us, are badly placed at present with regard to knowledge : science is growing, the most learned of us are on the point of discovering that we know too little.

But it would be worse still if it were otherwise,

if we knew too much ; our duty is and remains first of all, not to get into confusion about ourselves. We are different from the learned; although it cannot be denied that amongst other things we are also learned. We have different needs, a different growth, a different digestion : we need more, we need also less. There is no formula


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as to how much an intellect needs for its nourish- ment ; if, however, its taste be in the direction of independence, rapid coming and going, travelling, and perhaps adventure for which only the swiftest are qualified, it prefers rather to live free on poor fare, than to be unfree and plethoric. Not fat, but the greatest suppleness and power is what a good dancer wishes from his nourishment, — and I know not what the spirit of a philosopher would like better than to be a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, and also his art, in the end likewise his sole piety, his " divine service." . , ,

382. Great Healthiness. — We, the new, the name- less, the hard-to-understand, we firstlings of a yet untried future — we require for a new end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than any healthiness hitherto. He whose soul longs to ex- perience the whole range of hitherto recognised values and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of this ideal " Mediterranean Sea," who, from the adventures of his most personal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror and discoverer of the ideal — as likewise how it is with the artist, the saint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the devotee, the prophet, and the godly Nonconformist of the old style: — requires one thing above all for that purpose, great healthiness — such healthiness as one not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire, because one continually sacrifices it again, and must sacri-


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fice it ! — And now, after having been long on the way in this fashion, we Argonauts of the ideal, who are more courageous perhaps than prudent, and often enough shipwrecked and brought to grief, neverthe- less, as said above, healthier than people would like to admit, dangerously healthy, always healthy again, — it would seem, as if in recompense for it all, that we have a still undiscovered country before us, the boundaries of which no one has yet seen, a beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal known hitherto, a world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the questionable, the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well as our thirst for possession thereof, have got out of hand — alas ! that nothing will now any longer satisfy us ! How could we still be content with Ike man of the present day after such peeps, and with such a craving in our conscience and consciousness? What a pity ; but it is unavoidable that we should look on the worthiest aims and hopes of the man of the present day with ill-concealed amusement, and perhaps should no longer look at them. Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal, full of danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we do not so readily acknowledge any one's right thereto: the ideal of a spirit who plays naively (that is to say involuntarily and from overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto been called holy, good, inviolable, divine ; to whom the loftiest conception which the people have reason- ably made their measure of value, would already imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at least relaxation,


WE FEARLESS ONES 353

blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness ; the ideal of a humanly superhuman welfare and benevolence, which may often enough appear inhuman, for example, when put by the side of all past serious- ness on earth, and in comparison with all past solemnities in bearing, word, tone, look, morality and pursuit, as their truest involuntary parody, — but with which, nevertheless, perhaps the great seriousness only commences, the proper interroga- tion mark is set up, the fate of the soul changes, the hour-hand moves, and tragedy begins. . . .

383- Epilogue. — But while I slowly, slowly finish the painting of this sombre interrogation-mark, and am still inclined to remind my readers of the virtues of right reading — oh, what forgotten and unknown virtues — it comes to pass that the wickedest, merriest, gnome-like laughter resounds around me : the spirits of my book themselves pounce upon me, pull me by the ears, and call me to order. " We cannot endure it any longer," they shout to me, "away, away with this raven-black music. Is it not clear morning round about us ? And green, soft ground and turf, the domain of the dance ? Was there ever a better hour in which to be joyful? Who will sing us a song, a morning song, so sunny, so light and so fledged that it will not scare the tantrums, — but will rather invite them to take part in the singing and dancing. And better a simple rustic bagpipe than such weird sounds, such toad- croakings, grave-voices and marmot-pipings, with which you have hitherto regaled us in your wilder- 23


354 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, V

ness, Mr Anchorite and Musician of the Future ! No ! Not such tones ! But let us strike up some- thing more agreeable and more joyful!" — You would like to have it so, my impatient friends? Well! Who would not willingly accede to your wishes? My bagpipe is waiting, and my voice also— it may sound a little hoarse ; take it as it is ! don't forget we are in the mountains ! But what you will hear is at least new ; and if you do not understand it, if you misunderstand the minstrel, what does it matter ! That— has always been " The Minstrel's Curse." * So much the more distinctly can you hear his music and melody, so much the better also can you— dance to his piping. Would you like to do that? . . .

  • Title of the well-known poem of Uhland.— Tr.


APPENDIX


SONGS OF PRINCE FREE-ASA- BIRD


9S9


TO GOETHE.*

" The Undecaying " Is but thy label, God the betraying Is poets' fable.

Our aims all are thwarted By the World-wheel's blind roll : " Doom," says the downhearted, " Sport," says the fool.

The World-sport, all-ruling, Mingles false with true : The Eternally Fooling Makes us play, too !

  • This poem is a parody of the " Chorus Mysticus " which

concludes the second part of Goethe's "Faust." Bayard Taylor's translation of the passage in "Faust" runs as follows : —

" All things transitory

But as symbols are sent,

Earth's insufficiency

Here grows to Event :

The Indescribable

Here it is done :

The Woman-Soul leadeth us

Upward and on ! "

357


358 THE JOYFUL WISDOM


THE POET'S CALL.

As 'neath a shady tree I sat

After long toil to take my pleasure, I heard a tapping " pit-a-pat "

Beat prettily in rhythmic measure. Tho' first I scowled, my face set hard,

The sound at length my sense entrapping Forced me to speak like any bard.

And keep true time unto the tapping.

As I made verses, never stopping,

Each syllable the bird went after. Keeping in time with dainty hopping !

I burst into unmeasured laughter ! What, you a poet ? You a poet ?

Can your brains truly so addled be ? " Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,"

Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

What doth me to these woods entice ?

The chance to give some thief a trouncing ? A saw, an image ? Ha, in a trice

My rhyme is on it, swiftly pouncing ! All things that creep or crawl the poet

Weaves in his word-loom cunningly. " Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,"

Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

Like to an arrow, methinks, a verse is, See how it quivers, pricks and smarts

When shot full straight (no tender mercies !) Into the reptile's nobler parts !


APPENDIX 359

Wretches, you die at the hand of the poet, Or stagger like men that have drunk too free.

" Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

So they go hurrying, stanzas malign.

Drunken words — what a clattering, banging ! — Till the whole company, line on line,

All on the rhythmic chain are hanging. Has he really a cruel heart, your poet ?

Are there fiends who rejoice, the slaughter to see ?

  • ' Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,"

Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

So you jest at me, bird, with your scornful graces ?

So sore indeed is the plight of my head ? And my heart, you say, in yet sorrier case is ?

Beware ! for my wrath is a thing to dread ! Yet e'en in the hour of his wrath the poet

Rhymes you and sings with the selfsame glee. " Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet,"

Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.

IN THE SOUTH.*

I swing on a bough, and rest My tired limbs in a nest, In the rocking home of a bird, Wherein I perch as his guest, In the South !

  • Translated by Miss M. D. Petre. Inserted by per-

mission of the editor of the Nation^ in which it appeared on April 17, 1909.


360 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

I gaze on the ocean asleep, On the purple sail of a boat ; On the harbour and tower steep, On the rocks that stand out of the deep, In the South !

For I could no longer stay, To crawl in slow German way ; So I called to the birds, bade the wind Lift me up and bear me away To the South !

No reasons for me, if you please ; Their end is too dull and too plain ; But a pair of wings and a breeze, With courage and health and ease, And games that chase disease From the South !

Wise thoughts can move without sound. But I've songs that I can't sing alone ; So birdies, pray gather around. And listen to what I have found In the South !


" You are merry lovers and false and gay, " In frolics and sport you pass the day ; " Whilst in the North, I shudder to say, " I worshipped a woman, hideous and gray, " Her name was Truth, so I heard them say, " But I left her there and I flew away " To the South ! "


APPENDIX 361


BEPPA THE PIOUS.

While beauty in my face is,

Be piety my care, For God, you know, loves lasses,

And, more than all, the fair. And if yon hapless monkling

Is fain with me to live, Like many another monkling,

God surely will forgive.

No grey old priestly devil,

But, young, with cheeks aflame- Who e'en when sick with revel,

Can jealous be and blame. To greybeards I'm a stranger,

And he, too, hates the old : Of God, the world-arranger,

The wisdom here behold !

The Church has ken of living.

And tests by heart and face. To me she'll be forgiving !

Who will not show me grace ? I lisp with pretty halting,

I curtsey, bid " good day," And with the fresh defaulting

I wash the old away !

Praise be this man-God's guerdon.

Who loves all maidens fair, And his own heart can pardon

The sin he planted there.


3^2 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

While beauty in my face is,

With piety I'll stand, When age has killed my graces,

Let Satan claim my hand !

THE BOAT OF MYSTERY.

Yester-eve, when all things slept — Scarce a breeze to stir the lane —

I a restless vigil kept,

Nor from pillows sleep could gain,

Nor from poppies nor — most sure

Of opiates — a conscience pure.

Thoughts of rest I 'gan forswear, Rose and walked along the strand.

Found, in warm and moonlit air, Man and boat upon the sand,

Drowsy both, and drowsily

Did the boat put out to sea.

Passed an hour or two perchance, Or a year ? then thought and sense

Vanished in the engulfing trance Of a vast Indifference.

Fathomless, abysses dread

Opened — then the vision fled.

Morning came : becalmed, the boat Rested on the purple flood :

" What had happened ? " every throat Shrieked the question : " was there- Blood ? "

Naught had happened ! On the swell

We had slumbered, oh, so well !


APPENDIX 363

AN AVOWAL OF LOVE {during which^ however^ the poet fell into a pit).

Oh marvel ! there he flies Cleaving the sky with wings unmoved — what force

Impels him, bids him rise, What curb restrains him? Where's his goal, his course ?

Like stars and time eterne He liveth now in heights that life forswore,

Nor envy's self doth spurn : A lofty flight were't, e'en to see him soar !

Oh albatross, great bird, Speeding me upward ever through the blue !

I thought of her, was stirred To tears unending — yea, I love her true !

SONG OF A THEOCRITEAN GOATHERD.

Here I lie, my bowels sore.

Hosts of bugs advancing. Yonder lights and romp and roar !

What's that sound ? They're dancing !

At this instant, so she prated,

Stealthily she'd meet me : Like a faithful dog I've waited,

Not a sign to greet me !

She promised, made the cross-sign, too.

Could her vows be hollow ? Or runs she after all that woo.

Like the goats I follow ?


364 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

Whence your silken gown, my maid ?

Ah, you'd fain be haughty, Yet perchance you've proved a jade

With some satyr naughty !

Waiting long, the lovelorn wight

Is filled with rage and poison : Even so on sultry night

Toadstools grow in foison.

Pinching sore, in devil's mood,

Love doth plague my crupper : Truly I can eat no food :

Farewell, onion-supper !

Seaward sinks the moon away, The stars are wan, and flare not :

Dawn approaches, gloomy, grey. Let Death come ! I care not !

"SOULS THAT LACK DETERMINATION."

Souls that lack determination

Rouse my wrath to white-hot flame !

All their glory's but vexation,

All their praise but self-contempt and shame !

Since I baffle their advances.

Will not clutch their leading-string.

They would wither me with glances Bitter-sweet, with hopeless envy sting.

Let them with fell curses shiver.

Curl their lip the livelong day ! Seek me as they will, forever

Helplessly their eyes shall go astray !


APPENDIX 365

THE FOOL'S DILEMMA.

Ah, what I wrote on board and wall With foolish heart, in foolish scrawl, I meant but for their decoration !

Yet say you, " Fools' abomination ! Both board and wall require purgation, And let no trace our eyes appal ! "

Well, I will help you, as I can.

For sponge and broom are my vocation.

As critic and as waterman.

But when the finished work I scan, I'm glad to see each learned owl With " wisdom " board and wall defoul.

RIMUS REMEDIUM

{or a Consolation to Sick Poets).

From thy moist lips, O Time, thou witch, beslavering me, Hour upon hour too slowly drips In vain — I cry, in frenzy's fit, " A curse upon that yawning pit, A curse upon Eternity ! "

The world's of brass, A fiery bullock, deaf to wail ; Pain's dagger pierces my cuirass, Winged, and writes upon my bone : " Bowels and heart the world hath none. Why scourge her sins with anger's flail ? '


366 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

Pour poppies now, Pour venom, Fever, on my brain ! Too long you test my hand and brow : What ask you ? " What — reward is paid ? " A malediction on you, jade. And your disdain !

No, I retract, 'Tis cold — I hear the rain importune — Fever, I'll soften, show my tact : Here's gold — a coin — see it gleam ! Shall I with blessings on you beam, Call you " good fortune " ?

The door opes wide. And raindrops on my bed are scattered. The light's blown out — woes multiplied ! He that hath not an hundred rhymes, I'll wager, in these dolorous times We'd see him shattered !


MY BLISS.

Once more, St Mark, thy pigeons meet my gaze.

The Square lies still, in slumbering morning mood : In soft, cool air I fashion idle lays. Speeding them skyward like a pigeon's brood : And then recall my minions To tie fresh rhymes upon their willing pinions. My bliss ! My bliss !

Calm heavenly roof of azure silkiness,

Guarding with shimmering haze yon house divine! Thee, house, I love, fear — envy, I'll confess,


APPENDIX 36^

And gladly would suck out that soul of thine ! " Should I give back the prize ? " Ask not, great pasture-ground for human eyes ! My bliss ! My bliss !

Stern belfry, rising as with lion's leap Sheer from the soil in easy victory. That fill'st the Square with peal resounding, deep, Wert thou in French that Square's « accent aigu "' ? Were I for ages set

In earth like thee, I know what silk-meshed net

My bliss ! My bliss !

Hence, music ! First let darker shadows come,

And grow, and merge into brown, mellow night » 'Tis early for your pealing, ere the dome Sparkle in roseate glory, gold-bedight While yet 'tis day, there's time For strolling, lonely muttering, forging rhyme— My bliss ! My bliss I

COLUMBUS REDIVIVUS.

Thither I'll travel, that's my notion,

I'll trust myself, my grip, Where opens wide and blue the ocean

I'll ply my Genoa ship.

New things on new the world unfolds me, Time, space with noonday die :

Alone thy monstrous eye beholds me. Awful Infinity I


368 THE JOYFUL WISDOM


SILS-MARIA.

Here sat I waiting, waiting, but for naught 1 Beyond all good and evil — now by light wrought

To joy, now by dark shadows — all was leisure, All lake, all noon, all time sans aim, sans measure.

Then one, dear friend, was swiftly changed to twain, And Zarathustra left my teeming brain. . . .


A DANCING SONG TO THE MISTRAL WIND.*

Wildly rushing, clouds outleaping, Care-destroying, Heaven sweeping,

Mistral wind, thou art my friend ! Surely 'twas one womb did bear us, Surely 'twas one fate did pair us,

Fellows for a common end.

From the crags I gaily greet you, Running fast I come to meet you.

Dancing while you pipe and sing. How you bound across the ocean, Unimpeded, free in motion,

Swifter than with boat or wing !

  • Translated by Miss M. D. Petre. Inserted by permis-

sion of the editor of the Nation^ in which it appeared on May 15, 1909.


APPENDIX 369

Through my dreams your whistle sounded, Down the rocky stairs I bounded

To the golden ocean wall ; Saw you hasten, swift and glorious, Like a river, strong, victorious.

Tumbling in a waterfall.

Saw you rushing over Heaven, With your steeds so wildly driven.

Saw the car in which you flew ; Saw the lash that wheeled and quivered, While the hand that held it shivered,

Urging on the steeds anew.

Saw you from your chariot swinging. So that swifter downward springing

Like an arrow you might go Straight into the deep abysses, As a sunbeam falls and kisses

Roses in the morning glow.

Dance, oh ! dance on all the edges. Wave-crests, cliffs and mountain ledges,

Ever finding dances new ! Let our knowledge be our gladness, Let our art be sport and madness.

All that's joyful shall be true !

Let us snatch from every bower, As we pass, the fairest flower.

With some leaves to make a crown ; Then, like minstrels gaily dancing. Saint and witch together prancing.

Let us foot it up and down. 24


370 THE JOYFUL WISDOM

Those who come must move as quickly As the wind — we'll have no sickly,

Crippled, withered, in our crew ; Off with hypocrites and preachers, Proper folk and prosy teachers,

Sweep them from our heaven blue.

Sweep away all sad grimaces, Whirl the dust into the faces

Of the dismal sick and cold ! Hunt them from our breezy places. Not for them the wind that braces,

But for men of visage bold.

Off with those who spoil earth's gladness, Blow away all clouds of sadness,

Till our heaven clear we see ; Let me hold thy hand, best fellow, Till my joy like tempest bellow !

Freest thou of spirits free !

When thou partest, take a token Of the joy thou hast awoken,

Take our wreath and fling it far ; Toss it up and catch it never, Whirl it on before thee ever.

Till it reach the farthest star.

Full text of the Eneas Sweetland Dallas translation (English)

Full text of "The gay science"


THE GAY SCIENCE.


THE GAY SCIENCE.


The right of TranUatum i$ merved.


unmnt: raaxTKo bt wiluam cioma akd som, RAMroRO strbct

AXV OBABIXO


THE GAT SCIENCE


BY


E. S. DALLAS


VOL L


LONDON CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY

1866.



2yd


^ . 5/0


PREFACE.


IHEoE volumes aim at completeness in themselves, but I must ask the reader to bear in mind that they are to be followed by two more. They are an attempt to settle the first principles of Criticism, and to show how alone it can be raised to the dignity of a science. But any one who cares for the discussion is sure to ask at every stage of it — How do your principles bear on the practical questions of criticism ? how are they to be applied ? I hope to show this ere long ; but I venture also to hope that the principles here evolved — even while their application is withheld — may be worthy of attention, may


vi Prefdoe.

entertain the reader, and may prove to be suggestive.

A few of the following pages have already seen the light in various publications, although they now stand in their places without any ac- knowledgment of a previous appearance. They are so few in number, and, having been re- written, are so altered in form, that it would have been difficult, and it seemed to be need- less, to introduce them with the usual marks of quotation.

E. 8. D.


THE CONTENTS.


INTRODUCTION.

Significance of the Title. — Originally applied to Poetry. — Here to Criticism. — The Oaj Science the Science of PleaauTe. — Objeo- tiona to Pleasure aa the aim of Art. — Cursory view of Pleaaure which may soften those objections .. .. Page 3


CHAPTER II.

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM.

Criticism in its wildest sense does not contain within itself the notion of a Special Science. — Criticism, strictly so called, is not yet a Science. — What the world thinks of Critics and Criticism. — What Critics think of each other. — Summary of the forms of Criticism. — (1) Editorial Criticism, how unsatisfactory. — An example of it in Shakespearian Criticism. — Its worth estimated by Steevens. — Another eiamplo of it in Classical Criticism, — Person's preface to the Htotiba. — Elmsley. — (2) Biographical Criticism — the advantages of it, — But how far from Science — And how apt to becofte parasitical.— (3) Historical Criticism — How far from Science, and how limited in its view. — The intel- lectual Flora not studied as a whole. — Comparative Criticism. — The problem of Criticism too rarely attempted. — (4) Systematic or Scientific Criticism in ancient times, aa represented by Aristotle ; in modem times devoted to questions of language. — Example of what the modems chiefiy understand by a system of CriUcism. — Mr,liu3kiu'sBiimmary of modem Criticism asgmro-


viii Contents.


mar. — The systematic Criticism of Germany — The defect, as in Hegel and Schelling. — Suggestion of a middle course between the Criticism of Germany and that of the Renaissance. — Method and value of the most recent Criticism. — The despair of system and want of concert. — Ulrici. — French Criticism. — Glaring example of the impotence of Criticism. — Prize designs a failure. , — Why is the Prize System a failure in England, when we know that in Greece it was successful ? — The explanation to be found in the weakness of Criticism. — The standard of Judgment. — Influence of School in Greece. — Influence of School in France. — A hopeful sign of our Criticism that it has become ashamed of itself. — Summary of the Chapter. — Why Criticism is not a Science.^Failure of method. — ^What is involved in the new method of Comparative Criticism — The comparison threefold. — In what groove of Comparative Criticism the present work will for the first part run. — Nothing so much wanted as a correct Psychology. — On the dulness of Psychology — But that dulness is not necessary. — The subject really as interesting as Romance.. .. .. .. .. .. .. Page 9


CUAPTEK III.

THE DESPAIR OF A SCIENCE.

The despair of Critical Science not surprising. — What we set before us as the object of Science. — Antithesis between the works of God and those of Man. — Popular Science in its religious aspect. — The proper study of Mankind. — Misanthropy of the antithesis between the works of God and those of Man. — Wordsworth to some extent answerable for it. — How it shows itself in Ruskin. — Something to be said for the one-sided devotion to Physical Science which now prevails. — The feats of Science — And the great public works which it has pro- duced. — The recent origin of the Sciences, and their present development. — Diflerent late of the Mental Sciences. — Various points of view from which is produced the despair of any Science of Human Nature. — (1) Philosophical despair of Mental Science. — What Mr. I>ewes says of Philosophical Criticism. — A Philosophical Critic — Wagner. — The jargon of Philosophy. . — Distinction between Philosophy and Science. — The great want of Criticism — Psychology. — Science as applied to Mind


Contents, ix


too recent to be accused of fniitlessness. — (2) The despair of System — Expressed by Lord Lytton. — Systems soon for- gotten. —Take Plato for an example. — The forms of current Literature very adverse to System. — Value of System. — (3) Despair of Mental Science that springs from Moral Views.— Expressed by Mr. Froude. — ITie gist of his reasoning. — ^All the Sciences are not exact. — The exactitude of Art — Illus- trated in Shelley's conception of Poetry. — (4^ Despair produced by the modesty of Science. — The impotence of Science. — The more Science the greater sense of Ignorance. — The impotence of Criticism no more than the impotence of other Sciences. — How Mr. Matthew Arnold vaunts Criticism — But his meaning is not quite clear— As for example in what he says of M. Sainte Beuve. — His statement that the modem spirit is essen- tially critical. — ^The wrong conclusions which may be drawn from Mr. Arnold's generalization. — General view of the ad- vantage of a science of Criticism. — On the interpretation of History through Philosophy. — The interpretation of History through Criticism. — Summary of the argument. — Aim of the present work, not a Science, but a plea for one and a map of its leading lines . . . . . . . . . . Page 47


CHAPTER IV.

THE CORNER STONE.

Object of this chapter to prove a truism. — Truisms sometimes require demonstration. — A science of Criticism implies that there is something common to the Arts. — On the admitted re- lationship of the Arts. — The Arts so like that they have been treated as identical. — Wherein consists the unity of Art ; two answers to this question usually given, and both false. — The Aristotelian dootrinc that Art has a common method, that of imitation. — This the corner stone of ancient Criti- cism — And how implicitly accepted. — How it held its ground, and how hard it died. — Falsehood of the theory — As shown in Music. — Limits of the theory. — Scaliger's objection to it unanswerable. — Coleridge's defence of it unavailing. — The other theory which displaced the Aristotelian arose in Ger- many that Art has a common theme. — Remarks on this conception of Art. — That Art is the manifestation of the


Contents.

Beautiful, two facts fatal to it. — ^That Art is the mani- festation of the True, open to Uie same objection. — Also that Art is the manifestation of Power. — The subject of Art is all that can interest Man. — Wherein then does the unity of the Arts reside? — Their common purpose. — This common pur- pose an admitted flEUSt — Some explanation of this doctrine of Pleasure— drawn from the antithesis between Art and Science. — ^The neoessaiy inference as to the nature of Criticism. — But how the Critics have turned aside from that inference, one and alL — Why they thus turned aside from the straight road. — The fact remains that the doctrine of Pleasure is not allowed its rightful place in Criticism, and we proceed to the proof of what that place should be .. .. .. Page 75


CHAPTEE V.

THE AGREEMENT OF THE CRITICS.

Survey of the schools of Criticism — their divisions. — All the schools teach one doctrine as to the end of Art — I. The Greek school of Criticism, as represented by Plato and Aristotle^ accepted the one doctrine. — Plato's reasoning about Pleasure. — The promi- nent consideration in Greek Criticism. — Is the pleasure of Art true? — ^IVeatment of the question. — Story of Solon. — The saying of Gorgias. — How the artists tried to deceive. — So far there is nothing peculiar in the working of the Greek mind. —

rHow the love of illusion showed itself for example in Italian Art — Wilkie's story of the Goronimite. — Further illuatotion of the love of illusion in Greek and other forms of Art — What is i^eculiar to the Greeks. — Plato's manner of stating critically the doubt as to the truth of Pleasure. — The doubt survives apart from the reasoning on which it rests. — Aristotle's state- ment of the counter doctrine — to be foimd in the ninth chapter of his Poetics, — The lesson of Greek Criticism — how it has been perverted by Coleridge. — The true doctrine. — II. The Italian school of Criticism — as represented by Scaliger, Castelvetro, Tasso, and others. — ^What is peculiar in their view of Art. — That the pleasure of Art must be profitable. — How Tasso puzzled over the doctrine worthy of particular attention. — How the Italian doctrine is to bo understood — wherein it goes too far — ^how far it is true — some of the absurdities to which it


Contents. xi


lod.-^leasure an indefinite term very apt to be misunderstood. — Ruskin's protest against Pleasure as the end of Art may be considered here, Pleasure being regarded as immoral, and there- fore unprofitable — answered by reference to Lord Chesterfield's saying about Wit — III. Thd Spanish school of Criticism not very original, but still authoritative — ^it held to the one doctrine — but it had its own special view — ^that Art is for the people. — How this doctrine showed itself in Beroeo, in Cervantes, and in Lope d© V^a. — ^How Cervantes discussed it in Dan Quixote, — Lope de Vega. — The same view expressed by Terence — ^by Moliferc^by Johnson. — A difficult question here involved. — An opposite doctrine supposed to have been held by Milton — and certainly held by Wordsworth. — On the fit and few as judges of Art — Does a printed, as distinguished from a written. Litera- ture make any difference? — The democratic doctrine of Art will be displeasing to some — expressed by saying that all great Art is gregarious. — IV. The French school of Criticism— accepts the universal doctrine. — The peculiarity of French Criticism — ^began to show itself in the early days of the Bourbons. — Picture of France on the death of Henry IV. — The utter want of refine- ment — illustrated by reference to the preceding century. — At Henry's death the worst behaved nation in Europe — but sound at heart, and ripe for reform. — Beform came from Italy. — Catherine de Vivonne — ^her education — and how she became mistress of the Hdtel Rambouillet — Origin of the Pr^ieuses. — On mistakes committed about them. — Moli^re, and his real object ¥rith regard to them. — The false Pr^ieuses whom Moli^re ridiculed. — The real Pr^ieuses made the French taste — and live to this day. — ^The clue to French Art and Criticism.-:— French purism, its origin and singidarity — Hugo's revolt against it — La Mesnardi^re — a great man wfth the Pr^euses — his criticism — absurd, but not to be despised. — On varieties of taste — and critical questions thence arising. — How La Mesnar- di^re urged these questions — and in the present day M. Cousin. — These objections legitimate. — Statement of the question — ^but an objection to be urged to M. Cousin's form of it. — Answer to M. Cousin — drawn from his own opinion regarding Science. — ITie objection, however, deserves a more direct reply. — Our sense of delight is distinct from our estimate of it. — An example drawn from the sense of taste — another from the pleasure of sadness. — Application of these examples to the argument — The


xii Contents.


ideal of Pleasure as distinct from the reality. — V. Tlie German school of Criticism — what is peculiar to its view of Art — ^That Art comes of Pleasure as well as goes to it — but German thinkers confine the pleasure of Art to the beautiful. — How this bias was given to German philosophy by Wolf — and by his disciple Baumgarten ; and how their conclusion remained in force long after the premiss from which they started was rejected. — How the Germans are bewitched with the notion of beauty — ^their raptures. — They are called back to reason by Richter. — Richter's own deficiency. — On the German notion of beauty — what it is. — Here again they owe their bias to Wolf. — How succeeding thinkers rung the changes upon Wolf. — What view came gradually into sight — Goethe's final view of the beautiful in Art, and summary of the German doctrine of Pleasure. — ^The German doctrine needs to be balanced by a counter-statement of the sorrows of Art. — The modem sense of enjoyment as compared with the ancient — is it less enjoyment ? — The existence of delicious sorrow a great fact — But the sufiering of the artist is not inconsistent i^nth the fact that his Art emerges from Pleasure. — The power of expression implies recovery. — VI. The English school of Criticism beginning with Bacon, and the Elizabethans — ^but our best Criticism dates from Dryden. — A new spirit breathed into Criticism at the end of last century — ^but ever the same doctrine as to the end of Art is taught — and Lord Kames even draws in a faint way the inference that Criticism must be tlie Science of Pleasure. —

(What is peculiar in the English view of Art? — It dwells chiefly on the power of the imagination in Art — Bacon it was that first taught us to treat of Art as the creature of imagination. — A word of Shakespeare's assisted — and since then it has been the favourite dogma of English Criticism. — Criticism cannot advance a step without first understanding what Imagination is. — The relation of Imagination to Pleasure. — Imagination to be largely identified with the source of Pleasure — limits, however, to that view of it. — Re-statement of the English contribution to Criticism, and its deficiency. — Although Imagination is magni- fied and everywhere asserted, it is nowhere explained. — Imagi- nation an unknown quantity — but the continual recognition of that unknown something of immense importance. — Summary of this chapter . . .. .. .. .. .. Page 97



Contents. xiii


CHAPTEE VI.

ON IMAGINATION.

A general description of Imagination and its manifestations. — Has Imagination a character of its own ? — What most strikes one when we approach the inquiry into the nature of this power — the acknowledged potency of Imagination. — But notwithstanding its potency, the philosophers do not tell us what it is, and indeed assure us that it is nought. — The current opinions may be sum- marised in the Parable of Proteus. — These current opinions may be examined under four heads. — (1) Imagination is sometimes identified with Memory. — Generally in this way it is regarded as a loose Memory — yet from their manner of treating it, many of those who identify Imagination with Memory show that they really regard it as more than Memory. — (2) Imagination is some- times identified with Passion. — (3) Imagination identified with Reason from the days of the Schoolmen downwards to Dugald Stewart and others. — Even those who treat of Imagination as a power by itself are struck by its rationality ; and at last work up to the conclusion that there is an Imagination for every faculty of the Mind. — All these views of Imagination are com- patible — and we arrive at the view of Imagination as the Proteus of the Mind with which we started — ^but the question still recurs, (4) Has Imagination no character of its own ? — Those who'declare that Imagination has a character of its own, either fail to explain what it is, or, like Mr. Ruskin, they say frankly that it is in- scrutable. — Imagination therefore demands a new analysis, and we must define it for ourselves. — It is not a special faculty, but a special function. — ^The Hidden Soul. — Importance of the facts which we have now to study. — Statement of the problem to be solved.. .. .. .. .. Page 179

CHAPTER VII.

THE HIDDEN SOUL.

The object of this chapter is to show that there is a Hidden Soul, and what it means. — The character of the facts to be studied. — The interest of the subject — The romance of the Mind. — ^The exist- ence of Hidden Thought only recently acknowledged. — The


xiv Contents.


Cartesian Doctrine opposed to it — Leibnitz first suggested the Modem Doctrine, which is also allowed in our time by Hamil- ton, Mill, and Spencer. — But in one form or another the view has been of old standing. — It is the foundation of Mysticism, and it is often suggested by the Poets. — General description of the facts with which we have now to deal — ^These fieicts are to be divided into three groups, and statement of the argument to be followed. — I. On Memory and its Hidden Work, a constant marvel. — Contradictions of Memory. — ^The clue to it in the Hidden Life. — Story of the Countess of Laval and others. — Captain Marryat. — De Quincey. — ^Two things to be chiefly noticed in Memory. — ^The first, that Understanding is not essen- tial to it. — Story of the Maid of Saxony. — Memory absolute as jA photograph. — Other illustrations given by Abercrombie. — Conclusion, that the Memory lets nothing go by. — The second point to be noticed, that the 1d.emory of things not understood may be vital within us. — Knowledge active within us of which we know nothing. — Examples in illustration. — Showing how what we attribute to Imagination is but a surrender of Hid- den Memory. — Plato maintained in view of these facts the theory of Pre-existence. — The same view suggested by Words- worth. — Summary of the facts relating to Memory. — ^U. On the Hidden Life of Reason. — ^The complexity of Thought — ^We do a great number of things at once, but are not con- sdoua of alL — Further examples, showing how the mind pursues several distinct actions at once. — Several of these distinct actions become quite unconscious. — ^The Mind in secret broods over its work. — That the mind calculates, invents, judges, digests for us without our knowing it — The story of Avicenna. —There are many things which we cannot do if we are con- scious, but can do easily if we become unconscious. — ^Action of the Mind in sleep. — ^There is no act of waking life which we cannot carry on in our sleep. — Similar facts perceived in drunkenness. — Though many of these fieicts have a ludicrous side, they are deserving of serious attention. — ^Account of some of the actions performed in sleep. — Somnambulism and its won- ders. — The double life of the Somnambulist seen in a fainter degree in our waking states. — ^UI. The Hidden Life of Passion and Instinct — Passion notoriously a blind force. — The mystery of Love. — And Passion because blind is not therefore untrust- worthy. — Sympathy and its unconscious action ; and how Bacon


Contents. xv


accounted for it — Instinct^ and Guvier^s definition of it as akin to Somnambulism. — The immense variety of instinctive actions. — The instinctive action of our Muscles. — ^Madame Mara and her singing. — What Mr. Rnskin says of the subtle Instinct of the hand. — The secret power which the Brain exerts over the whole Body. — On the effect of Im^ination in Pregnancy. — But why call this particular class of Ejdden Mental Actions Imagi- nations ? — On those Hidden Movements which we call Intui- tion. — What is true in Mysticism. — ^And how powerfully the creed of the Mystic bears on the existence of Hidden Soul. — On the Hidden Life of the Believer. — Especially recognised by Platonist and Puritan Divines. — It must be remembered that we are speaking in metaphors chiefly when we have to describe the Hidden Life. — Summary of the evidence of a Hidden Life or Soul within us— stated in the words of Prospero. — Position of the argument.. .. .. .. .. Page 199


CHAPTER Vni.

THE PLAY OF THOUGHT.

That the action of Hidden Thought accounts for all the £Eu;ts of Imagination. — ^The spontaneousness of Imagination an acknow- ledged fact — A compulsory Imagination a contradiction. — ^The errors of Imagination due to its involuntary and unconscious ' character. — ^If Imagination is nothing but the free play of Thought, why is it called Imagination ? — The clue to the name contained in the definition of the faculty. — In the free play of Thought we dwell most on images of Sight — ^The definition of Imagination as free play explains many opinions with regard to it which are otherwise inexplicable — as the opinion of D*Alem- bert and Hamilton. — On Imagery. — Imagery not to be treated as a mere question of Language. — ^The absurdities of Criticism in regard to Imagery. — The most obvious fact about Imagery is that it always contains a comparison. — But all Thought implies comparison. — What is the peculiarity of the comparisons attri- buted to Imagination? — Locke's answer. — But does Locke's answer give any sanction to the notion that in the comparisons of Imagination there is anything special ? — The peculiarity of imaginative comparisons, as thus far stated, to be explained by the fact of Imagination being free play. — But Locke's state-


xvi Contents.


ment is only half the truth — statement of the other half. — Imaginative comparison asserts the resemblance of wholes to wholes; but these comparisons are not incompetent to Rea- son, and are called Imaginative because they belong chiefly to the spontaneous exercise of Thought — The whole truth about Imagery ; and how it js proposed to treat of it. — We shall treat of the two halves of the doctrine separately. — Nature of the discussion. — I. On likenesses, and how we are to examine them. — ^The tendency of the Mind to similitude takes three leading forms — and first of the likenesses produced by Sym- pathy. — How prevalent this testimony is in life, and manifested in how many ways. — The tendency is essentially the same, whether it shows itself in Speech or in Action. — On Sympathy, and what importance was at one time given ta the study of it. — How important it is in the systems of thought of Bacon, of Malebranche, and of Adam Smith. — What is the point of the argument about Sympathy. — It is an ultimate insoluble fact, which is not explained in the least by the hypothesis of a special faculty called Imagination. — The hypothesis of Imagina- tion is no more tenable than Bacon's hypothesis as to the trans- mission of Spirits. — People are deceived by words — ^and the word Imagination throws no new light on the facts that have to be explained. — Secondly, of the likenesses produced by Egotism — examples of it — On the pathetic fallacy — further examples. — What is meant by attributing this ^otism to Ima- gination ? — Thirdly, of the likenesses which are purely objec- tive: that is, in which we do not bring ourselves into the comparison. — They are sometimes very complicated and difficult of explanation. — Examples of very complicated Imagery — The amalgam of metaphors does not defy analysis. — Symmetry a form of similitude, and no one attributes the love of it to Inaagination. — Our delight in reflections another form of the tendency to similitude. — ^Theee reflections are the painter's form of metaphor. — The system of reflected colour in pictures ; but no one attributes the reflections of a picture to Imagination. — Why should we attribute them to Imagination when they appear in Poetry ? — II. How the Imagination sees wholes — invents or discovers three sorts of wholes ; but it can be shown that the work of Imagination in creating these wholes is not peculiar to itself — The case of Peter Bell, for an example of the first whole. — Peter does not see that the primrose is a type. — The


Contents. xvii


typical ¥7holc takes many fonns, and involves in it the asser- tion of a peculiar kinship between Man and Nature ; but why should we suppose a special faculty to create types ? — What is the nature of the whole which the Mind creates in a type. — ^It is the same sort of whole as Reason creates in generalization, and the generalizations of Reason are quite as wonderful as those of Imagination, and not less inexplicable. — Summary of the argument. — We never get beyond the conception of Imagi- nation as free play. — The element of necessity which Imagina- tion supplies. — The second kind of whole which the Mind creates. — We raise the temporary into the eternal, and cannot compass the idea of Death. — ^The assertion of the continuity of Existence makes Epical Art. — The transformations of Poetry ; but do these transformations need, for their production, a sepa- rate faculty ? — The third kind of whole which the Mind creates, that of extension. — On Dramatic Construction. — ^The Creation of Character. — On the truth of Imagination — The wholeness of imaginative work explained on a veiy simple principle. — Sunmiary of the argument .. .. .. .. Page 257


CHAPTER IX.

THE SECBECY OF ART.

Review of the previous argument, and its bearing on the definition of Art. — Art is the opposite of Science ; its field, therefore, is the Unknown and the Unknowable. — That statement, how- ever, sounds too much like a paradox for ordinary use. — ^People do not understand how a secret exists which cannot be told ; yet there are current phrases which may help us to understand the paradoxical definition of Art, — Je ne sais quoi. — If the object of Art were to make known, it would not be Art but Science. — It is to the Hidden Soul, the unknown part of us, that the artist appeals. — This view of Art supported by autho- rity. — ^It is implied in Macaulay's criticism on Milton ; only the same criticism applies to all poetry as well as to Milton's. — It is implied in Moore's verses ; Byron also refers to it. — It is implied in Wordsworth's poetry. — ^The meaning of some passages unintelligible without reference to the Hidden Soul ; many such passages in Wordsworth; example in the Ode on Im- mortality. — What a Saturday Reviewer says of it — ^how far

VOL. I. h


XVIU


Contents.


ho is correct in his view. — ^Lord Lytton gives exj)ression to similar thoughts — his description of Helen, — Senior's criticism on this description. — So far the definition of Art as the Empire of tlie Unknown has been explained solely by refer- ence to Poetry. — See the same definition as it applies to Music. — Music is the art which has more direct connection than any other with the Unknown of Thought. — Beethoven and Shake- speare compared — ^the comparison impossible. — ^The definition applied to the Arts of Painting and Sculpture. — ^Thc Arts of Painter and Sculptor exhibit the precision of Science ; and the Painter's Art especially is very strictly tied to fact. — But Science is not enough. — The Pictorial artist reaches to some- - thing beyond Science, — The artists who adhere to Tare facts — what are they ? — ^Their Art wants the essential quality of Art. — But if the domain of Art is the Unknown, how can it ever be the subject of Science? — The question answered by re- ference to Biology, which is the Science of something the


essence of which is unknown


Page 311


INTRODUCTION.


VOL. I. B


\


THE GAY SCIENCE.


CHAPTER I.


INTRODUCTION.


HAVE called the present work the chapter Glay Science, because that is the Jl. shortest description I can find of its Meuiiiig of aim and contents. But I have ventured to **' ""'■ wrest the tenn a little from ita old Provencal meaning. The Gay Science was the name given by the troubadours to their art of poetry. We could scarcely now, however, call poetry, The term or the art of poetry, a science. It is true that ^*™^' the distinction between science and art has always been very hazy. In our day it has been as hotly- disputed as among the schoolmen whether logic be !v science or an art, or both. Even so late a writer as Hobbes classes poetry among the .sciences, for it is in his view the B 2


The Gay Science,


CHAPTER science of magnifying and vilifying. I hope -J_ before I have finished this work to trace

See Chapter more accurately than has yet been done the dividing line between science and art. ; but, in the meantime, there is no doubt that poetry must take rank among the arts, and that the name of science in connection* with it must be reserved for the critical theory of its processes and of its influence in the world. Such is the sense in which the word is used upon the title pages of the present volumes.

The Gaj Why the Gay Science, however ? The liffht-

Science he- ' "^ ^

cause the hcartcd miustrcls of Provence insisted on the pleasure, joyfulncss of their art. In the dawn of modem literature, they declared, with a straightforward- ness which has never been surpassed either by poets or by critics, that tlie immediate aim of art is the cultivation of pleasure. But it so happens that no critical doctrine is in our day more unfashionable than this — ^that the object This the of art is plcasurc. Any of us who cleave to 3000 ytare. the old crccd, which has the prescription of about tliirty centuries in its favour, are sup- posed to be shallow and commonplace. Nearly all thinkers now, who pretend to any height or depth of thought, abjure the notion of plea- sure as the object of pursuit in the noble moods of art But what if these high-fliers are wrong and the thirty centuries are right? What, if not one of those who reject the axiom of the thirty centuries can agree with another as to


Introduction. 5


the terms of a better doctrine ? What if theirs chaptek be the true commonplace which cannot see the —1. grandeur of a doctrine, because it comes to us clothed in unclean and threadbare garments? There is no more commonplace thinker than he who fails to see the virtue of the common- place.

Pleasure, no doubt, is an ugly word, and, as re- Doubts presenting the end of art, a feeble one ; but there sure. ^^ is no better to be found. It suggests a great deal for which as yet we have no adequate language. One day it may be that we shall find a different word to express more fully our mean- ing ; but that day will never come until we have first learned thoroughly to understand what is involved in pleasure ; and to see what a hundred generations of mankind have groped after when they set before them pleasure as the goal of art. It can be shown that this doctrine of pleasure has a greatness of meaning which the high-fliers little suspect : that it is anything but shallow ; and that if it be commonplace, it is so only in the sense in which sun, air, earth, water, and all the elements of life are commonplace. We hegin ^*^^»^?*«^J^y to feel this the moment we attempt to define muon of xu pleasure. Take any allowable definition. Kant says that it is a feeling of the furtherance of life, as pain is a sense of its hindrance. Such a defiinition at once leads us into a larger circle of ideas than is usually supposed to be covered by the name of pleasure. Perhaps it is not


lite Gay Sdenee,


CHAPTEB quite satisfactory, but we oeed not now be too _L particular about its terms. What Eaut says is near enough to the truth to show that on the first blush of it we need not be repelled by the asser- tion of pleasure being the end of art. Neither need any one be repelled if this doctrine of pleasure strike the key-note, and surest the title of the present work, in which an attempt will be made to show that a scieDce of criticism is possible, and that it must of necessity be the science of the laws of pleasure, the joy science, the Gay Science.



THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM.


t


CHAPTER n.


THE SCIENCE OP CRITICIBM.


|UT IB a science of criticism possible ? chapter That is a great question — often — '- asked, and usually answered in the negative. It cannot well be answered in the alErmative, indeed, so long as criticism is un- defined. Criticism is a wide word that, accord- Cntidsm id ing to late usage, may comprehend almost any loue. stir of thought. It is literally the exercise of judgment, and logicians reduce every act of the mind into an act of judgment. So it comes to pass that there is a criticism of history, of philo- sophy, of science, of politics and life, as well as of literature and art, which is criticism proper. Sir William Hamilton, who never touched criticism proper, was known throughout Europe as the first critic of his day ; and Mr. Matthew Arnold has lately been using the word as a synonym not Emj on


10 The Gay Seienoe.


cHAmu Dante and Shakespeare, are in his view critics. — Their work is at bottom a criticism of life, and

    • the aim of all literature, if one considers it

attentively, is in truth nothing but that.** It may be convenient sometimes to employ the word thus largely; but there is a danger of our forgetting its more strict application to um not art. Certainly, in the larger, looser sense of '^thin itMif the term, a science of criticism, if at all possible, if^'i^dia must resolve itself into something like a science •cienot. ^f reason — a logic — a science of science. It is needful, therefore, to explain at the outset that there is a narrower sense of the word criticism, and that there is a good reason why it should be specially applied to the criticism of literature and art. criucitm The reason is, that whereas the criticism of Sjiedf "* philosophy, truly speaking, is itself philosophy, and that of science science, and that of history history, the criticism of poetry and art is not poetry and art, but is and to the end of time will remain criticism. Kant called his leading work a critique, and he chose that title because his object was not to propound a philosophical system, but to ascertain the competence of reason to sound the depths of philosophy. This, how- ever, as much belongs to philosophy as sounding the ocean belongs to ocean telegraphy, Locke had already done the same thing. He said, that before attempting to dive into philosophy, it would be wise to inquire whether the human mind



The Science of Criticisin. 11

is able to dive into it, and he would therefore chapter

examine into the nature and resources of the L

thinking faculty. The criticism of the under- standing which he thus undertook is Locke's philosophy, just as Kant's critique of reason is the most important part of Kant's philosophy. So in other lines of thought, criticism of philo- logy is a piece of philology, and criticism of history is a contribution to the lore of history. One of the most classical of all histories indeed, that of Julius Caesar, goes by the name of com- mentary. But criticism of poetry, it must be is criticism

.!• . . JjI • XX *^<i DOthiDg

repeated, is not poetry, and art lore is not art. more. The attempt has, no doubt, again and again been made, to elevate criticism into poetry. Witness the well-known poems of Hora<5e, Vida, Boileau, Pope, and others. But criticism that would be poetry is like the cat that set up for a lady and could not forget the mice. Whatever it may be as criticism, it falls short of art. And therefore it is that the name more especially belongs to all that lore which cannot well get beyond itself—rthe lore of art and literary form.

Now, it must be owned that criticism does not Criticism yet rank as a science, and that, following the^^iLiw.* wonted methods, it seems to have small chance of becoming one. To judge by the names be- stowed upon critics, indeed, one might infer that it has no chance at all. Sir Henry Wotton used ^* ^ to say, and Bacon deemed the sayinff valuable thinks of

•^ , , .^ G» critics and

enough to be entered in his book of Apophthegms, criticism.


12 l^lie Gay Science.


CHAITER that they are but brushers of noblemen's clothes ; -— L Ben Jonson spoke of them as tinkers who make more faults than they mend; Samuel Butler, as the fierce inquisitors of wit, and as butchers who have no right to sit on a jury ; Sir Richard Steele, as of sdl mortals the silliest; Swift, as dogs, rats, wasps, or, at best, the drones of the learned world ; Shenstone, as asses which, by gnawing vines, first taught the ad- vantage of pruning them ; Matthew Green, as upholsterers and appraisers ; Bums, as cut-throat bandits in the path of fame ; Washington Irving, as freebooters in the republic of letters ; and Sir Walter Scott, humorously reflecting the gene- ral sentiment, as caterpillars. If poets and artists may be described as pillars of the house of fame, critics, wrote Scott, are the caterpillars. Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging, said Ben Jonson ; and criticism, says Dryden, is mere hangman's work. It is a malignant deity, says Swift, cradled among the snows of Nova Zembla. Ten censure wrong, says Pope, for one who writes amiss. The critic's livelihood is to find fault, says Thackeray, Non es vitiosuSj ZoUe^ sed vUiunij is the summing up of the wittiest of Latin poets : You are not at fault. Gaffer critic, but fault. Thomas The pith Moore has a fable of which the point is that Moore'i from the moment when young Genius became subject to criticism his glory faded. Wordsworth describes criticism as an inglorious employ-


Tke Science of Criticmn. 13


ment. *'I warn thee," says Edward Irving, cfl after " against criticism, which is the region of pride — 1 and malice."

Nor is this merely the judgment of poets and what artists upon their tormentors. The critics have of Ldi^^*"*" passed sentence upon each other with equal *^^^^^' severity. One of the mildest statements which I can call to mind is that of Payne Knight, who opens an essay on the Greek alphabet with the assertion that what is usually consi- dered the higher sort of criticism has not the slightest value. It was but the other day that a distinguished living critic, Mr. Gr. H. Lewes, found occasion to write — " The good effected by criticism is small, the evil incalculable." Critics have always had a strong cannibal in- stinct. They have not only snapped at the poets : they have devoured one another. It ' seems as if, like Diana's priest at Aricia, a critic could not attain his high office except by slaugh- ter of the priest already installed ; or as if he had been framed in the image of that serpent which, the old legends tell us, cannot become a dragon unless it swallow another serpent. It is not easy to connect the pursuits of such men with the notion of science. The truth, how- ever, is that criticism, if it merit half the reproaches which have been cast upon it, is The doom of not fit to live. It is not merely unscientific:^"*'*^'""* it is inhuman. Hissing is the only sound in nature that wakes no echo; and if criti-


critidfiD.


14 Tlie Gay Science.

CHAPTER cism is nought but hissing, can do nought but L hiss, it is altogether a mistake.

Summary It may bo hard for the critics to be measured

of critid™ by the meanest of their tribe and by the worst of their deeds ; but if we put the meanest and the worst out of sight altogether, and look only to the good, we shall still find that criticism, at its best, is a luxuriant wilderness, and yields nowhere the sure tokens of a science. Take it in any of its forms, editorial, biographical, historical, or systematic, and see if this be not the case.

Kditoriai Editorial criticism, whether it takes the course of revising, or of reviewing, or of expoimding the texts of individual authors, has, even in the hands of the ablest critics engaged upon the works of the greatest poets, yielded no large results. It is very much to this kind of criti- cism, at least when it points out a beauty here and a blemish there, that Payne Knight refer- red, when he declared that it is of no use what- ever. A good editor of poetry is, indeed, one of the rarest of birds, as those who have paid any attention to certain recent issues must pain- fully know. Sometimes the editor is an enthu- siastic admirer of his author : in this case he generally praises everything he sees, and edits in the style of a showman. Sometimes he is wonderfully erudite : in this case he rarely gets beyond verbal criticism, and edits on the prin- ciple of the miser, that if you take care of the


The Science of Criticism. 15

halfpence the pounds will take care of them- chapter selves. The appearance of one edition after — 1 another of the same poets and the same drama- gaSTfeitory. tists proves how unsatisfactory was each previous one, and how exceedingly rare is that assem- blage of qualities required in a poetical editor — ample knowledge combined with depth of thought, imagination restrained by common sense, and the power of being far more than the editor of other men's work, united with the will to forget oneself and to remain entirely in the background. Perhaps this last is the rarest of combinations. Why should a man, who is himself capable of producing a book, be con- tent with the more humble labour of fur- bishing up other men's productions? The result is nearly worthless, unless there is some sort of equality, some appearance of companion- ship and brotherhood between the poet and his editor ; but the chances are that only those will undertake the responsibility of editing poetry who are fit for nothing else, who could not by accident write two passable couplets, who could not assimie to be the poet's friend, but who, perchance, might lay claim to the dignity of being the poet's lacquey — which Sir Henry Wotton had in his mind when he said that critics are but the brushers of noblemen's clothes.

The modem author who has been most read An examjio and criticised is Shakespeare. There is a well- shake-


16 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER known edition of his works in which nearly II —1 every line has a bushel of notes gathered from

SSSl the four winds-fxom the two and thirty winds. All the wisdom of all the annotators is winnowed, and garnered, and set in an^y. After all, what is it ? That which one critic says, the next gainsays, and the next con- founds. On reading a dozen sach pages, we close the volume in despair, and carry away but one poor idea, that Shakespearian criticism is like the occupation of the prisoner in the Bastile, who, to keep away madness, used daily to scatter a handfril of pins about his room, that he might find employment in picking them up again. Strangely enough, it is not the men of highest intellect that in this way have done the most for Shakespeare. Pope was one of his editors ; so was Warburton ; Johnson another ; Malone too, a very able man. Mr. Charles Knight is correct in saying that the best of the old editors of Shakespeare is Theobald — " poor piddling Tibbald.'* Whatever be the abstiact worth of such editorial researches, their scientific tin worth worth is fairly estimated by Steevens, one of the hy KiMrMii. niost eager of his race, when he claims the merit of being the first commentator on Shakespeare who strove with becoming seriousness to account for the stains of gravy, pie-crust, and coffee, that defile nearly all the copies of the First Folio.

Another ti. Nor Can it be said that there is any more cer- •mpinofit ^\^ appearance of science when the ancient



The Science of Criticism. 17

authors are subjected to the same strain of criti- chapter cism. Witness the famous critics of the Bentley — 1 and Person mould. Giant as he was, Person ^iucto. had but small hands, that played with words as with marbles, and delighted in nothing so much as in good penmanship. One is astonished in reading through his edition of Euripides, to see how he wrote note upon note, all about words, and less than words — syllables, letters, accents, pimctuation. He ransacked Codex A and Co- dex B, Codex 'iCantabrigiensis and Codex Cot- tonianus, to show how this noun should be in the dative, not in the accusative ; how that verb should have the accent paroxytone, not peris- pomenon ; and how by all the rules of prosody there should be an iambus, not a spondee, in Pomon's this place or in that. Nothing can be more £^.^jii6a. masterly of its kind than the preface to the Hecubaj and the supplement to it. The lad who hears enough of this wonderful dissertation from his tutors at last turns wistful eyes towards it, expecting to find some magical criticism on Greek tragedy. Behold it is a treatise on cer- tain Greek metres. Its talk is of caesural pauses, penthemimeral and hephthemimeral, of isochro- nous feet, of enclitics and cretic terminations ; and the grand doctrine it promulgates is expressed in the canon regarding the pause which, from the discoverer, has been named the Porsonian, that when the iambic trimeter, after a word of more than one syllable, has the cretic termina- VOL. I. c


^^


18 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER tion, included either in one word or in two, then II •

_L the fifth foot must be an iambus ! The young

student throws down the book thus prefaced, and wonders if this be all that giants of Por- sonian height can see or care to speak about in Greek literature. Nor was Porson alone ; he had disciples even worse. Many a youth of wild temperament wishes for something to break his mind on, like the study of Armenian, which Byron found useful in that way. Let him read Eimaiey. Elmslcy ou the Medea. If Porson was a kind of Baal, a lord of flies, Elmsley was a literary dustman. The criticism of detail which both of them studied has an invariable tendency to stray further and further from science, and to become Rabbinical It ends in teaching Rabbis to count the letters of a sacred book backwards and forwards until they can find the middle one. It ends, as in the last century, in teach- ing critics to reject false rhymes, and to allow false gods. The motes that people a sunbeam, and are beautiful there, come to eclipse the stars. In the words of Keble :

A finger-breadth at hand will mar A world of light in heaven afar, A mot« eclipse yon glorious star, An eyelid hide the sky.

Biogiaphi- Balked in the search for science amid the cri- ticism 01 detail, we next try cntics oi a higher order, who, not content to examine literary works in and by themselves, examine them in connection with the lives of the authors. The


The Science of Criticism. 19


biographical critics are as yet few in number, chaptkr and their method is of late origin. Johnson (if — 1 I must not say Bayle) may be taken as the father of the tribe, though he took to the method rather by chance than from choice, and was never fully alive to its value. It was a great thing, how- ever, to introduce into criticism the personality of an author, and to study his works in the light of his life. It immediately ensured the The advan- sympathy of the critics, for Johnson, with all his drawbacks, must be accepted as essentially kind, hearty, and just. Since his time, other writers, in our own and other countries, have made the most of the new method. Their works are of great interest and of lasting value ; for whereas editorial criticism is mere analysis, an'd so far as it is trustworthy contains nothing which was not previously contained in the work revised, in biographical criticism there is some- what of synthesis; there is a new element added; there is the image of the author's life projected on his work. But, however enter- taining or however valuable this may be, it is not science.

In so far as a science of human nature isButhowfiu- possible, it lies not in the actions of the indi- s^J^e^ce. vidual, but in those of the race; not in the developments of a lifetime, but in those of ages and cycles. The biographical critics tell us that Dryden, before he courted the Muse, took a dose of salts ; that Anacreon choked on a grape-

c 2


i


Apt 10


20 TJte Gcu/ Science.

GHAf-TEB Stone ; tLal ^hcIivIuf had lii^ bald head brokeii II .' . . . . l»y au eag'lt' wLicL liigli iu air, took it far m

Htone, and drojijn^d a tortoise on it ; thai Horace i^aii; blear-t'ved : that Cumoem^ was on^e-eved : tiiat two otlier t^jiic jioete were blind of both eves; that the author of Thv CaMlt of IndiiknoB UHed to Bauuter aliont bis garden, and with loB bands in his jKicketfi^ bite the Bnnnj sides of bis jieacbes; tliat «Iobn Dennis, the critic was exjielled bis ccJlege for stabbing a man in the dark (a fact, by the war, unknown to Pope); that Spinoza's darling amnsement was to en- tangle flies in spiders* welis, and to set spiders fighting with each other ; that Newton was small enongh, wben he was bom, to be put into a qnart-mng, and that if he had any animal taste, it was for apples of the red* streak sort ; tliat Milton married thrice, and each of lii^ wiveis was a i-irgin ; that Sheffield, duke of Buckingliam, married thrice, and eadi of his wives wajs a widow. All these de- tails have their significauce ; but they must be And hMT charily dealt with. Too great attention to such matters makes the viiry worst wjil for science^ and is apt to reduce a critic i/) the condition of a parasite. Not tliat parasitical criticism of this kind is altogether worthless. The latest doctrine of the naturalists is that jjearls are the product of a parasite. Still mankind liave a wholesome terror of paiasites, and usually regard a purely biographical criticism as tending too much to



The Science of Criticism. 21


encourage these animals. The system of bio- chapter graphy on biography which now prevails, a bio- — 1 grapher getting his life written because he has himself written lives,* reminds one too vividly of that world described by one of our humourists in which

Great fleas have little fleas

Upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas,

And so ad infinitum.

The historical critics take a wider field, and Historical dash at higher game, but usually they have been ^ *"™' the least critical of their kind. They have too often been chroniclers rather than historians, bibliographers rather than critics, more bent on recording facts than on determining their value. Even when they reach a higher excellence, and give us histories worthy of the name, their work, if we are to look for science in it, shows at once the fatal weakness of being much too narrow in design. At best, the historian can give us only How far patches of history ; but the historians of litera- ^™ce. tmre give us very small patches. The stream of political history has been traced from age to age, and from empire to empire. We can voyage back to Babylon; we can find on the walls of Luxor and Karnac the Hebrew

  • On the principle laid down • serves the record he bestows. It

by Sir James Prior, to justify ' forms a debt of honour, if not of his life oi Malone : ** He who gratitude, which literary men has expended learning and in- ! are bound to bestow upon each liustry in making known the | other. The neglect of it is in- lives and labours of others, de- justice to their class."


22 The Gay Science.


rHAiTKH ftices which we meet in the crowd to-day. But

L the stream of Hterary history, though it is

equally continuous, has never been thus fol- lowed. We take it in small reaches, and the first shallow we come to stops our course. Not aimI Iiow only is it thus limited in length of view : it is lu'l^^w." ecjually so in breadth. It is needless to dwell on the fact that the history of a nation s poetry liJiH seldom been written with much reference to the national life from which it springs. It is the study of botany apart from geography. What is more remarkable than this, however, is that poetry has been studied and its history written in utter forgetfulness of the kindred arts — music, architecture, painting, sculpture. Moore on one occasion speaks with great con- tempt of an essay on lyrical poetry written by the author of the Nujlu Thoxufhts^ in which not one word is said about music. This is but an exaggerated instance of the separation of tlie arts, one from another, in the view of criticism. It is precisely as if in relation to the flora of a country, one set of men confined their attention to the monocotyledons, making that a special science, another to the dicotyledons, making that a special science, and a tliird to the flowerless plants, making that also a science by itself, while none of them gave any thought to any . but their own branch of the subiect. It seems iMiimi Hoi a not yct to have been fully understood that the, .(.. mviMiir. intellectual flora of a country must be studied



The Science of Criticism. 23

as a whole; that the arts are one family; that chapter

the Muses are sisters; that in their rise and

progress there is a concert ; that to make out the movements of any one we must watch the movements of all the others in the intricate dance which they lead ; and, in a word, that it is only out of comparative criticism, as out of compara- tive anatomy, and comparative philology, and comparative mythology, that a true science can come.

At present, so far from there being in exist- compara- ence anything which can bear the name ofdBm. comparative criticism, there is no attempt to pro- duce it, and the very need of it is scarcely ac- knowledged. The science of language is quite a modern revelation : it was an impossibility imtil we were able to compare languages to- gether on the grand scale. In like manner the historical criticism of works of art, with a glimmer of science in its method, is out of the question, until we can compare art with art, can see how the lise of one coincides with the setting of another, and can take note of the circum- stances under which two or more flourish to- gether. Whether the arts have gained or lost by separation, so that the same man is no longer poet, architect, painter, and sculptor, all in one, is an open question ; but for the purposes of science, at least, it would seem that the division of labour and separation of interest have had an evil eflFect. It was a theory of Leibnitz that the


24 The Gay Science.

CHAi'TKR world is made of monads, each of which has a

L defined relation to every other, and that the

problem eternally before the mind of the Deity is, when the state of any monad is given, to determine what must be the state — past, present, and to come — of every other in the Tbepm- universe. That is, after a sort, the problem ud«n! *^"" which in the universe of art the scientific critic may fairly be called upon to solve. We know from Gibbon that in the darkness of the thirteenth century the orders of a Mogul Khan who reigned on the borders of China told on the price of herrings in the English market. And is it only of such remote influences as rule the price of a herring that we can take account ? Surely there is in modem civilization a reason for the fact that our poets of the elder race, as Tasso, delight in no event of natiu^ so much as sunrise, and are continually making proclamation of the effulgence of its coming, while the lat^.-r ones, as those of the nineteenth century, delight in simsets, and are never weary of brofxiing on the glories of an existence that is loveliest at the last. Surely there are some general laws which determine why in ancient times the Doric branch of the great Hellenic family should have been the chief patrons of the lyrical art, while they produced few lyrical artists of renown ; and that, as a parallel fact in modem times, England should be the best patron in Europe of musical art, while notwithstanding a


The Science of Criticism. 25


few brilliant exceptions, it is eclipsed by other chapter countries as a begetter of great musicians. _L Surely, again, there is some general law which necessitated, at one and the same period, in the • literatures of two such different countries as England, the head quarters of Protestantism, and Spain, the stronghold of Papacy, of Inqui- sition and of Loyola, an explosion of supera- bounding dramatic energy such as in modem times no other literatures can boast of. Surely, once more, there is something in history to account for and to connect together that lust of fame which is rampant in the literature of the Elizabethan era — in the strains of the greatest poets, Shakespeare and Spenser, as well as in those of the least, Digges and Barnfield — which makes itself felt with such fervour at no other period of our literary progress, and which, indeed, in the whole history of letters, meets with its match but once, namely, among Too »reiy the Roman poets of the Augustan age. These are *'**"p*^- the things which historical criticism, to be worthy of itself, ought to set forth, which lie within its grasp, and which it hardly ever touches.

Not only, however, do the critics — editorial, Systematic

I* 1*1 11*1*1/* *i 1 or Maratific

biographical, and historical — tail us when wecritidsm. go to them for science; but even those who undertake to write of poetry and art systemati- cally give us little or no help. There is in all antiquity only one systematic work of criticism which is of much worth or of any authority, to


2() The Gay Science.


ciiAiTKu wit — Aristotlo*H, and that is but a fragment. It — 1 nii^lit 1)0 in-ged apainst the scientific character of tilirrrr»"r«. thlH ramonH work that it was built on a too small l!yAl*uu»iu, induction of facts, seeing that the philosopher had only the literature of Greece in his mind. Kvon, however, with that literature alone before him, lie ought not to have committed the mistake wliirli t4iintH his whole work, and has turned what miglit havo l>oen a pilace into a cairn, a science into a nuTo aggregate of focts. His leading prin- ciple, which makes all poetry, all art, an imi- tation, is demonstrably false, has rendered his Politic one-sidinl (a treatise not so much on poe- try, as on dnunatio |K>etrv), and has transmitted to all artor criticism a sort of hereditary squint. Thei\> is, however, in later criticism a worse fault than the hereditary S(|uint — ii fault which be- longs to itself, anil is not to l>e found in Aristotle. In moaeni Auioug tlio Systematic writers of modem times, vou^ito irom J>ealiger downwams, criticism is almost ul^ljl^. wholly devoted to questions of language. It is true that verlnil questions involve much higher ones, for language is the incarnation of thought^ and every art has its own si)eech, every work of art its own voice, which l>elongs to it as the voice of Esj\u to the hands of Es;iu. Epic imagery and verse l>elong to epic art, the dramatic appa- ratus of language belongs to dramatic art, and lyrical technicalities belong to the essence of lyrical art with such an indefeasible right of possession as the systematic critics confining


The Science of Criticism. 27

tbeir attention to the language almost wholly, chapter

that is, to the body without the soul, little '-

suspect. They have studied figures of speech and varieties of metre, with little care for the weightier points of action, passion, manner, cha- racter, moral and intellectual aim. In simile and metaphor, in rhyme and rhythm, they have seen rules and measures, and they have reduced all the art of expression to a system as easy as grammar; but they have not sought to methodise the poet's dream, they have not cared in their analysis to grasp his higher thought. The scope of such criticism will best Example of

\ "iij'i? L J.' 1 A. what the

be seen m the design ot a systematic work enter- moderns tained by one of the chief critics of tlie last cen- ^J^^a'^by tury. Johnson projected a work " to show how *^fj^™ **^ small a quantity of real fiction there is in the world, and that the same images, with very [few] variations, have served all the authors who have ever written." It is the similarity of imagery that he thought worthy of chief remark. Situation, incidents, characters, and aims, these are of small accoimt beside similes and metar phors. Johnson's project was conceived entirely in the spirit of systematic criticism, as it has been most approved in modern times. Its analysis of images and phrases is, if not perfect, yet very elaborate. Its analysis of the substance which these images and phrases clothe, is, although not wholly neglected, yet very trivial. And the result is, that as a mere theory of language, as a


28


The Gay Science.


Mr. Hut. kiti'i tum- nwnr of inwrn cii ticisiii M gramiiiAr.


ciiAiTKR mere pigeon-holing of words and other technical

L detailH, such criticism is unsatisfactory and does

not reach the truth, because it has no root, because it forgets the substance and is all for form as form.

No one has more pungently and truthfully described the critical science of what may be termed the Renaissance than Mr. Buskin. Nearly the whole body of criticism comes firom the leaders of the Renaissance, who " discovered sud- denly," says Mr. Rusldn, " that the world for ten centuries had been living in an ungrammatical manner, and they made it forthwith the end of human existence to be grammatical. And it mattered thenceforth nothing what was said or what was done, so only that it was said with scholarship, and done with system. Falsehood in a Ciceronian dialect had no opposers; truth in patois no listeners. A Roman phrase was thought worth any number of Gothic facts. The sciences ceased at once to be anything more than different kinds of grammar — ^grammar of lan- guage, grammar of logic, grammar of ethics, grammar of art; and the tongue, wit and inven- tion of the human race were supposed to have foimd their utmost and most divine mission in syntax and syllogism, perspective, and five orders." *


• Sir Ji«hua Keynolds's re- iniirkM on ono of tho greatest Iiicturos of Kubcns are a fair speci-


men of the best criticism of his time. We are anxious to learn what so fine a judge as Reynolds



The Science of Criticism.


29


Almost the only systematic criticism of modem chapter


times which is not of the Renaissance, and not entitled to this appraisement is that of Germany, ^a^'cri- which is, if possible, infected with not a worse, but q^u^ a less manageable, disease. If the criticism of the Renaissance is afflicted with a deficiency of thought, the new epoch of criticism, which the Germans attempted to inaugurate, is charged The defect with a superfecundity of thought tending to overlay the facts that engage it. Mr. Arnold complains of the want of idea in Enghsh criti- cism. " There is no speculation in those eyes." The same complaint certainly cannot be brought


has to say of the Taking Down from the Gross. Observe how instinctiyely he goes to the grammar of Rubens's treatment. His first thought is for the white sheet.

The greatest peculiarity of this composition is the contri- vance of the white sheet, on which the body of Jesus lies. This circumstance was probably what induced Rubens to adopt the composition. He well knew what e£fect white lincD, opposed to flesh, must have with his powers of colouring ; a circum- stance which was not likely to enter into the mind of an Italian painter, who probably would have been afraid of the linen's hurting the colouring of the flesh, and have kept it down of a low tint . . His Christ I consider as one of the finest figures ever invented ;


it is most correctly drawn, and, I apprehend, in an attitude of the utmost difficulty to execute. The hanging of the head on his shoulder, and the falling of the body on one side, give such an ap- pearance of the heaviness of death that nothing can exceed it. . . The principal light is formed by the body of Christ and the white sheet: there is no second light which bears any proportion to the principal ; . . . however, there are many little detached lights distributed at some distance from the great mass, such as the head and shoulders of the Magdalen, the heads of the two Maries, the head of Joseph, and the back and arm of the figure leaning over the cross ; the whole surrounded with a dark sky, except a little light in the horizon and above the cross."


30 The Cray Science.

CHAPTER against German criticism. It is all idea. It

1 begins with hypothesis and works by deduction

downward to the facts. The most elaborate, the most favoured, and the most successful system in

As in Hegel. Germany is that of Hegel. To follow it, how- ever, with understanding, you have first to accept the Hegelian philosophy, of which it is a part. It begins by declaring art to be the manifesta- tion of the absolute idea, and when we ask what is the absolute idea, we are told that it is the abstraction of thought in which the identical is identical with the non-identical, and in which absolute being is resolved into absolute nothing.

Ami schei- Schclliug may not be so wild as this ; but he, too,

"*^' sets out from an absolute idea, and works not from facts to generahsation but from generalisa- tion to facts. The German constructs art as he constructs the camel out of the depths of his moral consciousness. Out of Germany it is impossible and useless to argue with these systems. We can only dismiss them with the assurance that if this be science, then

Tliinking is but an idle waste of thought,

And nought is everything and everything is nought ;

and that between the Renaissance, or gramma- tical method of criticism, which busied itself too of fiddle iiiuch with forms — the mere etiquette or ceremo- JJJJJJ^^ nial of literature — and the German, or philoso- criticism of pineal method of criticism, which wilders and

(Jermany *

and that of flouuders in the chaos of aboriginal ideas, there Miice. must be a middle path — a method of criticism


The Science of Criticism. 31

that may fairly be called scientific, and that will chapter weigh with even balance both the idea out of -11 which art springs and the forms in which it grows.

Recent criticism, even when it eschews philo- Method and sophy, cuts deeper than of yore, both in Germany mo^ ^t and out of it, and cannot be content to play with ^"*^"°- questions of mere images and verses; but it avoids system. It has never been so noble in aim, so conscientious in labour, so large in view, and withal so modest in tone, as now. In point of fact, philosophy, baffled in its aims, has passed into criticism, and minds that a century back might have been lost in searching into the mystery of knowledge and the roots of being, turn their whole gaze on the products of human thought, and the history of human endeavour. But the philosophers turning critics are apt to carry into the new study somewhat of the despair The despair learned from the old, and, I repeat it, carefully ^ ^^*^'"' avoid system. The deeper, therefore, their criticism delves, the more it becomes a laby- rinth of confusion. Fertile in suggestions, and rioting in results, it is a chaos in which the sug- gestions, though original, do not always connect themselves clearly with first principles, and in which the results, though valuable, are reft of half their importance by the lack of scientific arrangement. Nor is this all ; for we too often see critics toiling in ignorance of each other s


32 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER work, lauding in one country what is slighted in another, and void of any general understanding


of*l^. 8U3 to the division of labour, and the correlation of isolated studies. A fair example oflfers itself in the criticism of Shakespeare. In England we are most struck with Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature, and power of embodying it in the characters of the drama. We rank this above all his gifts, even ubove his wondrous gift of speech. Pass over to Germany and note

uirid. how one of the latest critics there, Ulrici, like a true German, admires Shakespeare chiefly for his ideas. When he is pretty siu^ that the country- men of the dramatist will object to some of his criticism — to his fathering spurious plays on Shakespeare, and to his finding in genuine ones the most far-fetched ideas; he says that the English critics are not to be trusted, because they look to the truth of the characters as the chief Shakespearian test. Instead of the truth of the characters, what has he to show ? He shows the doctrine of the Atonement preached in one play, the difference between equity and law set forth in another, and in all the plays a shower of pims that continually remind us of the Original Sin of our nature, the radical antithesis between thought and action, idea and reality, produced by the FaU.

French G^ thcu to Francc, and see there the well-known

  • " ^""^ writer, M. Philarete Ch&sles. Frenchmanlike, he

regards the plot as all-important in the drama, and says that Lear, Hamlet, and Othello are not


The Science of Criticism. 33

the creations of Shakespeare, because the story chapter was borrowed. ** The admirers of Shakespeare," _L, he says, ** praise in him certain qualities which are not his. He is, they declare, the creator of Lear,the creator of Hamlet, the creator of Othello. He has created none of these." Surely the critics of the three nations would gain not a little if they imderstood each other better, and worked more in concert. Why this conflict of opinion where there ought to be no room for doubt ? Why this Babel of voices where all are animated by a common aim? And where the good of criticism if it cannot prevent such misunder- standings ?

The backwardness and impotence of criticism cunng ex<

■I 1 1 1*1' xi ample of the

show, perhaps, nowhere so glaringly as in the impotence failure of the most splendid offer of prizes to draw *»^^"^^^°'- together for competition very high intellectual •work. We can get prize oxen and prize pigs that come up to our expectations; but prize essays, prize poems, prize monuments, prize de- Prize de- signs of any kind, are notoriously poor in this fenT country, however high we bid. For the Duke of Wellington's monument the offer was about £20,000 ; and we all know of the disappoint- ment which the exhibition of the designs created. On the other hand, when prizes were offered for the designs of a Foreign Office and an India Office, some admirable drawings were exhibited, but there followed this odd jarring of opinions, that the design to which the judges allotted the

VOL. I. D


lure.


34 The Gay Sdenee.

CHAPTER first prize was not adopted bj the (rovemmeiit

L for the building ; that the design which took the

second prize got really the place of honour in being selected for execution ; and that finally Lord Palmerston threw aside aU the prise designs, and commissioned the second priae- man to make a wholly new design. Now, what is the meaning of this ? Why are prize essays glittering on the surface, and worthlesB below it? Why are prize poems a mass of inanity, decked out in &r-fetched metaphors^ and wild personifications? Why is a prize picture quite uninteresting — a conventional display of balanced lights and slanting lines^ dull tints and stage simpering ? Why is a prize statue about the most unreal thing under the whT ii a« sun ? Why has a prize monument never yet tcBftn;^iuK K>?n pnxlucod that we can think of with perfect " " pleasure? Why is a prize play so notoriously Kul that mauacers have lontr ceased to offer ivwarxls tor the inevitable damnation ? w^« «« The Jiflioultv of answerinir sucli questions is la i'.nwwi the irreater lw*:uiso ajrainst these disheartening exjx^rieuvvs we have lo set the foot that imder a Jiffervnt system of oivilir^^tion the offer of prizes prvxiu^wl the uK>st brilliant results^ When a Grvek linuua wns aotevl at Athens it was a prize dmir.a : a:ul we aT\^ toU tt;at .Kschvlus won the lu^tiv^'.r A^ iua!^v tauesv th:tt S\n^hocles in the end Iv.^t .Vl5<*h\ lus^av.vl i:\:\: Kurij^uies tr^ like manner V.Avl :::s tri\::upV.>. r^*«' v\*::;:o vir^:i;atisi Men-


>o».\ys*-


The Seience of Criticism. 35

ander, was drowned in the Piraeus, and the story chapter goes (but it is only a story), that he drowned — 1 himself in misery at seeing his rival, Philemon, snatch from him the dramatic ivy-crown. Cor- inna, it will be remembered, won the prize for lyric verse from Pindar himself. Whether it be a fact or not about the poetical contest between Homer and Hesiod, and the prize of a tripod won by the latter, the tradition of such a contest is a voucher for the custom and for the honour in which it was held. At the Pythian games prizes for music and every sort of artistic work were as common and as ^^tmous as the prizes for horse-races and foot-races. To realize such a state of things in our time, we must imagine poete, painters, and musicians assembled on Epsom Downs to contend for the honours of the games with colts, the sons of Touchstone and Stockwell, and fillies, the descendants of Pocahontas and Beeswing. Why should that be possible in Greece which is impossible now ? Why do we draw the line between jockeys who ride racehorses, and poets who ride their Pegasus— offer prizes for the grosser animals and produce results that have made English horses the first in the world, while the most magnificent offers cannot get a fit monument for the greatest Englishman of the present century ?

The explanation is not far to seek : it lies in '^^'^ *^^-

^ nataon to be

the uncertainty of ludemaent, in the waywardness •'ound in the

.•^•'^ '. ii» weakness of

of taste, m the want of recognised standaros, in criticism.

D 2


36 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER the contempt of criticism. Gtxxi work is not —1 usually forthcoming to the oflFer of a prize^ because when — as in the case of the Foreign and India offices — it does come forth, there ensues a chance medley of opinions, in which there is no certainty that the best work will obtain the reward. The difference in England between a contest of racers and a contest of poets, painters, or eaBayiste, is to be found in this, Tiie ftui- that the pace of two horses admits of measure- iX^ ^i. Th«« i, a Bt«.<tari to which dl gi„ assent; the race is won by a nose, or a head, or a necky or a length. There need be no mistake in the comparison ; and if the rewards are tempting, we may be pretty sure that the best horses wiU run, and that the result may be taken as a feir test of merit. If there were any doubtfulness about the test the owners of the best Horses would never allow their favourites to run. But in any contest between painters or sculptors, poets or essayists, there is just that dubiety as to the standard of measure- ment which would prevent the best men from competing. Influence of Not SO in Greccc, and not so in France. It fireeoe. has bccu wcll Said, that whoever has seen but one work of Greek art has seen none, and who- ever has seen all has seen but one. In Greek art, in Greek poems, in Greek prose, there is this uniformity, a uniformity that bespeaks, if not clear science, yet, at any rate, a system of


The Science of Criticism. 37

recognised rules. In architecture, in statuaiy, chapter in p^ttexy, the uniformity of aim is so palpable, J!l that students have long suspected the existence of strictly harmonious proportions in the various lengths, curves, and angles, which give life and beauty to the pure Pentelic marble, and at length the law which guides these proportions, the rule for example which produces the peculiar curve called the entasis of a Doric shaft, the rule which provides for the height of the Venus of Medici, or of the Apollo Belvedere, the rule which actuates the contour of the Portland Vase,, has been detected. Not that these laws will ever enable an inferior artist to produce another Parthenon or another Venus to enchant the world, but that like the laws of harmony in music, they ought to keep the artist within the lines of beauty. Whatever be the practical value of the rules, we see that to every work of Greek art they give the character of a school, iand the imity of aim and of habit produced by a school gives us a standard of measurement about iniiaeoce of which there need be little ambiguity. On a France!" lesser scale, something of the same sort may be seen in France. Frenchmen are surprised at the individuality of English art Every artist among us seems to be standing on his own dais, and working out of his own head. In France we can see more distinctly schools of art; a genuine approximation of methods, a theoretic sameness of ideals^ and we can understand, that


38 The Gay Sdenee.

CHAPTER in a country where the influence of school is so —1 apparent, the prize system should be more suo- cessful than among us who assert the right of private judgment and our contempt of authority, in no mincing terms. The nation that has three dozen religions and only one sauce, is not likely to have common standards in philosophy, in literature, or in art. Wanting these standards, what faith can we have in our judges ? And what wonder that criticism, no matter how deep it goes, should be a byword ?

Ahoprfui It is a good thine: when criticism knows

rign of our , . ^ ^

criticinn that it is a byword, and learns to be ashamed

that it ii*« 

beooiM of itself. It is not to be cured until it feels itself itself sick ; and there is no more healthy sifrn of our • fae, ttea the popolTi^ which LbL .0. corded to the writings of Mr. Matthew Arnold, who has come forward to denounce our criticism -as folly, and to call upon the critics to mend their ways. In many most important points it is impossible to agree with this delightful writer. Especially when he attempts to reason and to generalize, he rouses in his readers the instincts of war, and makes them wish to break a lance with him. He is a suggestive writer, but not a convincing one. He starts many ideas, but does not carry out his conclusions. He has power of thought enough to win our attention, charm of style enough to enchant us with his strain ; but we are won without con- viction, and we are enchanted without being


The Science of Criticism. 39

satisfied. The most marked peculiarity of his chapter style, when he has to deal not with facts but _1 with ideas, is its intense juvenility — a boy-power to the nth. It would be unjust so to charac- terize his robust scholarship, and his keen bio- graphical insight. But when he comes to what is more especially called an idea, then his merits and his defects alike are those of youthfulness. There is in his thinking the greenness, the unfitness, the impracticability of youth; there is also in it the freshness^ the buoyancy, the indescribable gracefulness, the raging activity of youth. We learn as we read him to have so much sympathy with the fine purpose, the fine taste, the fine temper of his writing, that we forget, or we are loth to express, how much we diflfer with him whenever he attempts to generalize. In the next chapter I shall have occasion to mention some of his errors. Here the great point to be noticed is, that his outcry against English criticism for its want of science (though that is not the phrase by which Tie would describe its deficiency) has been received with the greatest favour. At the same time, he does less than justice to EngUsh criticism L comparing it with foreign ; for if we have faults, so also have the Germans and the French. All alike fall short of science. If we fall short of it in our treatment of idea, they fall short of it in their treatment of fact ; and Mr. Arnold would have been much nearer


40 Tlie Gay Science.


CHAPTER the truth, if he had with even-handed justice -_1 exposed tlie shortcomings of all criticism, instead of confining his censure to criticism of the English schooL Be he right or wrong how- ever in this matter, the &ct of his having raised his voice against our criticism is in itself important. We may take it for a sure proof that the tide is on the turn, and that a change is working. Mr. Arnold is too sympathetic for a solitary thinker. We may agree with him or difier with him ; we may deem his views novel or stale ; clear, or the reverse ; hut of one tiling we can have no doubt — ^that what he thinks, others think also. When such a man complains of the lack of idea in English criti- cism, we may be satisfied that he is giving form to an opinion which, if it has not before been expressed with equal force, has been widely felt, and has often been at the point of utterance. We may be satisfied also that things are mend- ing. In this case the discovery of the disease is half the cure ; the confession of sin is a long step to reform.

Kiimmjiir In thc Very act of showing that criticism is

tei. not yet a science, something has also been done

vvhymti- to show why it has failed of that standard,

ftJieiice. and why it may be supposed that following

anotlier course the dignity of science may not be

l>eyond its reach. Hereafter it will be necessary

to point out another great cause of failure in the


The Science of Criticism. 41

fact that criticism has hitherto rejected, or at chapter least kept clear of its comer stone; has never — - attempted to build itself systematically on what nevertheless it has alvsrays accepted as the one universal and necessary law of art, the law of pleasure* Meantime, in so far as this discussion has proceeded it will be seen that, if criticism has failed of science, it has been a failure of FaUure of method. It is only from comparative criticism that we can expect science, but hitherto criticism has been very much lost in details, and has never attempted comparison on the large scale, what » in- It is true that all criticism is comparative in a \t^^ "*


Dew


certain sense, for without comparison there is no ^^^t, thought; but it is comparative only within ^**^'"- narrow limits, and we have to extend the area of comparison before the possibility of science begins to dawn. The comparison required is threefold ; The com- the first, which most persons would regard as in a S^m. peculiar sense critical, a comparison of all the arts one with another, as they appear together and in succession ; the next, psychological, a compari- son of these in their diflferent phases with the nature of the mind, its intellectual bias and its ethical needs as revealed in the latest analysis ; the third, historical, a comparison of the results thus obtained with the facts of history, the in- fluence of race, of religion, of climate, in one word, with the story of human development. There is not one of these lines of comparison which criticism can afford to neglect. It must


42 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER compare art with art ; it must compare art Al with mind ; it must compare art with history ; and it must bring together again, and place side by side, the result of these three com- parisons. In what But though there is not one of these lines of ^^^lirt comparison which it will do to neglect, and there mticifm ^ jg jjQ^ Q^^ wliich can be regarded as absolutely work will Qf more importance than another, nevertheless it

for the first * . . , .

pvt mil. may be that at tliis or that particular time, or for this or that particular purpose, one line of comparison may relatively be of more value Nothing to than another; and it would seem that at the wmnt«ii as a ^g^ which criticism has now reached there !^^ is nothing so much wanting to it as a correct psychology. Accordingly that is the main course of inquiry which, in the present instal- ment of this work, an attempt will be made to follow. We want, first of all, to know what a watchmaker would call the movement in art — the movement of the mind, the movement of ideas. Why does the mind move in that way ? whither does it move? when does it move? what does it move? Some of these questions are among the most abstruse in philosophy, and so well known to be abstruse, that the mere suggestion of them may be a terror to many readers. I may seem to be calmly inviting them to cross with me the arid sands of a On thfi dui- Sahara, and to meet the hot blasts of a simoom.

n«« of pBj- ....

choUigy. But, indeed, it is a mistake to suppose that a



The Science of Critici»tn. 43

subject which is abstruse must be dull and chapter

killing to discuss ; and it is quite certain that if

this subject of the movement of the mind in art is not made interesting the fault lies with the writer, and not in the subject.

There is a curious picture in the Arabian Nights of a little turbaned fellow sitting cross- legged on the ground, with pistachio nuts and dates in his lap. He cracks the nuts, munches the kernels and throws the shells to the left, while by a judicious alternation he sucks the delicate pulp of the dates and throws the stones to his right. The philosopher looks on with a mild interest and speculates on the moral that sometimes the insides of things are best and sometimes the outsides. Now, most of the dis- cussions on mind with which we are familiar are like the pistachio nuts of the gentleman of Bag- dad: the shell is uninviting, and the kernel, which is hard to get at, and most frequently is rotten, is the only part that is palatable. But there is no reason why these discussions should But that not on the outside be as palatable as the date; not nec»- and if we cannot swallow the stones, still they '^^' are not useless, but may be turned to account as seed. The simile is rather elaborate, yet perhaps it is clear; and I shall be glad if in any way it should suggest to my readers that in here inviting them to a psychological discus- sion I am luring them not to a study which will The subject break their jaws with hard words and their' ^""^


44 Tlie Gay Science.


CHAPTER patience with the husks of logic, but to one — which, if not unfairly treated, ought to be as '^:^ fascinating as romance :

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo*s lute.



THE DESPAIR OF A SCIENCE.


CHAPTER III.


THE DESPAIR OF A SdENOE.


I ^WO T CAN Bcarcely be a matter of Bur- chapter ESI Em prise, that amid the littlenesses of ~-^ M^^Sk ^^^ lower criticism, the confusion and conflicts of the higher, any attempt in our day to work towards a science of criticism The d»pair is sure to be met with a profound despair. Kieoaoot I do not merely mean that the world will*"^"*'°^ have its doubts as to this or that man's ability to approach the science. That is quite fair and natural. The doubt is, whether the science be approachable by any son of man. It is a doubt that cleaves just now to any science which baa the mind and will of man for its theme. Methods of criticism are nothing, it may be said, for all methods, including the method of comparative criticism, must &i], when the object is to resolve human work to scientific law. I therefore desire, in this chapter, to make a few . on that despair with which nearly all


48 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER Englishmen just now contemplate not merely

1 the science of criticism, but any science of human

nature. What we Despair of metaphysics has at length bred in Mthlo^^us that state of heart which Mr. John Greorge

  • ^**' Phillimore exaggerates, but can scarcely be said

to misrepresent, when pointing out that what he calls the Queen of Sciences, that is, metaphysics, is utterly ignored among us, he asks what is the substitute for it, and discovers that we give our- selves up to the most intense study of entomology. We believe in insects as fit objects of science ; but the mind of man is beyond our science, and we give it up in despair. Mr. Kingsley, who has written one book to show that a science of history is impossible, has written another to show the great and religious advantage at water- ing-places of studying science in the works of God — that is, in sea-jellies and cockle-shells. Tlie AftUthefcfa popular science of the day makes an antithesis worknof between God and man. History, politics, lan- tiicweTf giiag^j 8irt> literature — these are the works of ""*"• man. Animals, vegetables, and minerals — these are the works of God. When the student of natural history discovers a new 8|>ecies, he seems to be rescuing, says Mr. Kingsley, " one more thought of the divine mind from Hela and the realms of the unknown." When a man goes to the sea-side, and, taking the advice of the same author, begins to study natural history, can tell the number of legs on a crab, the number of


The Defqmr of a Science. 49


U8a»>


joints on a lobster's tail, names one kind of shell chapter

a helix, another kind of shell a peeten — that is 1

called studying the works of God. Or if he goes to some quiet inland village, plucks flowers, dries them in blotting-paper, and writes a name of twenty syllables under each — that is studying the works of God. Or if he analyzes a quantity of earthy can tell what are its ingredients, whether it is better for turnips or for wheat, and whether it should be manured with lime or with guano — that is studying the works of God. And espe- Popular cially is it so if these students set upon the Deity, relip^Js i*" like a tribe of Mohawks, to hunt out his trail, to p***- pounce upon his footprints, to fathom his designs, to see everywhere the hand, and to acknowledge the finger of God. As though He, whose glory it is to conceal a thing, left finger-marks on his work, the exponents of popular science are always finding the fcager of God' and by so doing extol their favourite pursuit, while they tacitly rebut the maxim of Pope, that the proper study of The proper mankind is man. We who have been in the m^'Jil habit of regarding man as the noblest work of God, language as his gift, history as his provi- dence, and genius as heaven-born, are startled to hear the inanimate and irrational creation de- scribed as peculiarly the work and the care of the Deity, and seem to listen to an echo of the old heathen dogma — Deus est anima hrutorum. Amid all this cant of finding God in the mate- rial and not in the moral world, and of thence

VOL. I. E


50 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER lauding the sciences of matter to the neglect of

L the science of mind, who but must remember a

sermon in which the speaker, it is true, invited his audience to consider the lilies of the field and to behold the fowls of the air, but only that he might drive home the question — Are ye not much better than they ? Mimn- This antithesis between the works of Gk)d and

tbTuthhe- the works of man, which we find in the science ihe wwla of our time, seems to have begun in a misanthro- tiK«l!f "^ pical vein of thought belonging to a considerable "»"• portion of the poetry of the nineteenth century. Byron, of all our recent poets,would be most easily accused of this misanthropy; but it is not of wonb- BjTon that we have to complain : it is of Words- •ome extent worth aud Iiis iuccssaut harping on the opposition IbrTt. * between nature and humanity. It was from Wordsworth's region of thought that the petty controversy arose, many years ago, as to the materials of poetry. Bowles contended that poetry is more immediately indebted for its in- terest to the works of nature than to those of art ; that a ship of the line derives its poetry not from anything contributed by man — the sails, masts, and so forth ; but from the wind that fills the sails, from the sunshine that touches them with light, from the waves on whicli the vessel rides — ^in a word, from nature. The essence of this criticism is misanthropy ; it is such misanthropy as abounds in Wordsworth ; it is misanthropy which Byron fought against manfully, and with which he was



The Despair of a Science. 51

incapable of sympathising. We can trace this chapter misanthropy downwards to Mr. Ruskin, at least Hl so long as he was under the influence of Words- So^'^jtaeif worth. In his earlier criticism he was always '° K"*^'"- quoting that poet ; his whole mind seemed to be given to landscape painting, and he conceived of art as the expression of man's delight in the works of Gk)d. He has long outgrown the Wordsworthian misanthropy, and has learned to widen his definition of the theme of art ; but still in his eloquent pages, as in the strains of Wordsworth, and as in the tendency to landscape of much of our poetry and painting, the men of science wiU find some sanction for the hollow antithesis which sets the works of God against those of man.

It would be unjust not to remember in behalf something

/•.!• •Ill x" X 1 •! • to be said

of this one-sided devotion to physical science — for the one- a devotion to it that confines the very name of JJo^to^JhJ- science almost entirely to the knowledge of^^J^^^n^"** matter and material laws, and denies it to the prevails. knowledge of man and mental laws — that among all the intellectual pursuits of the present cen- tury, the science of things material can point to by far the most splendid results. What more dazzling in speculation than the discovery of The f«t« of Neptune ? What more stimulating to curiosity than the researches of Goethe, Cuvier, and Owen ? What more enticing to the adventurer than the geological prediction of the gold fields of Australia ? In chemistry we have well-nigh

E 2


saence.


52 7%<' Gay Sciei\ce.


CHAPTER realised the dream of alcliemv, and pierced the III • * L mystery of transmutation. Photography is a

craft in wliich Phoebus Apollo again appears upon the earth in the mortal guise of an artifit, and to the powers of which no limit can be set. In meteorology, the wind has been tracked, storms and tornados have been reduced to law. In electricity we seem to be hovering on the verge of some grand discovery, and already the electric spark has been trained to feats more marvellous than any recorded of Ariel or Puck. Optics now enables us to discover the composition of the sun, and to detect the presence of minerals to the millionth part of a grain. Seven-league boots are clumsy beside a railway ; steam-ships And the make a jest of the flying carpet. Think, too, of MTwoSks*" tl^6 immense public works which modem science ^^^ has enabled England to complete. The Crystal Palace rose like tlie arch of a rainbow over the trees in ITyde Park ; the tubular bridge spans the Menai Straits, high enough for " the mast of some great ammiral " to pass beneath : innumer- able bridges, tunnels, canals, docks, dazzle the imagination. A thousand years hereafter poets and historians may write of our 'great en- gineers and scientific discoverers, as we now speak of Arthur and liis Paladins, Faust and the Devil, Cortes and Pizarro. Why should not those who figure in " the fairy tales of science " obtain the renown which is rightfully theirs ? The results they have achieved are all the more



The Despair of a Scieiice. 53

wonderful, if we take into account the compara- chapter tively recent origin of our sciences. It is little — l more than two hundred years since there was The recent only one man of scientific note in England — ^d^, William Harvey ; when Sydenham was but be- ginning to practise ; when Barrow was studying the Greek fethers at Constantinople ; when Ray was yet imknown ; when Halley was yet unborn ; when Flamsteed was still teething ; when New- ton was a farmer-boy, munching apples bb he drove to market on Saturdays ; when Hooke was a poor student at Oxford, assisting Boyle in his manipulations ; when Boyle lived in seclusion at the apothecary's, and was chiefly remarkable for associating with men whose names begin with W — Wallis, Willis, Wilkins, Ward, and Wren. None of the foimders of the Royal Society had then emerged from obscurity, and the Royal Society was a small club that met in secret and called itself the Invisible College. Two centuries have brought a marvellous change. Science came into And their England v«dth tea, with tea-drinking it spread, ?ci^ent and it is now imbibed as universally. It has so commended itself by great achievements that at length eveiy one of the sciences has a society for itself, all the great cities of the United Kingdom have scientific societies, and there is such a rage for science throughout the country and in every class, that, not unlike the tailors of Laputa, who, abjuring tape, took altitudes and longitudes with a quadrant, the London tailors profess to cut


TiJ 7/«f tiav Science.


L'iiA!"Li. iu*yr. bilir^^ t4L*it»uiifiwuiv. and in the ardour of

— 1 scifiKt i»ii;>ti:'.r Thei: masterpiece Eureka. iiflfmi: AitJiiLwiiii*;. imiid ihis- nisL of the intellectaal


I«l4 ll' Ulf

IU«llLi.


tun*.


ciL'-!-t^u": uli 11. Mif dirtfcticni, it fares ill with men- uti scu'Utv : ii iuTvi^ ill wiiii all the waenoes that niiiv m.'rt sTriiiir u called human, indnding ibu: v»f t-riTjcirsm. A> a scientific ohject, the >iiiird-:»onjr i^vJe i> of more acconnt than man: iLt c\^Ii^ of lilt liet- uud the CMOons of die silk- worm, ihaii iLu "iijr rffons C'f human genius, all tLr Troudtrs- '.'f Li:iii:iii Landiwiiirt. Philosophy, v.iri,.u> I Lavr saii La> fllfd nf- with despair, and de»- xwmmm, pair of ]»:.ij'-»s«]'ijL:al mtthods has spread to pitiliuL'^ desjiair -.'f :tll ihiiT }»Li]<.»sophy t^mched, and le- IfJr*^ jrarJt-d as }ieci;li:ir]y ii^: own. Xor is this the jririKrof ^,j^]y {^.yu;^ {j^ x^lik'li di'Miair of a human scienoe

nuiunu u^ • -« 

iii ir<.'iivraL aiid a critical science in particular, fciLc»w> iist If. The:^ are davs in which the forms of liu-niinre art- '.'[■]K»fik-d xo the elaboration of system ; and as the esst-iit^ of i?cience is system, here is another foundation for despair to build ujK>n. Then, again, there are moralists who are eager to keep clear the great doctrine of the freedom of the will ; who are afraid to regard human actionas in such ^^'ise governed by law, that it is cajKible of scientific calculation ; and here is another ground of despair. Lastly, there are persons who, unable to see the practical use to which a science of criticism (but I ought to 8|>eak more generally, and say a science of human ture) may be turned, are apt to pass upon it a



The Despair of a Science. 55

sentence of condemnation, which on the other chapter

III hand they do not pronounce on the merely L

physical sciences, when they are imable to per- ceive immediately the practical value of any material discoveries ; and thus again is engen- dered another form of despair. Let me say a few words upon each of these passages of despair.

And first, of the philosophical despair that PbUowphi- no w attaches to the scientific treatment of all of mw^'^


scieooe.


those subjects which philosophy used to handle. Mr. G. H. Lewes has written a very clever and learned book on the history of philosophy, in which he always insists that the chief problems of metaphysics are insoluble. This work is so brilliant that it has been much read and pilfered from; and for practical purposes it is the best history of philosophy that the English reader can consult ; but it is burdened with the fallacy that because what is called metaphysics is impossible, therefore any attempt at a science of the mind must be vain. Does it follow that because meta- physical methods have failed, therefore scientific methods must 'fail also? Now the despair of a mental science which Mr. Lewes entertains he also entertains, as it would seem, for all the what Mr. branches of that science, criticism included. He of phfi^*. says that " philosophy has distorted poetry, and ^^J^ ^"*'" been the curse of criticism." Most of us will agree with him, if by philosophy he means metaphysics. We all find the greatest diflSculty


56 TV 0*2f4 Sci^rkos,


CHAFTE?; in uii'irrstAndiEe wliat are called the philoeo- III ~ • • L phi'.-al critics, and when we jret at their meaning

it look.s verv small. Thev are afraid to be clear, lest thev be Jeemeil shallow; or thev love to think themselves protV-und, because they are unable to plimib their own ideas. A phiioKP- A fair specimen of the philosophical critic is — w*g»r Kichard Wagner, who has invented the music of the future. What*rver may be thought of his music, lie has a considerable reputation as a musical critic. Discoursing on art, in the most approved phiIos<>}>liical method, he defines poetry in terms which it is licvond me to translate, and HO I make use of ^Ir. Bridgemau's translation. " If we now consider/' he says, " the activity of the poet more closely, we j)ercei ve that the realisa- tion of his intention consists solely in rendering possible the representation of the strengthened The jargon Hctious of liis poctiscd forms through an exposi- L|.hy.°' tion of their motives to the feelings, as well as the motives themselves, also by an expression that in so far engrosses his activity as the inven- tion and production of this expression in truth first render the introduction of such motives and actions possible." This is the jargon of philo- sophy, and it is the curse of criticism. If this is what Mr. Lewes condemns, who in this country will contradict him? But sometimes it is not Dbtinctioii clear whether, when this author speaks of philo- phiioKiphy sophy, he means simply philosophy as it used to '**"" be understood, or also includes under that name



The Despair of a Science. 57

genuine science, because it is the science of mind chapter as distinct from body. The name of philosophy — 1 has been especially allotted in this country to mental science — to psychology ; and it seems a hard thing to say that in this sense philosophy has been the curse of criticism. In point of fact, the great fault of criticism is its ignorance The great — at least its disregard of psychology. It isudsm— ^" . true that mental science has not yet done much w***^^^^- for us in any department of study ; but it must not be forgotten that the application of scien- tific methods to the mind and action of man has been even more recent and more tardy than their application to the processes of nature, sdence as and that the time has not yet come to look for Snd too^ ripe fruit, and to curse the tree on which it is "^^Jt not found. Any science of a true sort, mathe- ^^'^^"^ matics apart — any science that is more than guessing, or more than a confused pudding-stone of facts — is now but two centuries old. The most advanced of the sciences that relate specially to human conduct is the science of wealth, and political economy is but a century old. The other sciences that take account of human action are still in their infancy ; and to despair of them is but to despair of childhood.

Sir Edward Lytton expresses despair of a The despair diflFerent kind. He sees the futility of system ; ^ "^'*®™- he knows that from time to time the most perfect systems have to be remodelled, and give way to new schemes. Hence, in one of his most lively


58 The Gay Science.

CHAPT£K essays, he bepraises the essay, and seems to oon-

i!!l demn system as pedantic. Sir Edward Lytton

bjSTEd- ^^ always shown such a faculty for construc-

J^^y*" tion, that in his heart of hearts he can scarcely

despise system ; but as some of his remarks may

lead a hurried reader to take an opposite view,

a woixi or two of explanation may be necessary.

Systems It is truc, that systems are soon forgotten and

MOD orgo . ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ sight. What survives of Plato, for

example, in modem thought ? A few fragments that have not always even a relation to his sys- Takei>iRto tem. Take one of Plato's favourite ideas — ^that ample. " pocts should bc cxcluded from the model republic because they dispense falsehood, and because they are seekers of pleasure. Here is a view of poetry that survives, and that derives importance from the great name of Plato. The world remembers the conclusion at wliich he arrived ; it has for- gotten the process by which he arrived at it. He condemns art as false, because when a painter paints a flower he takes a copy not of the thing itself. The flower is not the thing itself, but the earthly copy of the thing which, according to his system, exists as an idea in the Divine mind. The picture of the flower, therefore, is the copy of a copy, and must be imtrue. Nobody would now accept this reasoning, but people accept the conclusion. So, again, art is bad because pleasure is its cliief end, and, as the gods feel neither pleasure nor pain, the end of art is not godlike. Here, again, nobody would accept the reasoning,


The Despair of a Science. 59

but the conclusion would be accepted by a chapter

Puritan, who would rely on Plato's authority. 1

And thus it is — the system falls to pieces, while fragments of it stand &st for ever quite inde- pendent of the system. Contemplating such a result, the essayist is inclined to ask what is the good of system, and suggests that it may be enough to put forth oracles in disjointed utter- ance. It is good not to overrate system; it is good to see that its use is but temporary. Still in our time, in which, through the extension of The forms

ofcurreDt

periodical literature, detached essays • have as- literature sumed imwonted importance, there is a tendency to'^stmr to fly system altogether and so to imderrate it. System is science. Science is impossible without the order and method of system. It is not merely vaiae of knowledge : it is knowledge methodised. It may *^^ be true that over the vast ocean of time which separates us from Plato nothing has come to us from that mighty mind to be incorporated in modem thought but a few fragments of wreck. Yet these fragments would never have reached us if they had not at one time been built into a ship. When the voyager goes across the Atlan- tic he may be wrecked; he may get on shore only with a plank. But he will never cross the Atlantic at all if he starts on a plank, or on a few planks tied together as a raft. " Our little systems have their day," says the poet, and it is most true, but in their day they have their uses. There is a momentum in a system which does


60


The Gay Science.


CHAPTER not belong to its individual timbers, and if we

L admire the essay, it is not necessary to undei>

value more elaborate structures.* Despair of Dcspair of yet another kind is expressed by tdcnce that those who, from a moral point of view, do not fS^ mond like to think of hirnian conduct as obedient to ^"**' scientific rule. Such men as Mr. Froude have so strong a sense of the freedom of the will, and of the incalculable waywardness with which it crosses and mars the best laid plans and the most symmetrical theories, that they will not hear of such a thing as a science of history. Mr. Fronde's lecture on that subject is not pubUshed, and ap- EiproKd pears only in the records of the Royal Institution ; but it is perhaps the most eloquent of all his com- positions, and it is full of wise suggestions. Its general conclusion, however, must be firmly re- sisted by those who, admitting the freedom of the


by Mr. Fi-oude.


  • Mr. Grotc h«i8 lately bti-u

quoting a jiassagc from IVofessor FerriiT on thiH jwiiit, as to the value of system, which is ex- ceedingly well put. I quote the same passage, but with some slight differeuci's of omission and admission : " A system of ])hilo- sophy '* — or what is, in Ferrier s meaning, the same thing, a sys- tem of science — " is bound by two main requisitions — it ought to be true and it ought to be reasoned. If a system is not true, it will scarci'ly be con- vincing; and if it is not rea- soned, a man will bo little


satisfied with it. Philosophy, in its ideal {icrfection, is a body of reasoned trutli. A system is of the Iiighest value only when it embraces both these rcquisi> tions, that is, when it is botli true and reasoned. But a 8y»» tem wliich is reasoned without being true, is always of higher value than a system which is true without being reasoned* The latter kind of system has no scientific worth. An unresr soned philosophy, even though true, curries no guarantee of its truth. It may be true, but it cannot be certain.**


The Despair of a Science. 61

will, still hold to the possibility of reducing human chapter conduct on the large scale to fixed law. Mr. — 1 Froude argues that because we are not able to predict the changes of history, therefore history cannot fairly be regarded as a science ; and his argument, though levelled against a science of history, goes to deny the possibility of any science of human nature. In point of fact, however, we can predict a good deal in human history, as, for example, by the aid of political economy, a science which is barely a century old; and Mr. Froude's reasoning, if it were The gist of sound, would oust geology from the list of the inV"^°' sciences, because it does not enable us to predict what changes in the earth's surface are certain to take place in the next thousand years.

It is only in the exact sciences that knowledge ah the reaches the prophetic strain, and all the sciences JiSIt «^.* are not exact. Mr. John Stuart Mill points out that though the science of human nature falls far short of the exactness of astronomy as now imderstood, yet there is no reason why it should not be as much a science as astronomy was, when its methods had mastered only the main phenomena, but not the perturbations. This is precisely the view to be taken of that part of the science of human nature which, for the purposes of the present inquiry, may be called the Gay Science — ^the science of the Fine Arts, The exactn

• IT* A 1 'j. • "Lx 1 1 tode of ail.

mcluding poetry — only it might be expressed more strongly. The most certain thing in


62 The Gay Scienee.

CHAPTER human life is its uncertainty. We are most

1 struck with its endless changes, and cannot be

over-confident that we shall ever reduce these to the unity of science. But art is crystalline in its forms, and the first, the deepest, the most constant impression which we derive from it is that of its oneness. I have already quoted the saying, that he who sees only one work of Greek art has seen none, and that he who sees all has seen but one. This is most true ; and the Greek gave expression to the same thought in the legend of the brothers Telecles and Theodonis of Samos. Far apart from each other, the one at Delos, the other at Ephesus, carved half of a wooden statue of tlie Pythian Apollo, and when the two were brought together, they tallied as if they had been wrought in one piece by one

iiiMtrat«d hand. Shelley has even gone further, and has

inShellcv's 1 p • 1 n* 7 r-

conceptio'n spokcu 01 Single poems, an Jliaa or a Letzr^ as

« ?^^^7* parts of one vast poem — episodes " in that great

poem wliich all poets, like the co-operating

thoughts of one great mind, have built up since

the beginning of the world." If this be the

cliaracter and position of art, it cannot be

unreasonable to suppose that a science of it is

within our reach, and that of all the sciences

wliich have to do with human nature, it ought

to be the most exact.

r^espair Lastly, there is a despair engendered by the

the modesty vcry modcsty of science. A science of criticism, if

^* it be worthy of the name, cannot pretend either to



science.


The Despair of a Science. 63

make art an easy acquisition, or to do away with chapter

all diversity of taste and opinion. The Miltons 1

will evermore think that Dryden is but a rhymer ; Dryden will still foretell that cousin Swift will never be a poet ; Handel will always jeer at the counterpoint of young Gliick, and Schiunann make light of the music of Meyerbeer.* What then is the use of criticism ? The fact, however, is, that no science in the world can insure its fol- The impo- lowers from error, or make its students perfect **** artists. Chemistry, with all its exactitude, does not save its professors from making a wrong analysis. The votaries of geology are still wrang- ling about some of its main principles ; and were they agreed, it does not follow that they would be able to apply those principles rightly to the various regions of the earth. Political economy, the most advanced of the sciences that have man for their subject, is not all clear and stead- &8t, and daily the nations bid defiance to its clearest and most abiding truths. Why then should a critical science, if there is ever to be one, do more than all other sciences in leading its


  • Mr. Paley, in his late edition

of Euripides, the best that has yet been produced, calls atten- tion to a delicious remark of Professor Scholefield's : " Quod ad ipsum attinet Euripidem, non sum ego ex illorum numero, qui nihil in eo pulchrum, nihil grande, nihil cothumo dignum


inveniant." I am not, he says, of those who see in Euripides no- thing fine, nothing great, nothing that belongs to high art. If it be remembered that Euripides was Milton's favourite poet, the in- nocence of Scholefield's remark will appear all the more inimit- able.


64 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER disciples into a land free from doubt ? It is the

1 law of all human knowledge, that the more the

rays of the light within us multiply and spread, the increasing circle of light implies an increas-

The more ing circiunference of darkness to hem it round.

gmlto * Increase the bounds of knowledge, and you

?^JJ^ inevitably increase the sense of ignorance; at all the more points in a belt of surrounding darkness do you encounter doubt and difficulty. It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that any science can abolish all doubts and prevent all

Theimpo- mistakes. Moreover, as a science of criticism


teoce 01


r


criticism no cauuot make perfect judges, so neither can it STii^ make faultless poets. The theory of music has J^°^ never made men musical, and all the discoveries ■cienoes. of the critic caunot make men poetical. Few sayings about art are more memorable than that of Mozart, who declared that he composed as he did because he could not help it, and who added, " You will never do anything if you have to think how you are to do it." Art comes of in- spiration — comes by second nature. Neverthe- less, it comes according to laws which it is possible to note and which imperatively demand our study. It is not long since people regarded the weather as beyond the province of science, and treated the labours of Fitzroy either as useless, because they did not enable him to foretell but only to forecast, or as impious, because it was argued that if we can forecast the weather, it must be idle to pray for rain.


The Despair of a Science. 65

It is curious to see how exacting we are in chapter

our demands for knowledge, and how we leam 1

to underrate it altogether if in any respect it disappoints our expectations. Criticism is nought, people think, because it does not make poets perfect, and judges infallible. So it has happened that chemistry was despised when it failed to turn lead into gold, that astronomy was neglected when it failed to prognosticate, that the Bible is said to be in danger because we do not find in it the last new theory of science.

Haug up philosophy : Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, It helps not, it prevails not : talk no more.

On this point as to the modesty of science, it How

• .1 i**ii 11 Mr. Milt-

18 necessary to be very explicit, because he wnothewAmoid is in our day the most hearty in denouncing the ^?^|^ weakness of our criticism, Mr. Matthew Arnold, is also the most imperious in vaunting the office of the critic; and there is a danger lest from his unguarded expressions it should be supposed that criticism promises more than it can perform. Mr. Arnold, for example, tells us that the main intellectual effort of Europe has for many years past been a critical one ; and that what Europe now desires most is criticism. What he means by this it is not easy to make out. For on the one hand, he assures us that But his Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, are to be^T^Si" regarded as critics, and that everything done^**'*

VOL. I. F


- t-t


ir'X




y .T. TTr iziiT JL Skii.r«r Becvc as an inde&- tf^*:.jr. & cl-rTrr. ^iL-i ^Tlr-iri.cTQed writer — a TTA^ c: 2-:«>i ;"i^Ti.«ei:'L az.-i ir. FrazMe of great Likt^tt iii--rLor. Bn w:.-ei. wt are told in g^c*:^^:-::! :'ra: lie grsai intc-Ikctcal nx)Tenient of oir age is crlnc^ ai. 1 :La: :Le first of living critics? — iLertrore. TL-e I^ea^ler of ihis intellectnal movemiEri:!. is iL Sainte Beuve, wlio is not greatly puzzle-j to know what so daintr a writer as Mr. Arnold can pebbly mean ? Is it a proof of our Englii-h want of insight that with all the vivacity of his Mondav chats, we on this side of the water fail to see in M. rfainte Beuve the prophet of the age — a great leader of thinking — the en- lightener of Europe ? He is a brilliant essayist^ a rnan of great knowledge ; his taste is imim- j>eachable ; and he dashes off historic sketches with wonderful neatness. But for criticism in the highest sense of the word — for criticism in the w*nse in which Mr. Arnold seems to tmder- Hfcirid it — for criticism as the mastery of domi- nant ideas and the key to modem thought — as tlijit one thing which Europe most desires — ^we should w;arcely go to the feuilletons of M. Sainte Ii<;uve.



The Despair of a Science. 67

Once more we return to another form of the chapter statement that the intellectual movement of our — 1

j» • •,• 1 If A 1 J • J j»/» •*• • His state-

time IS critical. Mr. Arnold identifies criticism ment that with the modem spirit; and then he tells ns^f^Til**'^ that the modem spirit arises in a sense of con-®^?*^*y

^ critical.

trast between the dictates of reason and of custom, the world of idea and the world of fact. We Kve amid prescriptions and customs that have been crusted upon us from ages. When we become alive to the fact that the forms and institutions of our daily life — the life individual and the life national, are prescribed to us not by reason but only by custom, that, says Mr. Arnold, is the awakening of the modem spirit. The truth is, however, that what he describes as the peculiar spirit of modem thought— that is, nineteenth-century thought — is the spirit of every reforming age. It was, for example, the spirit of Christianity as it showed itself at first in the midst of surrounding Judaism. It was the spirit that actuated the protest against the mummeries of Eomanism in the sixteenth century.

Prom these and other illustrations of what he The wrong understands by criticism, it would seem that whicTmay Mr. Arnold has allowed himself, in the graceful fro^M?. eagerness of a poetical nature, to be carried ^™^^. headlong into generalizations that are illusive. ****"'• But the general effect of his expressions is to spread abroad an inflated idea of criticism — what it is, what it can do, what is its position

F 2


6^ The G*V4 Science.


CHAPTER in the world. Pejple will not stay to examine '"• patiently whether Mr. Arnold makes out his case or not. They will but carry away the general impression, that here is a man of genius and of strong conviction, who speaks of criti- cism as just now the greatest power upon earth. They will, therefore, expect from it the mightiest eflFects; and grievous will be their disappointment at the modesty of its actual exploits.

Gcmni Though a scicucc of criticism may not acoom-

Id^uge* plish all that people expect of it, is it necessary rfaJTiSS. *^ show that it is to be coveted for its own sake? If men will criticise, it is desirable that their judgments should be based on scientific groimds. This is so obvious, that instead of dwelling on the worth of critical science in and for itself, I would here rather insist on its value from another On the in- point of vicw — as a historical instrument. Some ofTiitory*" late philosophers, Cousin in particular, have Jhn^phy. sought for a clue to the world's history in the progress of metaphysical ideas. They believe that the history of philosophy yields the phi- losophy of history. They may be right, though it is awkward for the facts, or at least for our power of dealing with them, that the philosopher is ever represented as before his age. While he lives his thought is peculiar to himself, and his . kingdom is not of this world : it is not till long years after his decease that his thought moves



The Despair of a Science. 69


mankind and his worldly reign begins. It chapter

would seem, however, that if it were possible to 1

establish a critical science, the method which the The int4!r- French and Germans have adopted, of inter- Efetory preting history through the history of philosophy, critidL. might with advantage be varied by the inter- pretation of history through the history of art. There is this wide difference between philosophy and art, that whereas the former is the result of conscious effort, the latter comes unconsciously, and is the spontaneous growth of the time, ifow, supposing we had a critical science, and knew somewhat of the orbits and order of the arts, their times and seasons, we should have a guide to history so much safer than that fur- nished by the course of philosophy, as a spon- taneous growth is less likely to deviate from nature than any conscious effort. It is said that philosophers have in their hands the making of the next age ; but at least poets and other artiste belong to the age they live in. In their shady retreate they reflect upon the world the light from on high, as I have seen an eclipse of the sun exquisitely pictured on the ground, while the crowds in Hyde Park were painfully looking for it in the heavens with darkened glasses. Through the leaves of the trees the sun shot down his image in myriads of balls of light that danced on the path below ; and as his form was altered in the sky, the globes of light underfoot changed also their aspect, waning


70 The Gay Science.


cHAPTEK into crescents, and the crescents into sickles, and

III

— 1 the sickles into nothingness, until once again as he recovered his beams the sickles reappeared, and grew on the gravel walk into crescents, and the crescents into perfect orbs. There were myriads of eclipses on the ground for the one that was passing in the sky. r>n the right Every man lauds his own pursuit. He who th« moral is dccp iu hclminthology, or the science of worms, will tell us that it is the most interesb- ing and useful of studies. But I can scarcely imagine that when putting in a word for a science of human nature, and for criticism as part of it, and when claiming for that science the place of honour, I am fairly open to the charge of jrielding to private partiality. At all events, in mitigation of such a charge, let it be remem- bered that man too has the credit of being a worm, and that he may be entitled to some of the regard of science, were it only as belonging to the subject of helminthology. We may give up any claims which the science of hiunan nature has to precedence over all the other knowledges, if we can get it recognised in popular opinion as a science at all, were it but as a science of worms. And for criticism, as a part of the science of human nature, it may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott was pleased to describe the critics as caterpillars, and that, therefore, they suinnwiy may have a special claim to be regarded in this mont. marvellously popular science of worms. Or if


The Despair of a Science. 71


this way of putting the case may seem to be chapter

wanting in seriousness, then in all seriousness, 1

let me insist that the despair of the moral sciences which now prevails, is founded on mis- take ; that the neglect of them gives a hollowness to our literature ; and that all criticism which . does not either achieve science, or definitely reach towards it, is mere mirage. As the apostle declared of himself, that though he could speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and had not charity, he was become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal ; so we may say of the critic, that though he have all faith, so that he can remove mountains, and have not science, he is nothing. There are men like lago, who think that they are nothing if not critical, but the critic is nothing if not scientific.

Of the following attempt I am not able toAimofUie think so bravely as to challenge for it the 5!^ honours of a science. Any one, indeed, who will read this volume through, will see that it is a fight for the first principles and grounds of the Not a

T X ^ J} J X science, but

science. I put my work lorward, not as aapieafor

. 1 . 1 /* 1 1 one, and a

science, but as a plea for one, and as a rude map mapof iu of what its leading lines should be. Even if it }?J^°^ should fail here, however, it may be at least as useful as the unlucky ship that grounded at the battle of Aboukir, and did for a waymark to them that followed. I have the greater confi- dence, however, in laying the present theory before the reader, inasmuch as gUmpses and


72 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER tokens of it are found in the pages of many of the best writers ; and I believe that it will thus stand the test given by Leibnitz to ascertain the soundness of any body of thought that it should gather into one united household, not by heaping and jumbling together, but by reconciling, proving to be kindred, and causing to embrace opinions the most widely sundered and appa- rently the most hostile.



THE CORNER STONE.




CHAPTER IV.


THB CORNER STONE.

|HOUGH foundation stonee are laidc: with silver trowels and gilded plum- mets, amid miuic and banner, feast- 01 ing and holiday, in the present chapter, which to has to do with the basis of the Gay Science, there wiU be found nothing of a gala. It embodies the dull hard labour of laying down truisms — heavy blocks which are not to he handled in sport, but which it is essential that we should in the outset fix in their places. If I seem to labour at trifles, I must ask for some indulgence ; because, although, when fairly stated, the main doctrine of this chapter will forthwith pass for a truism, in the meantime it is not acknowledged even as a truth. What is here maintained to be the only safe foundation of the science of criti- cism, however obvious it may appear to be, has never yet been fully accepted as such, and has never yet been built npon. There are some


76 Ths Gay Science.


CHAPTER truisms which it may be necessary to hammer

1 out. Euclid felt the necessity of demonstrating

Il^^HhLs point by point, that two sides of a triangle are d^Mtr»- gi'^^ter than the third, whereupon Zeno laughed

  • wn. and said that every donkey knows it without

proof. The donkey will not go round two sides of a field to get to his fodder if, peradventure, he can go in a straight line. The object of this chapter is to uphold the wisdom of the ass. There is a straight line for criticism to take^ and criticism never has taken it, but always goes round about


A Bcience of A scieucc of criticism, embracing poetry and i^piiei that the fine arts, is possible only on the supposition li^t, that .he»e .Jlx sta,d L co^.on'^und; STmu ^ ^^^ i^dXj however varied may be the methods employed in them, their inner meaning and pur- pose is the same. No critical canon has a wider and more undoubting acceptance than that which jissumes the sisterhood of the arts. We may ignore it in practice, or we may be at a loss to explain the precise meaning of it ; but the close relationship of the muses is one of the oldest traditions of literature, and one of the most Oil the «i- familiar lessons of our school-days. The family

mittttlrela- . i i i i

tionhhip of likeness of tlie arts is so marked, that language cannot choose but describe one in terms of another. Terence, iu one of his prologues (Phor- )iiid)j refers to the j)()cts as musicians. " Music,*' says Dryden, " is inarticulate })oetry." Thomas


The Comer Stone. 77

Fuller has at least twice in his works, once (on chapter

. IV

the Holt/ and Profane State) when speaking of — 1- artists generally, and again (in his Wbrthies)^ when writing of Dr. Christopher Tye, defined poetry as music in words, and music as poetry in sounds. Other writers dwell on the similarity of the poet and the Umner. Simonides, among the Greeks, is the author of the famous saying which comes down to us through Plutarch, that poetry is a speaking picture, and painting a mute poetry. Horace, among the Latins^ puts the same idea into three words — ut pictura poesis. Whether The aru so as expressed by the Greek or by the Latin poet, they have the sense of the connection between poetry and „ idl^f^ painting came to be so strong and over-mastering in modern criticism, that at length men like Darwin in England, and Marmontel in Prance, learned to see in the similarity of the two arts, the elements of a perfect definition of either; and Qotthold Lessing, the fiirst great 'critic of Ger- many, had to write a work in which, taking the representations of Laocoon in poetry and in sculpture for an example, he proved elaborately that after all there is a difierence between the arts, and that each has its proper limits. The underlying unity of the arts is one of the com- mon-places of criticism, which D'Alembert con- centrated in one drop of ink, when, in the pre&ce to the French Encyclopaedia, he com- prised under the name of poesy all the fine arts, adding, at the same time, that they might also


78 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER be included under the general name of painting.

L Goethe has strikingly conveyed a like thought

in one of his verses wliich has been translated by Carlyle —


As all nature's thousand chants But one chani^cless God proclaim, So in art*8 wide kin$|;dom ranges One sole meaning still the same.

Wherein What is this one meaninff, still the same, of

coDuttRthe . 1 -

anity of art. which wc licar SO much and know so little? What is the bond of unity which knits poetry and the fine arts together ? What is the com- mon ground upon which they rest ? What are we to understand by the sisterhood of the muses ? Whenever the philosopher has encountered these questions, as the first step to a science of criti-

Two cism, he has come forward with one of two

aoRwen to . ,

thiuquw- answers. All attempts to rear such a science ^ron uiun y ^^^ j^^s^^^j on thc suppositiou cithcr that poetry

and the fine arts have a common method, or that they have a common theme. Either with Aristotle it is supposed that they follow the one method of imitation ; or with men whose minds are more Platonic, though Plato is not one of them, it is supposed that they are the manifestar tions of one great idea, which is usually said to be the idea of the beautiful. . All the accredited systems of criticism therefore take their rise either in theories of imitation or theories of the And both beautiful. It is not difficult, however, to show that both of the suppositions on which these


The Comer Stone. 79

systems rest are delusive, and that neither is chapter

calculated to sustain the weight of a science. L

Before we can arrive at the true foundation of the science, it is necessary to clear the groimd from the silt and ruins of &lse systems which encumber it.

We begin with the Aristotelian system, which TheAnsto- has obtained the widest acceptance, and which is trine that the only one of great repute that now exists, ^mon though it exists only in name. Aristotle attempted JJ^^^,'.^. to build a science of criticism on the doctrine that **^<»°- poetry and the fine arts have a common method. Poetry is an imitation, said the philosopher. Not only are the drama, painting, and sculpture imitative, but so is a poetical narration ; so, too, is music, and so is the dance. Imitation is the grand achievement which gives to the arts their form and prescribes their law. It is the mani- fold ways and means of imitation that we are to study, if we are to elevate criticism into a science.

Although this theory is so narrow that the This the science established on it took the form very Sf ^d^t"* much of an inverted pyramid, it ruled the world ^^^**°- of letters till within a late period. It is the comer stone of ancient criticism : it is the comer stone of aU modem criticism that takes its in- spiration from the Renaissance. It was accepted in the last century with undoubting faith as an axiom, and the most astonishing conclusions were built upon it, as some divines draw the


80 The Gay Science.


oiAriKK inoHt dreadful inferences from dogmas to which

L they liave learned to attach a disproportionate

aimI jh.w value. Thus a troop of French critics worked iini*jiu.i. their way to the principle of la difficult e surmantee. The chief excellence of imitation was said to connist in it^ difticulty, and the more difficult it h(»came the greater was its merit. Hence the plcsiKure of verse, because it throws difficulties in the way of imitating speech. The English crilicH, not to be behindhand, started off on like va^firi(?s. One of them showed conclusively that since the pleasure of poetry is derived from imitation, the pleasure is double when one poet imitates another ; that if that other has borrowed from a third, then the pleasure becomes three- fold; and that if it be the imitation of a simile, which in itself includes a double imitation, then a^^^iin the pleasure is multiplied. Milton is, in this rcsj)oct, p:reater than Yirgil, says the sapient (Titic, for whereas the Roman poet imitated llomiT directly, the English one has the gloiy not only of imitating him directly, but also of imitjiting him at second or even at third hand, through Virgil and othera

I do not give these illustrations of the theory of imitation as proofs of its fallacy. It would fare ill with most doctrines if they were to be j'udged by the manner in which the imwary have applied them. The illustrations I have given are proofs only of the simphcity of &ith with which the theory of imitation came to be


The Comer Stone. 81


accepted in the last century as if it were one of the chapter prime truths of religion, or one of the axioms of — 1 reason, worthy of universal empire at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. It was a good thing of which the critics could not have How it

J \ •, • 1 1 • ^ • A • held its

too much ; it was wisdom on which it was im- groand, and possible to lay too great a stress. Gradually the ^ diJd?^ theory wore itself out, and has fallen out of ac- coimt. But it died hard, and held its ground so lustily, that, even in our own time, critics whom we should not reckon as belonging to the school of the Renaissance, but to the more original schools of Germany, have given their adhesion to it. Jean Paul Richter adopted it vaguely as the first principle of his introduction to ^Esthetic, while Coleridge says distinctly that imitation is the universal principle of the fine arte, and that it would be easy to apply it not merely to paint- ing, but even to music.

The theory is as false as any can be which Falsehood of pute the part for the whole, and a small part ""' "'^• for a very large whole. Music, for example, is not imitative. When Haydn stole the melody to which he set the eighth commandment, the force of musical imitation could no further go. If as shown the same composer, in his finest oratorio, attempts to reflect in sound the creation of light, and to indicate by cadence the movements of the flexible tiger ; if Handel in descanting on the plagues of Egypt gives us the buzz of insect life, and indi- cates by the depths of his notes the depths of

VOL. I. G


in music.


82 Till* (Injf Srknce.


cnAiTKK tlie sea in which the hosts of Pharaoh were

IV

— '- drowned ; or if Beethoven, in the most popular of his 8ynii)honies, tries to ^ve us the song of the cuckoo, the lowing of herds, and the roar of the storm, these imitations arc over and above the art, and are confessedly foreign to it. As music is not imitative, so neither is narration. Words represent or stand for, but cannot be said to hiniiti of imitate ideas. Plays, pictures, and statues — ^in "*" * one word, the dramatic arts, are imitative ; but to say tliat imitation is the universal {principle of the fine arts, is simply to reduce all art to the canon of tlie drama. scaiiper'i It IS impossible to get over the objection to the itunan-' tlicory of tlic Stagy ritc, urged centuries ago by Hwern o. ^j^^ elder Scaliger. If poetry, he said, be imita- tive in any sense which applies to every species of it^ then in the same sense also is ])rose imita- tive ; if the fine arts are imitative in any senae which applies to all alike, in the very same sense also are the useful ixris imitative.* In point of fact, Plato declared in so many words, by the


♦ I rcinfinU'r in my collc^jr (hiysliuntin;^thn>ii;:;hhalfaduZi'ii lil>niri('s fnr a iiiiHlia^viil lKM>k, till* titlo (»f wliicli — Ars Shnia


formation that t)iu book I wu hunting for could liave nothing to do with the tine arts, though it might havo much to do with


yiUurcu i!\c\U\\ my curioiiity. tiiu black. 1 mention this as one

1 ox{)ecUd to liud in it a middlr , more illustration of the fact that

aire anticiiKitio)) nf Scliellin/s if the fine arts aR' imitative^

rhilo»»|»iiy. My friend, Pn»- ' tlicy are not ]N>culiarly so. The

fesHijr Ikiynes, hml Un-n already . .simc thing has been said of the

iin this tnick, and with some useful arts : tlie sjunc also of the

laui^hter expliNled mi nie the in- black.


The Comer Stone. 83


mouth of the prophetess Diotima (in the Banquet), chaptek that the exercise of every inventive art is poetry, — - and that any inventor is a poet or maker ; from which it might appear that Bechamel and Farina, as the creators of sauces and perfumes, or Bramah and Amott, as the inventors of locks and smoke- less grates, take rank beside the bard who sang the wrath of Achilles, and the sculptor who chiselled that grandest statue of a woman, the Venus of Milo. Thus the foundation of critical science is laid in a definition which is not the peculiar property of art. Coleridge himself, coiendge's without foreseeing the consequences of his ad- ^navSing!' mission, and without drawing Scaliger's con- clusion, went much further than ScaJiger in the view which he took of the nature of imitation as applied to the fine arts. He declared that the principle of imitation lies at the root not merely of the fine arts, but also of thought itself. The power of comparison is essential to consciousness — the very condition of its exist- ence ; we know nothing except through the perception of contrariety and identity; we cannot think without comparing; and so the imitations of art, he said, are but the sublime developments of an act which is essential to the dimmest dawn of mind. It would be a pity to ruffle the feathers of this wonderful sug- gestion, which took Coleridge's fancy because it looked big ; but it may be enough to point out that it yields with a charming simplicity all we

o2


84 Tlie Gay Science.


CHAPTER need contend for. It allows that in the sense in

L which imitation may be described as the universal

law of art, it may also be described as the uni- versal law of thought itself, and therefore of science, which is, in Coleridge's own language, the opposite of art. In a word, it is not peculiar to art, and is incapable of supplying the defini- tion of it. ('Crtainly it has never yet, in the scienceof criticifim,yie]dcd a result of the slightest value. For in truth, although imitation bulks so large in Aristotle's definition of poetry, it sinks into insignificance, and even passes out of sight, in the body of his work. He makes nothing of it ; his followers less than nothing. Notvrith- Btanding Richter's, notwithstanding Coleridge's adliesion to it, the theory of imitation is now utterly exploded.

The Aristotelian theory ruled absolute in literature for two millenniums. No other theory was put forward to take its place, as TheoUicr thc fouiidatiou of critical science, till within wStii.H. the last hundred years or so. It satisfied the AriHto-'*'^ critics of the Renaissance — ^that is, the old (eiian. order of critics who based their thinking on the settled ideas and methods of classical literature, and revelled in systems that were little beyond grammar. There came a time, how- ever, when the need of a deeper criticism began to be felt. The old criticism that through the Renaissance traced a descent from Aristotle, dealt chiefly with the forms of art. A new criticism


IJi 11. f ll_l HJJ


The Comer Stone. 85


was demanded that should search into its sub- chapter

stance. It arose in Germany. Not satisfied with L

the old grammatical doctrine that the arts have q^^^j, a common form or method, the philosophical critics of Germany tried to make out that they That art have a common theme — a common substance, ^/tS^me. and chiefly that this theme, this essence, is the idea of the beautiful. It is always an idea. They are not agreed as to what the idea is ; but they are nearly all agreed that it is the manifestation of some one idea. I repeat from Goethe :

As all nature's thousand changes But one changeless God proclaim. So in art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same.

Much of what might be said on this subject Kemai ks ou must be reserved for the next chapter, in that part tion ^Trt! of it which has to do with the German school of critics and their chief contribution to criticism. In the meantimfe it may be enough to point out that whereas innumerable attempts have been made to analyze the grand idea of art which is generally supposed to be the idea of the beautiful, and out of this analysis to trace the laws and the development of arty it cannot be said that in following such a Kne. of research any real progress has been made. , We cannot point to a single work of authority on the subject. In countless works that represent the thought t***^ ^ »

  • " ^ the mani-

of the last hundred years, we shall find refer- festauon ences to the one grand idea of art,.the beautiful ; beautiful.


86 The Gay Science.


v'HAiTKR but when we come to inquire what is the nature of

L the beautiful, we can get no satisfactory answer,

and can hear only a clatter of tongues. It is for this very reason that the theory of the beautiful, as the common theme of art, subsists. If it were less vague, it would be more oppoeed. With all its vagueness, however, two facts may be discovered which are fatal to it as a founda-

Two faitH tion for the science of criticism. The first is the more fatal, namely, that it does not cover the whole ground of art. The worship and manifes- tation of the beautiful is not, for example, the province of comedy, and comedy is as much a part of art as tragedy. The beautiful, most distinctly, is one of the ideas on which art loves to dwell ; but it is not an idea which inspires every work of art. Moreover, on the other hand (the second fact I have referred to), is it to be supposed that to display beauty is to produce II work of art ? La belle chme qile la philosophie 1 sjivs M. Jourdain, not untruly ; but are fine systems of philoso})hy to be reckoned among the fine arts? Horace, long ago, in a verse wliich lias become proverbial, expressed the truth about the position of beauty in art. Non satis est pulchra esse poemata^ he said : dvlcia sunto. It is not enough that a work of art be beautiful ; it must have more powerful charms. TiiataiiiM Convinced that the idea of the beautiful is

tlje muni' ,. _ iir»iin ••

festation cf inadequate to cover the whole field of art, critics have suggested other ideas as more ample in


^


The Comer Stone. 87


their scope. It is said, for example, by some, chaptkr

that art is the reflex of b'fe — of life, not in its L

fleeting forms, but in its hidden soul ; of facts, therefore, which are eternal symbols, and of truths which are fixed as the stars. It will be found, however, that if we thus take the idea of the true as the theme of art, and attempt to build upon it a science of criticism, it is open to pre- Op«° *<> ciselj the same objections as there are to the idea objection. of the beautiful when placed in a similar light. Music is an art, but in what sense are we to say that its theme is eternal truth, or that Mendels- sohn's concerto in D minor is a reflex of the ab- solute idea ? In what sense are the arabesques of the Alhambra eternal truths or reflections of the eternal essence ? The idea of the true is not the theme of all art, and it is not peculiar to works of art to take the true for a theme. Still the same objections apply to yet another defini- tion of the artistic theme. " Art," says Sir aiso that EJdward Lytton finely, " is the effort of man to manT- express the ideas which nature suggests to him ^wei^° ^ of a power above nature, whether that power be within the recesses of his own being, or in the Great First Cause, of which nature, like himself, is but the effect." This is a happy generalisa- tion which goes a great way ; but it is surely not enough to say that it is the object of art to exhibit ideas of power. Ideas of power, ideas of truth, ideas of beauty — it will not do to bind art as a whole, or poetry as a part of it, to the


88


The Gay Science.


ciiAiTER service of any one of these groups. Thei:e is no

1 one word relating to things known that in its

wide embrace can take in the theme of all art,

and if it could comprise the theme of all art^ it

Th.! Mii.jtNi would not be the property of art alone. The

tiiaroli* "^ subject of art is all that can interest man ; but

Ii'mir*' all that can interest man is not the monopoly

of art.


Wherein

tllt'D (loiQi

the unity <>( the arts u»^iile?


I heir

«'iiiinnoii

ptii'{MMe.


Tiiis coin- indii pur* |Misc an admittod fact.


If the unity of the arts does not lie in the possession either of a common method which they pursue, or of a common theme which they set forth, wherein does it consist ? Manifestly the character of an art is determined by its object ; and though the critics have made no use of the fact, yet it is a fact which they admit with very few exceptions, that poetry and the fine arts are endowed with a common purpose. Even if poetry and the arts could boast of a common method and a common theme, still every question of method and the choice of tlieme must be subordinate to the end in view. The end determines the means, and must there- fore be the principal point of inquiry. If, then, we inquire what is the end of poetry and the poeticiil arts, we shall find among critics of all countries and all ages a singular unanimity of opinion — a unanimity which is all the more remarkable, when we discover that, admitting tlie fact with scarcely a dissentient voice, they have never turned it to account — they have


^


The Comer Stone. 89


practically ignored it. It is admitted that the im- chapter mediate end of art is to give pleasure. Whatever ill we do has happiness for its last end ; but with art it is the first as well as the last. We need not now halt to investigate the nature of this hap- piness which poetry aims at, whether it is refined or the reverse, whether it is of a particular kind or of all kinds ; it is enough to insist on the broad fact that for more than two thousand years pleasure of some sort has been almost ui^ver- sally admitted to be the goal of art. The dreamer and the thinker, the singer and the sayer, at war on many another point, are here at one. It is the pleasure of a lie, says Plato ; it is that of a truth, says Aristotle ; but neither has any doubt that whatever other aims art may have in view, pleasure is the main — the imme- diate object.

Here, however, care must be taken that the some expia- reader is not misled by a word. Word andJhwTo^ thing, pleasure is in very bad odour ; moralists ^^ufe. always take care to hold it cheap ; critics are ashamed of it ; and we are all apt to misunder- stand it, resting too easily on the surface view of it as mere amusement. There is in pleasure so little of conscious thought, and in pain so much, that it is natural for all who pride them- selves on the possession of thought to make light of pleasure. It is possible, however, in magnifying the worth of conscious thought, to underrate the worth of unconscious life. Now


90 The Gay Science.


cHAiTER art is a force that operates unconsciously on

L life. It is not a doctrine; it is not science.

There is knowledge in it, but it readies to

something beyond knowledge. That something

beyond science, beyond knowledge, to whidi

art reaches, it is diCBcult to express in one word.

Tlie nearest word is that which the world for

thirty centuries past has been using, and which

sky-high thinkers now-a-days are afraid to

touch — namely, pleasure. There is no doubt

about its inadequacy, but where is there another

word that expresses half as much ? If art be

i)rawii the opposite of science, the end of art must

antithft^ia \\Q autitlictical to the end of science. But the

artaiMi cnd of scicncc is knowledge. What then is

its antithesis — the end of art? Shall we say


ignorance ? We cannot say that it is ignorance, because tliat is a pure negation. But there is no objection to our saying — life ignorant of itself, unconscious life, pleasure. I do not give this explanation as sufficient — it is very insufficient — but as indicating a point of view from which it will be seen that the establisliment of pleasure as the end of art may involve larger issues, and convey a larger meaning than is commonly sup- see Chapter poscd. What that larger meaning is may in due course lie shown. In the ninth chapter of this work I attempt to state it, and stating it to give a remodelled definition of art. In the mean- time, one fiiils to see how, bv anv of the new- fangled expressions of German philosophy, we



The Comer Stone. 91

can improve upon the plain-spoken wisdom of chapter

the ancient maxims — that science is for know- L

ledge, and that art is for pleasure.

But if this be granted, and it is all but univer- sally granted, it entails the inevitable inference that criticism is the science of the laws andTheneoes- conditions under which pleasure is produced. ^ JlJt" If poetry, if art, exists in and for pleasure, then o" to. upon this rock, and upon this alone, is it pos- sible to build a science of criticism. Criticism, however, is built anywhere but upon the rock. While the arts have almost invariably been regarded as arts of pleasure, criticism has never yet been treated as the science of pleasure, like the Israelites in the desert, who after con- But how fessing the true faith went forthwith and fell ^teTil^^ed down to a molten image, the critics no sooner ^j^^^® ^"^^ admitted that the end of art is pleasure, than inference. they began to treat it as nought. Instead of taking a straight line, like the venerable ass which was praised by the Eleatic philosopher, they went off zigzag, to right, to left, in every One and aii. imaginable direction but that which lay before them. Art is for pleasure said the Greeks ; but Greeks, it is the pleasure of imitation, and therefore all that criticism has to do is to study the ways of imitation. So they bounced off to the left. Art is for pleasure said the Germans ; but it is And Ger- the pleasure of the beautiful, and therefore all that criticism has to do is to comprehend the beautiful. So they bounced off to the right. In


roans.


92 The Gay Science.

ciiAiTER the name of common sense, let me ask, why are

1 we not to take the straight line ? Why is it

that, having set up pleasure as the first principle of art, we are inmiediately to knock it down and go in search of other and lesser principles? Why does not the critic take the one plain path before him, proceeding instantly to inquire into the nature of pleasure, its laws, its conditions, its requirements, its causes, its effects, its whole history ? Why they This tumiug aside of criticism from the »id«from straight road that lay before it into by-paths roJ?™^ t j^^ 1^^^ owing partly to the moral con- tempt of pleasure, but chiefly to the intellec- tual difficulty of any inquest into the nature of enjoyment, a difficulty so great, that since the time of Plato and Aristotle it has never been seriously faced until in our own day Sir William Hamilton undertook to grapple with it. Whenever I have insisted with my friends on this point, as to the necessity of recog- nising criticism as the science of pleasure, the invariable rejoinder has been that there is no use in attempting such a science, because the nature of pleasure eludes our scrutiny, and there is no accounting for tastes. But the rejoinder is irre- levant. All science is difficult at first, and well- nigh hopeless ; and if tastes differ, that is no reason why we should refuse to regard them as beyond the pale of law, but a very strong reason why we should seek to ascertain the limits of


r\


The Comer Stone. 93

difiFerence, and how far pleasure which is general chapter

may be discounted by individual caprice. It is L

not for us to parley about the diCBculties of search, or the usefulness of its results. Chemistry was at one time a diCBcult study, and seemed to be a useless one. Hard or easy, useful or use- less — ^that is not the question. The question is simply this : If there is such a thing as criticism at all, what is its object ? what is its definition ?• and how do you escape from the truism that if art be the minister, criticism must be the science of pleasure ?

Whatever be the cause of the reluctance to The fact


remains


accept this truism, the fact remains that the that the doctrine of pleasure has not hitherto been putJi^Lt^u in ite right place as the comer stone of scientific IJ^V^S criticism, entitling it to be named the science of p'*^.'°

' o cnticism.

pleasure, the Joy Science, the Gay Science ; and I set apart the next chapter to explain and to en- force a principle which is of the last importance, and which, but for the backwardness of criticism, would now pass for an axiom, the most obvious of old saws. If art be the minister, criticism must be the science of pleasure, is so obvious a truth, that since in the history of literature and art the inference has never been drawn (except once in a faint way, to be mentioned by and by), a doubt may arise in some minds as to the extent to which the production of pleasure has been admitted in criticism as the first principle of art. It is worth while, therefore, to begin this dis-pi^^to


94


The Gay Science.


CHAPTER cuflsion by setting the authorities in array, and showing what in every school of criticism is


the proof of what that plaoe fthould be.


regarded as the relation of art to pleasure. I proceed, accordingly, to take a rapid survey of the chief schools of criticism that have ruled in the repuUic of letters, with express reference to their opinion of pleasure and the end of art.



THE AGREEMENT OF THE CRITICS.


A


CHAPTER V.


THE AOREEMENT OP THE CRITICS.


PROPOSE in this chapter to show ci that the end of art has in all the great schools of criticism been regarded as ^ the same. Speaking ronndly, there are but two "f great systems of criticism. The one may be styled indifferently the classical system, or the eyet&m of the Benaissance. It belongs to ancient thought, and to the modem revival of classicism ; and it chiefly concerns itself with the gram- matical forms of art. The other is more dis- tinctly modem ; it first made way in Germany, ti and, philosophical in tone, chiefly concerns itself with the substantial ideas of art. But these divided systems may be subdivided, and perhaps the plainest method of arranging the critical opinions of paist ages is to take them by countries. It will be convenient to glance in succession at the critical schools of Greece,ltaly, Spain, France, Germany, and England. And from this survey,


98


The Gay Science.


riiAPTEK it will be seen that if criticism has never yet been —1 recognised as the science of pleasure, poetry and art have always been accepted as arts of pleasure. In our old Anglo-Saxon poetry, the harp is de- scribed as " the wood of pleasure," and that is the universal conception of art. There may in the different schools be differences in the manner of describing the end of art ; but there is none as to the essence of the thing described.


All the f-chools teach one iloctrine as to the end of art.


The Creek Kchnol of criticism.


As n»pr«*- senteil bv I'lato, Riiil Aristotle .iccT'pted the one doctiine.


I. Homer, Plato, and Aristotle are the leaders of Greek thought, and their word may be taken for what constitutes the Greek idea of the end of poetry. The uppermost thought in Homer's mind, when he speaks of Phemius and Demo- docus, is that their duty is to delight, to charm, to soothe. When the strain of the bard makes Ulysses weep, it is hushed, because its object is defeak'd, and it is desired that all should rejoice togotlier. Wherever the minstrel is referred to, his chief business is described in the Greek verb to delight. What the great poet of Greece thus indicated, the great philosophers expressed in logical fonn. That pleasure is the end of poetry, is the pervading idea of Aristotle's treatise on the subject. To Plato's view I have already more than once referred. He excluded the poets from his republic for tin's, as a cliief reason, that poetry has pleasure for its leading aim. In another of his works he defines the pleasure, which poetry aims at, to be that which a man of virtue


The Agreement of the Critics. 99


iure.


may feel ; and he may therefore seem to be in- chapter consistent in his excluding the artist, who would — ^ create such enjoyment, from his model fold. Plato piato's is not always consistent, and from his manner oi^^^ dialogue it is often diflficult to find out whether p^®^* any given opinion is really his own or is only put forward to make play ; but in this case the inconsistency may be explained by reference to another dialogue {Philehus), in which he has an argument to show that the gods feel neither pleasure nor pain, and that both are unseemly. The argument is, that because pleasure is a be- coming — that is, a state not of being, but of going to be — it is unbecoming. He starts with the Cyrenaic definition of pleasure as a state not of being, but of change, and he argues that the gods are unchangeable, therefore not capable of pleasure. Pleasure which is a becoming, is imbecoming to their nature; and man seeking pleasure seeks that which is unseemly and un- godlike. Think of this argument what we will, the very fact of its being urged against poetry in this way, brings into a very strong light the conviction of Plato as to the meaning of classical art. And what was Plato's, what was Aristotle's view of the object of art, we find consistently maintained in Greek literature while it pre- served any vitality. We find it in Dionysius of Halicamassus ; still later we find it in Plutarch.

Although every school of criticism has main- tained substantially the same doctrine, each has

H 2


100 Th^ G*vj S^rienK.


CHAPTEP. it* own way of Ix^king: at it, and it is interesting

L TO not^- how from tim^- to time the expression of

j'V."*'.' the d'iOtnne varies. In the Greek mind the ';':^* -* que-tion that most frequently arouse in connection


erir^^m. ^-it}| x\ii: jileasiire of art was this. Is it a tme or a faJ.-H:: |.lea.sTiri^ ? It is the q^le^^tion which every child a.sk.s when first the productions of art — a tale or a picture — Ci:»me under his notice. But is it tnie ? And so of the childlike man ; the first movement of criticism within him concerns the reality of the source whence his pleasure is 1. 1!.* derived. The Greeks especially raised this in^'iIT? question as to the truth of art. Is the pleasure which it affords, the pleasure of a truth or that of a lie ? The question naturally arose from their critical jx)int of view, which led them to look for tlie definition of art in its form. They defined art as an imitation, which is hut a nar- rower name for fiction. It will he found, indeed, tliroughout the history of criticism, that so long as it started from the Greek point of view, followed tlu? Greek metliod, and accepted the Greek definition of art, that this question as to the truth of fiction was a constant trouble. And when th(? Greek raised liis doubt as to the truth of art, let it be rememl)ered that he had in his mind something very different from what we should now be thinking of were we to question the truthfulness of this or that particular work of art. A work of art may be perfectly true in our sense of the word, that is to say, drawn to



The Affreement of the Critics. 101


the life, but it cannot escape from the Greek chapter charge that it is fiction. L


The first suggestion of the Greek doubt, as to Treatment the reahty of the foundation of pleasure in art, question. emerges in the shape of a story told about Solon, story of which does not consort well with dates, but which ^^^°' as a story that sprung up among the Greeks, has its meaning. It is said that when Thespis came to Athens with his strolling stage, and drew great crowds to his plays, Solon, then an old man, asked him if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies before the people, and striking his staff on the groimd, growled out that if lies are allowed to enter into a nation's pleasures, they will, ere long, enter into its business. Plutarch, who relates this anecdote, gives us in another of his works the saying of the sophist Gorgias iuThesajing defence of what seemed to be the deceitfulness ^ **'^*"' of the pleasure which art aims at. Gorgias said that tragedy is a cheat, in which he who does the cheat is more honest than he who does it not, and he who accepts the cheat is wiser than he who refuses it. Many of the Greeks accepted the cheat so simply that, for example, they accused Euripides of impiety for putting impiety into the mouth of one of his dramatic personages. And not a few of their painters undertook to How the cheat with the utmost frankness. Apelles had to deceive. the glory of painting a horse so that another horse neighed to the picture. Zeuxis suffered a grievous disappointment when, having painted


102 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER a boy carrying grapes, the birds came to peck at —1 the fruit but were not alarmed at the apparition of the boy. There are other stories of the same kind, as that of the painted curtain, and yet again that of the sculptor Pygmalion, who became enamoured of the feminine statue chiselled by himself. So far there Let it bo observcd that in the working of the ^'uiiarin Grcck miud so far there is no marked pecu- of tiwGi4"k liarity. In all yoimg art there is the tendency ""°'*' to realism ; in nearly all young criticism there \b a difficulty of deciding between the truth of imitation and the truth of reality. When Bruce, the African traveller, gave the picture of a fish to one of the Mooi-s, the latter saw in it not a painting but a reality, and, after a moment of surprise, asked : " If this fish at the last day should rise against you and say: Thou hast given me a body, but not a living soul, — wliat should you reply ?" In keeping with tliis tone of mind, the Saracens who built the Alliambra, and in it the foimtain of the lions, deemed it advisable to inscribe on the basin of the fountain : " Oh thou who beholdest these lions, fear not. Life is wanting to enable them to show their fury." In Italian art, not only in its earlier stages, but even in its period of perfect development, we find the same pheno- menon. I might quote whole pages from Vasari to show how an artist and a critic of the Cinque Cento thought of art. He says tliat one of


The Agreement of the Critics. 103

Raphael's Madonnas seems in the head, thecHAPTEp. hands, and the feet to be of living flesh rather — 1 than a thing of colour. He says that the instru- ments, in a picture of St. Cecilia, lie scattered around her, and do not seem to be painted, but to be the real objects. He says of Raphael's pictures generally that they are scarcely to be called pictures, but rather the reality, for the flesh trembles, the breathing is visible, the pulses beat, and life is in its utmost force through all his works.

In Italian art also it may be .well to note a How the tendency to confound fact and fiction, which gtJnrfiolv^ may explain something of the same tendency J.^^p^'^/ij. as it showed itself among the Greeks. Let '**^'*^ *^-* me ask — What is the meaning of the two Domi- nicans who are introduced kneeling in the pic- ture of the Transfiguration ? Many another picture might be mentioned in which a similar treatment is adopted, and especially by the painters before Raphael, as Dominic Ghirlan- dajo, and men of that stamp. But everybody knows the crowning work of Raphael, and that, therefore, may serve best for an illustration. What are we to make of the two Dominicans? If, instead of the two bald-pated, black-robed monks, the artist had placed on the Mount of Transfiguration a couple of wild bulls feeding or fighting, they would puzzle one less than his two monks.. Why is their monastic garb in- truded among the majestic foldings of celestial


104 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER draperies ? The Saviour went up to the mount _ with Peter, James, and John, alone ; he was trans- figured before them; he appeared in company with Moses and Elias ; he charged the disciples that they should tell it unto none till the Soir of Man were risen from the dead. And yet Raphael introduces on the scene two modem monks to share the vision ! Not only is the Gospel narrative thus violated; there is a still stranger anomaly. The three disciples are lying down, blinded with the light and bewildered in their minds. The Dominicans are kneeling up- right and looking on. Raphael has deliberately introduced into his picture — the spectator. He has torn aside the veil which separates art from nature — the ideal from the real ; and we, even Ave, the living men and the real world, are absorbed into the picture and become part of it, so tliat if that be indeed a picture and a dream, then are we also pictures and dreams; and if we are indeed certainties and realities, then also is that wondrous scene a certainty and a reality. The old Geronimite in the Escurial said to Wilkie, as he stood in the Refectory gazing on Titian's picture of the Last Supper : wiikie'i "I have sat daily in sight of that picture G^roJmite! for uow nearly threescore years ; during tliat time my companions have dropped oflF, one after another. More than one generation has passed away, and there the figures in the picture have remained unchanged. 1 look at


r\


The Agreement of the Critics. 105


them till I sometimes think that they are the chapter realities, and we but the shadows." And that is — ^ the mood of mind which the introduction into a picture of the modern spectator in modem cos- tume is calculated to awaken. The Italians, when, on the canvas of Ghirlandajo, they looked on the well-known figures of Ginevra di Benci and her maidens, as attendants in an interview between Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary, found themselves projected into the picture and made a part of it.

Now, this method of confounding fact and fie- Further

.. . ijij/»i» A»x illustration

tion, in order that notion may appear to nse to oftheiove the assurance of fact, was not peculiarly Italian, qU^^^I^ but existed in full force among the Greeks. It ^f^f^"°' was an essential feature of their drama. The most marked characteristic of the Greek drama is the presence of the chorus. The chorus are always present, — watching events, talking to the actors, talking to the audience, talking to themselves, — all through the play, indeed, pour- ing forth a continual stream of musical chatter. And what are the chorus ? The only intelligible explanation which has been given is that they represent the spectator. The spectator is introduced into the play a^d made to take part in it. What the Greeks thus did artistically on their stage, we moderns have also sometimes done inartistically and unintentionally, but still to the same effect. We have had the audience seated on the stage, and sometimes, in the most


106 The Gay Science.


en A ITER ludicrous manner, taking part in the perform-

L ance. When Garrick was playing Lear in

Dublin to the Cordelia of Mrs. Woffington, an Irish gentleman who was present actually ad- vanced, put his arm round the lady's waist, and thus held her while she replied to the reproaches of the old king. The stage in the last century was sometimes so beset with the audience, that Juliet has been seen, says Tate Wilkinson, lying all solitary in the tomb of the Capulets with a couple of hundred of the audience about her. We should now contemplate such a practice with horror, as utterly destructive of stage illusion; and yet we must remember that it had its illusive aspect also, by confounding the dream that appeared on the stage with the familiar reaUties of life.

From all this, however, it follows that if the Greeks made a confusion between fact and fiction, art and nature, they were not peculiar What is in so doing. What is peculiar to them is this, thVcrieks. that they gave a critical character to their doubt as to the limits of truth in art. It was fairly rea- soned. If it showed itself sometimes as a childish superstition, sometimes as the mere blindness of a prosaic temper, and^sometimes as an enjoyment of silly illusions, it also at times bore a higher character and rose to the level of criticism. The Greeks were the first to raise this subject of the truth of art into an important critical question which they transmitted to after times.



The Agreement of the Critics. 107

This is not the place to enter into a dis- chapter cussion whether they were right or wrong, — 1 and whether fiction be or be not falsehood, manner of That discussion will be more fitly handled when "riSiy we come to examine the ethics of art. Here *^* "^^^^^

as to the

we need only record and confront the fact that truth of the objection to the pleasure of art which most '"^^ frequently puzzled the Greek* thinkers, was that it appeared to be mixed up with lies. Plato, as I have already said, exhausted his dialectical skill in showing the untruthfulness of art. He con- demned it as an imitation at third hand. He meant, for example, that a flower in the field is but the shadow of an idea in the mind of God ; that the idea in God's mind is the real thing; that the blossom in the meadow is but a poor image of it ; and that when a painter gives us a copy of that copy, the picture stands third from the divine original, and is, therefore, a wretched falsehood. Plato's statement as to the truth of art is thus grounded on his theory of ideas, and when that theory goes, one would imagine that the statement should go also. It is a curious The doubt proof of the vitality of strong assertion, that his a^r^m opinion (but it would be more correct to say the \ opinion to which he gave currency) abides with all the force which his name can give to it, while the theory of ideas from which it sprung and derived plausibility, has long since gone to the limbo. It is incredible that mankind should find enduring pleasure in a lie. There cannot


the reasou- ing on which it rests.


108 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER be a more monstrous libel against the human

L race than to say that in the artistic search for

pleasure, we have reality and all that is most gracious in it to choose from ; that we look from earth to heaven and try all ways which the in- finite beneficence of nature has provided; that nevertheless we set our joy on a system of lies ; and that so far the masterpieces of art are but tokens of a fallen nature, the signs of sickness and the harbinger of doom. Ari»totie« As Plato took ouc sido of the question, oi^^ Aristotle took the other, and in the writings rjJtri^e. ^f *^^ latter we have the final conclusion and the abiding belief of the Greek mind upon this subject of the truth of art. The view which he took was concentrated in the saying that poetry To be found is moTC philosophical than history, because it chapter of * looks morc to general and less to particular his Poitics. facts. AVe should now express the same thing in the statement that whereas history is fact, poetry is truth. Aristotle does not set him- self formally to answer Plato, but throughout his writings we find him solving Plato's riddles, imdoing Plato's arguments, and rebutting Plato's objections. Many of his most famous say- ings are got by recoil from Plato. Thus his masterly definition of tragedy, which has never been improved upon, and which generation after generation of critics have been content to repeat like a text of Scripture, is a rebound from Plato. And the same is to be said very nearly of Aris-


The Agreement of the Critics. 109

totle's doctrine concerning the truth of art. It chapter is 80 clear and so complete that it has become a _- common-place of criticism. It asserted for the Greeks, in the distinctest terms, the truthfulness of art ; it showed wherein that truthfulness con- sists; and, as far as criticism was concerned, it at once and for ever disposed of the notion that art is a Ke. Greeks like Gorgias could see vaguely that if art be a cheat, it may, neverthe- less, be justifiable, as we should iustify a feint or oTer stx^tegem in war. It was reserved for Aristotle to put the defence of art on the right ground — to deny that it is a cheat at all — and to claim for it a truthfulness deeper than that of history.

This, then, is one of the earliest lessons which The lesson the student of art has to learn. The first lesson criticism. of all is that art is for pleasure ; the second is that the pleasure of art stands in no sort of opposition to truth. We in England have especial reason to bear this in mind, for we are most familiar with the doctrine that art is for pleasure, as it has been put by Coleridge ; and it How it has is not unlikely that some of the repugnance verteTby which the doctrine meets in minds of a certain ^"'"««. order may be due to his ragged analysis and awkward statement. He rather prided himself on his anatomy of thought and expression, but he hardly ever made a clean dissection. Mark what he says in this case. He says that the true opposite of poetry is not prose, but science.


110 The Gay Science.


CHAPTEK and that wliereas it is the proper and immediate

L object of science to discover truth, it is the

proper and immediate object of poetry to com- municate pleasure. This is not right. Coleridge has defined science by reference to the external object with which it is engaged; but he has defined poetry by reference to the mental state which it produces. There is no comparison between the two. If he is to run the contrast fairly, he ought to deal with both alike, and to state cither what is the outward object pursued by each, or what is tlie inward state produced by each. He would then find that, so far as the subject-matter is concerned, there is no essential difference between poetry and science, it being false to say that the one possesses more of truth than the other ; and he would define the difference between the two by the mental states which they severally produce — the immediate object of science being science or knowledge,

The true whilc that of poctry is pleasure. To say that tlic object of art is pleasure in contrast to know- ledge, is quite different from saying that it is pleasure in contrast to tiiith. Science gives us truth without reference to pleasure, but immediately and chiefly for the sake of know- ledge ; poetry gives us truth without reference to knowledge, but immediately and mainly for tlic sake of pleasure. By thus getting rid of the contrast between truth and pleasure, which Coleridge has unguardedly allowed, a difficulty


The Agreement of the Critics. Ill

is smoothed away from the doctrine that the end chapter

of art is pleasure, and that of criticism the analysis L

of pleasure. His statement has an air of extra- ordinary precision about it that might wile the imwary into a ditch. All his precision goes to misrepresent the pure Greek doctrine.

II. From Greece we pass over into Italy, as The Italian the stepping-stone to modern Europe; and itaiudsm. matters not whether we speak of old pagan Italy, whose critical faith was most brightly expressed in the crisp verses of Horace ; or of christianised Italy, which at the revival of letters stood forward as the earliest school both of art and of criticism in modern Europe. Everybody wiU remember how Horace describes a poem as fashioned for pleasure, and failing thereof, as a thing of nought, that belies itself, like music that jars on the ear, like a scent that is noisome, like Sardinian honey bitter with the taste of poppy. Among the great critics of the moderns, Caesar Scaliger stands as repre- first in point of time, and he takes the same&^ugerf view as the old Greek philosophers. After ^^^J^*^ denying the Aristotehan doctrine of imitation as ****^®"- the one method of art, he says that poetry is a delightful discipline by which the heart is edu- cated through right reason to happiness — happi- ness being with him another name for perfect action. Next to Scaliger stands another Italian critic, Castelvetro, who wrote a commentary on


112 Tlie Gay Science.


CHAPTER Aristotle's Poetics^ in which he fearlessly opposed

L the master, when he thought it right to do so.

He, too, saw in enjoyment the end of poetry, and maintained the doctrine so uncompromisingly, that some of the French critics long afterwards took him to task for it. But Scaliger and Cast^lvetro were a sort of antiquarians, and might be said to lean too much towards ancient literature. Tasso was more distinctly a modem, and has left us, with his poems, a number of critical discourses. In these he states unflinch- ingly that delight is the immediate end of poetry, and the whole of the Italian school of criticism goes with him. The doctrine is firmly stated in Yida's famous poem, whiit is It is less interesting, however, to know that

thrii'^ew the Italians, as well as the old Romans, main-

      • ^*'"^ tained the universal doctrine concerning art

than to ascertain with what limitations they maintained it. Here we come tp another great lesson. If the first of all lessons in art is that art is for pleasure, and the second is that this pleasure has nothing to do with falsehood, the third is that art is not to be considered as in any sense opposed to utility. The ancient Romans and the modem Italians were never much troubled with what vexed the too speculative Greeks — the seeming untruthfulness of art pleasure ; their more prac- tical genius brooded over its seeming careless- ness of profit. Scaliger describes the Italians of


The Agreement of the Critics. 113

his day as bent on gain ; and in most of their chapter statements of the end of art they take heed to —1. link together the two ideas of pleasure and pro- fit; pleasure taking the precedence, no doubt; but pleasure always with profit. In the Latin language, indeed, the verb to please or delight signifies at the same time to help or be of use, and the two ideas became inseparable in all criticism traced back to Rome. See how stur- dily Horace insists upon the twin thoughts :

Aut prodease volant, aut delectare poetas, Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitas.

And again^ how in one of his neatest and best- known phrases, he steadily keeps in view the need of mingling wisdom with pleasure :

Omne tulit pimctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo.

Scaliger among the modems faithfully reflects That the this Boman view, and never refers to therrtmlwt^be pleasure for which and in which art lives, p'^^*'*^^*' without limiting the idea of pleasure by asso- ciating it with moral discipline and gain. Castelvetro leant more to the Greek view, and put all thought of profit as connected with art How tmsu

• T ••• m 1 puzzled

m a secondary position, lasso, however, per-orerthe fectly caught the spirit of the Latin doctrine ; tSrthy^of and as he puzzled over the Horatian line in^JJ^*^^^ which poets are said to set their hearts either on doing good, or on giving pleasure, he asked him- self whether it is possible that art should have two ends, the one of pleasure, and the other of

VOL. I. I


1 14 TTie Gay Science.


cnATTER profit? lie came to the conclusion that art __L can have only one end in view — pleasure ; but that this pleasure must be profitable. The strain of criticism thus originated flows through all modern literature that owns to Italian influr ence. In one fonn or another, we come upon it in Spanish, in French, in German writers; and we find it very rife in England during those Elizabethan days when our literature was most open to Italian teaching. Philip Sidney, for example, says that the end of poesy is to teach and dcliglit ; while in another passage he adds that to delight " is all the goodfellow poet seems to promise." How the In these Horatian, in these Italian maxims, trinn« to tlic true wheat has to be threshed from a great rto^"**" ^^^^ ^>f straw, and winnowed from a good deal of chaff. Deep at the root of them lies the conviction which takes possession of every thoughtful mind, tliat nothing in this world exists for itself, can in the long run be an end to itself, can have an ultimate end in its Wherein it owu good plcasurc. In pursuing this line of thought, however, a man soon finds that he is apt to argue in a circle — such a circle as one of our subtlest poets suggests in saying —


goc« too far.


j-y.ij,^^ Ni)t well he deems who deems the rose

liobeli. I« for the rosetery, nor knows

The roseberry is for the rose.

So, therefore, when we hear men like Victor Hugo cryiug aloud in our day that the end of


The Agreement of the Critics. 115


art is not art, but the cause of humanity, we can chapter

only answer that there may be a sense in which L

this is correct enough, as there is also a sense in which science may be said to exist not for itself, but for human advancement; still that we are now talking of immediate ends, and that as the end of science is science, even if we are wholly ignorant of the practical use to which it may hereafter be turned, so the end of art is its own good pleasure, even if we fail to see the direct profit which this pleasure may jbring. And thus the laureate sings —

So, lady Flora, take my lay,

And if you find no moral there. Go, look in any glass and say,

What moral is in being fair? Oh, to what uses shall we put

The wild weed flower that simply blows ? And is there any moral shut

Within the bosom of the rose ?

Again, there is a core of truth in the Horatian How far m maxim that art should be profitable as well as pleasing, since it always holds that wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, that enduring pleasure comes only out of healthful action, and that amuse- ment as mere amusement is in its own place good, if it be but innocent. There is profit in art as there is gain in godliness, and poKcy in an honest life. But we are not to pursue art for profit, nor god- liness for gain, nor honesty because it is poHtic, There are minds, however, so constituted that nothing seems to be profitable to them, except it comes in the form either of knowledge or of

I 2


is true.


lie The Gay Science.


c\\kvivA\ direct utility. Those of a didactic turn are fond _L of dwelling on the idea of poet and artist^ to which Bacon refers when he points out that the Greek minstrels were the chief doctors of soiMof the religion ; to which Thomas Occleve bore witness to whiciTit when he saluted Chaucer — " universal fadre '•**• of science ;" which Sir Thomas Elyot entertained

when he said that poetry was the first philo- sophy ; which Puttenham had in view when he devoted one of his chapters to showing that the poets were not only the first philosophers of the world, but also the first historiographers, orators, and mnsifiaiis ; which Sir John Harington con- templated when he described poetry as "the very first nurse and ancient grandmother of all learning ;" which La Mesnardicre stuck to when he discovered that Virgil was useful as a teacher of farming, Theocritus for his lessons of econo- my, and Homer for the knowledge which he displays of wellnigh every handicraft. " Sonate, que me veux tu ?" cried Fontenelle, as he heard a symphony, and thought of those who see a deep meaning and a useful purpose in all works of art ; but he might have found enthusiasts to answer him, and to show him philosophy in a jig, theology in a fiigue, like that sage who discovered the seven days of creation in the seven notes of music. Divines opposed to dancing, from Saint Ambrose to the Rev. John Northbrooke, have yet had much to say in fiivour of what they call spiritual dancing, such



The Agreement of the Critics, 117

as that of King David ; Sir Thomas Elyot dis- chaptek

covered all the cardinal virtues in the various L

figures of a dance; and the dancing-master Noverre treated of his steps as a part of philo- sophy. These are, of course, vanities on which it is needless to comment. Nor need we waste time on those who apply to art the utilitarian test. The inhabitants of Yarmouth in 1650 begged that Parliament would grant them the lead and other materials " of that vast and alto- gether useless cathedral in Norwich" towards the building of a workhouse and the repairing of their piers, Thomas Heywood, who has been described as a sort of prose Shakespeare, gave a rather prosaic proof of the utility of the drama from the effect produced by a play acted on the coast of Cornwall. The Spaniards were landing "at a place called Perin," with intent to take the town, when hearing the drums and trumpets of a battle on the stage, they took fright and fled to their boats. When men condescend to talk of the utility and profit of art in this sense, one is reminded of those religions which gave their followers first the pleasure of worshipping the god, and then the advantage of eating him :

The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced, When gods were recommended by the taste ; Sach savoury deities must needs be good As serred at once for worship and for food.

Once more, pleasure is an indefinite term, piawure an

i«i" n, ij* * 3 'if indefinite

which IS so often connected in our mmds with term very


118 The Gay Science.

en. \ ITER forbidden gratifications, that it may Ite necessary,

_L not in logic, but in practice, to fence it from mis-

a|»t to be apprehension. When we sound the praises of

htood. love, it IS taken for granted that we mean pure,

not unhallowed, passion ; when we vaunt the

excellence of knowledge, it is understood that we

are referring to knowledge which is neither vile

nor vain ; but pleasure — people are so frightened

at pleasure that when we speak of it as the proper

end of art, it has to be explained that we are

thinking of pleasure which is not improper, and

it has to be shown that if art, in the pleasure

which it yields, fail to satisfy the moral sense

of a peoi)le, it is doomed. It may amuse for a

little, but it has within itself a worm that gnaws

its life out. Be the pleasure however good or

bad, lofty or mean, tliere are some who object to

it as such. We have seen how Plato could not

away with pleasure, because the gods, whoso

nature is unchangeable, have no experience of it.

iiuskii/s Mr. lluskin is the modem critic who has the

S»st strongest objection to pleasure as the end of art.

i^'Zoi In a lecture delivered at Cambridge he said that art may u ^\\ ^j^^ ^^.^ ^f |jfg ^^^^ ^jj|y ^^^ dcath, aud all the

here, i.i.:i- gifts of uian issuc only in dishonour, " when they

iTc:.ir.ie,i as are pursued or possessed in the sense oi pleasure

aii.i tiirrl?- oiily ." Siiicc uo oiic tliiuks of pleasure as the only

pro*iaabie. ^^^^ ^^ ^^% 1* i^^y bc supposed that his objection

to the doctrine maintained in this chapter is not

80 strong as it appears to be. In another passage,

however, he slates his view more distinctly.


The Agreement of the Critics. 119

    • This, then, is the great enigma of art history : chapter

you must not follow art without pleasure, nor .-1 must you follow it for the sake of pleasure." It must be admitted that there is some reason . for this objection. Mr. Ruskin has here, in fact, touched on one of the most curious laws of pleasure. It will be found that when we begin to talk of pleasure, at once we fall into seeming inconsistencies and contradictions. It is only by a concession to the exigencies of language that we can speak of pleasure as obtained from any conscious seeking. Not to forestall what has to be said of pleasure in the proper place, it may be enough here to illustrate the present diffi- culty about it by quoting what Lord Chester- field says of wit. " If you have real wit," he Answered says, ** it will flow spontaneously, and you need JuiS^"^* not aim at it ; for in that case the rule of the ^i^^^y. Gk)spel is reversed, and it shall prove, seek and ye ||jg a^"*^ shall not find." So pleasure is spontaneous, and comes not of any conscious seeking. But there is such a thing as unconscious seeking ; and all great art has in it so little of wary purpose that it does not even pursue pleasure with a perfect and sustained consciousness. If you strive after wit, as Lord Chesterfield says, you will never be witty ; and if you hunt after pleasure, as Mr. Ruskin says, you will fail of joy . And yet, after his kind, with what may be called an under-conscious- ness, the man of wij intends wit, the man of art intends pleasure, and both attain their ends. Mr.


1 20 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER Ruskiii himself has defined art as the expresmon Zl of man's deh'ght in the works of God. Why is dehght expressed except for delight ? There is not only no objection to saying that art is the ex- pression of delight, but also the statement of that fact is essential to the true conception of art. It is, however, an advance upon the Italian doctrine of pleasure, which will more properly be handled in the sequel, when in the course of travel we come to Germany.

The spwiJi III. Next in order after the Greek and Italian uitw*m schools of criticism comes the Spanish, which "ri^nj^ took its cue mainly from the Italian, and ori- butsuii rrinated little that can be accepted for new. ^"f^- That it should adopt the universal doctrine of criticism, and represent art as made for pleasure, is but natural. Montesquieu put forth a wicked epigram, that the only good book of the Spaniar^p is that which exposes the absurdity of all the rest. It is unfair, however, because a book like Don Quixote is never quite solitary in its excellence ; and though the Spaniards have the name of being echoes in art and timid in criti- cism ; though they were fettered by the Inquisi- tion, and got such men among them as Cervantes and Lope dc Vega to hug their chains as if they were the jewelled collars and the embroidered garters of some splendid order of chivalry — bound down and ground down, they showed the native force of genius in masterpieces of art


The Agreement of the Critics. 121

which, for their kind, have never been surpassed, chapter and in touches of criticism that still hold — 1 good.

Now, the Arragonese and Castilian poets, at a it hdd to very early period, adopted the Proven9al concep- do^°ne. tion of poetry as the Gay Science. And not only was that conception of poetry entertained by the Spanish races at a time when they were light of heart, and spoke of their own lightheartedness as an acknowledged fact ; they kept it when, to all the world, and to themselves, they grew sombre, grave and grandiose. A Spanish Jew of the fifteenth century, even if he were a converted one, is not the sort of person whom one would select as the type of joyousness, and the expounder of the gay art. Juan de Baena, a baptized Jew, secretary and accountant to King John II. and a poet of some mark, published a famous Cancionero, or collection of the poets, in the pre- face to which he has never enough to say of the deHghtfiilness and charm of poetry. He mingles this view, it is true, with some stiff notions, as that the poet who can produce so much pleasure must be high-bom, and must be inspired of God, but his idea throughout is, that the art is for pleasure. Other Spanish critics follow in the same track, as Luzan, who, however, takes most of his ideas on criticism from the Italians. He refers at considerable length to the Italian dis- cussion as to the end of poetry — ^is it pleasure ? is it profit ? is it both ? and if both, how can any


122 The Gay Science.


ciiAiTER art licive two ends of co-ordinate value ? Like

V •

L the Italians, he came to tlie conclusion that the

two ends must be identified — that the pleasure must profit, and that the profit must please. Hut it had But the Spaniards had their own point of view \\>M just as the Greeks and the Italians had theirs. view. r£.j^^ Greeks raised a question as to the truth of the pleasure created by art ; the Italians raised a question as to its profitableness ; and these two inquiries practically exhausted all discussion as to the morality of poetry and art. The Spaniards raised another question, which is more purely a critical one. Art is for pleasure, but whose pleasure? Not that this question had been wholly overlooked by the Italians. On the con- trary, some of the French critics, that in the days of the Fronde and of the Grand Monarch buzzed about the Hotel Rambouillet, were wild and witliering in the sarcasms which they poured on the poor old Italian, Castelvetro, for venturing to assert that poetry is to delight and solace the That art is multitudc. But tlic Spaniards, having a noble i!«M)pie. ballad literature that lived amongst the people, and was tliorouglily appreciated by them, were prepared to maintain a similar doctrine more strenuously — a doctrine the very opposite of that which would describe art as caviare to the general, and confine the enjoyment of it to the fit and few.

Gonzalo de Berceo is the first known of Spanish poets. There were ])oets before him,


The Agreement of the Critics. 123

but their works are anonymous. He lived in the chapter thirteenth century, and he begins one of his tales _!. in this characteristic manner : — " In the name of How this the Father, who made all things, and of our Lord shSJeS^ Jesus Christ, son of the glorious Virgin, and of '^^°i„ the Holy Spirit, who is equal with them, I intend ^„7kl'*^' to tell a story of a holy confessor. I intend to }^v^ ^«  teU a story in the plain Romance in which the ^ common man is wont to talk with his neighbour ; for I am not so learned as to use the other Latin. It will be well worth, as I think, a cup of good wine." What the unlearned Gonzalo thus simply expressed, Cervantes and Lope de Vega, some three centuries later, uttered with more critical precision. The view of Cervantes will be How (>i> found in Don Quixote in those two chapters in cussed it which the canon and the priest discourse together ^quMc. on the tales of chivalry, and on fiction generally. They complain that the tales of chivalry, intended to give pleasure, have an evil effect in minis- tering to bad taste. But the canon, who has no mean opinion of the approbation of the few as opposed to the many, tells us distinctly that the corruption of Spanish art, which, he laments, is not to be attributed to the bad taste of the com- mon people, who delight in the meaner pleasures. " Do you not remember," he says, " that a few, years since, three tragedies were produced which were universally admired, which delighted both the ignorant and the wise, both the vulgar and the refined ; and that by those three pieces


124 Tlie Gay Science.


cHAiTER the players gained more than by thirty of the —1 best which liave since been represented." His hearer admits the fact. ** Pray, then, recollect,** returns tlie canon, " that they were thus success- ful, though they conformed to the rules of high art ; and, therefore, it cannot be said that the blame of pursuing low art is to be ascribed to tlie lowness of the vulgar taste."

Lope de Lope de Vega, however, was still bolder than Cervantes. It will be observed that, according to Cervantes, you must follow the recognised rules of high art, and you may be quite sure that they will please the people ; but in the chapter from which I am quoting (the 48th), while he bestows the highest praise on Lope de Vega, he expresses a rogret, tliat, in order to please the public, he had yielded to the demands of a depraved taste, and had swerved from the rules of art. Lope*8 conception of his duty is the converse of this, and is quite logical. Tales have the same rules with dramas, the purpose of whose authors is to content and please the public, though the

The same rules of art may be strangled thereby." Terence

prcwedbj propounded a like doctrine in the prologues of

  • ^'*' two of his plays. In the prologue to the Andria

he reminds his audience that when the poet first took to writing he believed that his only business was to please the people ; and in that to the Eunuch^ he says, that if there be any one who strives to please as many, and to offend as few good men as possible, it is the poet. But


r\


The Agreement of the Critics. 125

Terence was merely a comedian, and Lope de chapter Vega is, to the best of my knowledge, the first _L serious writer who stated ruthlessly the doctrine of pleasure with all its logical consequences. He has been well backed, however, both by comic and serious writers. Moliere, when his School for Wives Bj Moii^re. was attacked, and proved to be against the rules, wrote a little piece in defence of it in which he en- trusts his cause to the logic of a certain Durante. One great point in Durante's pleading is ex- pressed as follows : — " I should like much to know whether the grand rule of all rules be not to please, and whether a stage piece that has gained this end has not taken the right way. Will you have it that the public are astray, and are not fit to judge of their own pleasure ?" In English we have expressed the same view in the well-known couplet of Johnson's — By Johnson.

The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give. And those who live to please, must please to live.

There is a diflBcult question here involved. It a diflScoit is indeed the first difficult question that meets here in- the critic. Tasso played with it a little. He^^^ saw that the end of poetry is to please ; he saw also that to the Italians the romances of Ariosto and other poets gave greater pleasure than the epics of Homer; and putting these two facts together, he saw an inference before him, from which he shrank back in dismay. It was left for the French critics to sound the abysses of such an inference, and to turn it to account as a


126 7%^ Gay Science.


cifAPTEK critical warning. In the meantime the Spanish

L writers scarcely see the difficulty that lies ahead,

and are content to insist on the wisdom of pleas- ing the multitude. Ceri'^antes says, Please the multitude, hut you must please them by rule. Lope de Vega says, Please the multitude even if vou defy the rules. An oppoHite Tlic vicw tlius sct fortli invites misapprehen- wipiKtted sion, but it has not a little to say for itself. htJu\^ Never have words of such innocent meaning by Milton, j^j^j gy^}^ baueful cffccts upon literature as those

in which (if I may be allowed to anticipate) Milton expressed his hope that he would fit audience find tliough few. It might be all well for Milton who had fallen, as he himself expresses it^ on evil days and evil tongues, who lived almost as an outcast from society, who saw around him universal irreligion and unblushing Ucence, to liint a fear that he might not command an audi- ence attuned to his sacred theme, and ready to soar with him to heavenly heights ; but his example will not justify those who would wrest his words into a defence of narrow art — of art that fit audience finds though few, or, as we might otherwise phrase it, in an opposite sense, that fit welcome finds though small. If the effect of Milton's plirase were simply to soothe the feelings of the disappointed poets who write what nobody will read, it would be a pity to deprive them of such comfort; but the fact is, that poets of rare ability often in our


r\


The Agreement of the Criticf^. 127

bookish times brood over the same idea, content chapter

themselves with a small audience, adapt them- L

selves to the requirements of a coterie, and in imagination make up for the scantiness of pre- sent recognition by the abundance of the future fame which they expect. It may be remembered And cer- that Wordsworth, in a celebrated preface, enters by "woi4». into elaborate antiquarian researches, to show^^^- that the neglect which he suffered from his con- temporaries was only what a great poet might expect, and that the most palpable stamp of a great poem is its falling flat upon the world to be picked up and recognised only by. the fit and few.

Now, in art, the two seldom go together ; the On the fit fit are not few, and the few are not fit. The j^?dg« of** true judges of art are the much despised, many — **^* the crowd — and no critic is worth his salt who does not feel with the many. There are, no doubt, questions of criticism which only few can answer ; but the enjoyment of art is for all ; and just as in eloquence, the great orator is he who coiomands the people, so in poetry, so in art, the great poet, the great artist will command high and low alike. Great poetry was ever meant, and to the end of time must be adapted, not to the curious student, but for the multitude who read while they run — for the crowd in the street, for the boards of huge theatres, and for the choirs of vast cathedrals, for an army march- ing tumultuous to the battle, and for an assembled


128 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER nation silent over the tomb of its mightiest. It — 1 is intended for a great audience, not for indi- vidual readers. So Homer sang to well greaved listeners from court to court ; so ^schylns, Sophocles, and Euripides wrote for the Athenian populace ; so Pindar chanted for the mob that fluttered around the Olympian racecourse. Doet* The discovery of the alphabet and the inven-

SiSn- " tion of printing have wrought some changes. ^^t A read is different from a heard literature, iTte^w, ^^* *^^ change is not essential. In modem, J^J^^y as compared with ancient literature, we find Dante compelling the attention of every house in Italy, by describing its founders in hell fire ; we find Tasso writing verses that are still sung by the gondoliers of Venice ; we find Chaucer pitching his tale for the travellers who bustle through the yard of an inn; we find Shakespeare doing all in his power to fill the Globe Theatre ; we find our own laureate send- ing fortli a volume that sells by the myriad, by the myriad to be judged. Few English critics have been more fastidious than Johnson, and yet wliat was his opinion as to the pleasure which Shakespeare created ? " Let him who is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare,** he says, '*and who desires to feel the highest pleasure tliat tlic drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let him not stop at cor-



►ome.


The Agreement of tlie Critics. 129

rection or explanation. Let him read on through chapter brightness and obscurity, through integrity and — '- corruption ; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue, and his interest in the fable ; and when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness, and read the com- mentators." In a word, the highest pleasure which the drama can give is a pleasure within reach of the many, and belongs to them with- out the help or the wisdom of the learned few.

There is an aristocracy of taste to which such The demo-

1 • ,1 'ii 1 X A 1 cratic doc-

conclusions as these will be repugnant And trine of art at first sight, indeed, it appears odd that anj])pi^jng aristocratic people like the Spaniards should *^ thus frankly accept a low-levelling democratic doctrine of taste — should regard the domain of letters as essentially a republic; while on the other hand, as we shall presently see, the French who are now known to us as the most demo- cratic people in Europe, established the theory of art as caviare to the general. The truth is, that the French theory of art was established by the French noblesse and courtiers when the people were among the most downtrodden in Christendom, and had no rights that were re- spected ; while again the Spanish idea of art arose among a race whose very peasantry had some ancestral pride, were, so to speak, but a lower rank of peers, and were divided by no impassable gulf from the haughtiest Don. Those

VOL. I. K


130 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER who dislike the republican tinge of the Spanish

L view may sec, at least, this much truth in it —

Exprcned that all gTcat art is gregarious. The great that all artist IS never as one crying solitary in the

great art is .^ -. ■■ • , *

gregarioua. wilclerness ; he comes in a troop ; he comes m constellations. He is surrounded by Paladins, that with him make the age illustrious. He belongs to his time, and his time produces many, who if not great as he, are yet like him. Nothing is more marked in history than the phenomenon of seasons of excellence and ages of renown. Witness the eras of Pericles, Augustus, the Medici, Elizabeth, and others. What means this clustering, this companionship of art, un-- less that essentially the inspiration which pro- duces it is not individual but general, is common to the country and to the time, is a national possession ? And how again can this be if the pleasure of art is not in the people, and the standard by which it is to be judged is not in their hearts ? In one word, the pleasure of art is a popular pleasure.

TheFnnch lY. It would bc too much, however, to say ^itTcism. that the Spanish view of art is in itself com- plete. There is another side of the question to which justice must be done before we can have this tlieory of poetic pleasure well balanced. What the Spanish critics want in tliis respect, the French critics supply. The French, like other scliools of criticism, had their own special


Tke Agreement of the Critics. 131

views, but for the most part they held firmly to chapter

pleasure as in one form or another the end of art. 1

Those who made any doubt about it, as Father Rapin, did so chiefly on the score of religion, which in their eyes made light of all earthly pleasure. Eapin allows delight to be the end of poetry, but he will not hear of it as the chief end, because by that phrase he xmderstands — the public weal which all human arts ought to look to as their highest work. It is scarcely needful to say that here is but a mistake of terms. Father Rapin is thinking of ultimate ends, whereas those who dwell on pleasure as the chief end of art, have no thought but of its immediate object. The strongest statement of what that object is, I have already given from one of Molifere's plays. If French critics did not commonly advance the doctrine of pleasure with like fearlessness of logic, still they accepted it Accepu the freely. In the tempest of discussion which rose dwtHM. on the publication of Comeille's drama of the Cidy one of his defenders who professed to be but a simple burgess of Paris and churchwarden of his parish took his stand on this simple prin- ciple : " I have never read Aristotle, and I know not the rules of the theatre, but I weigh the merit of the pieces according to the pleasure which they give me." La Motte said, without mincing, that poetry has no other end than to please, and La Harpe taking note of this, declares, " If he had said that to please is its

k2


132 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER chiefould they say to Homer with his lowly similes about peas and beans, and his homely picture of Achilles roasting a steak upon the fire ? La Harpe and other critics of his school made it their chief accusation against Shakespeare that he sacrificed to the rabble. Certainly the French poets could not be charged with this fault. They showed so little regard



The Agreement of the Critics. 141

for popular taste, that Madame de Stael passed chapter

this just judgment on them : " La poesie Fran- L

^aise etant la plus classique de toutes les poesies modernes, elle est la seule qui ne soit pas re-andsingu- pandue parmi le peuple/' It stands alone in *" ^* this respect. It has nothing that can stand a comparison with the ballads of Spain, with those of England and Scotland, with the pol- ished strains that are familiar to every Italian beggar, with the folksongs of Germany. It would be amusing to hear what a French critic, with all the blue and gold of Versailles in the chambers of his heart, would say to the master singers of Nuremberg and other chief towns of Almayne in the middle ages; to the honest cobblers that, like Hans Sachs, were powerful in honied words as well as in waxed threads ; to the masons that built the lofty rhyme ; to tailors that sang like swans while they plied the goose ; to smiths that filed verses not less than iron tools ; to barbers that carolled cheerily while as yet the music of Figaro slept far from its rise in the un- born brain of Mozart, and while as yet, indeed, music, in the modern sense of the word, had not even glimmered in the firmament of human thought. It is in a state of savage revolt against Hugo's re- the ancient priggishness of French criticism that u!*^"' Victor Hugo now proclaims himself the admirer of genius, even when it stoops to folly and meanness. For me, he says, I admire all, be it beauty or blur, like a very brute, and it seems to


142


The Gay Science.


CIIAPTK V.


I^ Meft-

nanli6rc.


A preat man with tlic Pre- cieiism.


R me that our age — he ought to have added our nation — needed sueli an example of barbaric enthusiasm and utter childishness.

Jules de la Mesnardi^re, physician, poet^ and critic, was one of the most remarkable of the men of letters wlio danced attendance in the saloons of the Marchioness of Bambouillet. He published the earliest work of systematic criti- cism of the new school, a book called La Poetique, which is very scarce, and which, from a phrase of Bayle's, it would seem that even in his time it was difficult to get.* But La Mesnar- diere was a great man with the Precieuses, and what he has to say of the dominion of pleasure in art has the perfect tint of azure. I might quote others of that brilliant coterie who are better known ; as Georges de Scudery, whose sister's name has become proverbial for romances of the bluest blue, an.d who himself had among the assemblies of the elect no mean name as a poet and a critical authority. Scudery's state- ment of the precious doctrine of pleasure will be found in the preface to that grand epic bug — his poem of Alaric. But La Mesnardiere was l)cfore him, and stated the case in the more formal manner of a systematic treatise. It has been already intimated that La Mesnardiere is one of those who insist very much on the uses of art, and


• It is not to 1)0 found in tlie liritisli Mnsenni, it is not men- tioned in tlie first edition of


Brunet, and I believe that only one copy exists in England be- sides my own.



The Agreement of the Critics. 143

never like to speak of its pleasure apart from chapter profit. But beyond this, he maintains, what now __L more nearly touches our argument, that the his criti- pleasure which art aims at is never that of the ^^^' many. He runs foul of Castelvetro for suggest- ing the contrary, and heaps terms of contempt on the rude, the low, the ignorant, the stupid mob — a many-headed monster, whom it is a farce to think of pleasing with the delicacies of art. No, he says, it is kings, and lords, and fine ladies, and philosophers, and men of learning that the artist is to please. Who but princes can get a lesson from the story of kings ? who but ministers of state from the fall of rulers? What is Clytemnestra to the vulgar herd? Tragedy is of no good but to great souls — great by birth, by office, or by education. Art in a word is only for the Precious few, — for fine ladies and gentlemen, for those who, whether literally or metaphorically, may be said to wear the blue riband.

If the views of the Precious school as repre- Absurd, but sented by La Mesnardi^re seem to be expressed d^pi^. with rare absurdity, they nevertheless open some questions which are worth attending to, and which are not easily answered. After we have reached the point of critical analysis which the Spanish dramatists came to when they propounded a doctrine in art, the equivalent of that in politics which Bentham made so much of — the necessity of studying the greatest pleasure


144 The Gay Science.

('HAi»TEu of the greatest numl)er, we are quickly thrown — 1 back upon an inevitable tendency of human nature to define and square the standard of pleasure. If pleasure is an enviable thing, it is also very envious — envious even of itself, and lives by comparison. Pleasure varies — it differs in different men, and in the same men at different On varieties timcs. Notwithstanding this diversity, which is well known, men are ever bent on finding something that will act as a sort of thermometer or joy-measure; and so the Spartan ruler de- creed that no harp should have more than seven strings, the French critics cried aloud for a proper observance of the three unities, and purists in architecture stood out for the five orders. What is to be said in presence of such a fact as Tasso encountered in his critical analysis — that the romances of Ariosto gave more pleasure to his countrymen than the epics of Homer and Virgil ? Is Ariosto, there- Aiui crituai forc, tlio greater artist ? Tasso very quickly tCr'** settled that question for himself: it did not

  • nMng. trouble him. liut this was precisely the sort of

([uestion that troubled the French critics most, and which lay at the root of La Mesnardi^re's objection to consulting the pleasure of the commonalty. Your highly educated persons — your true blues — might be able to appreciate the classics, to get the full quantity of pleasure from them — a pleasure which need not shun comparison or competition with the pleasure



The Agreement of the Critics. 145

afforded by the lower art of the modems. But chapter

put the same comparison before the uneducated, L

and inevitably antique art will be sent to the right-about. They do not understand the ancients ; they do understand the moderns. The former kindle no pleasure at all, or but a few faint sparks; the latter give a great blaze of pleasure. And it therefore appears that if art is to be measured by the amount of enjoyment thus evolved in rude minds, all our most approved critical judgments would be upset. So La Mes- How La nardi^re held lustily to his point, that if pleasiwe JJ^eTtht^ be the aim of poetry and art, it must be the ^"«^°°»- pleasiure of those who wear the blue riband and are free of the blue chamber. He was easily able to satisfy himself, but had he pushed his inquiries further he would have found the same diflSculty confronting him in another shape. In that shape the diflficulty has so staggered another Frenchman, M. Victor Cousin, that he refuses to And in the acknowledge in pleasure the immediate end of SJ^^olsIn^ art. He argues that if pleasure be the end of art, then the more or less of pleasure which an art affords should be the standard of its value, and that in such a case music with its ravishing strains should, in spite of its vagueness, stand at the head of the arts. But this, according to Cousin, lands us in an absurdity that reflects upon the soundness of the principle from which we set out.

Although we may not be able to adopt the

VOL. I. L


146 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER conclusions either of La Mesnardi^re or of -J- CouKin, still their objections are taken from a Thwe objw- legitimate point of view, and ought to throw ll^ti/*^'"' some additional light upon the quality of art pleasure. Now the chief thing to be noted here is that the standard of pleasure is within us, and' that therefore it varies, to some extent, with the circumstances of each individual. We can never measure it exactly as we can heat with a ther- mometer. Sometimes a man feels cold when the thermometer tells him it is a warm day, and sometimes a man derives little pleasure from a work of art which throws all his friends into rapture. There is no escaping from these vari- ations of critical judgment, whatever standard of comparison we apply to art. It is impossible to measure art by the foot-rule, to weigh it in a balance with the pound troy, or to deal it forth in gallons. But though the results of art are not reducible to number, and there is no known method of judgment by which we can arrive at perfect accuracy and unanimity, still there is a sort of rough judgment formed, which is as trust- worthy as our common judgments on the tem- perature of the air. Nor is there any need of gieater accuracy. We should gain nothing by being able to say that this artist is so many inches taller than that, or that one art gives so many more gallons of pleasure than another. sutement But granting that perfect accuracy is out of question, tlic qucstiou. La Mcsnardierc comes in here with



The Agreement of the Critics. 147

his suggestion : Is your standard accurate enough chapter to show that Homer, who gives less pleasure — L than Ariosto, is a greater artist? and M. Cousin chimes in with the question : Is your standard capable of showing that music, which gives the most exquisite thrills of enjoyment, is yet on account of its vagueness a lower form of art than the drama, which is more articulate ? These two questions are identical in substance, though there may be some difficulty in granting But an ob- to M. Cousin the facts upon which his form of u^°to m. query proceeds. Those who are best able to ^^^^^^^f* ^ judge of such compositions as the ninth sym- phony of Beethoven, or the C minor, will not grant that as works of art they are to be placed below any human performance. Mr. J. W. Davi- son, than whom no one is better able to make the comparison, assures me that, judge he never so calmly, he cannot accord to Beethoven a rank in art below that of Shakespeare ; and one of our ablest thinkers, Mr. Herbert Spencer, de- clares, at the end of an elaborate essay devoted to prove it, that music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts — as the one which, more than any other, ministers to human welfare. After these testimonies, there may be some difficulty, I say, in granting to M. Cousin his facts. For the sake of argument, however, let it be granted that music, as the least expressive, is the lowest form of art. How are we to recon- cile this supposition with the fact that it gives

l2


148 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER a keener pleasure than any art? or, to return to

L La Mesnaidiere, how are we to reconcile the

greatness of the ancients with the superiority of the pleasure which our more familiar modem poets yield ? AMwer to Ouc might Tcply to the argument of M. Cousin hy a parallel argument^ which would be good as Drawn from agaiust him, at least. Tlius, if the end of art is opinion pleasure, the end of science is knowledge. That, ISrnce!.'* then, is the king of the sciences, it may be argued, which gives us the most knowledge and the clearest. But metaphysics has always hitherto held the place of honour among the sciences ; it certainly holds that place in M. Cousin's regard, and considering the grandeur of its ambition, many thoughtful men will be inclined to concede its claim to the honour. Undoubtedly, therefore, it must be the clearest, the best, and the most certain of the sciences. Is it so ? Is it not well- nigh the direct opposite of this ? In that sense, is there no absurdity in speaking of knowledge as the end of science, when the grandest of all tlie sciences gives us the least certain knowledge ? Pursuing the line of argument of which M. ('Ousin has set the example, I might urge that science must have some other more dominant end than knowledge, such, perhaps, as that which Lessing indicated when, in reply to Goeze, he said that it is not truth, but the striving afler truth, which is the glory of man ; that if God in his right hand held everv truth, and in his left



The Agreement of the Cntics. 149

but this one thing, the thirst for truth, albeit chapter

mixed up with the chances of continual error ; L

and that if he bade the child of earth take his choice, he, Lessing, would humbly reach to the left hand, saying, "0 Father, give me that, pure truth is for thee alone." If metaphysics be entitled to the crown of the sciences, it is not because of the amplitude of the knowledge which it conveys, but because of its dignity. And so if we are to make comparisons between art and art (a thing in itself as useless as it would be to run comparisons between science and science), we have it in our power to say that the intensity of the pleasure produced by an art is not always the standard of its value. The prolongation of intense enjoyment is sometimes a positive pain, and to procure a lasting pleasure, we must de- scend to a lower level. To use the language of geometry, pleasure has two dimensions, length as well as height. Increase the height, you cut short the length ; increase the length, you lessen the height. The sum of enjoyment is not to be measured by the height alone of its transports. It is impossible to adjust exactly the comparison which M. Cousin suggests between pleasure and pleasure ; but there is no reason to suppose that, fairly balanced, the pleasure produced by the most expressive art, which is the drama, is one whit inferior, is not rather superior to the plea- sure awakened by the least expressive, which is music. Sir Joshua Reynolds, for one, was quite


150 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER willing to accept the standard of merit which

Zl M. Cousin objects to. He commences his fourth

discourse with these very words : — " The value

and rank of every art is in proportion to the

mental labour employed on it^ or the mental

pleasure produced by it."

The objec That is a sufficient answer to M. Cousin per-

f w, ^^^' sonally, but further consideration of his argument

?*!!!Tr must be included in what I have now to say of

ft more •'

^^ La Mesnardiere and other critics. Hitherto I have made the case turn on the comparison sug- gested by Tasso, between the pleasure which Homer or Virgil awakens, and that which Ariosto stirs in the breast of an Italian. But as that comparison is complicated by the fact of Homer writing in a language foreign to the Italian, let us change the illustration. Let us take Milton, who has been said to equal both Homer and Virgil combined. There is a cele- brated sentence of Johnson's, that much as we admire the Paradise Losty when we lay it down we forget to take it up again. We prefer the pleasure of a novel. Is the novel, therefore, a more successful work of art ? Or take the ques- tion as put by La Mesnardiere. The great mass of the people like nothing so well as bufiEboneries. What can they know of the true pleasure of art who stoop to the lower pleasures of farce and frivolity ?

Here it must be observed that our feeling and choice of delight is perfectly distinct from


The Agreement of the Critics. 151

our opinion of it. In the pleasure of the palate chabteb there is a good example. A friend tells me — 1 that he never enjoyed any food so much as a S^LiTght barley bannock and some milk, which once, when %^^ he lost himself in childhood among the Boss- f****™*^ **^ shire hills, and became faint with hunger, he got from some quarrymen who were eating their simple dinner, and kindly offered him a share. Does he therefore say that a barley bannock and milk is the most enjoyable food ? It gave him. An example £Bimished as he was, the utmost enjoyment, and the^^^^M ^ he remembers that meal with the poor quarry-^*®* men, and their great sandy fingers, as it were a banquet of the gods; but to enjoy it equally again, he must be again in the same plight, with the simple tastes of childhood. We learn thus instinctively to separate our estimate of what is pleasurable from the choice which the accidents of time, place, or health impose upon us. The man who, stretched upon a knoll with his gun by his side, calls for a drauerht of bitter beer W tiie pannier tiiat carries the luncheon, knows right well that though this be the beve- rage which for the moment he prefers, there are Hquids beyond it in taste. There is no- thing to puile one in this, and neither is there any real puzzle in the case of a man who takes up a novel in preference to a great epic. The deliberate selection of the lower form of pleasure does not interfere with our estimate of the higher.


152 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER Or take another example from the state of — L mind which is clearly described in the following

Another .

from the qnatram : —

of ndnos ^^ ^^^ "^^ ^^ *** ™**^<^ ^oWj,

You shall not chase my gloom away ;

Thcrc*8 such a charm in melancholy,

I would not if I could be gay.

The man is happy in his way, and clings to his melancholy mood —

Tliat sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind,

while he recognises the existence of a livelier joy which is not for him. Application The bearing of these facts must be obvious. eL^^ The critic is apt to denoimce a partiality for inrnment *^^^ lowcr forms of art, either as on the one hand betokening depravity of taste, or on the other hand rendering null the standard of plea- sure. The case is precisely parallel to that of tlie man who, in tlie midst of his shooting, asks for bitter beer when he might be drink- ing, if he cliose, the finest Chateau Margaux. It cannot be said that his taste is depraved, neither can it be said that the superiority of rare claret over beer is not meted, even in his mind who quaffs the beer, by a standard of The ideal plcasure. The fact is that we all cherish an ideal wfenrt ^f pleasure which is not always the real joy of mhty^* tlic moment. It is a commonplace of moralists that man never is, but always to be blest. He has an ideal bliss before him, of which sometimes even his highest actual joys seem to fall shoi-t.


r\


The Agreement of the Critics. 153

The mind thus forms an estimate of pleasures of chapter

which it does not partake. And we now, there- 1

fore, arrive at this further conclusion, that the standard of pleasure in art is not always actual, it is ideal. The Greeks teach us that the plea- sure is based on truth ; the Italians that it must tend to good ; the Spaniards that it belongs to the masses, and is not peculiar to a few ; and the French that it is an ideal joy which may not always be present as a reality.

V. And what say the Germans? If any The German school of criticism is likely to disown the doctrine ciitidsm. of pleasure as the end of art, it is the German ; but they have all along allowed it.

The earliest luminaries of German criticism, Lessing and Winckelmann, most distinctly accept the doctrine. The confession of Lessing's faith will be found in his treatise on the Laocoon. There he describes pleasure as the aim of art, though he adds that beauty is its highest aim. Winckelmann, in like manner, in the forefront of his work, places on record the statement that art, like poetry, may be regarded as a daughter of pleasure. Kant, at a later period, promulgated the self-same doctrine, and Schiller developed it into his theory of the Spieltrieb or play-impulse. Art compared with labour, said K^ant, may be considered as a play. In every condition of man, said Schiller, it is play, and only play, that makes him complete.


154 T%e Gay Science.


CHAPTER Man is only serious with the agreeable, the good, — L the perfect ; but with beauty he only plays, and he plays only with beauty. In case this may ap- pear somewhat shadowy, I refer for a more distinct view to Schiller*B essay on tragic art^ where he says, that an object which, in the system of life, may be subordinate, art may separate from its connection and pursue as a main design. *^ Enjoyment may be only a subordinate object for life ; for art it is the highest."

What iM It is not easy to compress into a single phrase

ii^Ti^ of what is peculiar to the German definition of art.

"*" The schools of thought in Germany are widely

sundered ; each views art from its own stand point, and has its own term for the work of art. Putting aside minor differences, however, one can detect something like a common thought running through all German speculation on this subject. Hitherto, we have seen that in the various schools of criticism, art came to be de- fined as something done (perhaps imitated, per- haps created) for pleasure. The German schools advanced upon this notion so far as to make out that art not only goes to pleasure, but also comes


That art of it. Accordiug to them, it is the free play or ^ZTun pleasure of the mind embodied for the sake of '^t S! pleasure. How embodied, whether in imitation, or in a creation, or in a mimic creation, is a different question, that no doubt, as in the system of Schelling, from which our own Cole- ridge borrowed largely, occupies a most impor-


r\


The Agreement of the Critics. 155


tant place. But whatever is of essential value chapter in that speculation really works into the defini- _L tion of art which I have attempted, a sentence or two back, to draw for the Germans as a whole. Thus it is a great point with Schelling that art is a human imitation of the creative energy of nature— of the world soul — of God. But this is only another mode of saying that it is the ex- ercise of a godlike power, therefore of a free power, which cannot be conceived as under com- pulsion, and subsists only as play or pleasure. Art, I repeat, is, in the German view, the free play or pleasure of the mind, embodied for pleasure.

Most of the German thinkers, however, when But the speaking of the pleasure of art, are disposed to thl^*«  confine it to the pleasure of the beautiful. They ^f °^*^of derived this tendency from one of the fathers of f*^*^.!^?

■^ . . . beautiful,

their philosophy, Wolf, and from his disciple Baumgarten, who first attempted to establish a science of -Esthetic. Wolf went to work in a right summary fashion. Philosophy, high and dry, had not then thought much of the human heart, and rather despised the fine arts. Baum- garten wrote an apology for deeming them worthy of his notice. So when Wolf came to How this look into the mystery of pleasure and pain, he ^^7" made short work of it. He said that pleasure is phu^hy simply the perception of the beautiful, and pain ^^ ^**^^» the sense of ugUness. On the other hand, beauty is the power which anything possesses of yield-


156 The Gay Science.

CHAi»TER ing US pleasure, ugliness its power of giving pain.

L lie indeed went much further, and, if I understand

him rightly, spoke of the beautiful, the good, and the perfect as synonyms, and of each as cor- relative to pleasure. Thus it came to pass that And by his when his disciple Baumgarten, overcoming the Biium* coyness of philosophy, ventured to think that ^*^**° ' the pleasure of art might be worthy of examina- tion, and saw in his mind's eye the outlines of a science to which he gave the hitherto unknown, and still incomprehensible name of j^sthetic, instead of drawing the obvious inference that since art aims at pleasure, a science of criticism must be the science of pleasure — he argued that since art aims at pleasure, and since pleasure comes only from the beautiful, the science of criticism must be the science of the beautiful. The nws- take which was thus committed at the outset by tlio man who first came forward to rear a science of the fine arts, was never afterwards corrected And how in Germany, and gave to all subsequent specula- dusion tion a fixed bias in favour of beauty as the one liS7or^ theme of art. Even when further analysis the^V^^iM showed that beauty was but one of the sources the™8tart^^i ^^ pleasure, the critics continued to speak of it as was le- the one idea of art. There was a reason and a defence of the mistake so long as with Wolf and Baumgarten the pleasurable and the beautiful were co-ordinate terms — that is to say, when everything pleasing was to be defined as beauti- ful, and everything beautiful as pleasing. It was


The Agreement of the Critics. 157

unreasonable and indefensible when the origin chapter

of the theory was forgotten, and it was recognised L

that beauty is but a part of pleasure.

When, however, the doctrine of beauty as How the the essence of art came to be placed distinctly ^e*^^ before the minds of Germans, it exerted over JJlJj^^^e them such a fascination that whenever their ?<>^»^° *»^

beauty.

critics approached the idea of the beautiftd they seemed incapable of containing themselves, burst into raptures, and, instead of their usually patient analysis, went off in swoons of ecstacy, shrieks, interjections, vocatives, and notes of ad- miration. Nothing is more curious than to see how, in Schiller especially, the rapturous, inter- Their

.,• 1 jx»'j** • •■! 'ji J raptures,

jectional sort oi criticism is mixed up with good sense, hard facts, and stiff logic. After every sober bit of argument, he breaks into inarticulate rhapsody, which we can only interpret as the fol-de-diddle-dido, fol-de-diddle-dol at the end of a song. But other Germans also are more or less so bewitched, and some of them so besotted with beauty, that with scarcely an exception they fall down and worship it as the be-all and end- all of art. Baumgarten, Lessing, Winckelmann, Kant, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, and the Schle- gels, all treat of art as the empire of the beauti- ful, and of the beautiful as the one article of -Esthetic. It was reserved for Richter to rebuke They are them, and call them back to reason. That man t'^ of true genius was a loose, vague thinker, and ^^ '^^***'- an extravagant writer, but he could poise pretty


158


The Gay Science.


CHAPTER V.


Richter't own de- fideocj.


On the German notion of beauty — what it is.


Here again they own their biaa to Wolf.



well as a critic, and lie saw clearly the weakness of those who insisted upon beauty as the one thought of art. Long ago Horace laid dowD the principle that it is not enough for a work of art to be beautiful ; it must have other sources of interest. And now in his fashion Richter pointed out that art has to manifest ideas of the sublime, of the pathetic, of the comical, as well as of the beautiful* His criticism was quite suc- cessful, as against his countr3nnen who magnified the province of beauty and made it a king where it is only a peer ; but if those whom he criticised had turned upon him and asked him to state precisely what is the definition of art which he proposed to substitute for theirs, he could have given them only the impotent answer that the thing to be defined is indefinable.

Though Wolf, at tlie fountain-head, led the German school of criticism into error by identi- fying all pleasure, and therefore the pleasure whicli art seeks with the sense of beauty, the consideration which was thus given to the nature of the beautiful led directly to what I have described as tlie German contribution to the doctrine that pleasure is the end of art. What is beauty? Now, here again, the German answer to that question trails back to Wolf. Beauty, said the philosopher, arguing out the case after the manner of mathematicians in a regular sequence of propositions and demonstra- tions, with attendant corollaries and scholia, —


The Agreement of the Critics. 159

beauty is perfection, and perfection is beauty, chapter Everything is beautiful which is perfect of its Zl kind. A perfect toad is beautiful; a perfect monster. You cannot define beauty fiirther, because you cannot define perfection; but you can vary the terms of your definition. Accord- How soc- ingly upon the terms of the definition all manner thinkera of changes were rung. The essence of beauty, Z'g^' said Schelling and a whole set of thinkers, is in "^^ ^'*^^' character — ^in being — in life — in individuality. Where you have a man or thing of perfect being or character — ^there is beauty. No, said Goethe, it is not in the character itself, but in the ex- pression or form of it that the beauty lies — ^the perfect expression even of imperfect character. Ah, said Hegel, we must unite the two views of perfect expression and perfect character, and then we shall arrive at the conclusion that the beautiful is the perfect expression of the perfect idea— my grand idea of the absolute, in which contraries are at one, and the all is nothing. So, in turn, other philosophers saw in art the mani- festation of the beautiful, and in the beautifiil the perfect expression of their pet ideas.

Gradually it crept into sight that art may or wi»t riew may not be the expression of an idea about which Shinto " the philosophers could wrangle as much as they "^**** pleased, but that it certainly is the expression of the artist's character. In this connection one might take up the view of Novalis, that the poet is a miniature of the world, a view which would


160 The Gay Science.


CHAiTER satisfy the philosophers who look to find in art — 1 the expression of their highest generalisations. If poetry expresses the poet, and the poet is a miniature of the world, why then art is the expression of their world-ideas. Happily, how- ever, we need not trouble ourselves to throw Goethe's gops to the philosopliers. It is enough to state of the what is Goctlie's final view of the beautiful in in itft," art Art, in his view, is an embodiment of beauty, and the beautiful is a perfect expression of nature, but chiefly the poet's or artist's nature — either of his whole mind, or of a passing mood. But Initween the lines of this definition we are to see the liandwritiug of Schiller interposing his remark on the grandeur of the play-impulse in man — that man is only perfect when his mind is in free play, moving of itself, and its move- ment is a play or pleasure. All that has been put forth by nie, said Goethe, consists of frag- ments of a great confession. But art, said Winckelmann, is the daughter of pleasure. Art, said Kant, is play. Art, re-echoed Schiller, is the expression or product of the impulse to Ana mm- play. I put both views together, and arrive at thiTioman tlie conclusion that, according to the Germans, p^l"^""^ art is the play or pleasure of the mind, embodied for the sake of pleasure. With which doctrine C()mi)are and see how little they vary the words of Shelley, that poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds ; and those of Mr. Ruskin, that art is the



Tlie Agreement of the Critics. 161


expression of man's delight in the works of chapter God. J[l

The statement so far, however, is incomplete, TheGerman and needs for its proper balance a counterstate- needs to be ment of the sorrows of art. In the heaven by*°*^


% coun-


which is promised to the saints there is no^^^ul^the sorrow, and the tears are wiped from every J^^» of eye ; but the paradise of art is peculiar in this respect, that sorrow and pain enter into it. Through the sense of pain art has reached some of its highest triumphs, and Christian art has in it so deep a moaning as to make Augustus Schlegel say, that whereas the poetry of the ancients was the poetry of enjoyment, that of the moderns is the expression of desire. It is quite clear that there is more of pain in modern than in ancient poetry, just as there is more of a penitential spirit in the Christian than in the Olympian faith. But will the Christian, with all his sadness, admit that he has no enjoyment ? Does he not luxuriate in his melancholy ? Will he not smile through his tears, and say that he has attained a higher happiness than the Greek, with all his lightheartedness, could even con- ceive ? In these things we are apt to play with words. We say that our religion is the religion of sorrow; but what do we mean? Do we mean that the Greeks had pleasure in their religion, and that we have none in ours ? Not so; the Christian maintains that his is the higher joy, and that it is not the less joy because

VOL. I. M


162 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER it has been consecrated by suffering. So in art ;

-^ the modem sense of enjoyment as there displayed

The maiem is no doubt different from that of the Greeks,

ISij^ment with stmngcr contrasts of light and shade ; but

wCTe"^ it would be quite false to say that theirs was the

■^*"^ poetry of enjoyment, and that ours is the poetry

not of enjoyment but of desire. Some have

gone so far as to say that the pleasure coming

from sorrow is the greatest of all ; as Shelley,

u it icH that it is *' sweeter far than the pleasure of

enjoyment p|gj^gyj.^ itsclf;'* or as SchiUor, that "the

pleasure caused by the communication of mourn- ful emotion must surpass the pleasure in joyful emotion, according as our moral is elevated above our sensuous nature." In the same sense, Bishop Butler, in his sermon on compassion, says that we sympathize oftener and more readily with sorrow than with joy ; and Adam Smith maintains that our sympathy with grief is generally a more lively sensation than our sympathy with joy. It is possible that these statements are not altogether accurate ; for it is characteristic of pleasure that we do not think of it, while on the other side we do think of our pains ; we count every minute of woe, while years of happiness are unaware gliding over our heads ; and we are thus prone to make a false reckoning of the intensity and relative values of our pleasurable and painful feelings and fellow- feelings.

But the existence of delicious pain is a great



The Agreement of the Critics. 163

fact, and in modem art a prominent one, which chapter hasty thinkers of the Schlegel type are sure _L to misinterpret. There is a crowd of facts The exist- which go to justify the statement of Shelley, delicious that poets ^^t^fe^t.

Are cradled into poetry by wrong,

And learn in suffering what they teach in song.

And people do not all at once see how to recon- cile such a statement with that other of Shelley's, already quoted, that poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and hap- piest minds. So when the Chancellor von Muller, the close finiend of Goethe, says that most of Goethe's writings sprang from a ne- cessity which he felt to get rid of some inward discordance, some impression with which he was laden to distress ; and when, on the other hand, Mr. Lewes, in one of the finest biogra- But the phies in our language — in his life of Goethe of the" rtist —say that "he sang whatever at the moment r»:^"„; filled him with delight," we are struck with^^^J what seems to be a contradiction. In reality, ^'^ ***

emerges

there is none. The artist, like other men, must from piea- get his experience of hfe through suffering, and sometimes he suffers much and long; but the power of expressing himself in art implies, if not perfect relief, a certain recovery — im- The power plies that he has so far got the better of his sion implies trouble as to be curious about it, and able to '***^*^' dandle it. Those who cherish the luxury of woe, of course will not admit this. It is a pleasure

M 2


164 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER to them to think that they are utterly miserable ; ^' the idea of solace is distasteful to them; and when, to convict them of their error, we ask, " Why, then, are ye so tuneful ?" the question seems as heartless as that of the rustic in the fable, who said to the roasting shell-fish : " Oh, ye Cockles 1 near to death, wherefore do ye sing ?" Notwithstanding our self-deception, the fact remains, as Euripides has expressed it in verses which appear in every modern edition of the Suppliants^ but are probably an interpola- tion from some other play — that if the poet is to give pleasure, he must compose in pleasure ; and this is as true of Cluistian as of classical art. If the art of the Greeks be more distinctly joyous than that of any other people, it is to the Germans we owe the more distinct elucida- tion of the fact that the sense of joy underlies all art.

The English VI. At last wc comc to English writers, and

criticism among them is no name greater than that of

JriSTSn, Bacon. Everyone has by heart the definition of

poetry which is contained in the most eloquent

work of criticism ever penned. " To the king "

— it is addressed, and as we read it we are kings

In tliis definition, and in the context, as well as

in many other passages scattered throughout his

works, Bacon plainly presents poetry as an art

which studies above all things the desires and

zabethans. pleasures of the mind. The criticism of the


The Agreement of the Critics. 1 65

Elizabethan period is not of much importance, chapter and perhaps it is enough if I further quote from — 1 Webbe's treatise on English poetry. There the author tells us that " the very sum or chiefest essence of poetry did always for the most part consist in deh'ghting the readers or hearers with pleasure ;" and when, in another passage, he asserts, after the Italians, that the right use of poetry " is to mingle profit with pleasure, and so to delight the reader with pleasantness of art as in the meantime his mind may be well in- structed with knowledge and wisdom," it will be observed that he still regards pleasure as the immediate end. All our best criticism, how- ever, dates from the time of Dryden, and in his But our

1 I 1 1 • II •111 best criti-

school nothing was more clearly recognised than cism dates the subservience of art to pleasure. Dryden ^^^^ himself says that delight is the chief, if not the only end of poetry, and that instruction can be admitted only in the second place. In the same strain wrote Johnson : " What is good only be- cause it pleases, cannot be pronounced good until it has been found to please." Dugald Stewart follows in the beaten path : " In all the other departments of literature," he says, "to please is only a secondary object. It is the primary one in poetry."

Towards the end of last century English a new spirit criticism began to breathe a new spirit. Butin'tocnti- did the critics then newly inspired discover ^^^S^on^* that the end of poetry is different from what it «n'"^-


166 Tlie Gay Science.

CHAPTER was supposed to be? On the contrary, they Zl saw more clearly, and declared more stoutly than ever, that the end of art is pleasure. *' The end of poetry," says Wordsworth, "is to produce ex- citement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure." In the same mood, Coleridge main- tains that "the proper and immediate object of j)oetry is the communication of immediate pleasure ;" and again, though, as I have tried to But erer show, Icss accuratclv, that ** a poem is that species doctriDefti of composition which is opposed to works of !!f wt jT** science by professing for its first immediate object uught. pleasure, not truth/* I have already quoted Shelley in the same sense, and I reserve to the last a writer who belongs not to the present, but to the past century. I thus refer to him out of his proper place, because he is the only critic known to me who draws the inference upon which I have insisted, that if poetry be the art, criticism must be the science of pleasure, though he cannot be said to have fully under- stood, or to have carried out his own doctrine. And Lord " Tlic fiiic arts," said Lord Kames, " are intended

Kameseven iii* i i» i .• •

draws in a to eutertaiii US by making pleasant impressions, the'infer- ^^^ ^Y ^^^^ circuiiistancc are distinguished race that fpQjj^ |]^Q useful arts I but in order to make

cntu'iMii '

must be the pleasant impressions, we ought to know what pleasure, objccts are naturally agreeable, and what natu- ally disagreeable." Ue draws the inference rather faintly, but still he draws it, and there- fore he is worthy to be singled out from his


The Agreement of the Critics. 167


fellows. It is not with his inference, however, chapter that we are now concerned, but with the grand — L fact which stands out to view, that in all the critical systems poetry is regarded as meant for pleasure, as founded on it, and as in a manner the embodiment of all our happiness — past, present, and to come.

But now it will be asked, is there anything what is pe- peculiar in the English mode of rendering the e^^sh" definition of art? The point about art which ^'^'^^"^^ the English school of thinkers has most con- sistently and strenuously put forward is, that it it is the oflFspring of imagination. Not that other schools have ignored this doctrine. All along, while speaking of the peculiarities of the diflFerent schools of thought, I have been anxious to show that the lesson taught most prominently in each has not been wholly overlooked by the others ; and of a surety the French and German schools of criticism have not been backward to acknowledge the influence of imagination in the it dwells work of art. In English criticism, however, theVwel-of imagination is the Open Sesame— the name to tll^: conjure with. It is the chief weapon, the ever- lasting watchword, the universal solvent, the all in all. When we come to ask what it really means, we are amazed at the woful deficiency of the infoimation which we can obtain about this all-sufticient power ; but be the information much or little, the importance of the power — its necessity, is so thoroughly established in


168


The Gay Science.


CHAPTER England, tl^^t (though after all it comes to the — same thing) it is more fully recognised among

us that art is the creature of imagination than

that it is created for pleasure. Bncon it Bacou it was who forced English criticism firtt ^lught ill to this furrow, assisted by a word of Shake- ofilrtM*^* speare's. Our great philosopher arranged all


imagin tiou.


the cieaiure literature in three main divisions, correspond- ing to three chief faculties of the human mind. History, science, and poetry were severally the products of memory, reason, and imagination. There was something very neat in this arrangement, which D'Alem- bert afterwards adopted, when, in the preface to the celebrated French Encyclopaidia, he attempted to make a complete map of liberal study. Plato, who thought of the Muses as daugliters, not of imagination, but of memory, would have been not a little startled by the division ; and D'Aleml)ert, in following Bacon, had yet to show that imagination was as essen- tial to, and as dominant in Archimedes, the man of science, as in Homer, the man of art. Bacon himself, too, had some little doubt as to the perfect wisdom of his arrangement.* Still


• Tliis doubtrulness apix'ars in a passaijc in tlie AdvnriCfmf.ut of Lmruiug, where lie speaks of imagination, and sconis to find a difficulty in fixing; ui»on its sjx- cialty. "The knowledge/' he says, " which respecteth the facul-


ties of the mind of man is of two kinds ; the one re8j>ecting his understand ini: and reason, and the other Ids will, appetite, and aflection; whereof the former produceth position or decree, the latter action or execution. It i£


Tlie Agreement of the Critics. 169


for general purposes he deemed it sufficient, and chapter he defined poesy, " the pleasure or play of — L imagination." We had Shakespeare's word for a word of

- _ . ^ . 7 . II Shake-

it, too, that the poet is of imagination all com- spares

pact ; and both authorities combined to form in ^^^

the English mind the conception of art as the

product mainly of imagination. After that we

know how imagination came to be the grand

engine of our criticism. Addison wrote essays And since

on the pleasures of it ; Akenside wrote a long been the

poem on it ; Johnson described poetry as the art d*o^rof

English


true that the imagination is an agent or nuncius, in both pro- vinces, both the judicial and the ministerial. For sense sendeth over to imagination before reason have judged : and reason sendeth over to imagination before the decree can be acted : for imagin- ation ever precedeth voluntary motion. Saving that this Janus of imagination hath differing faces: for the face towards rea- son hath the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the print of good; which neverthe- less are faces,

  • Qaale8 decet eaw sororom/

Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger ; but is invested with or at leastwise usurpeth no small authority in itself, besides the duty of the message. For it was well said by Aristotle, *That the mind bath over the body that com- mandment, which the lord hath


over a bondman ; but that rea- son hath over the imagination that commandment which a ma- gistrate hath over a free citizen ;* who may come also to rule in his turn. For we see that, in matters of faith and religion, we raise our imagination above our reason ; which is the cause why religion sought ever access to the mind by similitudes, types, pa- rables, visions, dreams. And again, in all persuasions that are wrought by eloquence, and other impressions of like nature, which do paint and disguise the true appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the imagination. Never- theless, because I find not any science that doth properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no cause to alter the former division. For as for poesy, it is rather a pleasure or play of ima- gination, than a work or duty thereof."


criticism.


170 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagi- _L nation to the help of reason. Then, at a later date, Shelley, not altering his meaning, which I have already given, but altering his phrases, said that " poetry may, in a general sense, be defined to be the expression of the imagination ;" and Mr. Ruskin came to the conclusion that " poetry is the suggestion by the imagination of noble grounds for the noble emotions." It thus became the first commandment of English criti- cism that in poetry there are no gods but one — imagination. To imagination belongs the crea- tive fiat of art. It furnishes the key to all criti- cal difficulties — it possesses the wondrous stone that works all the marvels of poetical transmuta- tion. It was one of Coleridge's dreams to write a great work on poetry and poetical alchymy, the basis of which should be a complete exposi- tion of what he called the Productive Logos^ — in plain English, the imagination. Criticism This powcr of imagination is so vast and ^^ aVep thaumaturgic that it is impossible to lift a hand firat u"nder- ^^ Hiovc a stcp iu criticism without coming to stonding terms with it, and understandine: distinctly what

what ima- ^ ^ ' ^ *^ •'

ginaUon is. it is and wliat it does. On the threshold of every inquiry, it starts up, a strange and unaccount- able presence, that frights thought from its pro- priety, and upsets all reason. I propose, there- fore, to devote the next few chapters to a fresh and thorough-going analysis of it, which ought to yield some good results. In the meantime, it


The Agreement of the Critics. 171

will be enough for the purposes of this chapter chapter to point out, as far as it can be done at the _-L present stage of our inquiry, what imagination has to do with pleasure.

All English criticism admits, and indeed in- The relation sists, that art is the work, or, as Bacon moretionto^^" strictly puts it, " the pleasure of imagination." p^^"***- Even if, however, we reject the word pleasure, and speak of art simply as the product of ima- gination, this, it will be found, is but an implicit statement of what is stated more explicitly in German criticism, that art is the mind's play. In accepting imagination as the fountain of art, we accept art also as essentially a joy, for ima- gination is the great faculty of human joyance. It is the food of our desires even more than the imagination things themselves which we desire. Of course largely we cannot live upon dreams. Bolingbroke was wfthfht quite right when he cried : S^ure!^

Oh ! who can hold a fire in his hand. By thinking of the frosty Caucasus ? Or clog the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast ? Or wallow naked in December's snow, By thinking on fantastic summer's heat ?

But when he adds that, "the apprehension of the good gives but the greater feeKng to the worse," his experience is not that of a man gifted with strong imagination. The power of dream- ing is proverbial as a magic that brings far things near — that transports us whither we will, and that turns all things to pleasure. Call it


172 ^ The Gay Science.

CHAPTER glamour — call it lunes — call it leasing ; we need

L not now dispute about the name, if we can only

agree as to the fact that imagination is often as good to us as the reality, and sometimes better. Is any feast so good as that which we imagine ? Is any landscape so glorious as that whicli we see in the mind's eye ? Is any music so lovely as that which floats in dreams ? Is the pleasure which Alnaschar could derive from the possession of unbounded wealth to be compared with that which he feels when in the fancied possession of wealth he kicks over his basket of wares ? Not only is the bare imagination of pleasure thus often beyond the pleasure itself — that of real pain is in many cases a source of enjoyment. It is not seldom a pleasure to remember past suf- fering.

Limits, There is, no doubt, another side to the

however, . . -

to that view picture, iu the known facts that the terror of ill is worse to bear than the ill itself, and that the sympathetic pain which the good Samaritan feels in seeing a wound is frequently more acute than the pain felt by the wounded man himself. That there are nightmares, however, and aches of imagination, does not obliterate the general fact that imagination is the house of pleasure, and that dreamland is essentially a land of bliss. Wordsworth speaks of imagination as that in- ward eye which is the bliss of solitude ; Shakes- peare gives to it a name which bespeaks at once its elevation and its delightfulness — the heaven


The Agreement of the Critics. 173

of invention ; and my argument is, that if in chapter this heaven is the birthplace of art, and if from _L this heaven it comes, its home is heavenly, its ways are heavenly, to a heaven it returns, for a heaven it lives.

This, then, may be described as the English Re^stau- gift to the definition of art — that it comes of ima- Engiuh gination, and that it creates a pleasure coloured to°criUd!5Si" by the same faculty. All pleasure, obviously, is ^^^^n^y not poetical : it becomes poetical when the ima- gination touches it with fire. It must be re- peated, however, that when we ask for distinct information as to what this means, it is not easy, it is indeed impossible, to get it ; and I make bold to claim for the next few chapters this praise at least, that they are the first and only attempt which has been made to give an exhaus- tive analysis of imagination — to give an account of it that shall at once comprise and explain all the known facts. Those writers who give us a rounded theory of imagination ignore half the facts ; those who recognise nearly all the facts are driven, either like Mr. Ruskin, to confess that they are a mystery inscrutable, or like Coleridge, to throw down their pens with a sigh, not because the mystery is inscrut- able, but because their explanations would be unintelligible to a stiflF-necked and thick- headed generation of beef-eating, shop-keeping Britons. , ^ ^

^r\^ ^ f ^ • 1 ^ i /»... Although

The result of this backward state of criticism imagination


174 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER is, that when we come to ask the first of all Zl. questions, what is art? we discover to our Md"^i^-** chagrin that we are answered by statements that '^^^^^. keep on nmning in a vicious circle. Thus, if however, poctry is defined by reference to imagination ; on

nowhere

expUuned. the Other hand, imagination is defined by reference to poetry. If we are told that poetry must be imaginative, we are also told that imagination must be poetical — for there is an imagination which is not poetical. Thus, when we inquire into the nature of poetry, we are first pushed for- ward to search for it in imagination, and then when we examine into the imagination, we are thrown back on the original question — ^what is poetical ? Few things, however, are more re- markable in the world than the faculty which the human mind has of seizing, enforcing, and brooding over ideas which it but dimly compre-

imagination hcuds ; and although in English criticism, indeed

an unknown . 11 •<•■ ii ± 1 1 <**i*

quantity, lu all cnticism that makes much ot it, imagina- tion is, as it were Xj an unknown incalculable quantity, still the constant recognition of that something unknown is a preserving salt which But the con- gives a flavour to writings that would often w^ition of taste flat from the want of precision and clear knoVn" outcome. Rightly understood, also, there is no soniething critical doctriuc to be compared for importance

ot immense r l

importance, with that of the Sovereignty of imagination in art, and in art pleasure, which the English school of critics has ever maintained. Let me add, though at the present stage of the discussion I


The Agreement of the Critics. 175

cannot make it clear that the leading doctrine chapter

of English criticism is in effect but an anticipa- L

tion of the prime doctrine of the Germans. The English and the Germans, nearly allied in race, are so far also allied in their thinking, that the views of art upon which they mainly insist are virtually the same. The German expression of these views is the more precise. On the other hand, the English expression of them is, in point of time, the earlier, and in point of meaning will be to most minds the more * suggestive.

If the foregoing statement be rather lengthy, summary and have inevitably been loaded with the repeti- cLlpt^. tions of a multitude of authorities, the upshot of all may be stated very shortly. All the schools of criticism, without exception, describe art as the minister of pleasure, while the more ad- vanced schools go further, and describe it also as the offspring of pleasure. Each may have a different way of regarding this pleasure. The Greek dwells on the truth of it ; the Italian on its profit. The Spaniard says it is pleasure of the many ; the Frenchman says it is of the few. The German says that it comes of play; the Englishman that i^ comes of imagination. But all with one voice declare for pleasure as the end of art. The inference is obvious — the in- ference is the truism which is not yet even recognised as a truth ; that criticism, if it is


176 TTte Gay Science.

CHAPTER ever to be a science, must be tbe science of

L pleasure. Wbat wonder that it ebowe no sign

of science, when the object of the science is not yet acknowledged ?



ON IMAGINATION.


VOL. I. If


CHAPTER VI.


ON IMAGINATION.


I^^MAGINATION is the Proteus of thea Ea ^M mind, and the despair of metaphyeicB. ||^^3 ^hen the philosopher seizes it, he a finds something quit© unexpected in his grasp, oJ a faculty that takes many shapes and eludes Jj| him in all. First it appears as mere memory, *" and perhaps the inquirer lets it escape in that disguise as an old iriend that need not be interrogated. If, however, he retain his hold of it, ere long it becomes other than me- mory ; suddenly it is the mind's eye ; sudden again, a second sight; anon it is known as intuition ; then it is apprehension ; quickly it passes into a dream ; as quickly it resolves itself into sympathy and imitation; in one: moment it turns to invention and begins to create ; in the next moment it adopts reason and begins to generalize ; at length it flies in a passion, and is


180 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER lost in love. It takes the likeness, or apes the

— '" style by turns of every faculty, every mood,

every motion of thought. What is this Proteus

of the mind that so defies our search ? and has it

like him of the sea, a form and character of its

own, which after all the changes of running

water and volant flame, rock, flower, and strange

beast have been outdone, we may be able to fix

Has iiiiagiii- and to define ? Is there such a thing as ima-

character of ginatiou different from the other faculties of the

^^ ^^ mind ? and if so, what is it ?

whatmoit Any one attempting to grapple with this

when we qucstiou, wiU at once be struck with a remark-

r^iry able fact. Everybody knows that imagination

MUiI^f s^^ys aiid overshadows us, enters into all our

thk power gtudics and elaborates all our schemes. If we

—the ao ...

knowiedged swcrvo from the right path, it is fancy, we are

Dotencv of ^"^

hnagina- told, that has led us astray; if we pant after splendid achievement, forsootli, it is the spirit of romance that leads us on. Imagination, say the philosophers and divines, the Humes and Bishop Butlers, is the author of all error, and the most dangerous foe to reason ; it is the delight of life, say the poets, the spur of noble ambition, the vision and the faculty divine. For good or ill, it gives breath and colour to all our actions ; even the hardest and driest of men are housed in dreams ; it may be dreams of tallow or treacle or turnips, or tare and tret ; but in dreams they move. By all accounts, the imagination is thus prevalent in human life, and the language of all



On Imagination. 181


men, learned and simple, bears witness to its chapter

VI.

puissance.

Nevertheless, imagination, thus rife, thus But not- potent, whose dominion, even if it be that of 1^ its a tyrant against whom it is wisdom to rebel, ^J^^j^ we all acknowledge, whose yoke, will or nill, ^ ^^J«J| we all wear — is as the unknown god. First- »• born of the intellectual gifts, it is the last studied and the least understood. Of all the strange things that belong to it, the strangest is that much as the philosophers make of it, much as they bow to it, they tell us nothing about it or next to nothing:. This is no hyperbole, but a plain fi^t. Any one, who, fi«d by Ae magni- tude and variety of the effects attributed to imagination, inquires into the nature of their causes, will be amazed at the poverty of all that has been written on the subject, and the utter inadequacy of the causes assigned. Most phi- losophers, though they defer to popular usage in speaking of imagination, yet when they examine it closely, allow it no place whatever among the powers of the human mind. In the And iodeed account of our faculties given by Locke, andSltTti* almost every other English psychologist, down ^'^^ to Herbert Spencer, the imagination is put out of doors and treated as nought. The chief source of illusion, it is itself an illusion ; it is an impos- tor ; it is nothing ; it is some . other faculty. I repeat that here I am using no figure of speech, but speaking literally. Whereas in common


182 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER parlance and in popular opinion imagination is 1 always referred to as a great power, the autho- rities in philosophy resolve it away. It is some other faculty, or a compoimd of other faculties. It is reason out for a holiday ; it is perception in a hurry ; it is memory gone wild ; it is the dalliance of desire ; it is any or all of these together* The current The sum of the information about it which I Slr^^'J^- bave been able to glean I have endeavoured to JJI^'^J^^g convey in the parable of Proteus. One man says ofProteua. \\^^ ^y^^j auothcr man says that. Each one

gives a little of the truth, but none the whole truth. Nor indeed is the whole truth conveyed in the parable of Proteus. All that is attempted in that simiUtude is to bring together the scattered fragments of opinion and to mould them into something like a consistent whole. The current opinions of imagination are all fragmen- These cur- tary : there is no wholeness about them. They rentopmioni ^^y bc summcd up uudcT fouT hcads — those

n^r"four which identify imagination with memory ; those hcacb. which melt it into passion ; those which make it out to be reason ; and lastly those which represent it as a faculty by itself, diflferent from the other powers of the mind. Let us take a hasty glance at each of these sets of opinions.

Most commonly imagination is described as a department of memory. So it appeared to the Greeks, in whose idea the muses were daugh-


/^


On Imagination. 183


ters, not as we should say of God and imagina- chapter tion, but of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Even those — who, like Aristotle, distinguished between fan- ,?g"JJmetima


identified with


tasy and reminiscence, failed to establish any clear difference between them, save such as may memoiy. exist between whole and part. Aristotle, indeed, says distinctly that memory pertains to the same region of the mind as fantasy ; that it is busied with the self same objects ; and that such objects of memory as are without fantasy are objects accidentally. So in modem times, we find Wolf, who is the father, even more directly than Leibnitz, of German philosophy, giving in his national Psychology a long chapter to the imagination. It is the same chapter in which he treats of memory. In his Empirical Psychjology, he gives a separate chapter to each of the two faculties ; in his Rational Psycliology, he is fain to treat of both together as but phases of the same power.

From Aristotle to Hume we may say roundly, that those who— whether in form or in sub- stance — identified imagination with memory, defined imagination as a loose memory of the objects of sense. I say loose memory rather Generally in than bad, because among the philosophers lisre^Jded refer to there is some difference of opinion as mem^ to the relative force of the two names — imagin- ation and memory. Thus Hobbes, while he tells us that these are two names for one and the same thing, seems to indicate that the imagination is a


184 The Gay Science.

a ■ I I - I ■ 1^ M -M -M- w-m -^ ^^^M

CHAPTEii lively memory. It is in the same sense that — 1 Locke defines fancy as a quick memory. Hume, on the other hand, who often refers to the work- ings of imagination, who tells us that it is the greatest enemy of reason, and who has a famous passage in which he compares it to the wings of cherubim hiding their faces and preventing them from seeing, sets out with the assertion that it is nothing but a dim memory. Which- ever of these views be correct, it is a pity that the philosophers do not stick to one or other, and instead of pouring their anathemas on such a nonentity as imagination, attack the real sinner — a loose memory. It is because they never know whether to describe imagination as a de- partment of memory or memory as a depart- ment of imagination. Some, like Locke, make imagination a part of memory ; some, like Male- branche, make memory a part of imagination ; some, like Hobbes, regard the one as identical

Yet from witli the othcr. The philosophers have a vague

their man- "iii.* *i* i *

ner of treat- iQca that imagmatiou and memory are in a man- o7tho^'"*^ ner involved one with the other ; but when tify imari- ^^^7 ^^®* blamc on one of the confederates and nation with acQuit the other, when they vilify imainnation

memory •*■ ' ^ w €d

show that and glorify memory, they betray a suspicion that regjird it as in thc forincr there are elements which are not to memory, bc fouud in the latter. What are these elements ? Descartes is among those who virtually de- fined imagination in terms of memory. This he did in his Meditatioihs on the more abstract


r\


On Iinagination, 185


questions of philosophy ; but when he came to chaptek

write on the passions of the soul, he saw that he L

had to account for certain arbitrary compounds, £3^m«  such as fforffons and hydras and chimeras dire, >assion, reproduit toutes los representations qui lui sont homogenes ou analoo;ues; enfin I'imagination proprement dite, rimatjination pure, si jc


puis mexprimer ainsi, qui ne travail le que pour elle-mfime, et qui produit les images de la nature sensible, celles des senti- mcns, et celles des id^s, unique- men t pour enfanter des combi- naisons nouvellcs; c'est Timagi- nation du p>ete.*'


r\


On LnagincUion. 191


faculty in the mind, and to almost any com- chapter


VI. Bat the


bination of these faculties. But is imagination which bulks so large in popular theories, and in ^^IZ common language, nothing of itself? Is the^^^" power of which we hear so much, and which p°**i<»" "<>^

  • , "^ character of

now looks Hke reason, now like memory, andit«own? now like passion, blessed with no character, no standing of i^ o4> ? Is i. noflring but . nLne - to conjure with — an empty sound, a philosophical expletive, a popular delusion ? Here we come upon the fourth set of partial opinions to which I proposed to call attention. According to every intelligible analysis of imagination that I have seen, it is a name, and nothing more. On the other hand, there are a few writers who regard it as a king in its own right, with a territory of its own; but they give us no intelligible account of it Thus Jean Paul Richter, after saying that fantasy can do duty Those who for the other faculties, and is their elemental imagination spirit, but that the other faculties cannot take mctw-Vits the form and do the work of fantasy, proceeds '^^"^


ex-


to tell us what this fantasy or creative imagina- ^^^^ ^^ tion is. What is it? Die Phantasie ist die Weltseele der Seele, imd der Elementargeist der ubrigen Krafte. Wenn der Witz das spielende anagramm der Natur ist; so ist die Phantasie das Hieroglyphen- Alphabet derselben, wovon sie mit wenigen Bildem ausgesprochen wird. I fear that I cannot make this clearer in English. Fantasy is the world-soul of the soul —


192 Ths Gay Science.

CHAPTER and the elemental spirit of the other faculties. As — 1 wit is the playful anagram of nature, fantasy is its hieroglyphic alphabet. What all this comes to, it is not easy to say ; only it looks big. Nothing, however, looks half so big as Coleridge's defini- tion. "The imagination I consider either as primary or secondary. The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former." Oh gentle shep- herds ! what does this mean ? Is it something very great or very little ? It reminds me of a splendid definition of art which I once heard. When the infinite I AM beheld his work of creation, he said Thou ART, and ART was. The philosopher of Highgate never explained himself. He was a great believer in the independence of imagination, but when he had written a few sentences of his chapter on what he called with a fine flourish the esemplastic power — the Productive Logos, he suddenly stopped short and got a friend to write him a letter, or perhaps he himself wrote the letter which he published, begging him not to put forth his theory, for it would be unintelligible to the addle-pated public, and he should reserve it for Or, like Mr. auotlier and a better world. Mr. Ruskin follows wiy frankly in tlic samc track, but more honestly, with all

that it is in- .i/»i r ± .ii

flcruubie. tlic Irankiiess oi a transparent and clear-seeing



On Imagination.


193


mind. He has written several magnificent chapter

VI.

chapters on the work of imagination. The — 1 words come from his mouth like emperors from the purple, and describe with commanding power the effects of imagination. But for the faculty itself all that Mr. Ruskin has to say of it is that it is utterly inexplicable. It is not to be dissected or analysed by any acuteness of discernment.*

Thus nobody tells us what imagination really imaginatioii is, and how it happens that being, as some say, denwiSi nothing at all, it plays an all-powerful part in ^al^sii, human life. Driven to our own resources, we ^g^defin* must see if we cannot ffive a clearer account of »\^***" o"-

, ^^ selves.

this wonder-working energy, and above all, cannot reconcile the philosophical analysis which reduces imagination to a shadow with the popular belief which gives it the empire of the mind. I propose this theory, that the


  • Iq this history of opinions,

James Mill's theory of imagin- ation ought not to be forgotten. " Imagination," he says, " is not a name of any one idea, I am not said to imagine unless I combine ideas successively in a less or greater number. An ima- gination, therefore, is the name of a train. I am said to have an imagination when I have a train of ideas; and when 1 am said to imagine I have the same thing ; nor is there any train of ideas to which the term imagin-

VOL. I.


ation may not be applied. In this comprehensive meaning of the word Imagination there is no man who has not imagination, and no man who has it not in an equal degree with any other. Every man imagines; nay, is constantly and unavoidably ima- gining. He cannot help ima- gining. He can no more stop the current of his ideas than he can stop the current of his blood." — James Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind, chap. vii.


I'* A TV '^J> .N»9h».

CBA^ imagmation or fi^tasv b nc* a ^«id hcuky — box that it id a sp&dal fnncooii. It is a name tJ^* given to the ant«:*manc acdcoi of the mind ^"^^ *** or anv of its faculties — to what mav not unfitly be called the Hidden SooL This is a short TVt HiMs sentence. Perhaps to some it may appear a


trifling one^ with which to docket and explain the grand mystery of imagination* At least those who have not well considered the sabject will scarcely see its pr^nancy of meaning. It involves an immense deal, however ; and to the next three chapters is assigned the tssk of show- ing what it involves. It seems possible to get out of it a more suggestive definition of the nature of art than any which has yet been pro- pounded. That definition will be furnished in the ninth chapter of the present volume to which the whole argument leads up. But I must ask the reader, if he should be curious about the definition, and should glance forward to see what it looks like, not to decide upon it off-hand, but to come back and read the argument which is now to be opened out. The result to which the argument tends may have the air of paradox to those who have not formed previously an ac- quaintance with the vast array of facts upon which it proceeds, and their peculiar signifi- cance. The facts which have to be unfolded are among the most curious in human nature ; but they are also among the most neglected, and I must beg for them a careful attention.



On Imagination. 195

They are, in very truth, by far the most im- chapter

portant with which any science of human nature 1

can have to deal; and they provide us with a^™{!J|^^ key to more than one problem that hitherto has T^^** ^*.

•^ A have now to

been deemed insoluble. Whether the conclusion study. as to art which may here be drawn from them be correct or not, they are otherwise valuable, and deserve some systematic arrangement. And as the facts are important, so also I think I may count upon the reader's interest in the strange history which I now undertake to relate.

Only before buckling to that task let me point out distinctly what it is that I am going to show the working of. I have said that statement imagination is but another name for the problem t© automatic action of the mind or any of its**"***^^* faculties. Now for the most part this automatic action takes place imawares ; and when we come to analyse the movements of thought we find that to be quite sure of our steps we are obliged very much to identify what is involuntary with what is unconscious. We are seldom quite sure that our wills have had nought to do in pro- ducing certain actions, unless these actions have come about without our knowledge. Therefore although involuntary does not in strictness coincide with unconscious action, yet for prac- tical purposes, and, above all, for the sake of clearness, it may be well to put out of sight altogether such involuntary action as may consist with full consciousness, and to treat of

2


196 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER the automatic exercise of the mind as either — 1 quite unconscious or but half conscious. And if on this understanding we may substitute the one phrase for the other as very nearly coinciding, then the task before me is to show that imagina- tion is but a name for the unknown, unconscious action of the mind — the whole mind or any of its faculties — for the Hidden Soul. If this can be made good — evidently it will meet the first con- dition of the problem to be solved. It will reconcile philosophical analysis with popular belief. It will grant to the satisfaction of philo- sophers that imagination is nothing of itself; and it will prove to the satisfaction of the multitude that it is the entire mind in its secret working.



THE HIDDEN SOUL.


CHAPTER YII.


THE HIDDEN SOUL.


IHE object of this chapter is not so chapter much to identify imagination with — 1

what may be called the hidden eoul,^^**'"'

as to show that there ia a mental existence [^'Ji^ within us which may be bo called — a secret"^ flow of thought which is not less energetic "ui."™i than the conscious flow, an absent mind which monu. haunts us hke a ghost or a dream and is an essential part of our Hves. Incidentally, there will be no escaping the observation that this unconscious life of the mind — this bid- den soul bears a wonderful resemblance to the supposed features of imagination. That, how- ever, is but the ultimate conclusion to which we are driving. My more immediate aim is to show that we have within us a bidden life, how vast is its extent, how potent and bow constant is its influence, how strange are its effects.


200 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER This uucoDscious part of the mind is so dark,

VII • •

1 and yet so full of activity ; so like the conscious

intelligence and yet so divided from it by the veil of mystery, that it is not much of a hyper- bole to speak of the human soul as double ; or at least as leading a double life. One of these lives — the veiled life, now awaits the rudeness of our scrutiny. The t ha- Many of the facts which in this exposition it th^^TOU to '^ill l>^ requisite to mention must be known to bettudied. gQixje rcadcrs, and nearly all of them indeed

should be recognized as more or less belonging to common experience. But notwithstanding their familiarity we must needs go the whole round of the facts that bear witness to the reality of a hidden life within us, for it is only from a pretty full muster of the evidence — the familiar with the unfamiliar — that we can see the magnitude of our hidden life, the intimacy of its relations with our conscious every-day thinking, the con- stancy and variety of its working in all the nooks and crannies of the mind. Though some of these facts are familiar, they are also inter- esting enough to be worth repeating. To lay The interest bare the automatic or unconscious action of ject. the mind is indeed to unfold a tale which out-

vies the romances of giants and ginns, wizards in their palaces and captives in the Domdaniel roots of the sea. As I am about to show how the mind and all its powers work for us in secret and lead us unawares to results so



The Hidden Smd. 201

much above our wont and so strange that we chapter

• • • VII

attribute them to the inspiration of heaven or to 1

the whispers of an inborn genius, I seem to tread enchanted ground. The hidden efficacy of our thoughts, their prodigious power of work- ing in the dark and helping us underhand, can Then,mance be compared only to the stories of our folk-lore, ^ *°^ ' and chiefly to that of the lubber-fiend who toils for us when we are asleep or when we are not looking. There is a stack of corn to be thrashed, or a house to be built, or a canal to be dug, or a mountain to be levelled, and we are affrighted at • the task before us. Our backs are turned and it is done in a trice, or we awake in the morning and find that it has been wrought in the night. The lubber-fiend or some other shy creature comes to our aid. He will not lift a finger that we can see ; but let us shut our eyes, or turn our heads, or put out the light, and there is nothing which the good fairy will not do for us. We have such a fairy in our thoughts, a willing but unknown and tricksy worker which com- monly bears the name of Imagination, and which may be named — as I think more clearly —The Hidden Soul.

It is but recently that the existence of hidden The exist- or unconscious thought has been accepted as a hidden fact in any system of philosophy which is not f^j^^ mystical. It used to be a commonplace of phi-^J^'^^. losophy, that we are only in so far as we know *«*^g^- that we are. In the Cartesian system, the


202


The Gay Science.


CHAPTER VII.


The Car- tesian doctrine oppoted to it.


Leibnitz first sug- gested the modem doctrine.


essence of mind is thought ; the mind is nothing miless it thinks, and to think is to be conscious. To Descartes and his vast school of followers, a thought which transcends consciousness is a nullity. The Cartesian system is perfectly ruth- less in its assertion of the rights of consciousness, and the tendency of the Cartesians has been to maintain not only that without consciousness there can be no mind, but also that without consciousness there can be no matter. Nothing exists, they inclined to say, except it exists as thought (in technical phrase, esse ispercipi), and nothing is thought except we are conscious of it. In our own times, the most thorough-going statement of the Cartesian doctrine has come from Professor Ferrier, in one of the most grace- fully written works on metaphysics that has ever appeared. " We are," ss^ys Ferrier, " only in so far as we know ; and we know only in so far as we know that we know." Being and knowledge are thus not only relative, but also identical.

To Leibnitz is due the first suggestion of thought possibly existing out of consciousness. He stated the doctrine clumsily and vaguely, but yet with decision enough to make it take root in the German system of thought. There it has grown and fructified and run to seed; there, also, it has expanded into all the ab- surdities and extravagancies of the transcen- dental philosophy. But though much of that



The Hidden Soul. 203

philosophy is mere folly, and though to most chapter

of us it is nearly all unintelligible, we must 1

take heed not to scout it as a baseless fabric. It has a foundation of fact, and that foundation of fact is recognised now by our most sober thinkers, who — be they right or wrong — at least never quit the ground of common sense. It is recognised by Sir William Hamilton ; it is recognised by which is

1 • , ■»•■ "mr*!! "x • • J 1 also allowed

his opponent, Mr. Mill ; it is recognised by in our another great authority, Mr. Herbert Spencer. H^uton, How they recognise it, whether or not they are f'^^'^^ consistent in what they say of it, and what use ^" they make of the fact they have learned to acknowledge, are questions which we need only glance at. For me, the great point is that they admit the principle.

Sir William Hamilton is not consistent in his sir wiiuam

. - - . _. Hamilton's

assertions with regard to consciousness, rivery- view. body who is acquainted with his writings must know how forcibly he has described the existence within us of what he calls a latent activity. He shows as clearly as possible how the mind works in secret without l^owing it. His proof of the existence of hidden thought is one of the most striking points in his philosophy. Yet it shows the effect of his training that again and again he lapses into the old Cartesian way of speaking, and in many little passages which I might quote says that mind is co-extensive with consciousness — that thought exists only in so far as we know it exists.


204 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER Then again for Mr. Mill, I do not know that — 1 he is inconsistent in his views with regard to the

MUi'i Tiew. reality of hidden thought ; but some of us may object to the conclusions which he draws from that reality. He has attacked in the person of Sir William Hamilton the established philosophy of Europe. He challenges the whole of that system of philosophy which now reigns, and has reigned for the last century, having begun in a recoil from Hume. He has a rival system to propound — a reassertion of Hume ; and the grand weapons by which he proposes to beat down the current philosophy and to establish his own are what he calls the law of inseparable association and its attendant law of obliviscence. I must not vex my readers with the object of the discussion, which is rather dry, and indeed of little interest save to professed metaphysi- cians; and it is enough to state the bare fact that the argument — whatever it be and whither- soever it tend — turns entirely on the fact of hidden thought — the mind acting in a certain way and without knowing it.

Statement As for Mr. Herbert Spencer, he has stated the

Spencer/ casc vcry pithily in his defence of the current philosophy against Mr. Mill's attack. He comes upon a strange contradiction, which no one who will fully and fairly relate the facts of his con- sciousness can escape. Mr. Spencer puts the contradiction in its most suicidal attitude, and assures us that we cannot avoid it. " Mysterious


The Hidden Soul. 205

as seems the consciousness of somethins: which is chapter

. VII

yet out of consciousness," we are " obliged to 1

think it." Here then is admitted the funda- mental fact out of which all the fogs of the transcendental philosophy have arisen — the fact that the mind may be engaged in a sphere that transcends consciousness. I do not at present ask the reader to accept any of these views or any of these statements. The views may be faulty, and the statements may be obscure. But I ask him to understand that I am not about to preach to him an utterly new doctrine, or a doctrine which none but transcendental philosophers have allowed.

In point of fact it is an old doctrine. Although But m Leibnitz was the first to indicate plainly and or MotJwr soundly the existence of thought working for us ^ ^ in our minds occult and unknown, it is not to^^^ be supposed that this phenomenon had wholly escaped previous observers. On the contrary, the fact of vast tracts of unconscious, but still it u the active, mmd existmg within us, lies at the base ot of mys- all the theories of the mystics. And I know not ***^™' that in Shakespeare there is a more profound saying than one which is uttered by a nameless lord. ParoUes, soliloquizing, as he thinks in secret, expresses a fear that the hoUowness of And u his character has been discovered, and that all megested his bombast and drumming and trumpeting are ^\et8.* understood at length to be but sound and fury, signifying nothing : " They begin to smoke me,


206 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER and disgraces have of late knocked too often at

VII

— 1 my door. I find my tongue is too fool-hardy ; but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue. Tongue, I must put you into Zr butter-woman's mouth, and buy myself another of Bajazet's mule." The anonymous lord who overhears this extraordinary soliloquy, then asks, " Is it possible he should know that he is, and he that he is ?" It is a question which goes down to the very centre of life — how far knowledge is compatible with being, existence with the con- sciousness of existence. Here it is the crucial test of an irrecoverable ass. Look at Dogberry anxious to be written down an ass, and proving his donkeyhood by utter unconsciousness of it. Look at Falstafi^, on the other hand, laughing at himself and stopping the laughter of others when he says, "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass." And it is not only the final test of donkeyhood, but goes down to the deeps of life. Shakespeare is very fond of such phrases as these : " The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." "The worst is not as long as we can say. This is the worst." " I am not very sick, since I can reason of it." Shakespeare — could Shakespeare himself have knoum what he was, and yet have been that he was ?

Genei-ai Not SO ; wc are far more than we know ;

of the and, paradoxical though it may appear, yet



The Hidden Soul. 207

our life is full of paradoxes, and it is true chapter

that the mere circumstance of our knowing that 1

we are, is often a valid proof to the contrary, facts with T hope to avoid the nonsense and the jargon of have now those who have discoursed most on the sphere ^ ^^^* of the transcendental — that is, the sphere of our mental existence which transcends or spreads beyond our consciousness; but that conscious- ness is not our entire world, that the mind stretches in full play far beyond the bourne of consciousness, there will be little difficulty in proving. Outside consciousness there rolls a vast tide of life, which is, perhaps, even more important to us than the little isle of our thoughts which lies within our ken. Com- parisons, however, between the two are vain, because each is necessary to the other. The thing to be firmly seized is, that we live in two concentric worlds of thought, — an inner ring, of which we are conscious, and which may be described as illuminated ; an outer one, of which we are unconscious, and which may be described as in the dark. Between the outer and the inner ring, between our imconscious and our conscious existence, there is a free and a con- stant but unobserved traffic for ever carried on. Trains of thought are continually passing to and fro, from the light into the dark, and back from the dark into the light. When the current of thought flows from within our ken to beyond our ken, it is gone, we forget it, we know not


208 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER what has become of it. After a time it comes

VII

1 back to us changed and grown, as if it were a

new thought, and we know not whence it comes. So the fish, that leaves our rivers a smolt, goes forth into the sea to recruit its energy, and in due season returns a salmon, so unlike its former self that anglers and naturalists long refused to believe in its identity. What passes in the outside world of thought, without will and for the most part beyond ken, is just that which we commonly understand as the inscru- table work of imagination ; is just that which we should understand as the action of the hidden soul, and which, after these generalities, it is necessary now to follow in some detail. Thwefiicu The facts with which we have to deal fall dirided naturally into three groups, corresponding to the gl^uji.*^** first three groups of opinion, as to the nature of imagination enumerated in the last chapter. There it was stated that imagination has been identified by philosophers with memory, with reason, or else with passion ; and that there is a fourth group of thinkers who, not satisfied with any of these views, declare that in imagination there is something special, though they cannot And state- tcU what it is. Thc argument here is that each argument to of thc first thrcc scts of thinkers are quite right.

be fol lowed. T *j** * ' A ' *

Imagination is memory ; imagination is reason ; imagination is passion. But the argument goes further, and will have it that the fourth set of thinkers are also right, and that imagination has



The Hidden Soul. 209

a specialty. It is memory — but it is memory chapter

automatic and unconscious. It is reason — but it 1

is reason of the bidden soul. It is passion and all that we connect witb passion, of instinct, feel- ing, and sympathy — but it is passion that works out of sigbt. It is, in a word, the whole power or any power of the mind— but it is that power energising in secret and of its own free will. Now, for the present, let us put by the question whether it be right or wrong to say that this is a sufficient account of what we understand by the imagination. Hold that question in abey- ance until we have completed a survey of the hidden soul. At present, what we are to keep in view is this, that as the conscious soul may be roughly divided into faculties of memory, of reason, and of feeling, so the unconscious or hidden soul may be divided in the same manner, and may be considered as memory, as reason, and as feeling. Let us examine it in these three aspects.

I. In memory we encounter the oftest-noted On memory marvel of hidden thought. It is a power that den work." belongs even more to the unconscious than to the conscious mind. How and where we hide our knowledge so that it seems dead and buried ; and how in a moment we can bring it to life again, finding it in the dark where it lies unheeded amid our innumerable hoards, is a mystery over which every one capable of think-

VOL. I. p


210 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER ing has puzzled. The miracle here is most

1 evident and most interesting when memory halts

Acowunt a little. Then we become aware that we are "**^ ' seeking for something which we know not ; and there arises the strange contradiction of a faculty knowing what it searches for, and yet making the search because it does not know. Moreover, nothing is commoner than, when a man tries to recollect somewhat and fails, to hear him say, CoDtrtdic " Never mind, let us talk of something else, I 1^0^. shall remember it presently,** and then in the midst of his foreign talk, he remembers. So that the condition of his remembrance depends on this odd contradiction that he shall not only forget what he wants, but even forget that he wanted to remember it. When Daniel surpassed all the magicians, the astrologers, and the sooth- sayers of Babylon, by discovering to Nebucliad- nezzar the dream which lie had forgotten, he did not perform a more wonderful feat than the king himself would have accomplished had he been able by an eflFort of his own memory to recover the lost vision. In the plenitude of his powers, Newton could not remember how he arrived at the binomial theorem, and had to fall back upon his old papers to enable him to discover the process. The clue to Tlic cluc, but ouly a clue, to this perpetual iiidaen Hfe. magic of reminiscence lies in the theory of our hidden life. I do not attempt to follow out the explanation, since at best it only throws the


y^


The Hidden Saul 211


riddle but a step or two backwards, and for the chaptek

• • • • VII

present inquiry it is enough that I should 1

barely state the facts which indicate the reality and the intensity of our covert life. Strictly speaking the mind never forgets : what it once seizes, it holds to the death, and cannot let go. We may not know it, but we are greater than we know, and the mind, faithful to its trust, keeps a secret watch on whatever we give to it. Thus beams upon us the strange phenomenon of knowledge, possessed, enjoyed, and used by us, of which nevertheless we are ignorant — ignorant not only at times, but also in some cases during our whole lives.

First of all, for an illustration, take the well- story of the known story of the Countess of Laval, who Lavai^a always in her sleep spoke a language which those ^*^*"" about her could not understand and took for gib- berish. On the occasion of her lying-in, how- ever, she had a nurse from Brittany who at once understood her. The lady spoke Breton when asleep, although when awake she did not know a word of it, and could attach no meaning to her own phrases which were reported to her. The fact is that she had been born in Brittany, and had been nursed in a family where only the old Celtic dialect of that province was spoken. This she must have learned to prattle in her infancy. Returning to her father s home, where French only was spoken, and Breton not at all, she soon forgot her early speech — lost all traces of it in

p 2


212 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER her conscious memory. Beyond the pale of

1 consciousness memory held the language firm as

ever, and the Countess prattled in her dreams

Captain the syllablcs of her babyhood. Captain Marryat "^^^ gives an account of what happened to himself, not so striking perhaps, but equally pertinent. A man belonging to his ship fell overboard, and he jumped into the sea to save him. As he rose to the surface he discovered that he was in the midst of blood. In an instant the horror of his situation flashed on him. He knew that the sharks were around him, and that his life was to be measured by seconds. Swifter than pen can write it, his whole life went into the twinkling of an eye. Burst upon his view all that he had ever done, or said, or thought. Scenes "and events in the far past which had been long blotted from his remembrance came back upon him as lightning. The end of the story is that he escaped, the sharks having followed the ship, while he, left beliind, was picked up by a boat ; but the point of it for us lies in the fealty of memory to its trust, and in the perfectness of the art by which it held all the past of the man's life to the veriest trifle of gossip in safe keeping. DeQuincey. Dc Quiuccy, in the dreams of his opium-eating days, felt the same power in himself. Things which, if he had been told of them when waking he could not have acknowledged as parts of his former experience, were in his dreams so placed before him with all the chance colour and


The Hidden Soul 213


feelings of the original moment, that at once he ohaptek

knew them and owned their memorial identity. 1

As he thus noted the indelibility of his memory, he leaped to the conjecture which divines before him had reached, that in the dread day of reckon- ing the book which shall be opened before the Judge is but the everlasting roll of remem- brance.

In this unfailing record two things particu- Two things larly call for attention ; the first, that imderstand- noticed in ^ ing is not essential to memory ; the second, that ™^™®'^' the memory of things not understood may be vital within us. A word or two on each of these great facts.

That understanding is not essential to memory The first, we see in children who learn by heart what haSst^^^glT no meaning to them. The meaning comes long ^ a?*"^ years afterwards. But it would seem as if the process which we have all observed on such a small scale goes on continually on a much larger scale. Absolute as a photograph, the mind refuses nought. An impression once made upon the sense, even unwittingly, abides for evermore. There has long been current in Germany a story about a maid in Saxony who spoke Greek. Henry More refers to the fact as a sort of miracle and an antidote against atheism. Cole- ridge tells a similar story of later date and with explanatory details. In a Roman Catholic town story of the in Germany, a young woman, who could neither &^ony. read nor write, was seized with a fever, and was


214 Tlie Gay Science.


cHAPTEK said by the priests to be possessed of a devil,

1 because she was heard talking Latin, Greek and

Hebrew. Whole sheets of her ravings were written out, and were found to consist of sentences intelligible in themselves but having slight connection with each other. Of her Hebrew sayings, only a few could be traced to the Bible, and most seemed to be in the Rab- binical dialect. All trick was out of the ques- tion ; the woman was a simple creature ; there was no doubt as to the fever. It was long before any explanation save that of demoniacal possession could be obtained. At last the mystery was unveiled by a physician who determined to trace back the girl's history, and who, after much trouble, discovered that at the age of nine she had been charitably taken by an old Protes- tant pastor, a great Hebrew scholar, in whose house she lived until his death. On further inquiry it appeared to have been the old man's custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house into wliich the kitchen door opened, and to read to himself with a loud voice out of his books. The books were ransacked, and among thuiQ were found several of the Greek and Latin Fathors, together with a collection of Rabbinical writings. In these works so many of the passages taken down at the young woman's bed- side were identified, that there could be no reasonable doubt as to their source. A succes- sion of unintelligible sounds had been so caught


Tlie Hidden Soul. 215


by the ear that years afterwards the girl could chapter

in her delirium repeat them. And so we may 1

say generally, that, whether we know it or not. Memory the senses register with a photographic accuracy S^" whatever passes before them, and that the regis- ^ ^ wer, though it may be lost, is always imperish- able.

As it is only by a variety of illustrations that other iiius- this great fact can be thoroughly impressed upon given by the mind, I may be allowed to detain the reader we. "^"™ with yet another anecdote pointing to the same conclusion. It is told by Abercrombie ; indeed, lie has several like it. Thus, he makes mention of one of his patients who had in health no kind of turn for music, but sang Graelic songs in his delirium. The most remarkable case, however, which he describes is that of a dull awkward country girl — who was considered uncommonly weak of intellect, who in particular showed not the faintest sense of music, and who was fit only to tend the cattle. It happened that while thus engaged with cattle, she had to sleep next a room in which a tramping fiddler of great skill sometimes lodged. Often he would play there at night, and the girl took notice of his finest strains only as a disagreeable noise. By and by, however, she fell ill, and had fits of sleep-waking in which she would imitate the sweetest tones of a small violin. She would suddenly stop in her performance to make the sound of tuning her instrument, and then after a light prelude would


216 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER dash ofiF into elaborate pieces of music, most

VII •

1 delicately modulated. I have forgotten to men- tion that in the meantime a benevolent lady had taken a liking to her, and received her into her &mily as an xmder-servant. This accounts for the fact of her afterwards imitating the notes of an old piano which she was accustomed to hear in the house. Also, she spoke French, conjugated Latin verbs, and astonished everybody who approached her in her sleep-waking state, with much curious mimicry, and much fluent and some- times clever talk on every kind of subject — including politics and religion. Here the High- land lass is but exhibiting in another form the same sort of phenomenon as Coleridge described Conclusion, in the German girl. In both of these anecdotes memory the fact stauds out clcar, that the memory grips ^et« not ling ^^^^ appropriates what it does not understand —

appropriates it mechanically, hke a magpie stealing a silver spoon, without knowing what it is, or what to do w^ith it. The memory can- not help itself It is a kleptomaniac and lets nothing go by. III. se»oiHi Nor must we have mean ideas as to the n.!tiaii, nature of the existence in the mind of things memory of prescrvcd bcyoud our knowledge and without IindSiit'!i!^i ^^^' understanding. This is the second point maybeviiaiafoiesjiid which calls for attention. When we

within u>. ^ ^ ^

think of something preserved in the mind, but lost and wellnigh irrecoverable, we are apt to imagine it iis dormant; when we know that it


The Hidden Soul. 217

was unintelligible we are apt to imagine it as chapter dead. On the contrary, the mind is an organic — whole and Hves in ever^ part, even though we know it not. Aldebaran was once the grandest star in the firmament, and Sirius had a companion star once the brightest in heaven, and now one of the feeblest. Because they are now dim to us, are we to conclude that they are going out and becoming nought ? The stars are overhead, though in the blaze of day they are unseen ; they are not only overhead, but also all their influences are unchanged. So there is knowledge Knowledge active within us of which we see nothing, know ^ „, nothing, think nothing. Thus, in the sequence ^^^'j^'I^Jj of thought, the mind, busied with the first link ^o^m- in a chain of ideas, may dart to the third or fourth, the intermediate link or links being utterly unknown to it. They may be irrecoverable, they may even be unintelligible, but they are there, and they are there in force.

As it is sometimes difficult to follow a general Examples statement like this without the help of example, ^on. " '^^^ I will suppose a case in point, suggested by the story of the girl who in her waking state had no ear for music, but yet in her sleep-waking could imitate the music of the violin with won- drous accuracy and sweetness. Take the case of a man who has no ear for music, who cannot keep time in a simple dance, who can neither remember nor recognise a tune, and to whom melody is but an unmeaning succession of sweet


218 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER noises. That man may, nevertheless, through — 1 associations the most fine and indefinable of any, but also the most sure and irresistible-


through an association of unknown musical ideas — connect two objects of thought which are otherwise far apart. The hearing a Methodist hymn sung, for example, may put him in mind of a snow storm. Say that the hymn is sxmg to the air of Scots wha hoe wi Wallace bled. He may not know this ; neither may he know that The Land o* the Leal which he once heard has the same air transposed to the minor key ; but forthwith on hearing the hymn, his mind re- verts to the idea of the snow-drift which is mentioned in the first verse of the Scotch song. The knowledge of the strain, once heard, is in the mind, quick and quickening, although he knows it not nor understands it. So, in the how what days of our feebleness we have witnessed scenes buteto and events for which we seemed to have no lITbutT**" eyes and no ears, and a long time thereafter we of Sfen describe as from imagination what is really a memory, gurrcnder of the memory. Looks and tones come back upon us with strange vividness from the far past ; and we can picture to the life transac- tions of which it is supposed that we have never had any experience. Shelley was filled with terror when he thought of these things. In a walk near Oxford, he once came upon a part of the landscape for the first time (as he deemed) which nevertheless his memory told him that he


The Hidden Soul.


219


had seen before. When long afterwards, in chaffer Italy, he attempted to describe upon paper the — 1 state of his mind in half feeling that he had seen this landscape before in a dream, he became so terror-stricken in contemplation of his thought that he had to throw down his pen and fly to his wife to quell in her society the agitation of his nerves.


No wonder that Plato when he saw the vast piato


main-


resources of the mind — when there came to him viJw of" a dim feeling that much of what he seemed to thrth^iy create he was only drawing from remembrance, ?f p*^^- and when he could trace back to no period in the present Kfe the origin of impressions which had been self-registered, and ideas which had been self-grown in the dark of his mind, straightway started the hypothesis of a previous life passed in a previous world, before we found our way hither to be clogged by clay. Many a time since then men have caught at the same idea.* One of our least known poets, but a true one, Matthew Green, has it in the following terms : —

As prisoners into life we've come ; Dying may be but going home ; Transported here by bitter fate, The convicts of a prior state.


♦ A query has been raised as to the meaning of the question which we find in the Gospel of St. John : ** Master, who did sin, this man or his {larents, that he


was bom blind?" How could the man have sinned before he was bom, except on the supposi- tion of prc-existence ?


220 The Gay Science.


CHAiTER But he who has in modem times most emphati-

VIL ^

The same view sug- gested b J


cally expressed it is Wordsworth. In the finest of his poems he says :


^*"^ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ;

The soul that rises with us, our life s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting. And oometh from afar ; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of gloiy, do we come From God, who is our home.

Summary So much then for memory, in so far as it relating to represents the immense involuntary life which n»emory. ^^ ^Q^^ ^^^ q£ consciousness. If the facts I

have brought together do not account for all, certainly they account for much of what we understand by the word imagination. They account for much even of what is most mys- terious in the processes called imaginative. In the mechanical accuracy with which memory all unknown to us registers the flitting impressions of our daily life, and in the faithfulness with which at times and in ways of its own choosing, it surrenders to consciousness these impressions, we have a glimpse of what is meant by the creativeness of imagination. It is true, that the theory of unconscious memory does not explain all tlie creative work of fantasy. There is in the mind, as I shall afterwards have to show, a genuine creative process, over and above the seeming creativeness of unconscious memory. Still, it is difficult to exaggerate the importance



The Hidden Saul. 221

of mere memory — involuntary and secret — as a chapter

worker of miracles, as a discoverer of things 1

unknown, and as contributing to invest all objects of thought with a halo of mystery, which is but the faint reflection of forgotten knowledge. The Platonic theory of pre-ex- istence is but the exaggeration of a truth. Our powers of memory are prodigious ; our powers of invention are very limited. The same fables, -^ the same comparisons, the same jests are pro- duced and reproduced like the tunes of a barrel- organ in successive ages and in different countries.

When Sir Walter Scott was engaged on the Anecdote of composition of Rokehy, he was observed to take swtt.* notes of the little wild flowers that grew not far from the cave which he was going to allot to Guy Denzil. He describes how Bertram laid him down :

Where purple heath, profusely strewn. And throat-wort, with its azure bell, And moss and thyme his cushion swell

To one who expressed surprise that for such details he did not trust to imagination, meaning the faculty of invention, he replied that this faculty is circumscribed in its range, is soon ex- hausted and goes on repeating itself, whereas nature is boundless in its variety, and not to be surpassed by any efforts of art. Thus it is^ not so much to a trained invention as to a trained memory, that the poet who seeks for variety must


222 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER chiefly trust ; and it will be found that all

1 great poets, all great artists, all great inventors

are men of great memory — their imconscious memory being even greater than that of which they are conscious. These unconscious memories stirring we know not what within us, fill some men with a sense of the mystery of hfe, and shed on all things visible the hues of poetry, — that light, which, according to Wordsworth, never was on sea or land. Other men they enrich with visions of what they fancy they have never seen. In a moment at a single jet the picture is in the mind's eye complete to a pin's head with all the perfectness of imaginative work. One blow, one flash, is all we are conscious of; no fum- bling, no patching, no touching up. We are unconscious of the automatic energy within us until its work is achieved and the effbct of it is not to be resisted. We see the finished re- sult; of the process we know nothing. We enjoy the one and we stand in awe of the other. We endow these extraordinary memories with divine honours. Ye are as gods, we say to the poets. And thus far at least one can see a deeper wisdom in the doctrine of the Greeks that the muses were all daughters of Mnemo- syne.

On the hid- IJ. Let us now look for the exercise of reason

I^e*L)u. *" in the hidden soul, by reason understanding not

merely what the logicians mean, but all that is



The Hidden Soul. 223


included in the popular sense of the term — as chapter judgment, invention, comparison, calculation, — 1 selection, and the like movements of thought, forethought and afterthought.

When we come to look into the complex The com- movement of our thoughts, we discover that in Siought! almost every mental operation there are several distinct wheels going, though we may be con- scious of only one. No better illustrations need we seek for, than the favourite ones of play- ing on the piano-forte and of reading a book. The beginner on the piano-forte strikes the notes far between like minute guns. For every key that he touches a distinct enterprise of thought is required. After a time he fingers the scale more deftly, and can grasp whole handful s of notes in quick succession with greater ease than at first he could hit upon a single key. See how many things he can do at we do a once. With both hands he strikes fourfold tiroftwn^ chords — eight separate notes ; he does this in ^^ not* im- perfect time; he lifts his foot from the pedal so sciousofau. as to give the sound with greater fiilness; meanwhile his eye, fixed on the music-book, is reading one or two bars in advance of his hand ; and to crown all, he is talking to a com- panion at his side. This enumeration of the various coiurses which the mind pursues at one and the same moment, is far from complete ; but it is enough to show that many lines of action which when first attempted require to be


224 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER carried on by distinct efforts of volition become

VII •

1 through practice mechanical, involuntary move- ments of which we are wholly unaware. In the act of reading we find the mind similarly at work for us, with a mechanical ease that is independent of our care. There are indeed well attested cases of readers overtaken with sleep and continuing to read aloud, although thus overpowered. Children at the factories have fallen asleep over the machines which their fingers kept plying. Postmen have gone upon their daily rounds dead asleep, without oversight of consciousness or intervention of will. In these cases the mind spontaneously went forward in certain accustomed grooves.

Further Morc particular examples are at hand.

SJUIhi^ Houdin could not only keep four balls tossing

^IId*Sur- ^^ *^^ ^^^> ^^* ^^^ while these were flying 8ueH neverai about could read a book placed before him.

distinct ao- ^ ^ •*■

tioiw at Canning dictated despatches to three secretaries at once, and we may rest assured that in the complicated operations of thought required for such a performance, he very much depended on certain self-acting processes which he had taught his mind to follow. Sir Walter Scott sometimes dictated his narratives, and the penman whom he employed on one occasion very soon dis- covered that he was carrying on two distinct trains of thought, one of which was already arranged and in the act of being spoken, while the other was further advanced, putting together


once.


r\


The Hidden Scml. 225

what was afterwards to be said. It was a proof chapter

of this double movement, that sometimes Scott 1

would let slip a word which was wholly out of place, and was even superfluous (as entertained for denied or in addition to it), but which clearly belonged to the following sentence, and there fell into its proper place. It became thus evident that he was composing the one sentence while he was dictating the other, and that a word occasionally dropped from the sentence which was in his mind into that which was on his tongue. The act of composition had in his mind become so automatic that when he was released from the irksomeness of pen- manship, and could rely upon another hand to drive the quill, he would forget what he had done — every incident, character, and con- versation of his book. It was thus that during an illness, the Bride of Lammermoor was composed amid groans of suffering which seemed far more than the story to engross his mind. The sentences of this, one of his finest tales, flowed on freely in spite of the cries with which they were mingled ; but when the work was finished, Scott had no memory of it ; to no one did the tale appear a greater novelty than to himself; and he read the proofs in a fever of fright lest he should come upon some huge blunder.

The self-working of his mind was however Several of still more evident in another habit. When tinct actions

VOL. I. Q


226 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER in the conduct of his plot he became entangled

1 in a knot which he could not quickly unravel,

k«w» or when he was stopped by any consider- ooMdoiM. able difficulty, it was his custom to put aside his papers for the day, and to forget his embarrassment in other occupations. When he awoke on the morrow the problem was solved, and he got rid of the difficulty with ease. Some may account for the clearance of the stumbling-block, by the increased vigour of the mind after it had been freshened with sleep. The mind The true explanation is that the mind, though it broods over sccmcd to be othcrwisc engaged, was really

    • ^*^' brooding in secret over its work, and mechani-

cally revolving the problem, so that it was all ready for solution at peep of dawn. There are few thinking minds that have not had expe- riences wliich bear out this view. They too have had to face perplexity, have been baffled in the first encounter, and have withdrawn for a time from the fray. Perhaps they resolve, as the saying is, to sleep upon it. What then? Not always does light come in the morning ; it comes at other times when the mind has had no chance of rest. It may flash upon us imex- pectedly when we are lost in other cares, in the deeps of sorrow, or in the roar of business, or in the whirl of pleasure. Many of us can remem- ber that in our college days when some hard mathematical problem had fairly mastered us, and we were driven in despair to throw it aside,



The Hidden Soul. 227

suddenly the solution shot into the mind when chapter

we were bent on different thoughts in the 1

hunting-field, or at a wine party, or in the house of prayer. Archimedes was in the bath when he jumped to the shout of Eureka ; and the angel of the Lord appeared unto Gideon as he threshed wheat by the wine-press in Ophrah, to hide it from the Midianites. I believe it was Goethe who pointed out that Saul the son of Eash found a kingdom while his only thought was to find his father's asses.

The gist of these anecdotes is, I hope, clear. That the By a flood of examples I am trying to make utL, in-*^** manifest the reality of certain mental ongoings ]^^ of which, from their very nature, scarcely ^«*'f.^®*;

' •' ' •' us without

anything is known. Out of them all emerges ?«>■ know- the fact that the mind keeps watch and ward for us when we slumber; that it spins long threads, weaves whole webs of thought for us when we reck not. In its inner chamber, whither no eye can pierce, it will remember, brood, search, poise, calculate, invent, digest, do any kind of stiff work for us unbidden, and always do the very thing we want. Although we cannot lift the veil and see the mind working, yet the facts crowd upon us which show that it does work underhand. They are of all sorts, from the most simple to the most complex. For a very simple illustration of the law, we may note what is called absence of mind. We are all more or less absent, and having thoughts

Q 2


228 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER here and far away, in sight and out of sight,

1 may be described as double minded. But some

men attend more habitually than others to the under-cuirents of thought, and are thus remark- able for their absence. From such simple illus- trations of undersong and involuntary concealed action in the mind, we rise to higher examples. The story Thcrc is the case of A vicenna. Avicenna was vicenM ^ ^^^^ hard student who went regularly to the

mosque to pray that Allah would help him in his studies, and get him middle terms for the syllogisms he required. The story goes that Allah heard his prayers and found him the middle terms while he slept ; at least they came to him in dreams. Without supposing that Allah was so deeply interested in his syllogisms as to work a miracle in his behalf, we can still be- lieve in the efficacy of the philosopher's prayer. There are Kneeling was the highest expression of his

many things . ij1* *i 11* •-!

which we auxiety, and this anxiety so urged his mmd cannot 01 ^j^^^ what it could not reach under the dis-


we are con-


^d^*e^iy tnrbing gaze of consciousness, it seized in sleep jfwe easily when its movements were allowed to

become un- *'

conscious, becomc spontaneous. So it happens often. There are things which we fail to do if we are watched, and which we do easily if no one is by ; which we cannot do at all if we think about it, and which we do readily if we do not tliink. " His memory was great," says Sir Philip Warwick of Lord Strafford, ^'and he made it greater by confiding in it." I have already referred to the


r\


Tlie Hidden Soul. 229

saying of Mozart : *' If you think how you are chapter

to write, you will never write anything worth 1

hearing. I write because I cannot help it." What we try to do, we cannot do ; when we cease trying, we do it. Is this because trying is useless, and when we are sore pressed for middle terms, we must ring down the Almighty with a church bell ? On the contrary, it is trying that succeeds, and Heaven helps with inspiration only those who help themselves. In one of the English versions of the Psalms there is a fine expression : " Oh tarry thou the Lord's leisure ;' but the most luminous gloss upon this text is to be foimd in the saying of Father Malebranche, that attention is the prayer of the intellect ; only here we must limit ourselves to attention that is passive. Think you, says Wordsworth,

Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum

Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking ?

  • • •

Nor less, I deem that there are powers

Which of themselves our minds impress. And we can feed this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.

That story of Avicenna reminds us that in Action of sleep we have the boldest evidence of the mind's in delp. latent activity. Like those heavenly bodies which are seen only in the darkness of night, the realities of our hidden life are best seen in the darkness of slumber. We have observed that in the gloaming of the mind, memory displays a rich-


230 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER ness which it is fain to conceal in the ftill glare

1 of consciousness. It has languages, it has music

at command of which when wide awake it has no knowledge. Time would fail us to recount the instances in which through dreams it helps us to &cts — as where a stray will is to he found, or how the payment of a certain sum of money can he proved — which in broad day we have given up There is no for lost. Nor is there any end to the cases which t^giife might be cited of actions begun in consciousness ^^4* and continued in sleep-naoldiers thus marching, owryooiD ooachmeu driving, pianists playing, weavers throwing the shuttle, saddlers making harness, seamstresses plying the needle, swimmers floating, sailors mounting the shrouds ^r heaving the \ol Probably our first impulse when we hear of these things is to make merry with the sleeping palace where for a hundred years a somnolent king sits on the throne, surrounded by drooping coun- sellors, while not far oflF the butler dozes with a flask between his knees, the steward reposes amid his wrinkles, the page in a dream is intent on a slumbering maid of honour, the sentinel hybemates in his box, the winds are all snoring, the trees are all nodding, the fowls are all roosting, the fires are all dormant, the dogs are all heavy with the selfsame spell that sent the beautiful Prinoess to drowse for an age upon a golden bed. Especially may we be inclined to smile at such a picture of life, since in the philosopher's rendering of it the sleepers would


r\


ness.


The Hidden Soul. 231

not as in the poefs fable be arrested in their chapter

• • VII

actions, but would go on acting without let or 1

hindrance.

One is not more inclined to treat the matter similar gravely, when one remembers how closely and^X how ludicrously these experiences of actions f^"^"*" continued in sleep are connected with the phe- nomena of narcotics. We laugh to hear of the drunken Irish porter who forgot when sober what he had done when drunk, and who had to get drunk again in order to remember any circum- stances which it was necessary for him to recall, so that having once in a state of intoxication lost a valuable parcel, he could give no account of it, but readily found it again in his next drinking bout. We laugh as we remember the story of the ancient Persians who would undertake no im- portant business unless they had first considered it drunk as well as sober. We laugh to think that in this England of ours, and in a time of terrible storm, the helm of the state was held by a prime minister, the Duke of Portland, who almost lived on opiates, was always in a state of stupor, and would fall dead asleep over his work. We harve our jokes about the sleep-bound cabinet that from the brow of Richmond Hill sent an order to Lord Raglan to go and take Sebastopol. We have our memories of Laputa, in which the philosophers were so wise, so absent-minded and so given to sleep that they had to hire flappers who with bladders at the end of strings would


232 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER flap them on the head and rouse them to their

VII.

Though Laugh as we may, we return to the mystery

thS^fiicto of sleep with ever-increasing wonderment.

u^nM What is most wonderful in it is the ease with

tide, thej which thc miud works and overtakes results that

aredesenr-


ing of the waking it would either fail to approach, or would iierioa. ftt^ approach with faltering painful steps. Heaps of

examples are at hand. None is better known AooouDtof than that of Coleridge, who in a sleep composed actions per- the bcautiful fragment of Kublah Khan. Not- ,2^. "* withstanding their sibilation, nothing can be

more musical than such lines as these.

A damsel with a dulcimer. In a vision once I saw : It was an Abyssinian maid. And on a dulcimer she played. Singing of Mount Abora.

Coleridge's sleep was produced by opium; but the Queen of Navarre, Augustus la Fontaine, Voltaire and others, in their natural sleep made verses which they remembered on waking. Thomas Campbell woke up in the night with the line, " Coming events cast their shadows before," which he had been beating his brains for during a whole week. In like manner, Tartini com- posed the Devil's Sonata, in a dream in which the enemy of mankind seemed to challenge him to a match on the fiddle. In sleep Benjamin Franklin forecast events with a precision which in the daytime he could never attain, and which by contrast seemed the result rather of a second-


r\


The Hidden Soul.


233


sight than of his ordinary work-a-day faculties, chapter

In sleep, Father Maignan used to pursue his 1

mathemetical studies, and when he worked out a theorem in his dreams, he would awake in the flush and pleasure of his discovery. In sleep, Condillac would mentally finish chapters of his work which, going to bed, he had left un- finished. Abercrombie tells of an advocate who had to pronounce a legal opinion in a very com* plicated case which gave him much concern. His wife saw him rise in the night, write at his desk, and return to bed. In the morning he informal her that he had a most interesting dream, in which he had unravelled the difficulties of the case and had been able to pronounce a most luminous judgment, but unfortunately it had escaped his memory and he would give any- thing to recover it. She had but to refer him to his desk and there the judgment was found clear as light.*


  • I place in a foot-note a re-

markable story which appeared in Notes and QuerieSy 14th January, 1860. The story is told on the authority of the Rev. J. de Liefde. A brother clergy- man, whom he perfectly trusted, told him as follows : — " I was a student at the Mennonite Semi- nary at Amsterdam, and fre- quented the mathematical lec- tures of Professor Van Swinden. Now, it happened that once a banking-house had given the


professor a question to resolve which required a difficult anc prolix calculation ; and often already had the mathematician tried to find out the problem, but as to effect this some sheets of paper had to be covered with ciphers, the learned man at each trial had made a mistake. Thus, not to overfatigue himself, he oonmiunicated tiie puzzle to ten of his students — me amongst the number — and begged us to at- tempt its unravelling at home.


234


Thg ^jdy Science.


CHAPTER Thia last example, however, is not ordiiuury

— - dreaming, but comes onder the head of sleep*

.smniMm- walkioj^ OF Waking, a peculiar class of phenomena,

iti wtmdtru so well and so long recognised that when, in the

year 1686, a brother of Lord Culpepper was

indicted at the Old Bailey for shooting one of the

gnards and his horse, he was acquitted on the plea

of somnambulism. In this state as in that of


My ambitioa did not ftllow me anj delaj. I let to work the flune erenhigy bat withoat soc- otmL Another erening was ncri- ficed to mj andertaking, bat frnitlefliilj. At last I bent my- self OTer my ciphers, a third erening. It was winter, and I calculated to half-past one in the morning — all to no porpose! The prodoct was errooeoaa. Low at heart, I threw down my pen- cil, which already that time had bficiphereri three slates. I hesi- tat4xl whrthf.T I would toil the nif^ht throujrh, and be^n my calculation anew, as I knew that the professor wanted an answer the very same morning. But lo ! my aindle was already burning in the HTx^ket, and, alas ! the persons with whom I lived had long ago gone to rest Then I also went to 1)0(1, my h(Mul fillwl with ci}>h('rH, and tire<l of mind I fell asl(!C'p. In the morning I awoke just early enouj^h to dress and profianj myself to go to the lec- ture. I was vexed at heart not to liiivc been able to 8f;lve the question, and at having to dis-


appoint my teacher. Bat, O wockier! as I ^proach my writing table, I find oq it a paper, with ciphers of my own hand, and think of my astonish- ment, the whole problem en it solved qoite ari<:ht, and withoat a single blonder. I wanted to ask my hotpita whetbo^ any one had been in my room, bot was stopped by my own writing. Aftowards I told her what had occurred, and she herself won- dered at the event, for she as- sured me no one had entered my afiftrtment. Thus I must have calculated the problem in my sleep and in the dark to boot, and what is most remarkable, the computation was so succinct, that what I saw now before me on a single folio sheet, had re- quired three slatefuls closely be- ciphered at both sides, during my waking state. Professor Von Swinden was quite amazed at the event, and declared to me that whilst calculating the pro- blem himself^ he never once bad thought of a solution so simple and concise."


r\


Ths Hidden Soul. 235

ordinary dreaming the precision and the faciUty chapter of the work we can do are very remarkable. The — 1 sleep-walker seldom makes a false step, or sings a wrong note. She rivals the tones of the Swedish nightingale, warbling in her presence ; and high on some giddy edge she foots it with the skill of a rope-dancer. Especially is it curious to see how the waking and the sleep- waking states are severed from each other as by a wall. Just as the Irish porter, already men- tioned, had no remembrance in his sober state of what he had done in his fits of intoxication^ and had to get drunk in order to discover it, the sleep-waker leads in vision a Ufe which has no discernible point of contact with his daily life. His day life is a connected whole in keeping with itself; his night life is the same ; but the two are as distinct as parallel lines that have no chance of meeting. By day the man has not the faintest recoDection of what goes on at night ; and by night he has in his memory no IxL of what pJses in the day. The p^sio-T^e^ou^^^ logists attempt to account for this by regarding somLm-* the brain as a double organ, one-half of which j^^ ^^^^^^r may be active while the other is in repose. ***8we m

•/ ^ ^ ^ ^ our waJuDg

But these physical explanations are not satis- «*»*«• factory. Even in fall consciousness, when it may be supposed that both sides of the brain are active, we sometimes know of a double life being prosecuted something like that which sleep-waking shows. Sir James Mackintosh


236 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER was a man who mixed much in the world and

VII.

— 1 took a forward part in public affairs ; but from his youth upwards, he led another life of curious reverie. He was the Emperor of Constantinople, his friends were his ministers and generals. In endless day-dreams he saw transacted the history of his empire ; he watched the intrigues of his palace; he gave rewards to his faithful ser- vants; and formed alliances with neighbour- ing powers. To the last the habit clung to him. Among his friends he was the gentle clansman of the north country, bom to belie the rhyme.

Of all the Highland clans, The Macnab is the most ferocious,

Except the Macintyres, The MacrawB and the Mackintoshes.

In long-drawn dreams he soared far above the Clan Chattan, he stood imperial upon the Golden Horn, he made war upon his enemies, and with- out remorse he chopped off the heads of rebellious subjects. He thus led two Uves which were quite distinct from each other, and which resem- bled the double life of sleep-wakers in all but this, that in the one state he did not lose his consciousness of the other.

The hidden IH. If memory has its hiding places in the

•ion and**" miud, aud if there too is to be found a hidden

inrtinct. reason ; so also, nearly all that we understand

by passion, feeling, sympathy, instinct, intuition


The Hidden Soul. 237

is an energy of the hidden soul. It is so en- chapter

tirely a hidden work that in popular regard it is 1

readily accepted as of kin to imagination. Instinct, intuition, passion, sympathy — ^these are forces which we at once recognise as of them- selves poetical, as for the most part indistin- guishable from imagination, and as involved in the recesses of the mind. They are processes which never fairly enter into consciousness, which we know at best only in a semi-conscious- ness, and less in themselves than in their results. The instinctive action of the mind so clearly belongs to the hidden soul — to that part of the human intelligence which is automatic and out of sight, that we need not dwell upon it so minutely as on those actions of the mind of which secrecy is not the rule. The operations of reason, for example, are chiefly known to us in their conscious exercise ; and it was necessary at some length, to show that there is a prodi- gious empery of reason which is not conscious. Secrecy, on the other hand, is the normal con- dition of passionate and instinctive movements. The mere existence of such forces as instinct and passion is a vulgar fact which to those who read it aright will at once tell a tale of the hidden soul.

Passion, whether we view it as feeling orptanonno- as fellow-feeling, is notoriously a blind uncon- buid°foroe. scious force. Love is a blind god, and Shake- speare says that it has no conscience — a word


238 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER which in his time had the sense of consciousness — 1 besides that which it now bears :

Love is too young to know what conscience is ; Tet who knows not, ounscience is born of love.

It is thus the type of all passion. It matters not which of the passions we select for cross- examination : they are all, in this respect, alike. But love is the emotion which, in literature, has received the most thorough scrutiny. It is the central fire of modem poetry and romance. And if all poetry and all romance, bear witness to the greatness of its power, they are also full to overflowing of the proofs of its mystery, its The waywardness, its unreason. It is a mighty SJ^ potentate that springs from a chance look, that feeds on itself, and that is not to be outdone. The preference of the lover is accorded to one knows not what, for often it flies in the face of all reason— even the reason of the lover himself. It catches him like a fever, and rides him like destiny. It is a spell that works within him, he knows not how, and drives him he cares not whither. Under its sway he is no longer him- self ; perhaps he is greater than himself; at least, he is another being. He is caught in a dream, and his known self becomes the sport and creature of a hidden self which neither he nor his friends can always recognise as verily his. He rejoices in the accession of a new life, because then, for the first time, he becomes aware of his hidden soul — of dim Elysian fields


The Hidden Soul. 239

of thought, far stretching beyond the bounds of chapter

his daylight consciousness ; and he blesses the 1

angel, or the fairy, or the goddess — call her any- thing but a woman— through whom this witch- ing sense of endowment comes to him. Nor is a And passion passion, because it is blind, to be branded as un- windu not trustworthy. It is quite capable of error ; it ^worthy makes huge mistakes; but I know not that it makes more mistakes than the more conscious forces of the mind, and I do know that very often, far more often than we think, the greatest of all mistakes is not to be in a passion — ^not to feel. There is a well-known remark of a French actor (Baron, I think), who, however, had only his own hueiness in his eye, that pas- sion knows more than art^ — blind feeling more than all science. It is a saying which applies to passion generally, and to that hidden soul ot which it is a part.

Passion reminds us of sympathy, and we may sympathj take sympathy as next door neighbour to instinct, comiioili"" It is a strange power which the mind possesses **^^* of taking a colour from whatever besets it, like the chameleon that takes the colour of the place it passes. We imitate without knowing that we imitate ; and this is sympathy. One man smiles, and another without knowing it repeats the action. So we have a fellow-feeling with the joy and sorrow and every motion of each other's minds. Remember Gretry's trick. He had a clever method of slackening or quick-


240 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER ening the pace of any companion in his walks.

1 When he did not like to tell his friend that the

pace was too fast or too slow, he sung softly an air to the time of their march, and then by degrees either quickened or slackened it accord- ing to his wishes. It is strange too to note how little will suflSce to set a strong sympathy in action. St. Bernard preached the crusade in Latin to the German peasants, and we know how they were roused by sermons of which they And how did not understand a word. As he pondered oouoted for ovcr this marvcl of unconscious imitation. Bacon ' could not see a way to the imderstanding of it,

but by supposing a transmission of spirits from one to another. ** It would make a man think (though this which we shall say may seem ex- ceeding strange) that there is some transmission of spirits," and he promises to treat of this transmission more at large when he comes to speak of imagination. His suggestion is but one more form of a conjecture that continually recurs to all who have much noted the hidden action of the mind. It is inspiration, we say ; it is genius ; it is magic ; it is the transmission of spirits ; it is anything but the natural mind — the mind of which we are conscious. Here again, therefore, in sympathy, and in Bacon's account of it, we have additional evidence of the hidden soul, ol^^r's'^^ Then for instinct, Cuvier pitching about for a definition of definition of instinct as it appears in the lower


r\


The Hiddm Soul. 241

r- " ' •

animals, felt that he could compare it to nothing chapter so fitly as to the action of the human mind in .^ somnambdism. It i» the clearest and mostiT^." pregnant definition of this mysterious power ^"^'®'"- which has yet been suggested. The mind of beasts, void of self-knowledge and the reason which looks before and after, may well be compared to the belated mind of the sleep- walker; and on the other hand, the processes which we can trace in sleep-walking remind us for their easy precision of nothing so much as instinct. The bee never fails in his honeycomb ; the swallow is unerring in her calendar ; and the sleep-walker is equally precise. And as when you wake the somnambulist to reason you render him incapable; so when you teach the savage that lives by instinct to think, you make him stupid. For men as well as beasts have their instincts, and in each of them, the power is to be defined in the same terms. It is said of the wolf that when he was in his hornbook, he spelt every word, 1, a, m, b. This is a perfect description of the instinctive process, however various its forms.

The more we examine into these instinctive The mental actions, the more are we surprised at variety of their variety and their number. You do not J^IIJ^^'^* know, for example, how many steps there are in the staircase of your house, but your foot knows. You can ascend and descend in the dark, and when you reach the landing, your foot makes of

VOL. I. R


242 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER its own accord the appropriate action. This is

1 bat one of a great class of mental actions going

on ever unknown to us. It resembles reason, as all instinct does ; and without any breach of propriety, it might be called an effort of the hidden reason, because this hidden knowledge and calculation comes of experience. But it is scarcely possible to resolve into any exercise of reason or into the lesson of experience, certain The inttino- othcr actious of the unconscious muscles. The of!!ur **° artist can trust to his hand, to his throat, to his mofciai. ^y^^ ^ render with unfailing accuracy subtle distinctions of tone and shades of meaning with which reason seems to have nothing to do — with which no effort of reason can keep pace. It is ifadaoMi told of Madame Mara that she was able to sound h^ringing. 100 different intervals between each note of music. The compass of her voice was at least three octaves, so that the total number of intervals at her command was 1500. This immense variety of sound is produced by the less or greater tension of certain muscles of the throat. The difference between the least and the greatest tension of these muscles in a woman's throat is the eighth of an inch. Therefore, all the 1500 varieties of musical soimds which Madame Mara could produce came from degrees in the tension of her muscles which are to be represented by dividing the eighth part of an inch into 1500 subdivisions. Which of us by taking thought can follow such arithmetic ? No singer



The Hidden Soul. 243

can consciously divide the tension of her vocal chaptek

chords into 12,000 parts of an inch, and select one 1

of these ; nevertheless she may hit with infallible accuracy the precise note which depends upon this minute subdivision of muscular energy. It would be easy to multiply examples of the same sort, what Mr. Mr. Ruskin has shown with great felicity how ff°^rsubu^ infinitely the hand of a painter goes beyond the [Jjf £^/ power 6f seeing in the delicacy and subtlety of its work — the gradations of light and form which it can detail being expressible only in fabulous arithmetical formulas with no end of ciphers in them.* The eye itself too is an arithmetician that beats us hollow in its calculations. Mr. Nunneley tells us that when we behold red colour the retina pulsates at the rate of 480 billions of times between every two ticks of a clock. This is what the most advanced science of our time teaches us, and as in practice we are quite unconscious of it, we can only stand in awe of that instinctive power wherewith we are endowed — a power that with the greatest ease reaches spontaneously to results beyond reckoning, beyond understanding.

It seems to be the same sort of power as The secret that which the brain exerts in secret over thcwhl^the whole body. The brain keeps guard ot^er the ol^^the"^ various processes of the body — as the beating ^****^® **°^y- of the heart and the breathing of the lungs ;

♦ Mr. Raskin's statement is I will be found at the end of tliis too long for a foot-note, but it I chapter.

R 2


244 Tlie Gay Science.

CHAPTER ^ets them a rhythm and keeps them to it.

1 Grief in one night will silver the hair, fear fills

the bladder, rage dries the mouth, shame reddens the cheek, the mere thought of her child fills the mother's breast with milk. In numerous facts like these there is evidence of a hidden life of thought working with a constant energy in our behalf in the economy of the bodily frame. Curiously enough too for my argument one great division of this mental energy goes expressly by the name of imagination. It is an old notion, though whether it be true or false has yet to be determined, that the mind of the On the effect mother has a marked influence on the outward ti<m^°*" appearance of her child. It is not merely that pregMncy. ^^ imparts her own character to her child — bu t that some chance event, some passing thought, some momentary vision, may so impress itself in her mind during the period of her pregnancy, as to leave upon her babe an indelible and recognisable sign. This is said to be the effect of imagination, and many books have been written on it. I shall not soon forget the surprise with which — when some years ago I wanted to master this subject of imagination, and read everything about it I could lay my hands on — I chanced on a number of books in Latin, in Italian, and in French, as, for example, Pienus De Viribus Imaginatioilis, or Muratori Delia Forza della Fantasia^ and found that they were all about the freaks of the mind in preg-


The Hidden Soul. 245

nancy. But why should this particular class of chapter hijjden mental influences be called Imagination ? — 1 If such mental action exists, there can be nOc^^J objection to our calling it imagination ; for JjJ^' o"/**^ the theory of this chapter is that imaerination is ^»^«J«n ««»-

•^ J^ ^ o tal actions

but a popular name given to the unconscious Jma«»°a- automatic action of the hidden soul. But I fail to see why in popular phraseology this class of the hidden actions of the mind upon the body should be selected and set apart and honoured with the name of imagination. There is a hidden energy of the brain working day and night in every province of the body — controlling every motion of every limb, and directing like any musical conductor the movement of the vital forces. It is but a part of a vast and manifold energy which the mind exerts in secret, and which because of its separation from our conscious life, I have ventured to name the Hidden Soul.

Parallel to these movements of hidden thought in the bodily functions — ^movements which may On thoee be roughly classed under the general name of in- mor^ts stincts — there is another class of the same order, ^/^JntoT. though belonging to the more spiritual part of '**^°- our nature, which are known by the name of intuitions, and which give the mystics a foun- dation to build upon. Mysticism is the oldest and widest spread system of philosophy, andwhatw gives a tinge to many schemes of thought which, ^^'Ssm. like that of Plato, cannot strictly be called mys-


246 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER tical. Whether we find it in the bud, as in

1 Plato, in Malebranche, in Berkeley and in so|[ie

of the Grermans, or in full bloom as among the Brahmins, among the schools of Alexandria, in the religious system of Bernard and many another saint, in fantastic dreams of Rosicrucians, in the illuminations of Behmen, and in the inspirations of George Pox, the mystical theory has a deep root in human nature, and could not be so rife but that it springs from fact. The great fact out of which it springs is the felt existence with- in us of an abounding inner life that transcends consciousness. We feel certain powers moving within us, we know not what, we know not why — instincts of our lower nature, intuitions of the higher, dreams and suggestions, dim guesses, and faint, far cries of the whole mind. There is a vast and manifold energy, spontaneously working in a manner which at once reminds us of Cuvier's definition of instinct as akin to somnam- bulism. The mystic is keenly alive to the reality and the magnitude of this hidden life which is known to us mainly in its effects, and not being able to analyse it or to trace its footsteps, he starts the theory now of a special faculty of spiritual insight bestowed on man, and now of special enlightenment and inspiration from on high. Socrates had his demon ; Numa his Egeria ; Para- celsus had a little devil in the pummel of his sword ; and Henry More was befriended by a spirit with the look of a Roman-nosed matron.


r\


' The Hidden Soul. 247

The theory of mysticism is a great subject — chapter none more suggestive. It is impossible to do — - justice to it here, and my business with it now is And how merely this, to show that the theory of an in- ^7lr^ of stinctive, automatic action of the mind, the^j^Jn^JJe theory of a hidden mental life which is only^j^^^^^J now beginning to be understood, has, although misunderstood, been always fiilly recognised in philosophy as one of the great facts of our moral nature, and as such has been the fertile seed of many a strange, many a potent system of thought. Nor only in philosophy is this great fact recognised. It is understood in practical life that there are many things which we must believe before we can know them to be true. So sings the poet in reference to love :

You must love her ere to you She will seem worthy of your love.

It is on precisely the same principle that we are sometimes told to accept the Christian doctrine before we see it to be true, and as the first step to a recognition of its truth; and it is in this vein of thought that Prior gave utterance to the fine couplet :

Your music's power your music must disclose. For what light is, *tis only light that shows.

I will only add in this connection that theonthehid- reality of a hidden life is a cardinal doctrine of t^biiievcr. our faith. The believer is said to have a life hid with Christ in God. When the Apostle


248 The Gay Science.

CHAPTKR describes the existence within him of a spiritual

1 life, he says, " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth

in me." This is one of the favourite texts of Platonic and Puritanic divines, who are keenly alive to the existence of a life within them other than that which comes within the scope of ordi- nary consciousness. '* The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the soimd thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every on6 that is bom of the Spirit." That is another of their favourite texts. ^>,«l.lly It is a great charm in the writings of these by^tooirt divines — Platonists and Puritans — that they are d?Tii J!"**° haunted with the sense of another life within them which is not the known and surface life of thought. They mistake however in supposing that it is only the saint who has a hidden life, as no doubt many persons also err who, discovering that they possess a hidden life, leap to the con- clusion that it can be nothing else than the in- dwelling of the Holy Ghost. It is to this inner life that Wordsworth refers when in one of his prettiest little poems he addresses a child as follows :

Dear child ! dear girl, that walkcst with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine. Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year. And worship*8t at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.

It mu»t be « Inner shrine." I find that I have reversed

reinembored

tijat we are tliis image aud have been speaking of the un-


The Hidden Soul. 249

conscious tracts of the mind as an outer ring, a chapter

great chase as it were spreading far beyond the 1

cultivated park of our thoughts. It matters not S^horT which metaphor we take so long as we recognise ^^^^ that it is but a metaphor, and that from meta- ^^^*^^*' phor we cannot escape. Whether we speak of bidden iif& our unconscious activities and our stores of memory, as belonging to an inner place, as it were an ark within the veil, or to an outlying territory beyond the stretch of observation, the meaning is still the same. The meaning is that a part of the mind and sometimes the best part of it, is covered with darkness and hidden from sight. When one is most struck with the gran- deur of the tides and currents of thought that belong to each of us, and yet roll beyond our consciousness, only on occasions breaking into view, one is apt to conceive of it as a vast outer sea or space that belts our conscious existence something like the Oceanos of Homer. When like Wordsworth one is most struck with the preciousness of what passes in our mind uncon- sciously, when one feels that we are most conscious of the mere surface of the mind, and that we are little conscious of what passes in its depths, then one turns to other metaphors and speaks of the inner shrine and secrets of the deep.

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, And worship's! at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not

I have now at some length, though after all we


250


The Gay Science.


CHAPTER have but skimmed along the ground, gone over

1 nearly all the heads of evidence that betoken

sumimuy the existcncc of a large mental activity — a vast

d«oe*^a world of thought, out of consciousness. I have

^^^^ tried to show with all clearness the fact of its

withmo.. existence, the magnitude of its area and the

potency of its effects. In the dark recesses

of memory, in unbidden suggestions, in trains

of thought unwittingly pursued, in multiplied

waves and currents all at once flashing and

rushing, in dreams that cannot be laid, in the

nightly rising of the somnambulist, in the clair-

voyance of passion, in the force of instinct, in the

obscure, but certStin, intuitions of the spiritual

life, we have glimpses of a great tide of life

ebbing and flowing, rippling and rolling and

beating about where we cannot see it ; and we

come to a view of humanity not very different

suted in from that which Prospero, though in melancholy

the words ■• t •% ^ ^ • i

ofPro«pero. moou, propouuded when he said:

Wc arc such stuff As dreams are made of; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

We are all more or less familiar with this doctrine as it is put forward by divines. " The truth is," says Henry More, " man's soul in this drunken, drowsy condition she is in, has fallen asleep in the body, and, like one in a dream, talks to the bed-posts, embraces her pillow instead of her friend, falls down before statues instead of adoring the eternal and invisible God,



The Hidden Soul. 251

prays to stocks and stones instead of speaking to chapter

Him that by his word created all things/' Such 1

expressions as these however have about them the looseness of parable; and one can accept Prosperous lines almost literally. For what is it? Our little life is rounded with a sleep; our conscious existence is a little spot of light, rounded or begirt with a haze of slumber— not a dead but a living slumber, dimly-lighted and like a visible darkness, but full of dreams and irrepressible activity, an imknown and inde- finable, but real and enjoyable mode of life — ^a Hidden Soul.

See, then, the point at which we have now Pootion of arrived, and let us look about us before we go mratTM further. It has been shown that our minds lead ^' a double life — one life in consciousness, another and a vaster life beyond it. Never mind for the present how much I have failed in the attempt to map with accuracy the geography of that region of the mind which stretches out of consciousness, if the existence of such a tract be recognised. We have a conscious and voluntary life; we have at the same time, of not less potency, an unconscious and involuntary life; and my argmnent is that the imknown, auto- matic power which in common parlance we call imagination is but another name for one of these lives — the unknown and automatic life of the mind with all its powers. Our conscious


252


The Gay Sciefice.


CHAiTER life we know so well that we have been able to

VII.

— 1 divide it into parts, calling this part memory, that reason, and that other, feeling; but of the unconscious life we know so little that we lump it under the one name of imagination, and sup- pose imagination to be a division of the mind co-ordinate with memory, reason, or feeling. I should hope that by the mere description of the hidden life I may have, to some extent, suc- ceeded in making this thesis good — or may at least have established a presumption in its favour. The completion of the proof however will rest upon the next chapter, in which it ought to be shown that the free play of thought, the spontaneous action of the mind, generates whatever we understand as the creation of fantasy. This chapter has been all analysis; the next should be synthetic. Hitherto we have regarded the existence of the hidden soul only as a fact : now it has to be shown that imagina- tion is nothing else. I could not help giving, in the course of this chapter, a few indications of the proof. Now the proof may be demanded in all due form.


NOTE.


Mr. Ruskin makes the follow- inj^ statement, to which reference has Ixjen made at jagc 243, with rej^anl to the subtlety of Turner's handiwork. " I have assert I'd," he says, " that, in a ^i ven drawin}]; (named as one of the chief in the


series), J'urncr's jxincil did not move over the thousandth of an incli without meaning ; and you char«:e this expression with ex- tnivaj^ant hyperbole. On the contrary, it is much within the truth, being merely a mathe-


r\


The Hidden Soul.


253


matically accurate description of fairly good execution in either drawing or engraving. It is only necessary to measure a piece of any ordinarily good work to ascertain this. Take, for in- stance, Finden*s engraving at the 180th page of Rogers' poems; in which the face of the figure, from the chin to the top of the brow, occupies just a quarter of inch, and the space between the upper lip and chin as nearly as possible one-seventeenth of an inch. The whole mouth occupies one-third of this space, say one- fiftieth of an inch, and within that space both the lips and the much more difficult inner comer of the mouth are perfectly drawn and rounded, with quite success- ful and sufficiently subtle expres- sion. Any artist will assure you that in order to draw a mouth as well as this, there must be more than twenty gradations of shade in the touches; that is to say, in this case, gradations changing, with meaning, within less than the thousandth of an inch.

"^ But this is mere child's play compared to the refinement of any first-rate mechanical work — much more of brush or pencil drawing by a master's hand. In order at once to furnish you with authoritative evidence on this point, I wrote to Mr. Kingsley, tutor of Sidney-Sussex College, a friend to whom I always have recourse when I want to be pre- cisely right in any matter ; for his great knowledge both of


mathematics and of natural science is joined, not only with singular powers of delicate ex- perimental manipulation, but with a keen sensitiveness to beauty in art. His answer, in its final statement respecting Turner's work, is amazing even to me, and will, I should think, be more so to your readers. Observe the successions of mea- sured and tested refinement: here is No. 1 :

" * The finest mechanical work that I know, which is not opti- cal, is that done by Nobert in the way of ruling lines. I have a series ruled by him on glass, giving actual scales from •000024 and • 000016 of an inch, per- fectly correct to these places of decimals, and he has executed others as fine as • 000012, though I do not know how far he could repeat these last with accuracy.' " This is No. 1, of precision. Mr. Bangsley proceeds to No. 2 : " * But this is rude work com- pared to the accuracy necessary for the construction of the object- glass of a microscope such as Rosse turns out.'

    • I am sorry to omit the ex-

planation which follows of the ten lenses composing such a glass, 'each of which must be exact in radius and in surface, and all have their axes coinci- dent;' but it would not be in- telligible without the figure by which it is illustrated ; so I pass to Mr. Kingsley's No. 3 :

" * I am tolerably familiar,' he proceeds, * with the actual grind-


254


The Gay Science.


m% and polishing of lenses and specula, and have produced by my own hand some by no means bad optical work, and I have copied no small amount of Turner's work, and / ntUl look with awe at the combined deli' oacy and precision of his hand ;

IT BEATS OPTICAL WORK DDT OF

SIGHT. In optical work, as in refined drawing, the hand goes beyond the eye, and one has to depend upon the feel ; and when one has once learned what a delicate affair touch is, one gets a horror of all coarse work, and is ready to forgive any amount of feebleness, sooner than that boldness which is akin to im- pudence. In optics the distinc- tion is easily seen when the work is put to trial ; but here too, as in drawing, it requires an educated eye to tell the dif- ference when the work is only motlorately bad ; but witli "lx)ld" work, nothing can be seen but distortion and fog ; and I heartily wish the same result would follow the same kind of handling in drawing ; but here, the boldness cheats the un- leame<l by looking like the pre- cision of the true man. It is very strange how much better


our ears are than our eyes in this country : if an ignorant man were to be " bold " with a violin he would not get many admirers, though his boldness was far below that of ninety-nine out of a hundred drawings one sees.*

" The words which I have put in italics in the above extract are those which were surprising to me. I knew that Turner's was as refined as any optical work, but had no idea of ita going be- yond it. Mr. Kingsley's word 'awe' occurring just before, is, however, as I have often felt, precisely the right one. When once we begin at all to under- stand the handling of any truly great executor, such as that of any of the three great Venetians, of Correggio, or Turner, the awe of it is something greater than can be felt from the moat stu- jxnidous natural scenery. For tlic creation of such a system as a high human intelligence, en- dowetl with its ineffably perfect instruments of eye and hand, is a far more appalling manifesta- tion of Infinite Power, than the making either of seas or moun- tains. — 7%« T^vo Paths. — pp. 263-265.


/


THE PLAY OF THOUGHT.


CHAPTER VIII.


THE PLAY OP THOUGHT.


IF IMAGINATION is to be identified c with the automatic action of the mind,

with the free play of thought, all its ti

characters ought to be there involved. As in u imagination we find a play of thought, so in the .^ play of thought we should find the whole business ^, of imagination. What magic resides in the one, '*' ought also to reside in the other — and more. Like Aaron's wand that became a serpent, and swallowed the serpent-wands of the magicians of Egypt, the automatic action of the mind, the free play of thought, should not only simulate, but grasp and contain within itself all the sor- ceries of imagination.

But is not this an acknowledged fact ? Has n there ever been any doubt that imagination, ^ whatever be its nature, is at least spontaneous ? ^J It is nothing if it does not belong to the auto- ^


contradic- tion.


258 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER matic actions of the mind. If any doubt upon

VIII. ... .

— \ this point is ever ex}>resscd, it comes from those who, like Malebranche, discover in imagination some other faculty — say memory — and then call to mind that memory is voluntary as well as in- Acompui- voluntary. But a compulsory imagination, a M«onT^" forced fancy, is a contradiction. The attempt to beget such a state of mind is unnatural, and ends ever in falsehood. The type of imagina- tive activity is dreaming, with which fantasy has always been identified. * Indeed, Charles Lamb lays it down that the strength of imagin- ation may be measured by the dream power in any man. He says, that the mind's activity in sleep might furnish no whimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical faculty resident in the same mind waking. But dream by night and reverie by day are not to bo niised, nor yet are they to l)e laid, by efibrts of the will. We may coax and cozen imagination ; we cannot com- mand it. We must bide its time. The poet is born — not made ; he lies in wait for the dawn, and cannot poetise at will. Bacon says truly of poetry, that it is rather a pleasure or play of imagination, than a work or duty thereof;" but he might have said the like of all imagina- tive activity : it is sj^ontaneous — it is play. In the same passage (in the Advance meyii of Leaiming\ from which I have drawn the foregoing remark, he says that " imagination ever precedeth volun- tary motion ;" and Hobbes repeats the statement,



The Play of Thought. 259


observing that imagination is " the first internal chapter

beginner of voluntary motion." It produces voli- 1

tion, and by volition is not to be produced. What control of imagination lies in our power is rightly compared by Henry More with the sort of control which we can bring to bear upon the essentially involuntary act of breathing. In his Discourse on Enthusiasm he speaks of the delusions of mankind, and says that they are due "to the enormous strength and vigour of the imagination ; which faculty (though it be in some sort in our power as respiration is), yet it will also work without our leave."

This sentence of More's is particularly happy The errors in tracing to their proper source the errors of uoH^^to imagination. The imaginations of man's heart J^^^d"**" are only evil continually, says the Scripture ; im- "^^^'**"* agination is the source of all error, says Bishop Butler ; it is the most dangerous foe to reason, says Hume. But Hume resolves imagination into mere memory, and other philosophers into mere reason; and is it fair to say that memory is the most dangerous foe to reason, or that reason is the source of all error ? It is difficult to find out from the more common theories wherein the vice of imagination con- sists ; and we are all the more at a loss to find it out when we know that sundry thinkers go quite in the opposite direction, and describe imagina- tion as the faculty of clearest insight — reason in her highest mood. If imagination be identified

s2


2n*> Th^ •s'xn S-*?-*?nrt.


TtrPTia TF->ii SiizniTtrs. t^xiirc ;l§ !iieni«?ry. and sober as

In. r^tartC-c — TFht*r»r i^ ie ?«:rir»:tr ot iIlTJ5ioa? It is

t«* te f'-iii'l. as M-::^ ro-ir.3 orit. in ihe absence

of ct:'nrr:-L in the v:i;7TTm«:y »:-f apr-ntansetjos move-

m-ent, in tie tnr^ir-in rDjxn sTiperriskKi. Its

weakn^rsg Li*=s bi I's i^zr-'.'Cj^^'Ai. Because it is

anrcmaric and unor-nicir'Cis. it reach^es to the

gr^n-irrtst rrSTiIc-i: tr:^ aL?*? b«rcan5e this is its

clAraotrr, wLen it fiiils inti> err?r, the error is

not eaffV of oiTTCcti'in. It has b^ren adopted in

a blind, mechanical act of th<xL^t« and it is not

to be diapelltii by Jetermine^i efforts of conscious

reason. Bv its verv natnn?, ima^rination is a

wanderer: to it fc-elong the thoughts •'that

wander through etemitr.*' But the habit of

wandering implies that it mav sometimes loce

itself.

Uv[^J^zzA' We are not to prish the argument however

ryv.i*'..; further than it will p:». Imacrination clearlv is

[rr/ T autr»inatic, and so far I was justifiel in comparing

i/./..ir.t ^}^,. automatic action of the mind with Aaron's

«..*.] ;mi- YfA that, becominof a seri»ent with a serpent's

gift of fascination, swallowed and contained

within itself the serpent-rods of the magicians.

Still, tliis leaves unsettled the grand point at

issne. Granting tliat imagination is automatic,

and only automatic, mav it not in kind be

f^ifferent from other faculties which are onlv at

times spontaneous and unconscious? May it not

Ikj different from the hidden memory, or the

hidden reason, or the hidden instincts and



The Play of Thought. 261


passions — the three orders of hidden power chapter

described in the last chapter? If imagination 1

be not different from the other faculties of the mind — if imagination be but a name for these other faculties in their automatic, and for the most part unconscious, exercise — in a word, for the free play of thought, why is it called ima- gination ?

The clue to the name is contained in the The due to definition of the faculty. It is to be expected, contained in that in the free play of thought certain habits tion of Se should be of more frequent recurrence than^"*'^- others. There is a saying, as old at least as Horace, that the mind is most vividly impressed through the eye, and it is but natural that when left to itself it should dwell most on the shows in the free of vision — images — whence arises the name of thought we imagination. According to any and every theory oHli^* of imagination which has been propounded, the o^«"g*»^ name is of less extent than the faculty, and takes a part for the whole. *' Our sight," says Addi- son, "is the most perfect, and most delight- ful of all our senses It is this sense

which furnishes the imagination with its ideas, so that by the pleasures of imagination — I mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in view, or when we call up their ideas to our mind, by paintings, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasions. We cannot, indeed, have a single image in the fancy that did not make its first entrance


I

r

f \ k


262 The Gay Scietice.


CHAPTEK through the sight." Addison, and the writers

who follow in his wake, «are so far true to etymo-

logy ; but no one now-a-days can suppose that they are true to the nature of imagination. We imagine soimds as well as sights ; we imagine any sensation. And if it be granted that imagi- nation contains more than its etymology conveys — is the name of a part extended to the whole, then I may turn round and say, that here is granted the principle on which my definition proceeds. Imagination is but a liiame for the free play of thought, one of the most important features of which, but still only one, is its attachment and sensibility to the memories of sight. Thedefini- It is ouly by supposing that imagination, piMtioiI™" although so called, must embrace the action (that r^ilfnJ ^^» ^f course, tlie spontaneous action) of the many wliolc uiind, tliat wc can account for many of

opinions ...

with n-ptni the opinions which liave been held in retnird

to it wliich • r 1 11 . 1 1 •

are other- to it. 1 havo already pointed out the mcon- piiiabre!^ sistency of those who tell us of the enormous influence of imagination, and yet, when they come to analyse it, reduce it to a shadow — the mere dcmble of some other faculty ; and, 1 trust, that the view whicli I have been able to pre- sent, while it will satisfy the philosophers in granting that imagination is not a faculty by itself, diflereiit in structure from the other faculties of the mind, will also satisfy those who see in it the most imperious power in the mind


\ \ I




The Play of Thought. 263

of man. Then there is the curious opinion of chapter

-rrr* • VIII

two such men as D'Alembert and Sir William .*

Hamilton to be accoimted for. Who in allf^^.^® .

opinion 01

antiquity, after Homer, had the greatest force of ][||^^^°*^p imagination ? Most of us would be inclined to ^^ name, perhaps, -^schylus, or Phidias, or at any- rate, some artist. D'Alembert names Archi- medes — a mathematician ; Sir William Hamilton selects Aristotle — a philosopher. Those who treat of imagination as but a special form of reason, will have no diflSculty in understanding that the greatest reasoners should have the greatest force of imagination. But on the other hand, the poetical mind of Homer, seems to be quite unlike the philosophical mind of Aristotle, or the mathematical mind of Archimedes ; and it is not easy to see that they are in any respect comparable, according to any known theory of imaginative activity. Once admit, however, that the specialty of imagination lies not in any specialty of structure, but only in specialty of function — a specialty which belongs to any and every faculty of the mind — the specialty of hidden automatic working, and there need be no difficulty in saying, that Aristotle possessed as much imagination as Homer. There must have been a prodigious automatic action in his mind to enable him to accomplish what he did. The difference between the mind of Homer and the mind of Aristotle — the mind of art, and the mind of science — is not the difference


264 Tlie Gay Science.


CHAPTER between less and more in the amount of hidden I!!i' action (though that, no doubt, may make some part of the distinction), but it is the difiference between possessing, and being possessed by it — the difiference in proportion of energy between the known and the unknown halves of the mind. On imii. The name of imagination, however, suggests

^' not only the power of imaging or figuring to ourselves the shows of sense, but also that of imagery, the power of bringing these shows into comparison, and using them as iypes. Indeed, when we speak of a poetical image, we mean a comparison, a symbol. It falls, therefore, to be considered whether this apparatus of imagery, in all its varying forms of comparison, similitude, metaphor, personification, symbol, and what not, need for its production some special faculty, which we call imagination, or may not rather be due to the free play of thought in general. Here, as before, it can be shown that imagination is but another name for the automatic action of the mind. Here, moreover, it will be found that we get to tlie heart of what people commonly im- imagery dcrstaud by imagination ; for, although we are treated as a spoaking ouly of imagery, and although imagery "^of""" is rarely treated but as a point of language, it language, {nvolves much larger issues, and cannot pro- perly be handled unless we understand it in the broadest sense, as including the whole work of imagination. It is in this broad sense of the word that we have now to face the question, " Son of


The Play of Thought. 265

man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house chapter

of Israel do in the dark (of unconsciousness) ; 1

every man in the chamber of his imagery ?"

A book might be written on the absurdities The absur- 01 criticism which this one subject of imagery criticism in has engendered, only it would be a waste of J^^^ labour on barren sand. One of the most piteous things in human life is to see an idiot vacantly teasing a handful of straw, and babbling over the blossoms which he picks to pieces. It is not more piteous than the elaborate trifling of criticism over figures of speech and the varieties of imagery, showing how metaphor diflFers from simile, how this kind of image is due only to an exercise of fancy, how that comes of true imagination, and how fancy is one thing, imagination another. The worst of it is that, as I have said, these questions are nearly always handled as questions of language, questions of detail, without any clear perception of the relation between different forms of imagery and dififerent forms of art. The full discussion of the subject does not fall within the range of the present inquiry. All I have now to do with it is to show in the rough that the production of imagery, whether we use the word in a narrow sense, as referring merely to figures of speech, or, in a wider sense, as referring also to conceptions of life, and thus including the whole work of imagination, needs no special faculty, but belongs to the general action of the mind, in the dusk of unconsciousness. Perhaps,


266 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER however, the easiest path of entrance into the — .' subject is the beaten one which lies over the assumption, that an image is but a figxire of speech. The met Now, in imagery, in this narrower sense of fact about the word, the most obvious tiling to be noted is, SSftr ** t^at from the simplest form of similitude to the dways coo- jjjQgj; complcx form of metaplior and symbol, it comparison, always involvcs a comparison of some kind. And this raises the question — is the act of comparison a peculiar property of imagination ? The truth is, that every effort of thought, from the least to the greatest, any the faintest twitch of conscious- ness, is an act of comparison. There is no thought in the mind but has two factors, one to be compared with the other. In the com- mon act of recognising a face as a face we have seen, we are but comparing one impression with anotlier. And so on to the most intricate forms But all of the syllogism, it can be shown that we never

thoucht im- i /» • n^ • xi

piiwcompa-g^t away irum com})arison. lo compare is the first glimmer of intelligence in the mind of an infant : to compare is the utmost splendour of reason in the mind of a sage. No comparison, no thought. Yet by no means does it therefore fol- low that the comparisons of poetry may not be the outcome of a sj^ecial faculty. For if memory be but one fonn of comparison, if reason be another, and if, nevertheless, the comparisons involved in memory and in reason be so diverse that we attribute them to separate faculties, why may


nson.


The Play of Thought. 267

not the comparisons of poetry be the work of a chapter

faculty which is diflferent from every other ? [

What then is the peculiarity of those com- what is the

1 . 1 p xT- J • • x* rv peculiarity

parisons which are latnered on imagination ? S the com- How, for example, are they distinguished from J^tnib^ed those of ordinary judgment? The best account J?^™*si°*' of the diflFerence between the two is given by Locke; although, after all, he gives but half the truth. Both Bacon and Father Malebranche had, in a vague way, anticipated Locke, and to appreciate the full force of his statement, it must be remembered that in his time the word wit was used as identical with poetry, and as ruling the whole territory of imagination. And Locke's what does Locke say? He describes wit as""*^* " lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and put- ting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or con- gruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy. Judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully one from another ideas wherein can be formed the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude and by affinity to take one thing for another."

This, I say, is not a full account of the dis- But does tinction, but so far as it goes it is good. It is a^wer give quite true that in imagination we think more of ^°^*|^"2he resemblances, and that in the exercise of con- P^'jj" *****

' m the com-

scious judgment we make more of differences, parisons of

-t n t 1 T • • 1 imaginatioD

But do we find here a distmction great enough to there is


268 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER prove the existence of two separate faculties ?

Is it beyond imagination to see a difference ? Is

•nything it beyond judgment to see resemblance ? In all

  • '*°*^ comparison there is implied difference as well as

resemblance, and the perception of the one brings

with it that of the other. From this point of

view, therefore, it is not to be supposed that

the production of imagery needs a faculty of

imagination different from that of judgment.

Thepecub- The difference between the comparisons of im-

fmagimttive agiuatiou and those of reason is explained by the

JJ'^ShM&I" oil© proposition for which I am contending, that

^kin^d ^ t'lose of the former are automatic, and that those

the fact of ^f ^he latter are the result of conscious effort,

imagiDation

being free Jt is hardly possible to make this quite clear, while as yet we have reached but a half-truth as to the nature of imagery ; yet at least there should be a presumption in favour of the idea that, in its automatic or dreamy state, the mind looks more to resemblances, and that in its waking efforts it inclines more to detect variety, I must be content in the meantime with a bare statement of the fact, which I hope to make good in the sequel. But Locke's Half the truth, however, is less easy of com- fs oniy^haif prcheusion than the whole, and to understand the truth, aright the full meaning of what Locke has advanced, we ought to be able to eke it out with that other view of the subject which he has not advanced. The most royal prerogative of imagination is its entireness, its love of wholes,


The Play of Thought. 269

its wonderfiil power of seeing the whole, of claim- chapter

ing the whole, of making whole, and — shall I .*

add ? — of swallowing whole. Now, to any one ^i*^^ who is strongly impressed with the wholeness of U' imaginative working, the utter absence of nib- bling in it, the most striking thing about poetical comparisons is not that they assert resemblance, imaginative but that they assert the resemblance of wholes to ^rtT^tT wholes. And here we get to the root of the Jf^okTto matter. For the grand distinction between ^^***- logical and poetical comparisons is this, that in the former we compare nearly always wholes with parts, or parts with parts; but in the latter, almost always wholes with wholes. Take the two assertions that man is an animal, and that man is a flower. In the form of language these phrases are alike ; but we all recognize that they are unlike in the form of thought; that the one belongs to the order of logical, the other to that of poetical judgments. In point of fact language is but a clumsy expedient, and our thoughts are ever more precise than our words. Now, if after the manner of logi- cians, we attempt to express in words the pre- cision of our thoughts, then the two phrases which I have put side by side will, in all their awkward exactitude, stand thus — that the class man is a part of the class animal, and that the whole class man is like or interchangeable with the whole class flower. In other words, the logical comparison here asserts the identity of a


270 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER certain whole with a certain part ; the imagina-

11!!^ tive comparison asserts the identity or inter-

^m * ril^ns changeableness of a certain whole with a certain

are not in- wholc. But bctween thcsc modes of comparison

competent , tit •

to reason. 18 thcrc any radical difference ? Is it beyond

reason to compare as imagination does? Is

there anything to prevent the every-day faculty

of conscious judgment from comparing wholes

And are with wholcs ? The truth lies in a nutshell.

^^nativlTb^ There is no reason why in conscious judgment

wSn^*^^ we should not compare wholes with wholes; but

chiefly to this sort of comparisou belongs rather to the

the sponta- ...

neousexcr- automatic and unconscious action of the mind, thought. Left to itself, in the freedom of unconsciousness, the mind acts more as a whole, and takes more to wholes. It is not much given to the sphtting of hairs and the partition of qualities. To make the partitive assertions and comparisons of every-day judgment, there is needed a certain amount of abstraction ; to abstract needs atten- tion ; and attention is but another name for the rays of consciousness gathered into a sheaf or focus. The whole Here then are the two halves of one doctrine. Imapery;" Imagination looks out for resemblances rather ilj"pio".^i *^^^ differences : there is the one half It looks to treat of Qut for tlic resembkiice of wholes rather than of parts : there is the other. And these two views are almost inseparable. It is because imagination looks out for resemblance rather than difference that it leaps to wholes. It is because imagina-


it.


The Play of Thought. 271


tion keeps to wholes and avoids analysis that it chapter

1 . . VIII.

overlooks difference and seizes on resemblance. — i In nearly all the attempts which have been made to establish a distinction between fancy and imagination, it will be found that the division of labour between the two supposed faculties corre- sponds very much to the division of doctrine as above explained. To fancy is assigned chiefly the habit of catching at likenesses ; to imagina- tion is allotted chiefly the habit of discerning unity and grasping wholes. The distinction is of little importance to any one who has noted with what constancy the perception of resem- blance or identical forms goes hand-in-glove with the perception of total form and unity ; and I, who maintain that there is no special faculty of fantasy, must, of course, much more contend that there are not two faculties, one going by the name of fancy, the other known by that of imagination.

Nevertheless, it is convenient in practice to We shaii

• 1 iii ji i*j» /»• treat of the

consider the two great characteristics oi imagery two halves apart, and there is no harm in doing so if S^„, we remember that in reality they are seldom *®p*™^®^^' found apart. I now therefore ask the reader to bear with me for a few pages more while I dwell in succession on the likenesses and on the whole- nesses of imagery. And I promise him that we shall no longer be tied to the consideration of figures of speech. By a rude analysis of these figures we have arrived at a general conclusion


272 The Gay Science.

m

CHAPTER as to the characteristics of imagery and the ele-

1 ments of imagination; and what imagery and

imagination are in the forms of language that they also are in all their ways. They take and make like : they take and make whole. Nature of Only as the ensuing remarks must be very sion. brief, the aim of the present discussion must be clearly kept in view. It is no business of ours just now to trace in detail all the footsteps of imagination. We are solely concerned with the inquiry — what is imagination? That it is an automatic action no one doubts. It remains to be shown that it is the automatic action or play not of any special faculty, but of any and every faculty : the play of reason, the play of memory, the play of the whole mind with all its powers at once ; in one word, the play of tliouglit. To prove this, it is unnecessary that we should go very mucli into detail. It will be enough if we rake up only so much of detail as may indicate the general characteristics of imagination.

On like- I. First of all, let us think for a little of the h^^e*are lovc of likcncss and the tendency of the mind to^e^amme j^^^j^ ^^ discover and to invent it. Does this

imply a special faculty, or is it not rather a function of all the faculties ? The point is not difficult of proof, if I may be allowed to start with an assumption, namely, that all these like- nesses which the mind either finds or makes are


The Play of Thought. 273


to be measured by the same line and rule. They chapter

. VIII

are all in the same case, and spring from the same — .* law of the mind. It may be more diflScult to analyze some forms of similitude than others, and to trace their lineage ; but if it can be shown that the leading modes of resemblance have nothing to do with imagination in the ordinary acceptance of the word, that the attempt to ascribe them to a special faculty of imagination is a hoax like that which gave the paternity of Romulus and Remus and many another won- drous child to some god, then in those cases wherein the parentage is not very clear we shall be at liberty utterly to reject the supposition that this or that image must be the oflFspring of a god — imagination. Call it the offspring of imagination if you will, but it must be under- stood that imagination means no more than the automatic action of any and every faculty.

Now, the tendency of the mind to similitude The ten-

. 1 r T -n dency of the

runs mto three forms, and no more. Jbivery pos- mind to sible variety of likeness which the mind either JXJ Uiree finds or generates takes one or other of these f^J^ forms. They are :

1. I am that or like that.

2. That is I or like me,

3. That is that or like that.

The first of these forms contains the ruling principle of dramatic art, and is best known as sympathy. The second contains the ruling

VOL. I. T


274 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER principle of the Ijoical art, and is best known as ^^ egotism. The third contains the ruling prin- ciple of epic or historical art, and is best known as imagination. A word or two upon each of these in succession. And fin»t of There is no form of imaginative activity nwses^ more wonderfiil than sympathy, that strange ■yi^Sy. involuntary force which impels me to identify myself with you, and you to identify yourself with me. If I yawn, you yawn ; if you yawn, I yawn. We cannot help it. I have described the attitude of the mind in the formula — I am that or like that I am no longer myself, but you, or the person, or the thing I am interested in. We are transformed by a subtle sympathy into the image of what we look on. We per- sonate each other; nay, more, we personate things. At bowls a man sways his body to this side or to that, following the bias of the ball. He fancies for the moment that he is the rolling sphere. And so Goethe came to say of an artist painting a tree or a sheep, that for the time he enters into and becomes that which he delineates, he becomes in some sort a tree, in some sort a sheep. Remember that fine passage in which Wordsworth speaks of the girl that grew three years in sun and shower :

She shall lean her ear

In many a secret place,

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty, born of murmuring sound,

Shall jioss into her face.



The Play of Thought. 275

The essence of the thought is always the chapter

same ; its manifestations are infinite. It shows 1

itself in thousands of ways both in life and in art. How pieva- The most potent oi the social forces, it is sympathy tendency is

i«-i* • i/*i* 1 liu life, and

wnicn gives meaning to fashion, and makes manifested education possible. We are constantly copying mMy^ways. each other, echoing each other, aping each other, personating each other, weeping with them that weep, laughing with them that laugh, catching the trick of a manner, the tone of a voice, the bent of an opinion, and growing into the likeness of the company to which we belong. And when this tendency shows itself in art, it is no other and no more than that with which we are familiar in life. In art, too, there is no proper diflFer- The ten- ence in the nature of the tendency or manner of e^ntiSiy thinking, whether it shows itself in words and "^l^^ be called an imaere, a figure of speech, or show !***** '*f^*

o ' o r 7 111 speech or

itself in action and be called an imitation, a per- »" «^on- sonation. When Romeo goes to the supper of the Capulets, he disguises himself as a holy palmer, and means to play the pilgrim. He assumes that attitude of the mind which we know as the act of personation. When he takes Juliet's hand for the first time he speaks of his lips as two blushing pilgrims :

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this — My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

But the strain of mind which produces that

T 2


276 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER image is not different from the strain of mind

VIII .

which produces tlie personation. In the act

of personation, Romeo says : I am not myself, but a holy palmer. In the figure of speech, he says : my lips are not themselves, but blushing pilgrims. And so throughout all art and life the formula of sympathy is this : I am you, or like you ; I am, or am like, or at least I wish to be, or to be like, something which is not myself:

See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. ! that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek*

On sym- It is a pity that this grand subject of sympathy

what^ii^ is not more systematically studied among us. It

w^^^^Jne ^^^s^^ to be of no small account in philosophy, but

tTthe^tS ^* ^^^ ^ many wildgoosechases, that at length

of it our thinkers seem to have become afraid of it,

and to imderrate its importance. In the old

systems of physiognomy the likeness of men to

animals was the chief guiding principle. This

man must be of a swinish disposition, because

he has a long narrow face; that other must

be like a bull for some equally cogent reason.

And so as we trudge through the writings of

Baptista Porta, Cardan, Bacon, Kenelm Digby,

and Henry More ; we hear of sympathetic cures

and influences. If you eat bear's brains it

will make you bearlike ; if you put a wolfskin

(" for the wolf is a beast of great audacity and

digestion ") on the stomach it will cure the colic.

'^ The heart of an ape worn near the heart com-



The Play of Thought. 277

forteth the heart and increaseth audacity," says, chapter

Bacon, quoting from the writers on magic. " It 1

is true that the ape is a merry and a bold beast. The same heart likewise of an ape applied to the neck or head, helpeth the wit. The ape also is a witty beast, and hath a dry brain." This track of thought led to the wildest absurdities and the most comical situations that reflected no small amount of discredit on any attempts to analyze and turn to account the force of sympathy in human nature ; and I cheat the reader of some amusement in refusing to arrest the course of this argument in order to laugh over many queer stories.

The most important writer after Bacon, who How im-

1 ^ n A^ • i portant it is

made much oi sympathy as a power m human id the sys- nature, was Malebranche. Malebranche regarded th^ght of it as a form of imagination, and saw in it the §2^' ^^ source of many errors, leading men to follow ^^^^ authority when they ought to be independent ^dam and think for themselves. Long after him came Adam Smith, who based his system of moral philosophy on this one principle of sympathy. The standard of moraUty, he said, is determined entirely by the measure of sympathy which any action can command. But he never identified sympathy with imagination ; nor after him did the Scotch metaphysicians ever speak of ima- gination unless by itself, or of sympathetic imitations except as a separate power of the mind. Since then the subject of sympathy


278 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER has chiefly been handled by the writers on

1 physiology, who treat of it for the most part as a

purely physical characteristic. What w the But sce DOW wherc this rapid survey of S^m*int sympathy has led us, and what is the point of the '^H^^ argument. The argument is, that you may call this assimilating tendency of the mind imagina- tion ; but that imagination can signify no more than automatic action — the free play of any faculty of thought. We gain nothing by the supposition of a special faculty having a special dominion over such resemblances as come within the meaning of sympathy ; we only create con- fusion. There are animals that change colour with the places over which they pass. Spiders have been known to turn white on a white wall ; salmon in certain situations change their colour to that of the bed they swim over ; the story of It ih Jin the chameleon is familiar to all. But to what mIuSH fact*.' purpose should we say that these changes are «pl^n^"r *he result of imagination, if by imagination we the least hj meant anything more than that they are spon- thesjHofa tancous ? Evcry faculty we possess reflects faculty, and simulates as a mirror does. If you laugh, ^nation. I wiU laugh too ; if you pull a long face, I turn grave ; if I see you sucking a peach on a hot summer day, I have the sense in my mouth that I am sucking one also : as I am arguing this very point, it may be that your reason is following mechanically, and reflect- ing the movements of mine. Here is a constant


r\


The Play of Thcmght. 279

automatic action leading: to numerous resem- chapter

. . VIII

blances. What do you gain by refusing to \

accept this automatic process of imitation as an ultimate insoluble fact, and by starting the hypothesis of a special faculty called imagina- tion, the express business of which is to produce it? The mind reflecting like a min'or, how are the reflections of the one rendered more intelligible by the supposition of a faculty of imagination than are the reflections of the other without any such explanatory supposition ? The sympathy of onr minds is a wonder of the world; but no one who can see that the fine English word, fellow-feeling, contains the most perfect expression of all that is meant by sym- pathy will ever dream of a special faculty of fellow-feeling differing from the feeKngs which are in fellowship. Bacon, it was shown in the last chapter, started the hypothesis of a trans- mission of spirits, to account for the sympathy we have with each other. When one man mecham'cally repeats the action of another — a yawn, a laugh, a start — it would seem, says The hypo- Bacon, that there must be a transmission of imagination spirits from one to the other to produce the teMbiSXn assimilation. Nobody now dreams of such a^"j|*^j^ hypothesis. We are all so enhghtened and^^^** scientific that, with a fine consciousness of our«onof superiority, we smile at Bacon's suggestion. But the prevalent supposition of an imagina- tive faculty, if by that is to be understood any-


280 The Gay Science.


cHAiTEK thing beyond the power of spontaneous move- — '. ment, is not a whit more tenable than the hypothesis of Bacon. People are It is curfous to see how people are deceived ^rZ. ^ by words, and fancy they get a new idea when they get a new phrase. Mr. Buckle announced that the leading object of his two great volumes was to show that the spirit of scepticism pro- motes free inquiry. He seemed to think that scepticism, because, coming from the Greek, it is a difiFerent expression, must also be a difiFerent thing And the from free inquiry. So it is supposed that by ^natii^ this additional word imagination we obtain some newTight ^®^ ^^S^^ 5 ^^^ y^^ ^^ *^® other hand, there is thaf h vte** ^^ difficulty in showing that in ordinary speech to be ex- we may get rid of the name of imagination altogether, and still be none the worse. There is a story tokl of Samuel Rogers, showing the "force of imagination." About the time when plate-glass windows first came into fasliion, he sat at dinner with his back to one of these single panes of glass, and lie laboured under the im- pression that the window was wide open. It is related on his own authority that he caught a cold in consequence. The story is no doubt a Yankee jest, and I give it here not as a fact, but as an illustration. Some people say it shows the force of imagination ; but are they one whit nearer, nay, are they not further from the truth, than those who drop the word imagina- tion altogether, and say the story shows the force


r\


The Play of Thought. 281

of faith ? Here it was distinctly his belief that is chapter

supposed to have operated on Rogers, and yet \

there are writers — I do not mean to say cor- rect, but at least entitled to consideration. Dr. Thomas Reid being one, and Mr. Ruskin another — who maintain that in imagination there never is belief. When faith leads a man to do that which without faith he could never achieve, what do we gain by calling his faith imagination? Call it imagination if you will, but let us dis- tinctly understand that by this term you mean nothing more and nothing else than the auto- matic action of the faith, whatever it be. And so of fellow-feeling, call it imagination if you please, but let us understand that it is no more than one of the many modes of automatic action. This view will be not weakened but strength- secondly,

•■•/» /» ,•• ..-i. of the like-

ened it now we pass from the assmulatmg ten- nesses pro- dency of sympathy to consider the a^imilating ^^^^^^ tendency of egotism, which is the germ of lyrical art. Here we come to the second formula of resemblance — That is I, or like me. The sort of imagery which this begets is known as anthro- pomorphism and personification. " Let the sea Examples roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands : let the hills be joyful together." There is one example. " For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace : the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap


282 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER their hands." There is another. Mr. Ruskin calls — '- this form of imagery the pathetic fallacy, and

i«theUc says that it is only the second order of poets who ^^' much delight in it — seldom the first order. But this is surely a mistake. It by no means denotes the height of art — first-rate, second-rate, or tenth-rate ; it denotes the kind of art — ^it belongs to the lyrical mood. When Prometheus, as he enters on the scene, makes his magnificent appeal to the various powers of nature, and amongst others to the multitudinous laughter of the waves, the whole speech is lyrical at heart, it breaks again and again into lyrical metres, and the play in which it occurs belongs to the most

Further lyxical of the Greek dramatists. And so when

•xarop M. ^^ lover of Maud says in the garden :

The slender acacia could not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree ; The white lakc-blosstmi fell into the lake,

As the pimiKjrnel dozed on tlie lea ; But the rose was awake all night for your sake.

Knowing your promise to me ; The lilies and roses were all awjike,

They sighed for the dawn and thee : —

and again —

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the iiassion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear ;

She is coming, my life, my fate ! The reil rose cries, " She is near, she is near '^

And the white rose weeps, " She is late ; The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear ;

And the lily whispers, ** I wait :*' —


the egotism which leads the lover to suppose




The Play of Thought. 283

the flowers like himself with his own feelings chapter

VIII.

is in that kind of art perfectly natural ; and to — '• attribute egotistic imagery to second-rate poets is but another way of saying that it is chiefly the second-rate poets who have the lyrical in- spiration. With that question we have nothing to do. We have but to examine into the nature of that assimilating tendency in our minds, which has been described as follows :

Man doth usurp all space,

Stares thee in rock, bush, river in the face.

Never yet thine eye beheld a tree,

It is no sea thou seest in the sea :

  • Tis but a disguised humanity.

Now if this egotism is to be called in any what is

!• • "a* ' 1^ ii ii meant by

peculiar sense imagination, it must be on the attributing principle of liums a non hicendo. Imagination is ^ '.^^^ here conspicuous for its absence. The egotism *^®° ^ which would make me see in a tree the double of myself is but the inability to imagine an exist- ence different from my own. Call this assimi- lating tendency of egotism by the name of imagination if you will, but let us not be misled by words, let us fully understand that imagina- tion means no more than egotism, the natural play of thought and the automatic action of the mind.

There is a third class of comparisons which it Thirdly, may be more difficult to resolve to the satisfac- likenesses tion of certain minds without the intervention purely*"* of a special faculty ; and I will here, there- **^J^^*^®-


284 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER fore, remind the reader of the assumption which

.* I asked him to allow me at starting, namely :

that similitudes are to be judged as a whole, and that if we find large classes of- them owing their origin to no special faculty, then it may be presumed that those others of which it is not so easy to trace the parentage, are of ana- logous origin, and do not need the figment of a god for progenitor. It is not necessary, how- ever, to lean much upon this presumption. In dealing with the third class of resemblances, we can adduce quite enough to show that they are produced in the play of ordinary thought. That is, The formula of the class of similitudes which we^o we are now to look into, is purely objective : ouJ^^ir^^ That is that, or like that. We do not bring into the ourselves into the comparison at all. In both

comparison. ^ *-

the dramatic and the lyrical systems of com- parison — in the systems of comparison which take their rise from sympathy on the one hand, or from egotism on the other, one of the factors in the comparison is always I or mine. But in this third kind of imagery, that is — in the class of comparisons which belong to epic or historical art, tliere is no appearance of me and mine ; the things compared are quite independent of me and mine. They are, if I may repeat the formula. They are that and that. Now, sometimes comparisons very com- of that and that come to be very complicated, diStof' a^^d are so curious that if we look at them explanation. ^Iq^^q^ j^^jjJ think of them merely as figures of


The Play of Thought. 285

speech, we shall find it difficult to explain them chapter fully. Everybody will, for example, remember — ! how Wordsworth speaks of an eye both deaf and silent ; how Milton speaks of both sun and moon as silent :

The sun to me is dark, And silent as the moon When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

There is no end of fine poetical passages in which a man is said to see a noise : Sir Toby Belch speaks of hearing by the nose ; Ariel speaks of smelling music. Samuel Butler makes a jest of these images in mentioning the

(Communities of senses

To chop and change intelligences.

As Rosicrucian virtuosis

Can see with ears and hear with noses.

Sometimes the imagery is even more complicated, and confounds the facts of three or four different senses. There is a famous passage in the Example* beginning of Twelfth Night, the description of ^mplcated music : im^&^.

That strain again : it had a dying fall ; ! it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets Stealing and giving odour.

Here we have such an involution and redupli- cation of idea, that in order to improve the passage Pope altered the word sound to souths which is the common reading. Mr. Charles Knight, however, has wisely insisted on the pro-


286 Tlie Gay Science.

CHAPTER priety of recurring to the original reading of the — .' first foHo, which is quite Shakespearian. May I add, that not only is the original reading Shake- spearian in the reduplication of the idea conveyed (a sound, coming o'er the ear, breathing, stealing, and giving odour, and so in the dehght and delicacy of its magic, ministering not to one sense only but to three), there is also to my mind clear evidence that whether the word sound were actually penned by Shakespeare, or were only a printer's error, still upon that word Milton once alighted, that it caught his fancy, that it became vital within him, and that as a consequence he produced in Comus a similar involution and reduplication of ideas, though in a somewhat different arrangement ?

At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound. Rose like a steam of rich distilled ])erriimc«, And stole ujwn the air, that even silence Was took, ere she was ware.

Notwithstanding the freshness and originality

of this passage, who does not feel that nearly all

the ideas which are thus connected with dulcet

sound — sound breathing on the ear, stealing on

the air, and giving odour — owe their suggestion

to Shakespeare ?

The amai- But this amalgam of metaphors, though fused

mrtliphors by the passion of the poet into an apparent unity

d^y Tni- ^f thought, unlikc any other mode of thinking,

iy«is. g^jjj therefore seemingly the product of some

peculiar faculty, does not defy analysis. We


The Play of Thought. 287

can reduce it to its elements, and when so chapter

. . VIII.

reduced we find that the sort of likeness it — . involves has its analogy in other modes of thought which are not commonly supposed to be the product of imagination. Remember the form of thought we are considering : — That is that, is like that, or may stand for that. There ai^ poete who boast, or whose critics boast for them, that they seldom or never, in certain works, condescend to the weakness of metaphor ; that they are sparing of what is especially called imagery — namely, images in figures of speech. But it will be found that these very symmetij writers fly to similitude of another kind — to gimiiuude, similitude on a large scale — in one word, to^^^uS* symmetry. The classicism which eschews the^^®^'^^* symmetry of details produced by figures of»^*g^n»- speech, eschews them only to ensure a whole- sale symmetry, as in that sort of architecture where the two sides of the edifice are alike, and as in horticulture where

Every alley has a brother,

And half the garden but reflects the other.

This is only the craving for similitude in an- other form, and the argument I build upon it is — that since we do not think it necessary to refer the love of symmetry to a special faculty of imagination, neither need we refer to such a faculty the tendency of simihtude in other forms.

Take, again, our natural delight in reflections.


288 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER " Why are all reflections lovelier than what i^e

call the reality ?" asks Mr. Greorge Macdonald,

?"jJ^^**Mn a fairy romance of rare subtlety, entitled ^r fom Phantasies. " Fair as is the gliding ship on the jf^Se'™ shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting •imiiitude. sail bclow is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself reflected in the mirror has a won- drousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards itself. All mir- rors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass.'* This is a form of imagery or simile which the poets dehght in, and constantly use.

We paused beside the pools that lie

Under the forest bough ; Each seemed as 'twere a little sky

Gulfed in a world below ; A firmament of purple light,

Which in the dark earth lay, More l)Oundless than the depth of night.

And purer than the day.

In which the lovely forests grew,

As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue

Than any spreading there. There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,

And through the dark green wood The white sun twinkling like the dawn

Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views, which in our wprld above

Can never well be seen, Were imaged by the water's love

Of that fair forest green ; And all was interfused beneath

With an Elysian glow, An atuKJsphere without a breath,

A softer day below.



The Play of Thought. 289

This is one of Shelley's finest passages, and it chapter

would be easy to quote many parallel ones from

other poets, showing how they love to dwell on mirror-like reflections. Take a single instance :

The Bwan on still St. Mary's lake Floats double, swan and shadow.

But such reflections more strictly belong to These re-

• J 1 ji • /• "j 1 /* • •! flection*

painters, and are their tavourite mode ot simile are the and metaphor. Truly to represent reflections]^**^' and shadows, and to give all that is contained in ">«^p»">^- the system of reflected colour, is one of the most refined exercises of the artist's power, and won- derfully enhances the beauty of a picture. The The gystem

. priiii *' •of reflected

system oi reflected colour occupies a very promi- colour in nent place in modem art, and, I repeat, is to "^""^ picture what metaphor is to poetry. Metaphor is the transfer to one object of the qualities belong- ing to another. This is precisely what we understand by reflected colour. A lady in white leans on the arm of a soldier in scarlet. The scarlet of his uniform is transferred by reflection to the white of her dress, and makes it appear no longer what it really is. It becomes transfigured. And so throughout the whole of a picture there is scarcely an object which does not suffer some sort of metamorphosis by the shadows and reflections that are cast upon it from other objects. My argument is that all But no one this metamorphosis, which is but the painter's Sie nSec- mode of metaphor, is not to be explained by a JJct^^e to transfiguring faculty of imagination, and that, »"««i°**»«n- VOL. I. u


290 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER by parity of reasoning, we need no feculty of — ' imagination to account for the transfigurations of poetry produced by simile and metaphor. Here is a story which is told in many dilBferent ways : it is told of Queen Elizabeth when her portrait was painted by Zucchero ; it is told by Catlin of some Red Indians, whose likenesses he w^as taking. In each case the limner represented the nose as throwing a shadow on the face. In each case the sitter for the portrait objected to the shadow as a blur that altered and misrepre- sented the facts of the face. Let me ask two questions: Is it the force of imagination that enables the painter to perceive a shadow on the face, and leads him to imitate it ? Is it through lack of imagination that Queen Elizabeth failed to see a shadow on her face, and objected to its being placed there in a picture? I follow

Why should up these questions with a third : Why should it

wo attribute i liii 1ji • -i

them to be supposed that, whether in picture or in The^rihey" po^t^y, the transfer of the qualities of one object api«irin ^^ auotlicr must require a special faculty of imagination ? " All things are double one against another," says the son of Sirach ; " and God hath made nothing imperfect." Why should the perception of this fact and the constant assertion of it in art be set down to imagination ? The only explanation is, that this faculty of seeing double is supposed to be a sort of drunkenness, and imagination is sometimes used as a synonym for illusion.


The Play of T/iought, 291

II. The imafirination not only takes and makes chapter

VIII.

like ; it also takes and makes whole. The one — '• process is clearly a step towards the other. The ^^"^.^t

  • ^ ^ . imagination

discovery of resemblance is an advance to the ««• wholes, perception of unity. And as we have spent some time over that state of the mind in which it contemplates resemblance, we must now give our attention to that more complete grasp of thought in which we attain to the sense of unity and wholeness. The mind is never content with a part ; it rushes to wholes. Where it cannot find them it makes them. Given any fragment of fact, we shape it instantly into a whole of some sort. In scholastic language which I shall presently explain, the mind discovers or invents inTent. or for itself three sorts of wholes — the whole of ttee7ort» intension, the whole of protension .and the **^ ^**®^*** whole of extension. The intensive whole is the favourite of the lyrical mood; the protensive whole dominates in the epic ; and the extensive whole is the very life and essence of dramatic art. But these phrases are enigmas, and the reader if he pleases may forget them at once and for ever. Throughout this treatise I have taken care not to trouble him with the jargon of tech- nical language, and he shall not be troubled with it now. Technical language is too often the refuge of obscurity, and a make-believe of depth. The technicahties of philosophy are like the tattooing and war-paint of savages to affright the enemy. Stripped of its war-paint,

u 2


292 The Gay Science.


CHArrER the greater part of philosophy is tame enough, — '. and fit for the understanding of M. Jourdain himself. What I have now to state about the way in which imagination seizes upon wholes is in reality very simple. Never mind about the names of the wholes. Only understand that in number they are three ; and the point of the argument which I have to establish is, that when the mind leaps to wholes — leaps from the par- ticular to the universal, from the accidental to But it <«n the necessary, from the temporary to the eternal, thaitiir from the individual to the general — we gain h^MtioD nothing by the supposition of a faculty called iJ^**°^ imagination which has the credit of making the whoin w leap. It can be shown that the very same sort

not peculiar * . , *'

to itieif. of leap IS made every hour in reason.

The ca«e of Wc are told of Peter Bell, that " a primrose

Peter Bell > . . .

for an * by tlic river's brim a yellow primrose was to him,

the'firet** and it was nothing more/' This is character-

whole. jg^j^ Q^ j^ Ta^n without the power of imagination,

as people say generally — without the power of

thought, as they might say more correctly. Now

let us ask what is it that the man of imagination,

the man of thought, sees more than Peter Bell

Peter does in a primrosc ? He sees in it a type. It is

the prim- uot mcrcly a fact; it is a representative fact.

[^]* * The primrose by the river's brim stands for all

primroses — and more, for all flowers — and yet

more, for all life. It comes to signify more than

itself. By itself it is but a single atom of

existence. Our thought sees in it the entirety


^


Tlie Play of Thought. 293


of existence and raises it into a mighty whole, chapter This is what I mean by the whole of intension, — i which predominates in lyrical art, and in arts not lyrical when they rise in the early or lyrical period of a nation's Ufe, The units of existence are intensified and exalted into things of universal existence,

All things seem only one In the universal sun.

The tendency of the mind to see or to make The typical these wholes shows itself in many ways ; but in many art it chiefly shows itself in the love of symbols ^^*™*' and types, emblems and heraldic devices. Judah is a hon's whelp ; Issachar a strong ass ; Dan shall be a serpent by the way ; Naphtali a hind let loose. According to this view, which most frankly expresses itself in the earlier stages of thought, everything in nature becomes a type of human nature. So we find in all young art that man and the world amid which he lived were And in- placed on an equality. The beasts of the field, theassertioa and the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, kin*iihijlV became the friends and confederates of man. ^^JJJJ^ He was as they were ; and they were all alike. Not only so; trees and flowers could think and feel, and vegetable Kfe was to human Ufe but as the grub to the butterfly. The very stones had life ; they were not dead but sleep- ing. All nature was sentient, and had its voices for man, who was, indeed, a superior being, but still a being on the same platform of existence


2^4 Th*! &r/ .SnVwse.


CHAPTER with all else. The man micrht one dar become — a bea^. an«l the beast might one daj become a


man« The beast epic of the middle ages, the natural expression of this belief* was receired less as an all^oric representation of human life than as a genuine description of a pos- sible history. We can trace the faith, in all its stages of childish simplicitr, boorish doubt, and final relinquishment, in the various legends of almost every literature belonging to the Indo-European tribes^ where, in the first stage of the tendency, the beast-world is represented as equal — ^in many respects superior — to the man-world ; in a lower stage the beasts are treated with less veneration and as inferior beings; in a still lower stage the sense of human superiority creates a feeling of dislike ; we are taught to think, not simply of the stupidity, but also of the hatefulness of the animal kinfrtlom ; and, finally, we reach the position of ^Esop, who, when he makes his lions, Vjears, and foxes talk and act, uses them pal- pably as the representatives of men. The forms, however, in which this love of type, this ten- dencv to symbol manifests itself are innumerable, and their history is not what we have now to lint why study. What concerns us now is to see clearly «i|.jK*«« that the symboHsm of art, however and when- Cty to over it aj)i)ears — whether in the frank seizure of 7yjtn. ^yp^'^1 ^^ 1^ the earlier periods of art, or in tli(* subtle suggestion of them, as in the more


^


The Play of Thought. 295

advanced periods, does not need the figment of a chapter

special faculty to produce it. \

It is evident that in the determination of what is the

• 1 lii'i* • "x A a1 nature of

thought which raises a primrose into a type, the the whole mind has added something which is not found in ^^^^J^^. the fact. A yellow primrose after all is but a *** * *yp«- yellow primrose ; and if the mind sees more in it, that more is an addition, a creation. Now, it is too often and too hastily assumed that this creation of the mind is a special property of fantasy ; and people are the more ready so to think because the process by which we arrive at that creation is perfectly inexplicable. How do we come to know that this primrose is a type ? What right have we to say that it may stand for all flowers ? What reason is there in the endowment of it with the power of repre- senting all life — and not least, human life? Critics are much too prone to go off in fits of wonder when they consider the working of imagination. This is the easiest mode of es- caping from the difficulties of analysis, and the perils of explanation. In the present case there is a real and wellnigh insoluble difficulty before us ; but a very little consideration will serve to show that it is nothing peculiar to a so-called faculty of imagination. It is the grand i* » the problem of logic ; it is the crux of reason. A whole 9a type is but a name for the result of generaliza- c^X in tion ; and generalization is a process of reasoning. ^!^^' Now, we never generalize without adding some-


296 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER thing which is not in the facts, and which is

\ a creation of the mind. Here is a well-known

specimen of generalization : All men are mortaL Nobody doubts this : but when logicians proceed to analyze it they find themselves unable to ex- plain satisfactorily how we reach from particular examples to the general conclusion. All we And the kuow of a suTcty is, that a certain limited Swi» o?*" number of men have died — ^what has become of qTe^J" the rest we know not. But suppose we know M**^^rf for certain that all men hitherto have died ; how imaginauoo (Jq wc arrfvc at thc conclusion that in future all

and not less

inexplicable, mcn must die ? Old Asgill, in the last century, seriously disputed the necessity of death passing upon all men. The leap to a generalization is a creature of the mind. From the earliest dawn of reason the mind is in the habit of taking these leaps. It may generalize well, or it may gene- ralize ill, but generalize it must. The child burns its finger with the flame of a candle : straightway it flies to the conclusion that all fire burns. There is a correct generalization. Once is enough : it flies from the one to the all. But it also makes mistakes of generali- zation. It calls every man it sees, papa ; it calls every bird, Polly ; it calls the dog, puss ; it runs to eat the snow for sugar. Right or wrong, it generalizes so continually that philosophers have raised a question whether knowledge in man begins in generals or in particulars.


The Play of Thought. 297


The argument then stands as follows: Youchaptkr

« . • VIII.

wonder at the work of imagination when you see — 1 how it magnifies isolated facts into continental ^"JJ^™*'^ truths ; you are amazed at its creativeness, and ai^ument. think that there must be something singular in the faculty, which, in a manner quite inexpli- cable, can effect such transformations. But, strange to say, this is the very work, and this the very marvel of reason. No man has yet been able to explain how, because this, that, or some other thing, has happened so many times, we are driven to the conclusion that it shall happen always. In both cases, the process of generalization is precisely the same. When imagination makes a seven-leagued stride from the one to the all, and from the part to the whole, it is no other than the usual stride of reason from the particular to the general. What is peculiar to imagination is not that it differs in this respect from the usual process of reasoning, but that it exhibits that process working automatically. Just as in the free play of thought, the mind tends to dwell on images of sight, whence one of the leading characteristics of imagination from which its very name is derived; so, in the same free play, the mind tends to generalize and totalize every individual fact that engages its attention : and hence another leading characteristic of that automatic energy which is conunonly known as imagination.


298 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER Here as before, then, we never get beyond the — 1 conception of imagination as the free play and gefuy^ unconscious movement of thought. There is ^^^of nothing peculiar in it except that it reveals the rfSTiT instinctive tendency of the mind. That instinc- tive tendency to generalize on every possible occasion, which shows itself in the first dawn of childish reason, we learn to check as we grow older, and thought becomes more conscious. Then we become hard and prosaic, sticking to facts, in and for themselves, as mere facts. A child accepts every event as a matter of neces- sity, and it is often exceedingly difficult to con- vince the little soul — following the natural tendency of mind — that what has happened once may not or will not happen again. Experience comes with years and corrects the imperious tendency of the mind to believe in the uni- formity of nature and the necessity of all things. The idea of accident enters, and, while a general belief in the certainty of nature remains, it no longer usurps the throne of absolute law. Per- haps the process goes even further, until at length in the mind's dotage certainty is banished from our expectations, the muse of history becomes the most incredible of Cassandras, and the whole world lies dead before us and around us, with men and women rattling over it hke dice from a dice-box. And here we can see pre- cisely the difference between the realism of child- liood and poetry and the realism of dotage and


The Play of Thought. 299

prose. The child in everything perceives the chapter element of necessity; the old man perceives — '-

Vixii */• i» T i^»"i The element

but the element ot contingency. In particulars of necessity the child sees the universal, the old man sees jS^jJoi"* in particulars only the particular. Herein •"pp^'**- lies the diflFerence between poetry and prose. It is the diflFerence not between imagination on the one hand and reason on the other — but between reason on the one hand playing free and fast, and reason on the other going warily in fetters.

Much of what has been said about symbols The second in art, their meaning and their origin, will apply whofe to that other form of generalization, described m?n? *^* above as the whole of protension or duration. "*****• We have a natural tendency when we see a thing, to think of it not only as now existing but as havinff always existed, and as destined to exist for evef. The mind is unable to conceive either the beginning or the end of existence. When left to itself in free play it conceives an idea of life in which there is no death. One We raise living thing may be transformed into another "^^C living thing, but there is no annihilation. It is *^* *^™^ just as in our dreams, where life appears to us as a series of dissolving views, a transmigration of souls, an incessant Protean change, without an end. We pass through innumerable avatars; we run the cycle of existence ; but cycle is followed by cycle, and existence is indestruc- tible. To die, in the old legends, is to be


300 Tlie Gay Science.

CHAPTER changed for a certain length of time into tree

1 or stone, beast or bird, but never to be quite

extinct. The primrose of oiu: dreams is trans- muted as we look on it, into a damsel or some other fair creature : it never dies. Words- worth has a little poem — We are Seven — in which he takes note of this, our natural in- And cannot ability to compass the idea of death. The little w^'dT child has lost one of her brothers, but still

        • ^ she says, " We are seven." Still to her mind

the lost Pleiad remains one of the seven. And under the eye of heaven there is not a more touching sight than that presented by Oriental artists when they enter the tombs to protest against dissolution. Some of the elder races of the world arranged the homes of the dead as if they were homes of the living, with panelled walls and fretted ceilings, elbow chairs, footiitools, benches, wnne flagons, drinking-cups, ointment phials, basins, mirrors, and other fur- niture. By painting, by sculpture, by writing, they had the habit, as it were, of chalking in large letters upon their sepulchres, no death. Theaiiser- The asscrtion of the continuity of existence cmltinuity* which the mind thus makes is the generating mak«lpiSi P^^^c^P'^ of epic or historical art, of all art, ^^ indeed, which has to do with the evolution of

events; and is there any reason why, when the narrative poet pleases us with his pictures of the transmutations of life, we must call up a special faculty — fantasy — to account for those



The Play of Thxmght 301

transmutations ? It is no more than the ordinary ^^^^^^ process of reasoning by which, involuntarily, we — connect every fact or thing that comes before formations us with causes and with eflFects. We may, with ^ ^ *^^' the greater poets, trace our facts to the gods; with Homer, show how the will of Zeus is accomplished in the slaughter of the Achaians ; with Milton, how man's first disobedience leads to his fall. Or again, with the lesser poets and storytellers, we may show how the Beast, when Beauty gives him her hand, becomes a prince; how Daphne, pursued by the god, is transformed into a laurel. But what is there in all this metamorphosis of persons, of things, or of actions, which needs for its pro- duction a special faculty ? When we come to analyze it, is there any real difference in thought between the transmutation of one per- But do these sonality into another, and the transmutation of ^*^*n^" one action into another? In either case thep^^^JT^^^ mind is actuated by one law, the law with*^?*^** which we are most familiar in thinking about causes and effects. We know we are com- pelled to think of a cause for every event, and that likewise every event suggests to us an effect. Why we are thus compelled to rush back to causes and to rush after effects we cannot tell. We only know the fact, and we are able to resolve it into this more general fact, that to think of a breach in the continuity of existence is beyond our power. We cannot


302 TJie Gay Science.

CHAPTER think of existence beginning : we cannot think

VIII. . . .

— '• of existence ending ; we only think of it as

passing from one form to another. This is the

law of all thought, and nothing peculiar to a

faculty of imagination.

The third And uow a fcw words in conclusion about the

whole third kind of whole which the mind creates, and

mi'nd* *. which is best known as it appears in dramatic

thTt^Tf" ^^' ^^* *^^* *^^ *^^ other tendencies I have extension. \yQQxi describing are to be held as excluded from dramatic art. On the contrary, it appropriates them and turns them to account. But it has also a way of its own which may be described as constructive. The drama is, in a far higher sense of the word than can be applied to any mere narrative — it is in the highest sense of the word, constructive. There is the construction of character and all its traits ; there is the con- On drama- structiou of the persoiiages in relation to each sii'uc'tLn. other ; there is the construction of events into a consistent plot. The constructive skill re- quired in a drama will appear all the more remarkable if we remember that the dramatist cannot plaister and conceal defects of construc- tion by comment or description. The creation Now wheii, a siuglc trait of character given, ter! *^^^ an artist builds upon it with endless details, many of them conflicting, an entire character, this, which in popular criticism is most fre- quently cited as evidence of the creative power and wholeness of work belonging to imagi-


The Play of Thought. 303

nation, is the result of a mental process not^^^^^ different in kind from that by which the com- — parative anatomist sees the perfect form of an unknown animal in one of its bones. When Professor Owen pictures for us some great saurian of the ancient world, we do not accuse him of drawing upon his imagination, because he reasons consciously at every step, and we . can follow his processes. But when a dra- matist or noveUst raises before us a great complex character, finely moulded and welded into a consistent whole, we attribute his work to imagination, because it has been devised in unconsciousness, and neither he nor we can follow the process. It is not imagination in the sense of a special faculty that does the work, but imagination in the sense of the hidden soul, the ordinary faculties engaged in free, unconscious play- In the free play of thought the mind may On the commit many errors ; but there is one error of i^nation. which we always absolve it, that of inconsistency, or a disregard of wholeness. We who know what ill names have been heaped on imagination, how it is represented often as the great source of illusion, may be perplexed sometimes to find that many an error, many a lapse from truth, is ex- plained by the absence of imagination. How constantly do we hear it said, when a poet or an where artist fails of truth, that he has no imagination, aii^w^^. or a feeble one. In these cases it will be foimd


w


■. .- . > • . k '




I'rviv


in


• I




'. :.- : Kv-. ::. riit- iran.len a ■ :'-. v.-j.... ..?! A'laiii first offcriiii*"


/


i


The Play of Thought. 305

her love, expressed a doubt as to his fidelity, chapter

whether he would always be true to her, and 1

whether he would not be running after others ; there once more was a lack of truth, and with it a lack of imagination. These falsehoods are offences against imagination, because they are offences against consistency, derelictions from the sense of wholeness. But in thus attributing to imagination the sense of wholeness, of fitness, of consistency — in attributing the lack of con- sistency to the lack of imagination — what do we really mean ? Do we mean that imagination is a special faculty, which looks after consistency as no other faculty looks after it ? and that only ima- ginative persons can be consistent ? Surely not.

The wholeness that marks all the work of The whole- imagination is a very simple matter, to be ex- imaginative

1*1 1 . ••IT* work to be

plained on a very obvious principle. Imagma- eipUined tion, I repeat, is only a name for the free, un- ^mpil*^ conscious play of thought. But the mind in free P'»"«^pi«- play works more as a whole than in conscious and voluntary effort. It is the very nature of voluntary effort to be partial and concentrated in points. Left to itself the mind is like the cloud that moveth altogether if it move at all ; and this wholeness of movement has its issue in that wholeness of thinking which we find in true works of imagination.

But this lengthy argument must now draw summary to a close. I have, one 'by one, touched upon ai^ument.

VOL. I. X


306


The Gay Science.


CHAPTER every feature of imagination which is supposed lilll to be pecuharly its own, and I have shown that each, without exception, belongs to the general action of the mind. In the first place, the name of imagination is derived from one of the most evident facts connected with the free play of the mind — sensibility to images or memories of sight. Sight is the most lively of the senses, and we recur most readily in idea to the impressions derived through that sense. Next in free play, and according to the very notion of it, the mind wanders; it is, therefore natural to speak of imagination in this sense as a source of illusion. And so we go over the other tendencies of free play. The mind has a tendency to see likeness and to become like what it sees. The mind has a tendency to see and to create wholes. Moreover, all these tendencies herd together. Tliey are separable and quite distinct ; but in the free play of the mind, they generally appear in combination. The result is, that by the law of inseparable or pretty constant association, we come to regard all these iniiting tendencies as a composite whole, one special faculty.* It is true


• For the fullest and clearest account of the law of inseparable ass(X)iation, see Mill's Examina- tion of Hir WiUiam JI(imiItcni8 Philosoj)hy^ chapter xiv. It is really an imp<»rtant law, and it is the corner-str>ne of Mr. l^Iill's system of philosoj)hy, which aims at overthruwing and dis-


placing the established philo- sophy of Europe. Mr. Mill, however, complains that thia, his leading principle, is not so much rejected as ignored by the great European schools of thought. " The best informed CJerman and French philoso- phers,*' he says, "are barely


TTie Play of Thought


307


that, in the processes which we attribute to ima- chapter

gination, there is a specialty. It is a specialty, !

however, not of power, but of function ; not of tendency, but of the circumstances under which the tendency is exerted. The nature of the work performed by imagination is not peculiar to itself. What is peculiar to itself is, that the work is done automatically and secretly. That


aware, if even aware, of its exist- ence. And in this country and age, in which it has been em- ployed by thinkers of the highest order as the most potent of all instruments of psychological ana- lysis, the opposite school usually dismiss it with a few sentences, so smoothly gliding over the sur- face of the subject as to prove that they have never, even for an instant, brought the powers of their minds into real and effec- tive contact with it." Of the thinkers "of the highest order," who have made much of the law, I know only one — Mr. John Mill himself ; and if it be a fact that it has hitherto been ignored, that would be the clearest of all proofs that until Mr. John Mill took it up, it cannot have been applied by any thinker "of the highest order." The truth, how- ever, is that the law is nowhere ignored. It is a very simple and a very obvious law which cannot have escaped the notice of the blindest bat in philosophy. All that Mr. Mill has a right to com- plain of is that the chief Eui\>


pean thinkers do not attach so much importance to it as he be- lieves it deserves, and as it really does deserve. We all know the force of association in our ideas of things. We see things to- gether; wo learn to think of them as inseparably associated, and of their union as incapable of dissolution. Mr. James Mill uses the following illustration: "When a wheel, on the seven parts of which the seven pris- matic colours are respectively painted, is made to revolve rapidly, it appears not of seven colours, but of one uniform colour — white. By the rapidity of the succession, the several sensations cease to be distin- guishable ; they run, as it were, together; and a new sensation, compounded of all the seven, but apparently a single one, is the result." That is precisely the case of imagination. In the free play of the mind, there are a number of tendencies which har- monize and unite; we come to regard them as a unity ; and we dub that unity Imagination.

X 2


•SOS The Gay Science.

cHAfTER the work is automatic, or that the work is secret,

does not alter its character, and make it different

from reason, memory or feeling. Imagination therefore, can only be defined by reference to its spontaneity, or by reference to its uncon- sciousness. Regarding it as automatic, we define it the Play of Thought. Regarding it as uncon- ,scious, we define it the Hidden SouL



THE SECRECY OF ART.




IV


I


•J


CHAPTER IX.


THE SECRECY OP ART.


IE OUGHT now to proceed at once to c the consideration of pleasure, I began by showing that pleasure is the end of b art. 1 brought forward a cloud of witnesses to ^ prove that this has always been acknowledged. " And after showing that all these witnesses, in their several ways, define and limit the pleasure which art seeks, we discovered that the English school of critics has, more than any other, the habit of insisting on a limitation to it, which is more full of meaning as a principle in art than all else that has been advanced by the various Bchools of criticism. That the pleasure of art is the pleasure of imagination is the one grand doctrine of EngUsh criticism, and the most pregnant doctrine of all criticism. But it was difficult to find out what imagination really is ; and tlierefore the last three chapters


312 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER were allotted to an inquiry into tlie nature of it.

IV ___

1 The result at which we have arrived is that

imagination is but another name for that un- conscious action of the mind which may be called the Hidden Soul. And with this under- standing, we ought now to proceed to the scru- tiny of pleasure. I will, however, ask the reader And iu to halt for a few minutes, that I may point out the'defiili- how this understanding as to the nature of tionofaii. imagination bears on the definition with which we started — that pleasure is the end of art. Few are willing to acknowledge pleasure as the end of art. I took some pains to defend pleasure in this connection as a fit object of pursuit, and if I have not satisfied every mind, I hope now to do so by the increased light which the analysis of imagination will have thrown upon the subject. Art w the We Started Avith the common doctrine, that 2i€^. *^ art is the opposite of science, and that, as the object of science is knowledge, so that of art is pleasure. But if the reader has apprehended what I have tried to convey to him as to the exist- ence within us of two great worlds of thought^ — a double life, the one known or knowable, the other unknown and for the most part iniknow- able, he will be prepared, if not to accept, yet to understand this further conception of the difierence between science and art that the Its field field of science is the known and the knowable, theiin- while the field of art is the imknown and the unknowable. It is a strange paradox that the


a pani- for 01 oarjuie.


Hie Secrecy of Art. 313

mind should be described as possessing and com- chapter passing the unknown. But my whole argument -ll has been working up to this point, and, I trust, ^^r" rendering it credible — that the mind may pos- ^<>^*We. sess and be possessed by thoughts of which nevertheless it is ignorant.

Now, because such a statement as this will That sute- appear to be a paradox to those who have not con- "er sound* sidered it ; also, because to say that the field of art ^J^^^^ is the unknown, is like saying that the object of ^***^^^"**" art is a negation, it is fit that in ordinary speech we should avoid such phraaes, and be content with the less paradoxical expression— that the object of art is pleasure. The object of science, we say, is knowledge —a perfect grasp of all the facts which Ue within the sphere of conscious- ness. The object of art is pleasure-a sensible possession or enjoyment of the world beyond consciousness. We do not know that world, yet we feel it — feel it chiefly in pleasure, but sometimes in pain, which is the shadow of pleasure. It is a vast world we have seen ; of not less importance to us than the world of knowledge. It is in the hidden sphere of thought,* even more than in the open one, that we live, and move, and have our being ; and it is in this sense that the idea of art is always a secret. We hear much of the existence of such Peopie do

• J 1 J . -rt* J not under-

a secret, and people are apt to say — it a secret stand how a exist, and if the artist convey it in his art, why ^]^h"^"^


can-


does he not plainly tell us what it is ? But here ^""^ ** *******


314


Tke Gay Science.


Yet thei-e are current phnu«e!i


CHAiTER at once we fall into contradictions, for as all — '- language refers to the known, the moment we begin to apply it to the unknown, it fails. Until the existence of an unknown hidden life within us be thoroughly well accepted, not only felt, but also to some extent imderstood, there will always be an esoteric mode of stating the doctrine, which is not for the multitude.

Although at first sight it may appear absurd to speak of the unknown as the domain of art,

which may iji "i*ji i»« •!• >

help us to and to descnbe the artist as communicating to rhe'^^m*"'* the world, through his works, a secret that he doxicai defi- g^j^ J jij ^jj nevcr unravel, yet there is a common

nition of ' •'

«rt. phrase which, if we consider it well, may help

to render this paradox less diflSicult of belief. Montesquieu has a profound sentence at which I have often wondered : " Si notre ame n'avait point ete unie au coips, elle aurait connu ; mais il y a apparence qu'elle aurait aime ce quelle aurait connu : a present nous n'aimons presque que ce que nous ne connaissons pas." I have wondered by what process of thought a man of the last century arrived at such a conclu- sion. It scarcely fits into the thinking of his time; and I imagine he must have worked it


Jenesais Qut of thc plirase — Je ne sais quoi.* It was

quoi.


• Montesquieu's remark will be found in his Essai sur le Ooiit, where, indeed, he dwells so much upon the je ne sais quoi, us to make one nearly certain that by


some subtle process of hidden thought, unknown to himself, it suggested the remark. The curious thing is, that he attempts to explain in measured language


The Secrecy of Art.


315


in the last century a commonplace of French chafier criticism and conversation, that what is most — 1 lovely, most attractive, in man, in nature, in art, is a certain je ne sais quoi. And adopting this phrase, it will not be much of a paradox to assert that, while the object of science is to know and to make known, the object of art is to appropriate and to communicate the name- less grace, the ineffable secret of the know- not-what. If the object of art were to make if the ob-


the je ne sais quoi; and his explanation robs it of its richness of meaning. Nothing can be more fiat; and one is puzzled to understand how the thinker who could make the remark which I have quoted above, should give us the following definition of the je ne sais quoi : " II y a quelquefois dans les personncs ou dans les choses im charme invisible, une grace na- turelle, qu*on n'a pu d^finir, et qu'on a ^te' forc^ d'appeler le je ne sais quoi. II me semble que c^est un efiet principalement fond^ sur la surprise. Nous sommes touchy de ce qu*une personne nous plait plus qu'elle ne nous a paru d'abord devoir nous plaire, et nous sommes agr^blement surpris de oe qu*elle a su vaincre des d^fauts que nos yeux nous montrent, et que le cceur ne croit plus. Voilk pour- quoi les femmes laides ont trds- souvent des grftces, et qu'il est rare que les belles en aient. Car


une belle personne fait ordinaire- ment le contraire de ce que nous avions attendu; elle parvient a nous paroitre moins aimable; apr^s nous avoir surpris en bion, elle nous surprend en mal ; mais rimpression du bien est ancienne, celle du mal nouvelle : aussi les belles personnes font-elles rare- ment les grandes passions, pres- que toujours rdserv^ h celles qui ont des grdces, c'est-a-dire des agrdmens que nous n'atten- dions point, et que nous n'avions pas sujet d'attendre. Les grandes panares ont rarement de la gr&ce, et souvent rhabillement des ber- gkes en a. Nous admirons la majesty des draperies de Paul V^ron^; mais nous sommes touchy de la simplicity de Ra- phael et de la puret^ du Gorr^ge. Paul V^ron^ promet beaucoup, et paye ce qu*il promet. Raphael et le Corr^e promettent peu, et payent beaucoup; et cela nous plait davantage.'*


316 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER known and to explain its ideas, it would no

L longer be art, but science. Its object is very

jectofmrt diflFereut. The true artist recognises, however mikB dimly, the existence within us of a double world would 'nit of thought, and his object is, by subtle forms, bt art but ^Qjj^^ words, allusious, associations, to establish


a connection with the unconscious hemisphere of the mind, and to make us feel a mysterious energy there in the hidden soul. For this purpose he doubtless makes use of the known. He paints what we have seen, he describes what we have heard ; but his use of knowledge is ever to suggest something beyond knowledge. If he be merely dealing with the known and making it better known, then it becomes necessary to ask wherein does his work differ from science ? Through knowledge, tlirough consciousness, the artist appeals to the unconscious part of us. It is to the The poet's words, the artist's touches, are elec- the un-*** * trie ; and we feel those words, and the shock of of uT^th^* ^'^^^ touches, going through us in a way we ^*^'*^ cannot define, but always giving us a thrill of pleasure, awakening distant associations, and fill- ing us with the sense of a mental possession beyond that of which we are daily and hourly conscious. Art is poetical in proportion as it has this power of appealing to what I may call the absent mind, as distinct from the present mind, on which falls the great glare of conscious- ness, and to which alone science appeals. On the temple of art, as on the temple of Isis,


llie Secrecy of Art. 317

— - - - — *" - . ■ ■

might be inscribed — " I am whatsoever is, what- chapter

«oever has been, whatsoever shall be ; and the 1

veU which is over my face no mortal hand has ever raised."

There are persons so little aware of a hidden Thia view of life within them, of an absent mind which isport^'by theirs just as truly as the present mind of*" **"*'^' which they are conscious, that the view of art I have just been setting forth will to them be well nigh unintelligible. Others, again, ^yho have a faint consciousness of it, may see the truth more clearly if I present it not in my own words, but in words with which others have made them familiar.

Here, for example, is what Lord Macaulay it is implied says of Milton and his art : "We often hear ofia/scritl- the magical influence of poetry. The expres- SJhod! sion in general means nothing ; but applied to the writings of Milton it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would seem at first to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced th^n the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial places of the memory give up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence, substitute one syno- nyme for another, and the whole eflFect is de- stroyed. The spell loses it power ; and he who should then hope to conjure with it, would find


318 The Gay Science.

CHAiTER himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the

IX

— 1 Arabian tale when he stood crying, * Open wheat. Open barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound Only the but * Open sesame.'" This is admirably ex- OTMtidffln pressed, with the fault, however, of attributing "St^^tm inagic to Milton's poetry alone, while denying to^MUton's. *^^* magic belongs to poetry in general. The fact is, that all poetry, all art, has more or less of the same magic in it. We are touched less by th^ obvious meaning of the poet than by an occult power which lurks in his words. This is what I have been all along enforcing, that art affects us not as a mode of knowledge or science, but as suggesting something which is beyond and behind knowledge, a hidden trea- sure, a mental possession whereof we are ignorant. Given the magic words, given the magic touch, and not only Milton's poetry, but all good poetry and art will force the burial places of memory to render up their dead, will set innumerable trains of thought astir in the mind, fill us with their suggestive- ness, and charm us with an indefinable sense of pleasure. It is im- Precisely in this vein of thought sings Thomas

plietl in -^^^

Mo.,re*8 Moore :

Oh, there arc looks and tones that dart An instant sunshine throu<rh the heart : As if the soul that minute caujrht Some treasure it through life had sought; As if the very lij>s and eyes IVedestined to have all our si;:hs. And never bo for<]jot again, Sparkled and spoke before us then.


verses.



The Secrecy of Art 319

He is here referrins: to the action of love in chapter

IX.

that sense of it which suggested the well known — 1 sentence that the poet, the lunatic, and the lover, are of imagination all compact. Love, says Shakespeare, is too young to know itself. It belongs to the secret forces of the mind, and is connected with them by a freemasonry which mere consciousness may recognise but cannot penetrate. There is a passing glance, a sign, a tone, a word. In the lover as in the poet, it appeals not to the conscious intelligence, but to the secret places of the soul ; it illumines them with an instant gleam, which allows us no time to see what passes there ; it gives light with- out information ; and the light as it vanishes leaves us with a vague sense of possessing, we know not where, some hidden treasure of the mind for which all our lives we have been searching.

Now let us turn to Byron for a change. He Byron also takes a gloomy view of the strange power of the mind which we are considering, but he dwells on its existence as a great fact. He refers to it again and again, but the best known passage in which he makes mention of it will be found in the fourth canto of Childe Harold^ where he describes with much force the insidious return of grief:

Bat ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; And slight withal may be the things which bring


320 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER Back on the heart the weight which it would fling

IX. Aside for ever : it may be a sound —

A tone of music — summer's eve— or spring — A flower — the wind — the ocean — which shall wound. Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound ;

And how and why we know not, nor can trace Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind. But feel the shock renewed, nor can efiace The blight and blackening which it leaves behind. Which out of things familiar, undesigned. When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, — The cold, the changed, perchance the dead — anew The mourned, the loved, the lost, — too many ! — yet too few !

It IB implied Let me ring another change upon the same worth's idea by next quoting Wordsworth. One of the ^^^' most admired passages in his works, and fre- quently cited as a perfect embodiment of the poetical spirit, is the following from the poem on Tintem Abbey :

I have learned To look on nature, not as in tlic hour Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing ortontimea The still sad music of humanity. Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevat(Hl thoughts ; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply int<.'rfused. Whose dwelling is the Hght of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objectii of all thought, And rolls through all things. Tlierefore am I still A lover of the meadows, and the woods. And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth ; of all the mighty world, < )f eye and ear — both what they half create. And what pcnjeive.


The Secrecy of Art. 321

What is the meaning of it ? Does he simply chapter mean that sunsets and other sights of nature — '- are so beautiful as to afford him great pleasure ? ing^i?^e He says much more, which it is not easy toj^^J^^r put into clean-cut scientific language. -^^y^t^^wtT man of poetical temperament knows what ittJ»«^>*^«n means, though he might be puzzled to express it logically. What is the presence which surprises the poet with the joy of high thought ? What is that something in the light of setting suns which is far more deeply interfiised than the five wits can reach, and is to be apprehended only by a sense sublime ? Is it fact or fiction ? It is but Wordsworth's favourite manner of indicating the great fact upon which all art, all poetry, proceeds. Nature acts upon him as Milton's words upon Macaulay, like magic. It appeals to his hidden soul, and awakens the sense of a presence which is not to be caught and made a show of. The light of setting suns, the round ocean, and the living air, arouse in him a demi-semi-consciousness of a treasure trove which is not in the consciousness proper. What that treasure, what that presence is, it would pose Wordsworth or any one else to say. All he knows is that nature finely touches a secret chord within him, and gives him a vague hint of a world of life beyond consciousness, the world which art and poetry are ever pointing and working towards.

The poetry of Wordsworth aboimds with Bat there

VOL. I. Y




322 Tlie Gay Scierwe.

CHAPTER passages that vividly refer to the concealed life — of the mind and the secret of poetry. Some ISchpwH of these were quoted in the last chapter, and I ^5?5^ will now, even at the risk of becoming tedious, worth. quote another, which is one of the finest de- scriptions of that which we are to imderstand by the know-not-what of art. I should like to cite every line of the Ode on Immortality, but restrict myself to the following verses, in which the poet raises the song of praise. It is not Another in simplv bocause of the deli&rhts of childhood and tp- ite rimple creed that he gives thanks for the '*^' remembrance of his youth :

Not for these I raiae The song of thanks and praise ; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings, HIank misj^ivings of a creatun*

Movinf]^ about in worlds not realized, Hij^h instincts, before which our mortal nature

I)i<l tn»mblc like a jxuilty thing surprised ; And for thos<^' first afi'ectiouH, Those shailowy recollections. Which, be they what they may. Are yet the fountain-light of all our day ;

Are yet a raasterlight of all our seeing ; Uphold us, cherish us, and have jwwer to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence ; truths that wake To i«rish never,

Which neither listlessness nor nuid endeavour, Nor man, nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy Can utterly abolish or destroy.

What a Now, it may be interesting to read the com-

menf which a very intelligent critic makes


7%^ Secrecy of Art. 323

upon this in one of the weekly journals. He chapter is obliged to confess that the passage reads like — nonsense ; it has no special meaning ; but his Myg*^%. heart responds to it, and he pronounces it per- fectly beautiful. " There is no reason," he says, " why a confused state of mind should not be poetical Indeed we may go further and say, that some of what is universally acknowledged to be the finest poetry, has scarcely any definite meaning whatever. In Wordsworth's great ode there are many lines comprising a kind of essence of poetry, but to which it is scarcely possible to attribute any distinct signification. The often- quoted passage about the 'faUings from us, va- nishings, blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized,' &c., are exquisitely beautiful, but are altogether without any special meaning. If we try to interpret them, to fix the idea embodied in them, it evaporates at once. The words are the right ones to awaken, for some reason, a set of pleasant associations, and to stimulate our imaginations ; but as soon as we try to dissect and analyze them, to distinguish between the form of expression and the sense which it is intended to convey, we fail alto- gether. The words themselves are the poetry. It is like a mosaic work, which puts together a number of beautiful colours, without attempting to form any definite picture."

The view which the critic here indicates, How fkr he although not altogether correct, is well ex- his view.

y2


324 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER pressed ; and, making allowance for some incau- — tious phrases, the reader will find no difficulty in squaring it with the view of art contained in these pages. It is hard to say that Words- worth's phrases have no special meaning which it is possible to fix in the terms of cold reason. The poet is describing, with all the clearness he can command, the know-not-what — the vanish- ing effects produced in his consciousness by the veiled energy of his hidden life; and by the bare mention of these vanishing effects (not as the critic says, by unmeaning words that are as the colours of a kaleidoscope) he appeals to an experience which all who can enjoy poetry must recognize, he brings back upon us strange memories, and through memory surprises us with a momentary sense of the hidden life, a sudden gleam as of a falling star that comes we know not whence, and is gone ere we are conscious of having seen it :

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the col lied night, That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say — behold ! The jaws of darkness do devour it up.

Sir Edward Siuce Wordsworth, the man who has shown given ex- the most abiding sense of a mystery surround- si^Z^ ing human life and thought, of an energy which thoughts, jg ours, and yet is separate from conscious pos- session, is Sir Edward Lytton. It may be doubted whether he fully understands the nature of this mysterious energy — whether, at any rate.


The Secrecy of Art 325

he understands it as fully as Wordsworth. Still, chapter he is so impressed with its reality, that it has sug- — gested to him more than one marvellous tale of a secret magic belonging to humanity ; and even when he is not thinking at all of Rosicrucian mysteries, but merely describing ordinary flesh and blood, he refers to the mental gifts of his more poetic personages in terms which, without the key supplied by the theory of the Hidden Soul, are to most readers a perfect riddle. Take the description of Helen, in Lucretia. " There is a certain virtue within us," says Sir Edward Lyt- His de«:rip. ton, " comprehending our subtlest and noblest Hden. emotions, which is poetry while untold, and grows pale and poor in proportion as we strain it into poems." In other words— if I may interpolate my own explanation— which is poetry so long as it remains the know-not-what, and ceases to be poetry when it is defined into knowledge and becomes an item of science. " This more spiritual sensibility/' Sir Edward proceeds, " dwelt in Helen, as the latent mesmerism in water, as the invisible fairy in an enchanted ring. It was an essence, or divinity, shrined or shrouded in herself, which gave her more intimate and vital imion with all the influences of the universe — a companion to her loneliness, an angel hymning low to her own Ustening soul. This made her enjoyment of nature, in its merest trifles, ex- quisite and profound ; this gave to her tendencies of heart all the delicious and sportive variety


326 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER love borrows from imagination ; this lifted her L piety above the mere forms of conventional re- ligion, and breathed into her prayers the ecstacy of the saints." Seniox^s I havo not seen this passage as it stands in this descrip- the original, and quote it from a critical essay oi ^' Mr. Nassau Senior. The comment which that hard thinker makes upon it, struck me as a capital example of one-eyed criticism. He introduces the passage by saying that Sir E. Lytton is apt to ascribe to his characters " qualities of which we doubt the real existence ;" and he dismisses it with the declaration, " we must say that these He does not appear to us to be mere words/' The anony- St mous cntic whom 1 quoted just now saw m the extract from Wordsworth meaningless phrases; but he allowed that the phrases had an influence on him, and suggested something very delightful to his mind. In Bulwer Lytton's description, Mr. Nassau Senior sees words without influence Nor would and without any hold on reaHty. What would i.u^d ^' such a man say to Shelley's account of poetry Shelley, with which lie closes his Defence of Poetry ? " It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric hfe which burns within their words. They measure the circumfer- ence and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations ; for it is less their



The Secrecy of Art. 327

spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the chapter hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration ; — the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futu- rity casts upon the present ; the words which ex- press what they understand not; the trumpets which ring to battle, and feel not what they inspire ; the influence which is moved not, but moves/'

In these various quotations I have been endea- so far the

t* • 1 p • T definition of

vourmg, trom as many points ot view as 1 can com- art as the mand, to justify and make clear the paradox thattt."^ whereas the theme of science is the known and I^^° ^^

been ex-

knowable, that of art is the unknown and xmknow- pif «»«^

solely by re- able. But the quotations which I have been ference to

able to bring forward relate chiefly to poetry, ^ ^^*

and they ought to have the supplement of a few

words on the other forms of art, showing that

they too, music, painting, sculpture, not less

than poetry, are what they are, and gain their

peculiar ends, not as exhibitions of knowledge

in one form or another, but as suggesting some-

thing beyond knowledge. This, however, is seethe

1 •.! t* * a1 • l^ a same defini-

even more clear in the case ot music than m that tion as it of poetry. There is no pretension in music to Xl" '" increase the store of knowledge, and so far it is to be regarded as the purest type of art. The glory of music is to be more intimately con- nected than any other art with the hidden soul ; with the incognisable part of our minds, which it stirs into an activity that at once fills us with delight and passes understanding. We feel a


328 The Gay Science.


OHAPTER certain mental energy quickened within us ; faint

far-away suggestions, glimpses of another world,

crowd upon the uttermost rim of consciousness ;

and we entertain through the long movements

of a symphony the indefinable joy of those who

wake from dreams in the fancied possession of a

Music is treasure— they wot not what. Music being thus

which has the most spiritual of the arts — having less con-

JJ^I^jcUoa nection than any other with knowledge and

J^r*Jlr^4jj matter of fact ; more connection than any other

Uieun- ^fn^}[^ the unknown of thouerht; we are for a

kuown of o '

thought, moment reminded of the opinion of those who would make it the queen of the arts, as there are those on the other hand who would make meta- physics queen of the sciences. Into a discussion of that point which, after all, is of little import- ance, I shall not now be tempted to stray ; but 1 wish to say, in passing, that when critics seek to measure a great musician like Beethoven with a great dramatist like Shakespeare, they are apt to run the comparison upon quaUties which are incommensurable. Beethoven Tlic art of Shakespcarc, be it observed, is speai^ com- complex. It is built on a vast expenditure of ^^* facts, on a wonderful exposition of knowledge. Through the splendid colh'sion of facts, we learn to catch at something which is not in the facts ; from the conquered world of knowledge we sidle into the unconquered world of hidden thought —

    • the worlds unrealized " of Wordsworth. But

in any attempt to show the greatness of Shake-



The Secrecy of Art. 329

speare, the proofs are nearly all based on the chapter ^tness of his knowledge. It is only tins kind iL of proof that we can logically construe. Who can take the measure of his influence in the hidden world of thought ? We can measure his knowledge, we cannot measure all that is com- prised in the know-not-what of his influence. Now if we try to put into comparison the menta' grasp of Beethoven with that of Shakespeare — what do we find ? We find in Beethoven the great master of an art, which is not complex but simple — which acts powerfully and vitally on the imknown realm of thought, but not through the means, or at least very little through the means, of definite knowledge. The definite know- The com- ledge which Beethoven or any great musician ^l^iUe. puts before our minds as a means of gaining access to the hidden soul is very small; compared with that which Shakespeare sets in the glare of consciousness it is as nothing. The standard, therefore, of conscious comparison between the great musician and the great dramatist entirely fails.

When we turn from music and poetry tOThedefini- painting and sculpture, there may be more diffi- ^ thJ*?^ culty in accepting art as in the strictest sense ^„|^^"^ the opposite of science — the k^ner of a secret**^' which may be imparted but never known. Music is nothing if not suggestive, and all good poetry has a latency of meaning beyond the simple statement ot acts. But in the arts of The arts of


330 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER painting and sculpture there is the precision, the — clearsightedness, the accuracy of science; and ^?^rex- we admire so much the knowledge of the


■ca hib precuBOD


              • ^'^ of tl^g represented, which the artist exhibits,


  • ^**™*- that we are less struck by the something beyond

knowledge — the know-not-what which he suggests to the imagination. When the poet makes Perdita babble of the daffodils that come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty, he displays a suggestiveness which outruns the whole art of painting. Qui pingit Jhrenij non pingit Jloris odorem. How can a painter in the tinting of a daffodil convey fine suggestions of the confidence and power of beauty in a tender flower ? The painter may give us ** pale primroses,'* but how can he convey what Perdita means when she tells us that they die unmarried ere they can behold bright

Ami the Phoebus in his strength ? The painter's art is

painter's ^^t, ^ -ii i n

esiKciaiiy evidently tied to fact more strictly than that of

ih y6rv

strictly tied tlic poct. We arc all familiar with the manner "* ^ * in which truth of drawing, truth of colour, truth of perspective, truth of light and shadow, truth to the minutest hair and filament of fact — in one word, complete science is demanded of the artist who appeals to us through the visual sense ; and his scientific mastery of the human forms, or dog- forms, or forms of whatever else is to be pictured, bulks so large in our esteem that we forget often the somewhat more than science which ought to be on his canvas or in his marble, and without



The Secrecy of Art. 331

which his art is naught. If mere accuracy, if chapter mere matter of fact, were all in all, then the — 1 artist would stand a poor chance in competition But sdenoe with the photograph and other mechanical modes raough. of copying nature. It is the artist's business, by The pic- . the capture of evanescent and almost impalpable reaches to expression, by the unfathomable blending of^yond"*^ light in shadow, by delicacies of purest colour, ^^^^' by subtleties of lineament, by touches of a grace that is beyond calculation, b/ all the mysteries that are involved in the one word — tone — to convey to the imagination a something beyond nature, and beyond science —

The light which never was on sea or shore, The consecration and the poet's dream.

If there be artists who content themselves with The artists

who adherB

adhesion to bare fact, who are never able to tran- to bare fact scend fact and to move the imagination, then^ey?* ^ we must think of them as of Defoe. We take an interest in what Defoe tells us, but it is not the interest excited by art. He sees things' clearly and describes them sharply ; but the com- plaint against him is that he has no imagination — ^that he never touches the hidden sense, which we have been trying to analyze. And as a man may tell a story well (it is done every day in the newspapers), and yet his clear story-telling is not poetry ; so a man may paint a picture well, and yet his picture for all the clearness and fulness of knowledge it exhibits may not be art, because it wants that something which a great Their art


332 The Gay Science.

CHAPTER artist once described by snapping his fingers. — '- " It wants, said Sir Joshua Rejmolds, ** it wants

CMeutial tn/OU.

it. *^ There is a famous saying of Shakespeare's

Ulysses, " that one touch of nature makes the whole world kin ;" and in a sense very different from that which our dramatist had in his mind, it is frequently cited as the clearest expression of what art most gloriously achieves, and what the artist ought most steadily to pursue. Who- ever will refer to the passage in the original, will see that Shakespeare meant nothing like what his readers divorcing the line from the context now see in it. The supposition is, that when we discover any one touch of nature our hearts are stirred into sympathy with all nature, and we rejoice in the felt grandeur of the bond which links us to the universe. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that any touch of nature will produce this effect, and that the artist has nothing to do but to render nature. It is only by touches of nature that he can move us, but he has to select his touches. Truth of touch is not enough, because every true touch is not in magnetic relation with the hidden life of the mind. The artist may fill his canvas with true touches ; and Sir Joshua, snapping his fingers, may have to say — " It wants that.

But if the If the essential quality of art may be expressed


The Secrecy of Art. 333

by the pantomime of snapping one's fingers, and ghafte by saying, " 'tis that" then there is good reason —1

I* • ijtiiii domain of

why in a previous chapter 1 should have art is the refiised to limit the scope of art to the true, to ^^^ the beautiful, or to any one idea within tlle{^^'^^^^ sphere of knowledge ; but there may also seem «^^^ be th* to be fair grounds for challenging the possibility «dence? of a critical science. If the field of art be the unknown and unknowable, where is the room for science ? Is it not likely that all our inquiries into the nature of art may end in no better result than the page-boy in one of Lilly's plays got out of Sir Tophaz ? " Tush, boy !" cries the bragging soldier. Sir Tophaz, " I think it but some device of the poet to get money/' " A. poet !" says Epiton ; " what's that ?" " Dost thou not know what a poet is ?" " No," says the page. " Why, fool," rejoins Sir Tophaz, " a poet is as much as one should say, a poet," If, however, there be aught of which a science is impossible there may still be room for scientific ignorance. Nay, more. Sir William Hamilton, who, notwithstanding Mr. Mill, will hold his place as the greatest thinker of the nineteenth century, maintained, though he did not originate the paradox, " that what we are conscious of is constructed out of what we are not conscious of,- — that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made up of the unknown and incognisable," I do not insist upon this, although it is capable of distinct proof, because to render such a mystery in knowledge


334 The Gay Science.


CHAPTER plain to the popular mind would be too much of

L a digression. But it may be enough to say that

■^ rr if we cannot tear the secret from art, we can, at

JJ^^ any rate, lay bare the conditions imder which it

      • hfch^' passes current. There is a science of biology, and

the idence yet uo ouo cau define what is life. The science

thing the of life is but a science of the laws and conditions

which is under whicn it is mamiested. bo, again, is it

"°^**'^' essential to the science of electricity that we

should know for certain what is electricity?

We know not what it is : we only see its effects ;

and yet relating to these effects of an unknown

power there has been built up a great science.

Again, we can trace the orbits of comets and

reckon upon their visits, though of themselves,

their what, their why, their wherefore, we know

almost nothing. And so there may be a science

of poetry and the fine arts, although the tlieme

of art is the Unknown, and its motive power is

the Hidden Soul.


END OF VOL. i.


LUNDON : riUNTRD BT WILUAM CL0WK8 AKD SONS, £rTAM>X>RD HTftKVT

AKD OHAEIHO CBCWK




,v

German text

Friedrich Nietzsche

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft

("la gaya scienza")

"Dem Dichter und Weisen sind alle Dinge befreundet und geweiht, alle Erlebnisse nützlich. alle Tage heilig, alle Menschen göttlich."

Emerson. [Motto der Ausgabe 1882]

Ich wohne in meinem eigenen Haus, Hab Niemandem nie nichts nachgemacht Und - lachte noch jeden Meister aus, Der nicht sich selber ausgelacht.

Ueber meiner Hausthür. [Motto der Ausgabe 1887]

Vorrede zur zweiten Ausgabe

1

Diesem Buche thut vielleicht nicht nur Eine Vorrede noth; und zuletzt bliebe immer noch der Zweifel bestehn, ob Jemand, ohne etwas Aehnliches erlebt zu haben, dem Erlebnisse dieses Buchs durch Vorreden näher gebracht werden kann. Es scheint in der Sprache des Thauwinds geschrieben: es ist Uebermuth, Unruhe, Widerspruch, Aprilwetter darin, so dass man beständig ebenso an die Nähe des Winters als an den Sieg über den Winter gemahnt wird, der kommt, kommen muss, vielleicht schon gekommen ist... Die Dankbarkeit strömt fortwährend aus, als ob eben das Unerwartetste geschehn sei, die Dankbarkeit eines Genesenden, - denn die Genesung war dieses Unerwartetste. "Fröhliche Wissenschaft": das bedeutet die Saturnalien eines Geistes, der einem furchtbaren langen Drucke geduldig widerstanden hat - geduldig, streng, kalt, ohne sich zu unterwerfen, aber ohne Hoffnung -, und der jetzt mit Einem Male von der Hoffnung angefallen wird, von der Hoffnung auf Gesundheit, von der Trunkenheit der Genesung. Was Wunders, dass dabei viel Unvernünftiges und Närrisches an's Licht kommt, viel muthwillige Zärtlichkeit, selbst auf Probleme verschwendet, die ein stachlichtes Fell haben und nicht darnach angethan sind, geliebkost und gelockt zu werden. Dies ganze Buch ist eben Nichts als eine Lustbarkeit nach langer Entbehrung und Ohnmacht, das Frohlocken der wiederkehrenden Kraft, des neu erwachten Glaubens an ein Morgen und Uebermorgen, des plötzlichen Gefühls und Vorgefühls von Zukunft, von nahen Abenteuern, von wieder offenen Meeren, von wieder erlaubten, wieder geglaubten Zielen. Und was lag nunmehr Alles hinter mir! Dieses Stück Wüste, Erschöpfung, Unglaube, Vereisung mitten in der Jugend, dieses eingeschaltete Greisenthum an unrechter Stelle, diese Tyrannei des Schmerzes überboten noch durch die Tyrannei des Stolzes, der die Folgerungen des Schmerzes ablehnte - und Folgerungen sind Tröstungen -, diese radikale Vereinsamung als Nothwehr gegen eine krankhaft hellseherisch gewordene Menschenverachtung, diese grundsätzliche Einschränkung auf das Bittere, Herbe, Wehethuende der Erkenntniss, wie sie der Ekel verordnete, der aus einer unvorsichtigen geistigen Diät und Verwöhnung - man heisst sie Romantik - allmählich gewachsen war -, oh wer mir das Alles nachfühlen könnte! Wer es aber könnte, würde mir sicher noch mehr zu Gute halten als etwas Thorheit, Ausgelassenheit "fröhliche Wissenschaft", - zum Beispiel die Handvoll Lieder, welche dem Buche dies Mal beigegeben sind - Lieder, in denen sich ein Dichter auf eine schwer verzeihliche Weise über alle Dichter lustig macht. - Ach, es sind nicht nur die Dichter und ihre schönen "lyrischen Gefühle", an denen dieser Wieder-Erstandene seine Bosheit auslassen muss: wer weiss, was für ein Opfer er sich sucht, was für ein Unthier von parodischem Stoff ihn in Kürze reizen wird? "Incipit tragoedia" - heisst es am Schlusse dieses bedenklich-unbedenklichen Buchs: man sei auf seiner Hut! Irgend etwas ausbündig Schlimmes und Boshaftes kündigt sich an: incipit parodia, es ist kein Zweifel...

2

- Aber lassen wir Herrn Nietzsche: was geht es uns an, dass Herr Nietzsche wieder gesund wurde?... Ein Psychologe kennt wenig so anziehende Fragen, wie die nach dem Verhältniss von Gesundheit und Philosophie, und für den Fall, dass er selber krank wird, bringt er seine ganze wissenschaftliche Neugierde mit in seine Krankheit. Man hat nämlich, vorausgesetzt, dass man eine Person ist, nothwendig auch die Philosophie seiner Person: doch giebt es da einen erheblichen Unterschied. Bei dem Einen sind es seine Mängel, welche philosophiren, bei dem Andern seine Reichthümer und Kräfte. Ersterer hat seine Philosophie nöthig, sei es als Halt, Beruhigung, Arznei, Erlösung, Erhebung, Selbstentfremdung; bei Letzterem ist sie nur ein schöner Luxus, im besten Falle die Wollust einer triumphirenden Dankbarkeit, welche sich zuletzt noch in kosmischen Majuskeln an den Himmel der Begriffe schreiben muss. Im andren, gewöhnlicheren Falle aber, wenn die Nothstände Philosophie treiben, wie bei allen kranken Denkern - und vielleicht überwiegen die kranken Denker in der Geschichte der Philosophie -: was wird aus dem Gedanken selbst werden, der unter den Druck der Krankheit gebracht wird? Dies ist die Frage, die den Psychologen angeht: und hier ist das Experiment möglich. Nicht anders als es ein Reisender macht, der sich vorsetzt, zu einer bestimmten Stunde aufzuwachen und sich dann ruhig dem Schlafe überlässt: so ergeben wir Philosophen, gesetzt, dass wir krank werden, uns zeitweilig mit Leib und Seele der Krankheit - wir machen gleichsam vor uns die Augen zu. Und wie Jener weiss, dass irgend Etwas nicht schläft, irgend Etwas die Stunden abzählt und ihn aufwecken wird, so wissen auch wir, dass der entscheidende Augenblick uns wach finden wird, - dass dann Etwas hervorspringt und den Geist auf der That ertappt, ich meine auf der Schwäche oder Umkehr oder Ergebung oder Verhärtung oder Verdüsterung und wie alle die krankhaften Zustände des Geistes heissen, welche in gesunden Tagen den Stolz des Geistes wider sich haben (denn es bleibt bei dem alten Reime "der stolze Geist, der Pfau, das Pferd sind die drei stölzesten Thier' auf der Erd" -). Man lernt nach einer derartigen Selbst-Befragung, Selbst-Versuchung, mit einem feineren Auge nach Allem, was überhaupt bisher philosophirt worden ist, hinsehn; man erräth besser als vorher die unwillkürlichen Abwege, Seitengassen, Ruhestellen, Sonnen stellen des Gedankens, auf die leidende Denker gerade als Leidende geführt und verführt werden, man weiss nunmehr, wohin unbewusst der kranke Leib und sein Bedürfniss den Geist drängt, stösst, lockt - nach Sonne, Stille, Milde, Geduld, Arznei, Labsal in irgend einem Sinne. Jede Philosophie, welche den Frieden höher stellt als den Krieg, jede Ethik mit einer negativen Fassung des Begriffs Glück, jede Metaphysik und Physik, welche ein Finale kennt, einen Endzustand irgend welcher Art, jedes vorwiegend aesthetische oder religiöse Verlangen nach einem Abseits, jenseits, Ausserhalb, Oberhalb erlaubt zu fragen, ob nicht die Krankheit das gewesen ist, was den Philosophen inspirirt hat. Die unbewusste Verkleidung physiologischer Bedürfnisse unter die Mäntel des Objektiven, Ideellen, Rein-Geistigen geht bis zum Erschrecken weit, - und oft genug habe ich mich gefragt, ob nicht, im Grossen gerechnet, Philosophie bisher überhaupt nur eine Auslegung des Leibes und ein Missverständniss des Leibes gewesen ist. Hinter den höchsten Werthurtheilen, von denen bisher die Geschichte des Gedankens geleitet wurde, liegen Missverständnisse der leiblichen Beschaffenheit verborgen, sei es von Einzelnen, sei es von Ständen oder ganzen Rassen. Man darf alle jene kühnen Tollheiten der Metaphysik, sonderlich deren Antworten auf die Frage nach dem Werth des Daseins, zunächst immer als Symptome bestimmter Leiber ansehn; und wenn derartigen Welt-Bejahungen oder Welt-Verneinungen in Bausch und Bogen, wissenschaftlich gemessen, nicht ein Korn von Bedeutung innewohnt, so geben sie doch dem Historiker und Psychologen um so werthvollere Winke, als Symptome, wie gesagt, des Leibes, seines Gerathens und Missrathens, seiner Fülle, Mächtigkeit, Selbstherrlichkeit in der Geschichte, oder aber seiner Hemmungen, Ermüdungen, Verarmungen, seines Vorgefühls vom Ende, seines Willens zum Ende. Ich erwarte immer noch, dass ein philosophischer Arzt im ausnahmsweisen Sinne des Wortes - ein Solcher, der dem Problem der Gesammt-Gesundheit von Volk, Zeit, Rasse, Menschheit nachzugehn hat - einmal den Muth haben wird, meinen Verdacht auf die Spitze zu bringen und den Satz zu wagen: bei allem Philosophiren handelte es sich bisher gar nicht um Wahrheitg, sondern um etwas Anderes, sagen wir um Gesundheit, Zukunft, Wachsthum, Macht, Leben...

3

- Man erräth, dass ich nicht mit Undankbarkeit von jener Zeit schweren Siechthums Abschied nehmen möchte, deren Gewinn auch heute noch nicht für mich ausgeschöpft ist: so wie ich mir gut genug bewusst bin, was ich überhaupt in meiner wechselreichen Gesundheit vor allen Vierschrötigen des Geistes voraus habe. Ein Philosoph, der den Gang durch viele Gesundheiten gemacht hat und immer wieder macht, ist auch durch ebensoviele Philosophien hindurchgegangen: er kann eben nicht anders als seinen Zustand jedes Mal in die geistigste Form und Ferne umzusetzen, - diese Kunst der Transfiguration ist eben Philosophie. Es steht uns Philosophen nicht frei, zwischen Seele und Leib zu trennen, wie das Volk trennt, es steht uns noch weniger frei, zwischen Seele und Geist zu trennen. Wir sind keine denkenden Frösche, keine Objektivir- und Registrir-Apparate mit kalt gestellten Eingeweiden, - wir müssen beständig unsre Gedanken aus unsrem Schmerz gebären und mütterlich ihnen Alles mitgeben, was wir von Blut, Herz, Feuer, Lust, Leidenschaft, Qual, Gewissen, Schicksal, Verhängniss in uns haben. Leben - das heisst für uns Alles, was wir sind, beständig in Licht und Flamme verwandeln, auch Alles, was uns trifft, wir können gar nicht anders. Und was die Krankheit angeht: würden wir nicht fast zu fragen versucht sein, ob sie uns überhaupt entbehrlich ist? Erst der grosse Schmerz ist der letzte Befreier des Geistes, als der Lehrmeister des grossen Verdachtes, der aus jedem U ein X macht, ein ächtes rechtes X, das heisst den vorletzten Buchstaben vor dem letzten... Erst der grosse Schmerz, jener lange langsame Schmerz, der sich Zeit nimmt, in dem wir gleichsam wie mit grünem Holze verbrannt werden, zwingt uns Philosophen, in unsre letzte Tiefe zu steigen und alles Vertrauen, alles Gutmüthige, Verschleiernde, Milde, Mittlere, wohinein wir vielleicht vordem unsre Menschlichkeit gesetzt haben, von uns zu thun. Ich zweifle, ob ein solcher Schmerz "verbessert" -; aber ich weiss, dass er uns vertieft. Sei es nun, dass wir ihm unsern Stolz, unsern Hohn, unsre Willenskraft entgegenstellen lernen und es dem Indianer gleichthun, der, wie schlimm auch gepeinigt, sich an seinem Peiniger durch die Bosheit seiner Zunge schadlos hält; sei es, dass wir uns vor dem Schmerz in jenes orientalische Nichts zurückziehn - man heisst es Nirvana -. in das stumme, starre, taube Sich-Ergeben, Sich-Vergessen, Sich-Auslöschen: man kommt aus solchen langen gefährlichen Uebungen der Herrschaft über sich als ein andrer Mensch heraus, mit einigen Fragezeichen mehr, vor Allem mit dem Willen, fürderhin mehr, tiefer, strenger, härter, böser, stiller zu fragen als man bis dahin gefragt hatte. Das Vertrauen zum Leben ist dahin - das Leben selbst wurde zum Problem. - Möge man ja nicht glauben, dass Einer damit nothwendig zum Düsterling geworden sei! Selbst die Liebe zum Leben ist noch möglich, - nur liebt man anders. Es ist die Liebe zu einem Weibe, das uns Zweifel macht... Der Reiz alles Problematischen, die Freude am X ist aber bei solchen geistigeren, vergeistigteren Menschen zu gross, als dass diese Freude nicht immer wieder wie eine helle Gluth über alle Noth des Problematischen, über alle Gefahr der Unsicherheit, selbst über die Eifersucht des Liebenden zusammenschlüge. Wir kennen ein neues Glück....

4

Zuletzt, dass das Wesentlichste nicht ungesagt bleibe: man kommt aus solchen Abgründen, aus solchem schweren Siechthum, auch aus dem Siechthum des schweren Verdachts, neu-geboren zurück, gehäutet, kitzlicher, boshafter, mit einem feineren Geschmacke für die Freude, mit einer zarteren Zunge für alle guten Dinge, mit lustigeren Sinnen, mit einer zweiten gefährlicheren Unschuld in der Freude, kindlicher zugleich und hundert Mal raffinirter als man jemals vorher gewesen war. Oh wie Einem nunmehr der Genuss zuwider ist, der grobe dumpfe braune Genuss, wie ihn sonst die Geniessenden, unsre "Gebildeten", unsre Reichen und Regierenden verstehn! Wie boshaft wir nunmehr dem grossen Jahrmarkts-Bumbum zuhören, mit dem sich der "gebildete Mensch" und Grossstädter heute durch Kunst, Buch und Musik zu "geistigen Genüssen", unter Mithülfe geistiger Getränke, nothzüchtigen lässt! Wie uns jetzt der Theater-Schrei der Leidenschaft in den Ohren weh thut, wie unsrem Geschmacke der ganze romantische Aufruhr und Sinnen-Wirrwarr, den der gebildete Pöbel liebt, sammt seinen Aspirationen nach dem Erhabenen, Gehobenen, Verschrobenen fremd geworden ist! Nein, wenn wir Genesenden überhaupt eine Kunst noch brauchen, so ist es eine andre Kunst - eine spöttische, leichte, flüchtige, göttlich unbehelligte, göttlich künstliche Kunst, welche wie eine helle Flamme in einen unbewölkten Himmel hineinlodert! Vor Allem: eine Kunst für Künstler, nur für Künstler! Wir verstehn uns hinterdrein besser auf Das, was dazu zuerst noth thut, die Heiterkeit, jede Heiterkeit, meine Freunde! auch als Künstler -: ich möchte es beweisen. Wir wissen Einiges jetzt zu gut, wir Wissenden: oh wie wir nunmehr lernen, gut zu vergessen, gut nicht-zu-wissen, als Künstler! Und was unsere Zukunft betrifft: man wird uns schwerlich wieder auf den Pfaden jener ägyptischen Jünglinge finden, welche Nachts Tempel unsicher machen, Bildsäulen umarmen und durchaus Alles, was mit guten Gründen verdeckt gehalten wird, entschleiern, aufdecken, in helles Licht stellen wollen. Nein, dieser schlechte Geschmack, dieser Wille zur Wahrheit, zur "Wahrheit um jeden Preis", dieser Jünglings-Wahnsinn in der Liebe zur Wahrheit - ist uns verleidet: dazu sind wir zu erfahren, zu ernst, zu lustig, zu gebrannt, zu tief... Wir glauben nicht mehr daran, dass Wahrheit noch Wahrheit bleibt, wenn man ihr die Schleier abzieht; wir haben genug gelebt, um dies zu glauben. Heute gilt es uns als eine Sache der Schicklichkeit, dass man nicht Alles nackt sehn, nicht bei Allem dabei sein, nicht Alles verstehn und "wissen" wolle. "Ist es wahr, dass der liebe Gott überall zugegen ist?" fragte ein kleines Mädchen seine Mutter: "aber ich finde das unanständig" - ein Wink für Philosophen! Man sollte die Scham besser in Ehren halten, mit der sich die Natur hinter Räthsel und bunte Ungewissheiten versteckt hat. Vielleicht ist die Wahrheit ein Weib, das Gründe hat, ihre Gründe nicht sehn zu lassen? Vielleicht ist ihr Name, griechisch zu reden, Baubo?... Oh diese Griechen! Sie verstanden sich darauf, zu leben: dazu thut Noth, tapfer bei der Oberfläche, der Falte, der Haut stehen zu bleiben, den Schein anzubeten, an Formen, an Töne, an Worte, an den ganzen Olymp des Scheins zu glauben! Diese Griechen waren oberflächlich - aus Tiefe! Und kommen wir nicht eben darauf zurück, wir Wagehalse des Geistes, die wir die höchste und gefährlichste Spitze des gegenwärtigen Gedankens erklettert und uns von da aus umgesehn haben, die wir von da aus hinabgesehn haben? Sind wir nicht eben darin - Griechen? Anbeter der Formen, der Töne, der Worte? Eben darum - Künstler?

Ruta bei Genua, im Herbst 1886.

"Scherz, List und Rache"

Vorspiel in deutschen Reimen

1

Einladung

Wagt's mit meiner Kost, ihr Esser! Morgen schmeckt sie euch schon besser Und schon übermorgen gut! Wollt ihr dann noch mehr, - so machen Meine alten sieben Sachen Mir zu sieben neuen Muth.

2

Mein Glück

Seit ich des Suchens müde ward, Erlernte ich das Finden. Seit mir ein Wind hielt Widerpart, Segl' ich mit allen Winden.

3

Unverzagt

Wo du stehst, grab tief hinein! Drunten ist die Quelle! Lass die dunklen Männer schrein: "Stets ist drunten - Hölle!"

4

Zwiegespräch

War ich krank? Bin ich genesen? Und wer ist mein Arzt gewesen? Wie vergass ich alles Das!

Jetzt erst glaub ich dich genesen: Denn gesund ist, wer vergass.

5

An die Tugendsamen

Unseren Tugenden auch soll'n leicht die Füsse sich heben: Gleich den Versen Homer's müssen sie kommen und gehn!

6

Welt-Klugheit

Bleib nicht auf ebnem Feld! Steig nicht zu hoch hinaus! Am schönsten sieht die Welt Von halber Höhe aus.

7

Vademecum-Vadetecum

Es lockt dich meine Art und Sprach, Du folgest mir, du gehst mir nach? Geh nur dir selber treulich nach: - So folgst du mir - gemach! gemach!

8

Bei der dritten Häutung

Schon krümmt und bricht sich mir die Haut, Schon giert mit neuem Drange, So viel sie Erde schon verdaut, Nach Erd' in mir die Schlange.

Schon kriech' ich zwischen Stein und Gras Hungrig auf krummer Fährte, Zu essen Das, was stets ich ass, Dich, Schlangenkost, dich, Erde!

9

Meine Rosen

Ja! Mein Glück - es will beglücken -, Alles Glück will ja beglücken! Wollt ihr meine Rosen pflücken? Müsst euch bücken und verstecken Zwischen Fels und Dornenhecken, Oft die Fingerchen euch lecken! Denn mein Glück - es liebt das Necken! Denn mein Glück - es liebt die Tücken! - Wollt ihr meine Rosen pflücken?

10

Der Verächter

Vieles lass ich fall'n und rollen, Und ihr nennt mich drum Verächter. Wer da trinkt aus allzuvollen Bechern, lässt viel fall'n und rollen -, Denkt vom Weine drum nicht schlechter.

11

Das Sprüchwort spricht

Scharf und milde, grob und fein, Vertraut und seltsam, schmutzig und rein, Der Narren und Weisen Stelldichein: Diess Alles bin ich, will ich sein, Taube zugleich, Schlange und Schwein!

12

An einen Lichtfreund

Willst du nicht Aug' und Sinn ermatten, Lauf' auch der Sonne nach im Schatten!

13

Für Tänzer

Glattes Eis Ein Paradeis Für Den, der gut zu tanzen weiss.

14

Der Brave

Lieber aus ganzem Holz eine Feindschaft, Als eine geleimte Freundschaft!

15

Rost

Auch Rost thut Noth: Scharfsein ist nicht genung! Sonst sagt man stets von dir: "er ist zu jung!"

16

Aufwärts

"Wie komm ich am besten den Berg hinan?" Steig nur hinauf und denk nicht dran!

17

Spruch des Gewaltmenschen

Bitte nie! Lass diess Gewimmer! Nimm, ich bitte dich, nimm immer!

18

Schmale Seelen

Schmale Seelen sind mir verhasst; Da steht nichts Gutes, nichts Böses fast.

19

Der unfreiwillige Verführer

Er schloss ein leeres Wort zum Zeitvertreib In's Blaue - und doch fiel darob ein Weib.

20

Zur Erwägung

Zwiefacher Schmerz ist leichter zu tragen, Als Ein Schmerz: willst du darauf es wagen?

21

Gegen die Hoffahrt

Blas dich nicht auf: sonst bringet dich Zum Platzen schon ein kleiner Stich.

22

Mann und Weib

"Raub dir das Weib, für das dein Herze fühlt! " - So denkt der Mann; das Weib raubt nicht, es stiehlt.

23

Interpretation

Leg ich mich aus, so leg ich mich hinein: Ich kann nicht selbst mein Interprete sein. Doch wer nur steigt auf seiner eignen Bahn, Trägt auch mein Bild zu hellerm Licht hinan.

24

Pessimisten-Arznei

Du klagst, dass Nichts dir schmackhaft sei? Noch immer, Freund, die alten Mucken? Ich hör dich lästern, lärmen, spucken - Geduld und Herz bricht mir dabei.

Folg mir, mein Freund! Entschliess dich frei, Ein fettes Krötchen zu verschlucken, Geschwind und ohne hinzugucken! - Das hilft dir von der Dyspepsei!

25

Bitte

Ich kenne mancher Menschen Sinn Und weiss nicht, wer ich selber bin! Mein Auge ist mir viel zu nah - Ich bin nicht, was ich seh und sah. Ich wollte mir schon besser nützen, Könnt' ich mir selber ferner sitzen. Zwar nicht so ferne wie mein Feind! Zu fern sitzt schon der nächste Freund - Doch zwischen dem und mir die Mitte! Errathet ihr, um was ich bitte?

26

Meine Härte

Ich muss weg über hundert Stufen, Ich muss empor und hör euch rufen: "Hart bist du; Sind wir denn von Stein?" - Ich muss weg über hundert Stufen, Und Niemand möchte Stufe sein.

27

Der Wandrer

"Kein Pfad mehr" Abgrund rings und Todtenstille!" - So wolltest du's! Vom Pfade wich dein Wille! Nun, Wandrer, gilt's! Nun blicke kalt und klar! Verloren bist du, glaubst du - an Gefahr.

28

Trost für Anfänger

Seht das Kind umgrunzt von Schweinen, Hülflos, mit verkrümmten Zeh'n! Weinen kann es, Nichts als weinen - Lernt es jemals stehn und gehn?

Unverzagt! Bald, solle ich meinen, Könnt das Kind ihr tanzen sehn! Steht es erst auf beiden Beinen, Wird's auch auf dem Kopfe stehn.

29

Sternen-Egoismus

Rollt' ich mich rundes Rollefass Nicht um mich selbst ohn' Unterlass, Wie hielt' ich's aus, ohne anzubrennen, Der heissen Sonne nachzurennen?

30

Der Nächste

Nah hab den Nächsten ich nicht gerne: Fort mit ihm in die Höh und Ferne! Wie würd' er sonst zu meinem Sterne? -

31

Der verkappte Heilige

Dass dein Glück uns nicht bedrücke, Legst du um dich Teufelstücke, Teufelswitz und Teufelskleid. Doch umsonst' Aus deinem Blicke Blickt hervor die Heiligkeit!

32

Der Unfreie

Er steht und horcht: was konnt ihn irren? Was hört er vor den Ohren schwirren? Was war's, das ihn darniederschlug?

Wie jeder, der einst Ketten trug, Hört überall er - Kettenklirren.

33

Der Einsame

Verhasst ist mir das Folgen und das Führen. Gehorchen? Nein! Und aber nein - Regieren! Wer sich nicht schrecklich ist, macht Niemand Schrecken: Und nur wer Schrecken macht, kann Andre führen. Verhasst ist mir's schon, selber mich zu führen!

Ich liebe es, gleich Wald- und Meeresthieren, Mich für ein gutes Weilchen zu verlieren, In holder Irrniss grüblerisch zu hocken, Von ferne her mich endlich heimzulocken, Mich selber zu mir selber - zu verführen.

34

Seneca et hoc genus omne

Das schreibt und schreibt sein unausstehlich weises Larifari, Als gält es primum scribere, Deinde philosophari.

35

Eis

Ja! Mitunter mach' ich Eis: Nützlich ist Eis zum Verdauen! Hättet ihr viel zu verdauen, Oh wie liebtet ihr mein Eis!

36

Jugendschriften

Meiner Weisheit A und O Klang mir hier: was höre ich doch! Jetzo klingt mir's nicht mehr so, Nur das ew'ge Ah! und oh! Meiner Jugend hör ich noch.

37

Vorsicht

In jener Gegend reist man jetzt nicht gut; Und hast du Geist, sei doppelt auf der Hut! Man lockt und liebt dich, bis man dich zerreisst: Schwarmgeister sind's -: da fehlt es stets an Geist!

38

Der Fromme spricht

Gott liebt uns, weil er uns erschuf! - "Der Mensch schuf Gott!" - sagt drauf ihr Feinen. Und soll nicht lieben, was er schuf? Soll's gar, weil er es schuf, verneinen? Das hinkt, das trägt des Teufels Huf.

39

Im Sommer

Im Schweisse unsres Angesichts Soll'n unser Brod wir essen? Im Schweisse isst man lieber Nichts, Nach weiser Aerzte Ermessen.

Der Hundsstern winkt: woran gebricht's? Was will sein feurig Winken? Im Schweisse unsres Angesichts Soll'n unsren Wein wir trinken!

40

Ohne Neid

Ja, neidlos blickt er: und ihr ehrt ihn drum? Er blickt sich nicht nach euren Ehren um; Er hat des Adlers Auge für die Ferne, Er sieht euch nicht! - er sieht nur Sterne, Sterne.

41

Heraklitismus

Alles Glück auf Erden, Freunde, giebt der Kampf! Ja, um Freund zu werden, Braucht es Pulverdampf! Eins in Drei'n sind Freunde: Brüder vor der Noth, Gleiche vor dem Feinde, Freie - vor dem Tod!

42

Grundsatz der Allzufeinen

Lieber auf den Zehen noch, Als auf allen Vieren! Lieber durch ein Schlüsselloch, Als durch offne Thüren!

43

Zuspruch

Auf Ruhm hast du den Sinn gericht? Dann acht' der Lehre: Bei Zeiten leiste frei Verzicht Auf Ehre!

44

Der Gründliche

Ein Forscher ich? Oh spart diess Wort! - Ich bin nur schwer - so manche Pfund'! Ich falle, falle immerfort Und endlich auf den Grund!

45

Für immer

"Heut komm' ich, weil mir's heute frommt" - Denkt Jeder, der für immer kommt. Was ficht ihn an der Welt Gered': "Du kommst zu früh! Du kommst zu spät!"

46

Urtheile der Müden

Der Sonne fluchen alle Matten; Der Bäume Werth ist ihnen - Schatten!

47

Niedergang

"Er sinkt, er fällt jetzt" - höhnt ihr hin und wieder; Die Wahrheit ist: er steigt zu euch hernieder! Sein Ueberglück ward ihm zum Ungemach, Sein Ueberlicht geht eurem Dunkel nach.

48

Gegen die Gesetze

Von heut an hängt an härner Schnur Um meinen Hals die Stunden-Uhr: Von heut an hört der Sterne Lauf, Sonn', Hahnenschrei und Schatten auf,

Und was mir je die Zeit verkünd't, Das ist jetzt stumm und taub und blind: - Es schweigt mir jegliche Natur Beim Tiktak von Gesetz und Uhr.

49

Der Weise spricht

Dem Volke fremd und nützlich doch dem Volke, Zieh ich des Weges, Sonne bald, bald Wolke - Und immer über diesem Volke!

50

Den Kopf verloren

Sie hat jetzt Geist - wie kam's, dass sie ihn fand? Ein Mann verlor durch sie jüngst den Verstand, Sein Kopf war reich vor diesem Zeitvertreibe: Zum Teufel gieng sein Kopf - nein! nein! zum Weibe!

51

Fromme Wünsche

"Mögen alle Schlüssel doch Flugs verloren gehen, Und in jedem Schlüsselloch Sich der Dietrich drehen!" Also denkt zu jeder Frist Jeder, der - ein Dietrich ist.

52

Mit dem Fusse schreiben

Ich schreib nicht mit der Hand allein: Der Fuss will stets mit Schreiber sein. Fest, frei und tapfer läuft er mir Bald durch das Feld, bald durchs Papier.

53

Ein Buch

Schwermüthig scheu, solang du rückwärts schaust, Der Zukunft trauend, wo du selbst dir traust: Oh Vogel, rechn' ich dich den Adlern zu? Bist du Minerva's Liebling U-hu-hu?

54

Meinem Leser

Ein gut Gebiss und einen guten Magen - Diess wünsch' ich dir! Und hast du erst mein Buch vertragen, Verträgst du dich gewiss mit mir!

55

Der realistische Maler

"Treu die Natur und ganz!" - Wie fängt er's an: Wann wäre je Natur im Bilde abgethan? Unendlich ist das kleinste Stück der Welt! - Er malt zuletzt davon, was ihm gefällt. Und was gefällt ihm? Was er malen kann!

56

Dichter-Eitelkeit

Gebt mir Leim nur: denn zum Leime Find' ich selber mir schon Holz! Sinn in vier unsinn'ge Reime Legen - ist kein kleiner Stolz!

57

Wählerischer Geschmack

Wenn man frei mich wählen liesse, Wählt' ich gern ein Plätzchen mir Mitten drin im Paradiese: Gerner noch - vor seiner Thür!

58

Die krumme Nase

Die Nase schauet trutziglich In's Land, der Nüster blähet sich - Drum fällst du, Nashorn ohne Horn, Mein stolzes Menschlein, stets nach vorn! Und stets beisammen find't sich das: Gerader Stolz, gekrümmte Nas.

59

Die Feder kritzelt

Die Feder kritzelt: Hölle das! Bin ich verdammt zum Kritzeln-Müssen? - So greif' ich kühn zum Tintenfass Und schreib' mit dicken Tintenflüssen.

Wie läuft das hin, so voll, so breit! Wie glückt mir Alles, wie ich's treibe! Zwar fehlt der Schrift die Deutlichkeit - Was thut's? Wer liest denn, was ich schreibe?

60

Höhere Menschen

Der steigt empor - ihn soll man loben! Doch jener kommt allzeit von oben! Der lebt dem Lobe selbst enthoben, Der ist von Droben!

61

Der Skeptiker spricht

Halb ist dein Leben um, Der Zeiger rückt, die Seele schaudert dir! Lang schweift sie schon herum Und sucht und fand nicht - und sie zaudert hier?

Halb ist dein Leben um: Schmerz war's und Irrthum, Stund' um Stund' dahier! Was suchst du noch? Warum? - - Diess eben such' ich - Grund um Grund dafür!

62

Ecce homo

Ja! Ich weiss, woher ich stamme! Ungesättigt gleich der Flamme Glühe und verzehr' ich mich. Licht wird Alles, was ich fasse, Kohle Alles, was ich lasse: Flamme bin ich sicherlich.

63

Sternen-Mora

Vorausbestimmt zur Sternenbahn, Was geht dich, Stern, das Dunkel an? Roll' selig hin durch diese Zeit! Ihr Elend sei dir fremd und weit! Der fernsten Welt gehört dein Schein: Mitleid soll Sünde für dich sein! Nur Ein Gebot gilt dir, - sei rein!

Erstes Buch

1

Die Lehrer vom Zwecke des Daseins. - Ich mag nun mit gutem oder bösem Blicke auf die Menschen sehen, ich finde sie immer bei Einer Aufgabe, Alle und jeden Einzelnen in Sonderheit: Das zu thun, was der Erhaltung der menschlichen Gattung frommt. Und zwar wahrlich nicht aus einem Gefühl der Liebe für diese Gattung, sondern einfach, weil Nichts in ihnen älter, stärker, unerbittlicher, unüberwindlicher ist, als jener Instinct, - weil dieser Instinct eben das Wesen unserer Art und Heerde ist. Ob man schon schnell genug mit der üblichen Kurzsichtigkeit auf fünf Schritt hin seine Nächsten säuberlich in nützliche und schädliche, gute und böse Menschen auseinander zu thun pflegt, bei einer Abrechnung im Grossen, bei einem längeren Nachdenken über das Ganze wird man gegen dieses Säubern und Auseinanderthun misstrauisch und lässt es endlich sein. Auch der schädlichste Mensch ist vielleicht immer noch der allernützlichste, in Hinsicht auf die Erhaltung der Art; denn er unterhält bei sich oder, durch seine Wirkung, bei Anderen Triebe, ohne welche die Menschheit längst erschlafft oder verfault wäre. Der Hass, die Schadenfreude, die Raub- und Herrschsucht und was Alles sonst böse genannt wird: es gehört zu der erstaunlichen Oekonomie der Arterhaltung, freilich zu einer kostspieligen, verschwenderischen und im Ganzen höchst thörichten Oekonomie: - welche aber bewiesener Maassen unser Geschlecht bisher erhalten hat. Ich weiss nicht mehr, ob du, mein lieber Mitmensch und Nächster, überhaupt zu Ungunsten der Art, also "unvernünftig" und "schlecht" leben kannst; Das, was der Art hätte schaden können, ist vielleicht seit vielen Jahrtausenden schon ausgestorben und gehört jetzt zu den Dingen, die selbst bei Gott nicht mehr möglich sind. Hänge deinen besten oder deinen schlechtesten Begierden nach und vor Allem: geh' zu Grunde! - in Beidem bist du wahrscheinlich immer noch irgendwie der Förderer und Wohlthäter der Menschheit und darfst dir daraufhin deine Lobredner halten - und ebenso deine Spötter! Aber du wirst nie den finden, der dich, den Einzelnen, auch in deinem Besten ganz zu verspotten verstünde, der deine grenzenlose Fliegen- und Frosch-Armseligkeit dir so genügend, wie es sich mit der Wahrheit vertrüge, zu Gemüthe führen könnte! Ueber sich selber lachen, wie man lachen müsste, um aus der ganzen Wahrheit heraus zu lachen, - dazu hatten bisher die Besten nicht genug Wahrheitssinn und die Begabtesten viel zu wenig Genie! Es giebt vielleicht auch für das Lachen noch eine Zukunft! Dann, wenn der Satz "die Art ist Alles, Einer ist immer Keiner" - sich der Menschheit einverleibt hat und Jedem jederzeit der Zugang zu dieser letzten Befreiung und Unverantwortlichkeit offen steht. Vielleicht wird sich dann das Lachen mit der Weisheit verbündet haben, vielleicht giebt es dann nur noch "fröhliche Wissenschaft". Einstweilen ist es noch ganz anders, einstweilen ist die Komödie des Daseins sich selber noch nicht "bewusst geworden", einstweilen ist es immer noch die Zeit der Tragödie, die Zeit der Moralen und Religionen. Was bedeutet das immer neue Erscheinen jener Stifter der Moralen und Religionen, jener Urheber des Kampfes um sittliche Schätzungen, jener Lehrer der Gewissensbisse und der Religionskriege? Was bedeuten diese Helden auf dieser Bühne? Denn es waren bisher die Helden derselben, und alles Uebrige, zeitweilig allein Sichtbare und Allzunahe, hat immer nur zur Vorbereitung dieser Helden gedient, sei es als Maschinerie und Coulisse oder in der Rolle von Vertrauten und Kammerdienern. (Die Poeten zum Beispiel waren immer die Kammerdiener irgend einer Moral.) - Es versteht sich von selber, dass auch diese Tragöden im Interesse der Art arbeiten, wenn sie auch glauben mögen, im Interesse Gottes und als Sendlinge Gottes zu arbeiten. Auch sie fördern das Leben der Gattung, indem sie den Glauben an das Leben fördern. "Es ist werth zu leben - so ruft ein jeder von ihnen - es hat Etwas auf sich mit diesem Leben, das Leben hat Etwas hinter sich, unter sich, nehmt euch in Acht!" Jener Trieb, welcher in den höchsten und gemeinsten Menschen gleichmässig waltet, der Trieb der Arterhaltung, bricht von Zeit zu Zeit als Vernunft und Leidenschaft des Geistes hervor; er hat dann ein glänzendes Gefolge von Gründen um sich und will mit aller Gewalt vergessen machen, dass er im Grunde Trieb, Instinct, Thorheit, Grundlosigkeit ist. Das Leben soll geliebt werden, denn Der Mensch soll sich und seinen Nächsten fördern, denn! Und wie alle diese Soll's und Denn's heissen und in Zukunft noch heissen mögen! Damit Das, was nothwendig und immer, von sich aus und ohne allen Zweck geschieht, von jetzt an auf einen Zweck hin gethan erscheine und dem Menschen als Vernunft und letztes Gebot einleuchte, - dazu tritt der ethische Lehrer auf, als der Lehrer vom Zweck des Daseins; dazu erfindet er ein zweites und anderes Dasein und hebt mittelst seiner neuen Mechanik dieses alte gemeine Dasein aus seinen alten gemeinen Angeln. Ja! er will durchaus nicht, dass wir über das Dasein lachen, noch auch über uns, - noch auch über ihn; für ihn ist Einer immer Einer, etwas Erstes und Letztes und Ungeheures, für ihn giebt es keine Art, keine Summen, keine Nullen. Wie thöricht und schwärmerisch auch seine Erfindungen und Schätzungen sein mögen, wie sehr er den Gang der Natur verkennt und ihre Bedingungen verleugnet: - und alle Ethiken waren zeither bis zu dem Grade thöricht und widernatürlich, dass an jeder von ihnen die Menschheit zu Grunde gegangen sein würde, falls sie sich der Menschheit bemächtigt hätte - immerhin! jedesmal wenn "der Held" auf die Bühne trat, wurde etwas Neues erreicht, das schauerliche Gegenstück des Lachens, jene tiefe Erschütterung vieler Einzelner bei dem Gedanken: "ja, es ist werth zu leben! ja, ich bin werth zu leben!" - das Leben und ich und du und wir Alle einander wurden uns wieder einmal für einige Zeit interessant. - Es ist nicht zu leugnen, dass auf die Dauer über jeden Einzelnen dieser grossen Zwecklehrer bisher das Lachen und die Vernunft und die Natur Herr geworden ist: die kurze Tragödie gieng schliesslich immer in die ewige Komödie des Daseins über und zurück, und die "Wellen unzähligen Gelächters" - mit Aeschylus zu reden - müssen zuletzt auch über den grössten dieser Tragöden noch hinwegschlagen. Aber bei alle diesem corrigirenden Lachen ist im Ganzen doch durch diess immer neue Erscheinen jener Lehrer vom Zweck des Daseins die menschliche Natur verändert worden, - sie hat jetzt ein Bedürfniss mehr, eben das Bedürfniss nach dem immer neuen Erscheinen solcher Lehrer und Lehren vom "Zweck". Der Mensch ist allmählich zu einem phantastischen Thiere geworden, welches eine Existenz-Bedingung mehr, als jedes andere Thier, zu erfüllen hat: der Mensch muss von Zeit zu Zeit glauben, zu wissen, warum er existirt, seine Gattung kann nicht gedeihen ohne ein periodisches Zutrauen zu dem Leben! Ohne Glauben an die Vernunft im Leben! Und immer wieder wird von Zeit zu Zeit das menschliche Geschlecht decretiren: "es giebt Etwas, über das absolut nicht mehr gelacht werden darf!" Und der vorsichtigste Menschenfreund wird hinzufügen: "nicht nur das Lachen und die fröhliche Weisheit, sondern auch das Tragische mit all seiner erhabenen Unvernunft gehört unter die Mittel und Nothwendigkeiten der Arterhaltung!" - Und folglich! Folglich! Folglich! Oh versteht ihr mich, meine Brüder? Versteht ihr dieses neue Gesetz der Ebbe und Fluth? Auch wir haben unsere Zeit!

2

Das intellectuale Gewissen. - Ich mache immer wieder die gleiche Erfahrung und sträube mich ebenso immer von Neuem gegen sie, ich will es nicht glauben, ob ich es gleich mit Händen greife: den Allermeisten fehlt das intellectuale Gewissen; ja es wollte mir oft scheinen, als ob man mit der Forderung eines solchen in den volkreichsten Städten einsam wie in der Wüste sei. Es sieht dich jeder mit fremden Augen an und handhabt seine Wage weiter, diess gut, jenes böse nennend; es macht Niemandem eine Schamröthe, wenn du merken lässest, dass diese Gewichte nicht vollwichtig sind, - es macht auch keine Empörung gegen dich: vielleicht lacht man über deinen Zweifel. Ich will sagen: die Allermeisten finden es nicht verächtlich, diess oder jenes zu glauben und darnach zu leben, ohne sich vorher der letzten und sichersten Gründe für und wider bewusst worden zu sein und ohne sich auch nur die Mühe um solche Gründe hinterdrein zu geben, - die begabtesten Männer und die edelsten Frauen gehören noch zu diesen "Allermeisten". Was ist mir aber Gutherzigkeit, Feinheit und Genie, wenn der Mensch dieser Tugenden schlaffe Gefühle im Glauben und Urtheilen bei sich duldet, wenn das Verlangen nach Gewissheit ihm nicht als die innerste Begierde und tiefste Noth gilt, - als Das, was die höheren Menschen von den niederen scheidet! Ich fand bei gewissen Frommen einen Hass gegen die Vernunft vor und war ihnen gut dafür: so verrieth sich doch wenigstens noch das böse intellectuale Gewissen! Aber inmitten dieser rerum concordia discors und der ganzen wundervollen Ungewissheit und Vieldeutigkeit des Daseins stehen und nicht fragen, nicht zittern vor Begierde und Lust des Fragens, nicht einmal den Fragenden hassen, vielleicht gar noch an ihm sich matt ergötzen - das ist es, was ich als verächtlich empfinde, und diese Empfindung ist es, nach der ich zuerst bei Jedermann suche: - irgend eine Narrheit überredet mich immer wieder, jeder Mensch habe diese Empfindung, als Mensch. Es ist meine Art von Ungerechtigkeit.

3

Edel und Gemein. - Den gemeinen Naturen erscheinen alle edlen, grossmüthigen Gefühle als unzweckmässig und desshalb zu allererst als unglaubwürdig: sie zwinkern mit den Augen, wenn sie von dergleichen hören, und scheinen sagen zu wollen "es wird wohl irgend ein guter Vortheil dabei sein, man kann nicht durch alle Wände sehen": - sie sind argwöhnisch gegen den Edlen, als ob er den Vortheil auf Schleichwegen suche. Werden sie von der Abwesenheit selbstischer Absichten und Gewinnste allzu deutlich überzeugt, so gilt ihnen der Edle als eine Art von Narren: sie verachten ihn in seiner Freude und lachen über den Glanz seiner Augen. "Wie kann man sich darüber freuen im Nachtheil zu sein, wie kann man mit offnen Augen in Nachtheil gerathen wollen! Es muss eine Krankheit der Vernunft mit der edlen Affection verbunden sein" - so denken sie und blicken geringschätzig dabei: wie sie die Freude geringschätzen, welche der Irrsinnige von seiner fixen Idee her hat. Die gemeine Natur ist dadurch ausgezeichnet, dass sie ihren Vortheil unverrückt im Auge behält und dass diess Denken an Zweck und Vortheil selbst stärker, als die stärksten Triebe in ihr ist: sich durch jene Triebe nicht zu unzweckmässigen Handlungen verleiten lassen - das ist ihre Weisheit und ihr Selbstgefühl. Im Vergleich mit ihr ist die höhere Natur die unvernünftigere: - denn der Edle, Grossmüthige, Aufopfernde unterliegt in der That seinen Trieben, und in seinen besten Augenblicken pausirt seine Vernunft. Ein Thier, das mit Lebensgefahr seine Jungen beschützt oder in der Zeit der Brunst dem Weibchen auch in den Tod folgt, denkt nicht an die Gefahr und den Tod, seine Vernunft pausirt ebenfalls, weil die Lust an seiner Brut oder an dem Weibchen und die Furcht, dieser Lust beraubt zu werden es ganz beherrschen; es wird dümmer, als es sonst ist, gleich dem Edlen und Grossmüthigen. Dieser besitzt einige Lust- und Unlust-Gefühle in solcher Stärke, dass der Intellect dagegen schweigen oder sich zu ihrem Dienste hergeben muss: es tritt dann bei ihnen das Herz in den Kopf und man spricht nunmehr von "Leidenschaft". (Hier und da kommt auch wohl der Gegensatz dazu und gleichsam die "Umkehrung der Leidenschaft" vor, zum Beispiel bei Fontenelle, dem Jemand einmal die Hand auf das Herz legte, mit den Worten: "Was Sie da haben, mein Theuerster, ist auch Gehirn".) Die Unvernunft oder Quervernunft der Leidenschaft ist es, die der Gemeine am Edlen verachtet, zumal wenn diese sich auf Objecte richtet, deren Werth ihm ganz phantastisch und willkürlich zu sein scheint. Er ärgert sich über Den, welcher der Leidenschaft des Bauches unterliegt, aber er begreift doch den Reiz, welcher hier den Tyrannen macht; aber er begreift es nicht, wie man zum Beispiel einer Leidenschaft der Erkenntniss zu Liebe seine Gesundheit und Ehre aufs Spiel setzen könne. Der Geschmack der höheren Natur richtet sich auf Ausnahmen, auf Dinge, die gewöhnlich kalt lassen und keine Süssigkeit zu haben scheinen; die höhere Natur hat ein singuläres Werthmaass. Dazu ist sie meistens des Glaubens, nicht ein singuläres Werthmaass in ihrer Idiosynkrasie des Geschmacks zu haben, sie setzt vielmehr ihre Werthe und Unwerthe als die überhaupt gültigen Werthe und Unwerthe an, und geräth damit in's Unverständliche und Unpraktische. Es ist sehr selten, dass eine höhere Natur soviel Vernunft übrig behält, um Alltags-Menschen als solche zu verstehen und zu behandeln: zu allermeist glaubt sie an ihre Leidenschaft als an die verborgen gehaltene Leidenschaft Aller und ist gerade in diesem Glauben voller Gluth und Beredtsamkeit. Wenn nun solche Ausnahme-Menschen sich selber nicht als Ausnahmen fühlen, wie sollten sie jemals die gemeinen Naturen verstehen und die Regel billig abschätzen können! - und so reden auch sie von der Thorheit, Zweckwidrigkeit und Phantasterei der Menschheit, voller Verwunderung, wie toll die Welt laufe und warum sie sich nicht zu dem bekennen wolle, was, "ihr Noth thue". - Diess ist die ewige Ungerechtigkeit der Edlen.

4

Das Arterhaltende. - Die stärksten und bösesten Geister haben bis jetzt die Menschheit am meisten vorwärts gebracht: sie entzündeten immer wieder die einschlafenden Leidenschaften - alle geordnete Gesellschaft schläfert die Leidenschaften ein -, sie weckten immer wieder den Sinn der Vergleichung, des Widerspruchs, der Lust am Neuen, Gewagten, Unerprobten, sie zwangen die Menschen, Meinungen gegen Meinungen, Musterbilder gegen Musterbilder zu stellen. Mit den Waffen, mit Umsturz der Grenzsteine, durch Verletzung der Pietäten zumeist: aber auch durch neue Religionen und Moralen! Die selbe "Bosheit" ist in jedem Lehrer und Prediger des Neuen, - welche einen Eroberer verrufen Macht, wenn sie auch sich feiner äussert, nicht sogleich die Muskeln in Bewegung setzt und eben desshalb auch nicht so verrufen macht! Das Neue ist aber unter allen Umständen das Böse, als Das, was erobern, die alten Grenzsteine und die alten Pietäten umwerfen will; und nur das Alte ist das Gute! Die guten Menschen jeder Zeit sind die, welche die alten Gedanken in die Tiefe graben und mit ihnen Frucht tragen, die Ackerbauer des Geistes. Aber jedes Land wird endlich ausgenützt, und immer wieder muss die Pflugschar des Bösen kommen. - Es giebt jetzt eine gründliche Irrlehre der Moral, welche namentlich in England sehr gefeiert wird: nach ihr sind die Urtheile "gut" und "böse" die Aufsammlung der Erfahrungen über "zweckmässig" und "unzweckmässig"; nach ihr ist das Gut-Genannte das Arterhaltende, das Bös-Genannte aber das der Art Schädliche. In Wahrheit sind aber die bösen Triebe in eben so hohem Grade zweckmässig, arterhaltend und unentbehrlich wie die guten: - nur ist ihre Function eine verschiedene.

5

Unbedingte Pflichten. - Alle Menschen, welche fühlen, dass sie die stärksten Worte und Klänge, die beredtesten Gebärden und Stellungen nöthig haben, um überhaupt zu wirken, Revolutions-Politiker, Socialisten, Bussprediger mit und ohne Christenthum, bei denen allen es keine halben Erfolge geben darf: alle diese reden von "Pflichten", und zwar immer von Pflichten mit dem Charakter des Unbedingten - ohne solche hätten sie kein Recht zu ihrem grossen Pathos: das wissen sie recht wohl! So greifen sie nach Philosophieen der Moral, welche irgend einen kategorischen Imperativ predigen, oder sie nehmen ein gutes Stück Religion in sich hinein, wie diess zum Beispiel Mazzini gethan hat. Weil sie wollen, dass ihnen unbedingt vertraut werde, haben sie zuerst nöthig, dass sie sich selber unbedingt vertrauen, auf Grund irgend eines letzten indiscutabeln und an sich erhabenen Gebotes, als dessen Diener und Werkzeuge sie sich fühlen und ausgeben möchten. Hier haben wir die natürlichsten und meistens sehr einflussreichen Gegner der moralischen Aufklärung und Skepsis: aber sie sind selten. Dagegen giebt es eine sehr umfängliche Classe dieser Gegner überall dort, wo das Interesse die Unterwerfung lehrt, während Ruf und Ehre die Unterwerfung zu verbieten scheinen. Wer sich entwürdigt fühlt bei dem Gedanken, das Werkzeug eines Fürsten oder einer Partei und Secte oder gar einer Geldmacht zu sein, zum Beispiel als Abkömmling einer alten, stolzen Familie, aber eben diess Werkzeug sein will oder sein muss, vor sich und vor der Oeffentlichkeit, der hat pathetische Principien nöthig, die man jederzeit in den Mund nehmen kann: - Principien eines unbedingten Sollens, welchen man sich ohne Beschämung unterwerfen und unterworfen zeigen darf. Alle feinere Servilität hält am kategorischen Imperativ fest und ist der Todfeind Derer, welche der Pflicht den unbedingten Charakter nehmen wollen: so fordert es von ihnen der Anstand, und nicht nur der Anstand.

6

Verlust an Würde. - Das Nachdenken ist um all seine Würde der Form gekommen, man hat das Ceremoniell und die feierliche Gebärde des Nachdenkens zum Gespött gemacht und würde einen weisen Mann alten Stils nicht mehr aushalten. Wir denken zu rasch, und unterwegs, und mitten im Gehen, mitten in Geschäften aller Art, selbst wenn wir an das Ernsthafteste denken; wir brauchen wenig Vorbereitung, selbst wenig Stille: - es ist, als ob wir eine unaufhaltsam rollende Maschine im Kopfe herumtrügen, welche selbst unter den ungünstigsten Umständen noch arbeitet. Ehemals sah man es jedem an, dass er einmal denken wollte - es war wohl die Ausnahme! -, dass er jetzt weiser werden wollte und sich auf einen Gedanken gefasst machte: man zog ein Gesicht dazu, wie zu einem Gebet, und hielt den Schritt an; ja man stand stundenlang auf der Strasse still, wenn der Gedanke "kam" - auf einem oder auf zwei Beinen. So war es "der Sache würdig"!

7

Etwas für Arbeitsame. - Wer jetzt aus den moralischen Dingen ein Studium machen will, eröffnet sich ein ungeheures Feld der Arbeit. Alle Arten Passionen müssen einzeln durchdacht, einzeln durch Zeiten, Völker, grosse und kleine Einzelne verfolgt werden; ihre ganze Vernunft und alle ihre Werthschätzungen und Beleuchtungen der Dinge sollen an's Licht hinaus! Bisher hat alles Das, was dem Dasein Farbe gegeben hat, noch keine Geschichte: oder wo gäbe es eine Geschichte der Liebe, der Habsucht, des Neides, des Gewissens, der Pietät, der Grausamkeit? Selbst eine vergleichende Geschichte des Rechtes, oder auch nur der Strafe, fehlt bisher vollständig. Hat man schon die verschiedene Eintheilung des Tages, die Folgen einer regelmässigen Festsetzung von Arbeit, Fest und Ruhe zum Gegenstand der Forschung gemacht? Kennt man die moralischen Wirkungen der Nahrungsmittel? Giebt es eine Philosophie der Ernährung? (Der immer wieder losbrechende Lärm für und wider den Vegetarianismus beweist schon, dass es noch keine solche Philosophie giebt!) Sind die Erfahrungen über das Zusammenleben, zum Beispiel die Erfahrungen der Klöster, schon gesammelt? Ist die Dialektik der Ehe und Freundschaft schon dargestellt? Die Sitten der Gelehrten, der Kaufleute, Künstler, Handwerker, - haben sie schon ihre Denker gefunden? Es ist so viel daran zu denken! Alles, was bis jetzt die Menschen als ihre "Existenz-Bedingungen" betrachtet haben, und alle Vernunft, Leidenschaft und Aberglauben an dieser Betrachtung, - ist diess schon zu Ende erforscht? Allein die Beobachtung des verschiedenen Wachsthums, welches die menschlichen Triebe je nach dem verschiedenen moralischen Klima gehabt haben und noch haben könnten, giebt schon zu viel der Arbeit für den Arbeitsamsten; es bedarf ganzer Geschlechter und planmässig zusammen arbeitender Geschlechter von Gelehrten, um hier die Gesichtspuncte und das Material zu erschöpfen. Das Selbe gilt von der Nachweisung der Gründe für die Verschiedenheit des moralischen Klimas ("wesshalb leuchtet hier diese Sonne eines moralischen Grundurtheils und Hauptwerthmessers - und dort jene?"). Und wieder eine neue Arbeit ist es, welche die Irrthümlichkeit aller dieser Gründe und das ganze Wesen des bisherigen moralischen Urtheils feststellt. Gesetzt, alle diese Arbeiten seien gethan, so träte die heikeligste aller Fragen in den Vordergrund, ob die Wissenschaft im Stande sei, Ziele des Handelns zu geben, nachdem sie bewiesen hat, dass sie solche nehmen und vernichten kann - und dann würde ein Experimentiren am Platze sein, an dem jede Art von Heroismus sich befriedigen könnte, ein Jahrhunderte langes Experimentiren, welches alle grossen Arbeiten und Aufopferungen der bisherigen Geschichte in Schatten stellen könnte. Bisher hat die Wissenschaft ihre Cyklopen-Bauten noch nicht gebaut; auch dafür wird die Zeit kommen.

8

Unbewusste Tugenden. - Alle Eigenschaften eines Menschen, deren er sich bewusst ist - und namentlich, wenn er deren Sichtbarkeit und Evidenz auch für seine Umgebung voraussetzt - stehen unter ganz anderen Gesetzen der Entwickelung, als jene Eigenschaften, welche ihm unbekannt oder schlecht bekannt sind und die sich auch vor dem Auge des feineren Beobachters durch ihre Feinheit verbergen und wie hinter das Nichts zu verstecken wissen. So steht es mit den feinen Sculpturen auf den Schuppen der Reptilien: es würde ein Irrthum sein, in ihnen einen Schmuck oder eine Waffe zu vermuthen - denn man sieht sie erst mit dem Mikroskop, also mit einem so künstlich verschärften Auge, wie es ähnliche Thiere, für welche es etwa Schmuck oder Waffe zu bedeuten hätte, nicht besitzen! Unsere sichtbaren moralischen Qualitäten, und namentlich unsere sichtbar geglaubten gehen ihren Gang, - und die unsichtbaren ganz gleichnamigen, welche uns in Hinsicht auf Andere weder Schmuck noch Waffe sind, gehen auch ihren Gang: einen ganz anderen wahrscheinlich, und mit Linien und Feinheiten und Sculpturen, welche vielleicht einem Gotte mit einem göttlichen Mikroskope Vergnügen machen könnten. Wir haben zum Beispiel unsern Fleiss, unsern Ehrgeiz, unsern Scharfsinn: alle Welt weiss darum -, und ausserdem haben wir wahrscheinlich noch einmal unseren Fleiss, unseren Ehrgeiz, unseren Scharfsinn; aber für diese unsere Reptilien-Schuppen ist das Mikroskop noch nicht erfunden! - Und hier werden die Freunde der instinctiven Moralität sagen: "Bravo! Er hält wenigstens unbewusste Tugenden für möglich, - das genügt uns!" - Oh ihr Genügsamen!

9

Unsere Eruptionen. - Unzähliges, was sich die Menschheit auf früheren Stufen aneignete, aber so schwach und embryonisch, dass es Niemand als angeeignet wahrzunehmen wusste, stösst plötzlich, lange darauf, vielleicht nach Jahrhunderten, an's Licht: es ist inzwischen stark und reif geworden. Manchen Zeitaltern scheint diess oder jenes Talent, diese oder jene Tugend ganz zu fehlen, wie manchen Menschen: aber man warte nur bis auf die Enkel und Enkelskinder, wenn man Zeit hat, zu warten, - sie bringen das Innere ihrer Grossväter an die Sonne, jenes Innere, von dem die Grossväter selbst noch Nichts wussten. Oft ist schon der Sohn der Verräther seines Vaters: dieser versteht sich selber besser, seit er seinen Sohn hat. Wir haben Alle verborgene Gärten und Pflanzungen in uns; und, mit einem andern Gleichnisse, wir sind Alle wachsende Vulcane, die ihre Stunde der Eruption haben werden: - wie nahe aber oder wie ferne diese ist, das freilich weiss Niemand, selbst der liebe Gott nicht.

10

Eine Art von Atavismus. - Die seltenen Menschen einer Zeit verstehe ich am liebsten als plötzlich auftauchende Nachschösslinge vergangener Culturen und deren Kräften: gleichsam als den Atavismus eines Volkes und seiner Gesittung: - so ist wirklich Etwas noch an ihnen zu verstehen! Jetzt erscheinen sie fremd, selten, ausserordentlich: und wer diese Kräfte in sich fühlt, hat sie gegen eine widerstrebende andere Welt zu pflegen, zu vertheidigen, zu ehren, gross zu ziehen: und so wird er damit entweder ein grosser Mensch oder ein verrückter und absonderlicher, sofern er überhaupt nicht bei Zeiten zu Grunde geht. Ehedem waren diese selben Eigenschaften gewöhnlich und galten folglich als gemein: sie zeichneten nicht aus. Vielleicht wurden sie gefordert, vorausgesetzt; es war unmöglich, mit ihnen gross zu werden, und schon desshalb, weil die Gefahr fehlte, mit ihnen auch toll und einsam zu werden. - Die erhaltenden Geschlechter und Kasten eines Volkes sind es vornehmlich, in denen solche Nachschläge alter Triebe vorkommen, während keine Wahrscheinlichkeit für solchen Atavismus ist, wo Rassen, Gewohnheiten, Werthschätzungen zu rasch wechseln. Das Tempo bedeutet nämlich unter den Kräften der Entwickelung bei Völkern ebensoviel wie bei der Musik; für unseren Fall ist durchaus ein Andante der Entwickelung nothwendig, als das Tempo eines leidenschaftlichen und langsamen Geistes: - und der Art ist ja der Geist conservativer Geschlechter.

11

Das Bewusstsein. - Die Bewusstheit ist die letzte und späteste Entwickelung des Organischen und folglich auch das Unfertigste und Unkräftigste daran. Aus der Bewusstheit stammen unzählige Fehlgriffe, welche machen, dass ein Thier, ein Mensch zu Grunde geht, früher als es nöthig wäre, "über das Geschick", wie Homer sagt. Wäre nicht der erhaltende Verband der Instincte so überaus viel mächtiger, diente er nicht im Ganzen als Regulator: an ihrem verkehrten Urtheilen und Phantasiren mit offenen Augen, an ihrer Ungründlichkeit und Leichtgläubigkeit, kurz eben an ihrer Bewusstheit müsste die Menschheit zu Grunde gehen: oder vielmehr, ohne jenes gäbe es diese längst nicht mehr! Bevor eine Function ausgebildet und reif ist, ist sie eine Gefahr des Organismus: gut, wenn sie so lange tüchtig tyrannisirt wird! So wird die Bewusstheit tüchtig tyrannisirt - und nicht am wenigsten von dem Stolze darauf! Man denkt, hier sei der Kern des Menschen; sein Bleibendes, Ewiges, Letztes, Ursprünglichstes! Man hält die Bewusstheit für eine feste gegebene Grösse! Leugnet ihr Wachsthum, ihre Intermittenzen! Nimmt sie als Einheit des Organismus! - Diese lächerliche Ueberschätzung und Verkennung des Bewusstseins hat die grosse Nützlichkeit zur Folge, dass damit eine allzuschnelle Ausbildung desselben verhindert worden ist. Weil die Menschen die Bewusstheit schon zu haben glaubten, haben sie sich wenig Mühe darum gegeben, sie zu erwerben - und auch jetzt noch steht es nicht anders! Es ist immer noch eine ganz neue und eben erst dem menschlichen Auge aufdämmernde, kaum noch deutlich erkennbare Aufgabe, das Wissen sich einzuverleiben und instinctiv zu machen, - eine Aufgabe, welche nur von Denen gesehen wird, die begriffen haben, dass bisher nur unsere Irrthümer uns einverleibt waren und dass alle unsere Bewusstheit sich auf Irrthümer bezieht!

12

Vom Ziele der Wissenschaft. - Wie? Das letzte Ziel der Wissenschaft sei, dem Menschen möglichst viel Lust und möglichst wenig Unlust zu schaffen? Wie, wenn nun Lust und Unlust so mit einem Stricke zusammengeknüpft wären, dass, wer möglichst viel von der einen haben will, auch möglichst viel von der andern haben muss, - dass, wer das "Himmelhoch-Jauchzen" lernen will, sich auch für das "zum-Todebetrübt" bereit halten muss? Und so steht es vielleicht! Die Stoiker glaubten wenigstens, dass es so stehe, und waren consequent, als sie nach möglichst wenig Lust begehrten, um möglichst wenig Unlust vom Leben zu haben (wenn man den Spruch im Munde führte "Der Tugendhafte ist der Glücklichste", so hatte man in ihm sowohl ein Aushängeschild der Schule für die grosse Masse, als auch eine casuistische Feinheit für die Feinen). Auch heute noch habt ihr die Wahl: entweder möglichst wenig Unlust, kurz Schmerzlosigkeit - und im Grunde dürften Socialisten und Politiker aller Parteien ihren Leuten ehrlicher Weise nicht mehr verheissen - oder möglichst viel Unlust als Preis für das Wachsthum einer Fülle von feinen und bisher selten gekosteten Lüsten und Freuden! Entschliesst ihr euch für das Erstere, wollt ihr also die Schmerzhaftigkeit der Menschen herabdrücken und vermindern, nun, so müsst ihr auch ihre Fähigkeit zur Freude herabdrücken und vermindern. In der That kann man mit der Wissenschaft das eine wie das andere Ziel fördern! Vielleicht ist sie jetzt noch bekannter wegen ihrer Kraft, den Menschen um seine Freuden zu bringen, und ihn kälter, statuenhafter, stoischer zu machen. Aber sie könnte auch noch als die grosse Schmerzbringerin entdeckt werden! - Und dann würde vielleicht zugleich ihre Gegenkraft entdeckt sein, ihr ungeheures Vermögen, neue Sternenwelten der Freude aufleuchten zu lassen!

13

Zur Lehre vom Machtgefühl. - Mit Wohlthun und Wehethun übt man seine Macht an Andern aus - mehr will man dabei nicht! Mit Wehethun an Solchen, denen wir unsere Macht erst fühlbar machen müssen; denn der Schmerz ist ein viel empfindlicheres Mittel dazu als die Lust: - der Schmerz fragt immer nach der Ursache, während die Lust geneigt ist, bei sich selber stehen zu bleiben und nicht rückwärts zu schauen. Mit Wohlthun und Wohlwollen an Solchen, die irgendwie schon von uns abhängen (das heisst gewohnt sind, an uns als ihre Ursachen zu denken); wir wollen ihre Macht mehren, weil wir so die unsere mehren, oder wir wollen ihnen den Vortheil zeigen, den es hat, in unserer Macht zu stehen, - so werden sie mit ihrer Lage zufriedener und gegen die Feinde unserer Macht feindseliger und kampfbereiter sein. Ob wir beim Wohl oder Wehethun Opfer bringen, verändert den letzten Werth unserer Handlungen nicht; selbst wenn wir unser Leben daran setzen, wie der Märtyrer zu Gunsten seiner Kirche, es ist ein Opfer, gebracht unserem Verlangen nach Macht, oder zum Zweck der Erhaltung unseres Machtgefühls. Wer da empfindet, "ich bin im Besitz der Wahrheit", wie viel Besitzthümer lässt der nicht fahren, um diese Empfindung zu retten! Was wirft er nicht Alles über Bord, um sich "oben" zu erhalten, - das heisst über den Andern, welche der "Wahrheit" ermangeln! Gewiss ist der Zustand, wo wir wehe thun, selten so angenehm, so ungemischt-angenehm, wie der, in welchem wir wohl thun, - es ist ein Zeichen, dass uns noch Macht fehlt, oder verräth den Verdruss über diese Armuth, es bringt neue Gefahren und Unsicherheiten für unseren vorhandenen Besitz von Macht mit sich und umwölkt unsern Horizont durch die Aussicht auf Rache, Hohn, Strafe, Misserfolg. Nur für die reizbarsten und begehrlichsten Menschen des Machtgefühles mag es lustvoller sein, dem Widerstrebenden das Siegel der Macht aufzudrücken; für solche, denen der Anblick des bereits Unterworfenen (als welcher der Gegenstand des Wohlwollens ist) Last und Langeweile macht. Es kommt darauf an, wie man gewöhnt ist, sein Leben zu würzen; es ist eine Sache des Geschmackes, ob man lieber den langsamen oder den plötzlichen, den sicheren oder den gefährlichen und verwegenen Machtzuwachs haben will, - man sucht diese oder jene Würze immer nach seinem Temperamente. Eine leichte Beute ist stolzen Naturen etwas Verächtliches, sie empfinden ein Wohlgefühl erst beim Anblick ungebrochener Menschen, welche ihnen Feind werden könnten, und ebenso beim Anblick aller schwer zugänglichen Besitzthümer; gegen den Leidenden sind sie oft hart, denn er ist ihres Strebens und Stolzes nicht werth, - aber um so verbindlicher zeigen sie sich gegen die Gleichen, mit denen ein Kampf und Ringen jedenfalls ehrenvoll wäre, wenn sich einmal eine Gelegenheit dazu finden sollte. Unter dem Wohlgefühle dieser Perspective haben sich die Menschen der ritterlichen Kaste gegen einander an eine ausgesuchte Höflichkeit gewöhnt. - Mitleid ist das angenehmste Gefühl bei Solchen, welche wenig stolz sind und keine Aussicht auf grosse Eroberungen haben: für sie ist die leichte Beute - und das ist jeder Leidende - etwas Entzückendes. Man rühmt das Mitleid als die Tugend der Freudenmädchen.

14

Was Alles Liebe genannt wird. - Habsucht und Liebe: wie verschieden empfinden wir bei jedem dieser Worte! - und doch könnte es der selbe Trieb sein, zweimal benannt, das eine Mal verunglimpft vom Standpuncte der bereits Habenden aus, in denen der Trieb etwas zur Ruhe gekommen ist und die nun für ihre "Habe" fürchten; das andere Mal vorn Standpuncte der Unbefriedigten, Durstigen aus, und daher verherrlicht als "gut". Unsere Nächstenliebe - ist sie nicht ein Drang nach neuem Eigenthum? Und ebenso unsere Liebe zum Wissen, zur Wahrheit und überhaupt all jener Drang nach Neuigkeiten? Wir werden des Alten, sicher Besessenen allmählich überdrüssig und strecken die Hände wieder aus; selbst die schönste Landschaft, in der wir drei Monate leben, ist unserer Liebe nicht mehr gewiss, und irgend eine fernere Küste reizt unsere Habsucht an: der Besitz wird durch das Besitzen zumeist geringer. Unsere Lust an uns selber will sich so aufrecht erhalten, dass sie immer wieder etwas Neues in uns selber verwandelt, - das eben heisst Besitzen. Eines Besitzes überdrüssig werden, das ist: unserer selber überdrüssig werden. (Man kann auch am Zuviel leiden, - auch die Begierde, wegzuwerfen, auszutheilen, kann sich den Ehrennamen "Liebe" zulegen.) Wenn wir jemanden leiden sehen, so benutzen wir gerne die jetzt gebotene Gelegenheit, Besitz von ihm zu ergreifen; diess thut zum Beispiel der Wohlthätige und Mitleidige, auch er nennt die in ihm erweckte Begierde nach neuem Besitz "Liebe", und hat seine Lust dabei wie bei einer neuen ihm winkenden Eroberung. Am deutlichsten aber verräth sich die Liebe der Geschlechter als Drang nach Eigenthum: der Liebende will den unbedingten Alleinbesitz der von ihm ersehnten Person, er will eine ebenso unbedingte Macht über ihre Seele wie ihren Leib, er will allein geliebt sein und als das Höchste und Begehrenswertheste in der andern Seele wohnen und herrschen. Erwägt man, dass diess nichts Anderes heisst, als alle Welt von einem kostbaren Gute, Glücke und Genusse ausschliessen: erwägt man, dass der Liebende auf die Verarmung und Entbehrung aller anderen Mitbewerber ausgeht und zum Drachen seines goldenen Hortes werden möchte, als der rücksichtsloseste und selbstsüchtigste aller "Eroberer" und Ausbeuter: erwägt man endlich, dass dem Liebenden selber die ganze andere Welt gleichgültig, blass, werthlos erscheint und er jedes Opfer zu bringen, jede Ordnung zu stören, jedes Interesse hintennach zu setzen bereit ist: so wundert man sich in der That, dass diese wilde Habsucht und Ungerechtigkeit der Geschlechtsliebe dermaassen verherrlicht und vergöttlicht worden ist, wie zu allen Zeiten geschehen, ja, dass man aus dieser Liebe den Begriff Liebe als den Gegensatz des Egoismus hergenommen hat, während sie vielleicht gerade der unbefangenste Ausdruck des Egoismus ist. Hier haben offenbar die Nichtbesitzenden und Begehrenden den Sprachgebrauch gemacht, - es gab wohl ihrer immer zu viele. Solche, welchen auf diesem Bereiche viel Besitz und Sättigung gegönnt war, haben wohl hier und da ein Wort vom "wüthenden Dämon" fallen lassen, wie jener liebenswürdigste und geliebteste aller Athener, Sophokles: aber Eros lachte jederzeit über solche Lästerer, - es waren immer gerade seine grössten Lieblinge. - Es giebt wohl hier und da auf Erden eine Art Fortsetzung der Liebe, bei der jenes habsüchtige Verlangen zweier Personen nach einander einer neuen Begierde und Habsucht, einem gemeinsamen höheren Durste nach einem über ihnen stehenden Ideale gewichen ist: aber wer kennt diese Liebe? Wer hat sie erlebt? Ihr rechter Name ist Freundschaft.

15

Aus der Ferne. - Dieser Berg macht die ganze Gegend, die er beherrscht, auf alle Weise reizend und bedeutungsvoll: nachdem wir diess uns zum hundertsten Male gesagt haben, sind wir so unvernünftig und so dankbar gegen ihn gestimmt, dass wir glauben, er, der Geber dieses Reizes, müsse selber das Reizvollste der Gegend sein - und so steigen wir auf ihn hinauf und sind enttäuscht. Plötzlich ist er selber, und die ganze Landschaft um uns, unter uns wie entzaubert; wir hatten vergessen, dass manche Grösse, wie manche Güte, nur auf eine gewisse Distanz hin gesehen werden will, und durchaus von unten, nicht von oben, - so allein wirkt sie. Vielleicht kennst du Menschen in deiner Nähe, die sich selber nur aus einer gewissen Ferne ansehen dürfen, um sich überhaupt erträglich oder anziehend und kraftgebend zu finden; die Selbsterkenntnis ist ihnen zu widerrathen.

16

Ueber den Steg. - Im Verkehre mit Personen, welche gegen ihre Gefühle schamhaft sind, muss man sich verstellen können; sie empfinden einen plötzlichen Hass gegen Den, welcher sie auf einem zärtlichen oder schwärmerischen und hochgehenden Gefühle ertappt, wie als ob er ihre Heimlichkeiten gesehen habe. Will man ihnen in solchen Augenblicken wohl thun, so mache man sie lachen oder sage irgend eine kalte scherzhafte Bosheit: - ihr Gefühl erfriert dabei, und sie sind ihrer wieder mächtig. Doch ich gebe die Moral vor der Geschichte. - Wir sind uns Einmal im Leben so nahe gewesen, dass Nichts unsere Freund- und Bruderschaft mehr zu hemmen schien und nur noch ein kleiner Steg zwischen uns war. Indem du ihn eben betreten wolltest, fragte ich dich: "willst du zu mir über den Steg?" - Aber da wolltest du nicht mehr; und als ich nochmals bat, schwiegst du. Seitdem sind Berge und reissende Ströme, und was nur, trennt und fremd macht, zwischen uns geworfen, und wenn wir auch zu einander wollten, wir könnten es nicht mehr! Gedenkst du aber jetzt jenes kleinen Steges, so hast du nicht Worte mehr, - nur noch Schluchzen und Verwunderung.

17

Seine Armuth motiviren. - Wir können freilich durch kein Kunststück aus einer armen Tugend eine reiche, reichfliessende machen, aber wohl können wir ihre Armuth schön in die Nothwendigkeit umdeuten, sodass ihr Anblick uns nicht mehr wehe thut, und wir ihrethalben dem Fatum keine vorwurfsvollen Gesichter machen. So thut der weise Gärtner, der das arme Wässerchen seines Gartens einer Quellnymphe in den Arm legt und also die Armuth motivirt: - und wer hätte nicht gleich ihm die Nymphen nöthig!

18

Antiker Stolz. - Die antike Färbung der Vornehmheit fehlt uns, weil unserem Gefühle der antike Sclave fehlt. Ein Grieche edler Abkunft fand zwischen seiner Höhe und jener letzten Niedrigkeit solche ungeheure Zwischen-Stufen und eine solche Ferne, dass er den Sclaven kaum noch deutlich sehen konnte: selbst Plato hat ihn nicht ganz mehr gesehen. Anders wir, gewöhnt wie wir sind an die Lehre von der Gleichheit der Menschen, wenn auch nicht an die Gleichheit selber. Ein Wesen, das nicht über sich selber verfügen kann und dem die Musse fehlt, - das gilt unserem Auge noch keineswegs als etwas Verächtliches; es ist von derlei Sclavenhaftem vielleicht zu viel an jedem von uns, nach den Bedingungen unserer gesellschaftlichen Ordnung und Thätigkeit, welche grundverschieden von denen der Alten sind. - Der griechische Philosoph gieng durch das Leben mit dem geheimen Gefühle, dass es viel mehr Sclaven gebe, als man vermeine - nämlich, dass Jedermann Sclave sei, der nicht Philosoph sei; sein Stolz schwoll über, wenn er erwog, dass auch die Mächtigsten der Erde unter diesen seinen Sclaven seien. Auch dieser Stolz ist uns fremd und unmöglich; nicht einmal im Gleichniss hat das Wort "Sclave" für uns seine volle Kraft.

19

Das Böse. - Prüfet das Leben der besten und fruchtbarsten Menschen und Völker und fragt euch, ob ein Baum, der stolz in die Höhe wachsen soll, des schlechten Wetters und der Stürme entbehren könne: ob Ungunst und Widerstand von aussen, ob irgend welche Arten von Hass, Eifersucht, Eigensinn, Misstrauen, Härte, Habgier und Gewaltsamkeit nicht zu den begünstigenden Umständen gehören, ohne welche ein grosses Wachsthum selbst in der Tugend kaum möglich ist? Das Gift, an dem die schwächere Natur zu Grunde geht, ist für den Starken Stärkung - und er nennt es auch nicht Gift.

20

Würde der Thorheit. - Einige Jahrtausende weiter auf der Bahn des letzten Jahrhunderts! - und in Allem, was der Mensch thut, wird die höchste Klugheit sichtbar sein: aber eben damit wird die Klugheit alle ihre Würde verloren haben. Es ist dann zwar nothwendig, klug zu sein, aber auch so gewöhnlich und so gemein, dass ein eklerer Geschmack diese Nothwendigkeit als eine Gemeinheit empfinden wird. Und ebenso wie eine Tyrannei der Wahrheit und Wissenschaft im Stande wäre, die Lüge hoch im Preise steigen zu machen, so könnte eine Tyrannei der Klugheit eine neue Gattung von Edelsinn hervortreiben. Edel sein - dass hiesse dann vielleicht Thorheiten im Kopfe haben.

21

An die Lehrer der Selbstlosigkeit. - Man nennt die Tugenden eines Menschen gut, nicht in Hinsicht auf die Wirkungen, welche sie für ihn selber haben, sondern in Hinsicht auf die Wirkungen, welche wir von ihnen für uns und die Gesellschaft voraussetzen: - man ist von jeher im Lobe der Tugenden sehr wenig "selbstlos", sehr wenig "unegoistisch" gewesen! Sonst nämlich hätte man sehen müssen, dass die Tugenden (wie Fleiss, Gehorsam, Keuschheit, Pietät, Gerechtigkeit) ihren Inhabern meistens schädlich sind, als Triebe, welche allzu heftig und begehrlich in ihnen walten und von der Vernunft sich durchaus nicht im Gleichgewicht zu den andern Trieben halten lassen wollen. Wenn du eine Tugend hast, eine wirkliche, ganze Tugend (und nicht nur ein Triebchen nach einer Tugend!) - so bist du ihr Opfer! Aber der Nachbar lobt eben desshalb deine Tugend! Man lobt den Fleissigen, ob er gleich die Sehkraft seiner Augen oder die Ursprünglichkeit und Frische seines Geistes mit diesem Fleisse schädigt; man ehrt und bedauert den Jüngling, welcher sich "zu Schanden gearbeitet hat", weil man urtheilt: "Für das ganze Grosse der Gesellschaft ist auch der Verlust des besten Einzelnen nur ein kleines Opfer! Schlimm, dass das Opfer Noth thut! Viel schlimmer freilich, wenn der Einzelne anders denken und seine Erhaltung und Entwickelung wichtiger nehmen sollte, als seine Arbeit im Dienste der Gesellschaft!" Und so bedauert man diesen Jüngling, nicht um seiner selber willen, sondern weil ein ergebenes und gegen sich rücksichtsloses Werkzeug - ein sogenannter "braver Mensch" - durch diesen Tod der Gesellschaft verloren gegangen ist. Vielleicht erwägt man noch, ob es im Interesse der Gesellschaft nützlicher gewesen sein würde, wenn er minder rücksichtslos gegen sich gearbeitet und sich länger erhalten hätte, - ja man gesteht sich wohl einen Vortheil davon zu, schlägt aber jenen anderen Vortheil, dass ein Opfer gebracht und die Gesinnung des Opferthiers sich wieder einmal augenscheinlich bestätigt hat, für höher und nachhaltiger an. Es ist also einmal die Werkzeug-Natur in den Tugenden, die eigentlich gelobt wird, wenn die Tugenden gelobt werden, und sodann der blinde in jeder Tugend waltende Trieb, welcher durch den Gesammt-Vortheil des Individuums sich nicht in Schranken halten lässt, kurz: die Unvernunft in der Tugend, vermöge deren das Einzelwesen sich zur Function des Ganzen umwandeln lässt. Das Lob der Tugenden ist das Lob von etwas Privat-Schädlichem, - das Lob von Trieben, welche dem Menschen seine edelste Selbstsucht und die Kraft zur höchsten Obhut über sich selber nehmen. - Freilich: zur Erziehung und zur Einverleibung tugendhafter Gewohnheiten kehrt man eine Reihe von Wirkungen der Tugend heraus, welche Tugend und Privat-Vortheil als verschwistert erscheinen lassen, - und es giebt in der That eine solche Geschwisterschaft! Der blindwüthende Fleiss zum Beispiel, diese typische Tugend eines Werkzeuges, wird dargestellt als der Weg zu Reichthum und Ehre und als das heilsamste Gift gegen die Langeweile und die Leidenschaften: aber man verschweigt seine Gefahr, seine höchste Gefährlichkeit. Die Erziehung verfährt durchweg so: sie sucht den Einzelnen durch eine Reihe von Reizen und Vortheilen zu einer Denk- und Handlungsweise zu bestimmen, welche, wenn sie Gewohnheit, Trieb und Leidenschaft geworden ist, wider seinen letzten Vortheil, aber "zum allgemeinen Besten" in ihm und über ihn herrscht. Wie oft sehe ich es, dass der blindwüthende Fleiss zwar Reichthümer und Ehre schafft, aber zugleich den Organen die Feinheit nimmt, vermöge deren es einen Genuss an Reichthum und Ehren geben könnte, ebenso, dass jenes Hauptmittel gegen die Langeweile und die Leidenschaften zugleich die Sinne stumpf und den Geist widerspänstig gegen neue Reize macht. (Das fleissigste aller Zeitalter - unser Zeitalter - weiss aus seinem vielen Fleisse und Gelde Nichts zu machen, als immer wieder mehr Geld und immer wieder mehr Fleiss: es gehört eben mehr Genie dazu, auszugeben, als zu erwerben! - Nun, wir werden unsere "Enkel" haben!) Gelingt die Erziehung, so ist jede Tugend des Einzelnen eine öffentliche Nützlichkeit und ein privater Nachtheil im Sinne des höchsten privaten Zieles, - wahrscheinlich irgend eine geistig-sinnliche Verkümmerung oder gar der frühzeitige Untergang: man erwäge der Reihe nach von diesem Gesichtspuncte aus die Tugend des Gehorsams, der Keuschheit, der Pietät, der Gerechtigkeit. Das Lob des Selbstlosen, Aufopfernden, Tugendhaften - also Desjenigen, der nicht seine ganze Kraft und Vernunft auf seine Erhaltung, Entwickelung, Erhebung, Förderung, Macht-Erweiterung verwendet, sondern in Bezug auf sich bescheiden und gedankenlos, vielleicht sogar gleichgültig oder ironisch lebt, - dieses Lob ist jedenfalls nicht aus dem Geiste der Selbstlosigkeit entsprungen! Der "Nächste" lobt die Selbstlosigkeit, weil er durch sie Vortheile hat! Dächte der Nächste selber "selbstlos", so würde er jenen Abbruch an Kraft, jene Schädigung zu seinen Gunsten abweisen, der Entstehung solcher Neigungen entgegenarbeiten und vor Allem seine Selbstlosigkeit eben dadurch bekunden, dass er dieselbe nicht gut nennte! - Hiermit ist der Grundwiderspruch jener Moral angedeutet, welche gerade jetzt sehr in Ehren steht: die Motive zu dieser Moral stehen im Gegensatz zu ihrem Principe! Das, womit sich diese Moral beweisen will, widerlegt sie aus ihrem Kriterium des Moralischen! Der Satz, "du sollst dir selber entsagen und dich zum Opfer bringen" dürfte, um seiner eigenen Moral nicht zuwiderzugehen, nur von einem Wesen decretirt werden, welches damit selber seinem Vortheil entsagte und vielleicht in der verlangten Aufopferung der Einzelnen seinen eigenen Untergang herbeiführte. Sobald aber der Nächste (oder die Gesellschaft) den Altruismus um des Nutzens willen anempfiehlt, wird der gerade entgegengesetzte Satz "du sollst den Vortheil auch auf Unkosten alles Anderen suchen" zur Anwendung gebracht, also in Einem Athem ein "Du sollst" und "Du sollst nicht" gepredigt!

22

L'ordre du jour pour le roi. - Der Tag beginnt: beginnen wir für diesen Tag die Geschäfte und Feste unseres allergnädigsten Herrn zu ordnen, der jetzt noch zu ruhen geruht. Seine Majestät hat heute schlechtes Wetter: wir werden uns hüten, es schlecht zu nennen; man wird nicht vom Wetter reden, - aber wir werden die Geschäfte heute etwas feierlicher und die Feste etwas festlicher nehmen, als sonst nöthig wäre. Seine Majestät wird vielleicht sogar krank sein: wir werden zum Frühstück die letzte gute Neuigkeit vom Abend präsentiren, die Ankunft des Herrn von Montaigne, der so angenehm über seine Krankheit zu scherzen weiss, - er leidet am Stein. Wir werden einige Personen empfangen (Personen! - was würde jener alte aufgeblasene Frosch, der unter ihnen sein wird, sagen, wenn er diess Wort hörte! "Ich bin keine Person, würde er sagen, sondern immer die Sache selber".) - und der Empfang wird länger dauern, als irgend jemandem angenehm ist: Grund genug, von jenem Dichter zu erzählen, der auf seine Thüre schrieb: "wer hier eintritt, wird mir eine Ehre erweisen; wer es nicht thut - ein Vergnügen." - Diess heisst fürwahr eine Unhöflichkeit auf höfliche Manier sagen! Und vielleicht hat dieser Dichter für seinen Theil ganz Recht, unhöflich zu sein: man sagt, dass seine Verse besser seien, als der Verse-Schmied. Nun, so mag er noch viele machen und sich selber möglichst der Welt entziehen: und das ist ja der Sinn seiner artigen Unart! Umgekehrt ist ein Fürst immer mehr werth, als sein "Vers", selbst wenn - doch was machen wir? Wir plaudern, und der ganze Hof meint, wir arbeiteten schon und zerbrächen uns die Köpfe: man sieht kein Licht früher, als das in unserem Fenster brennen. - Horch! War das nicht die Glocke? Zum Teufel! Der Tag und der Tanz beginnt, und wir wissen seine Touren nicht! So müssen wir improvisiren, - alle Welt improvisirt ihren Tag. Machen wir es heute einmal wie alle Welt! - Und damit verschwand mein wunderlicher Morgentraum, wahrscheinlich vor den harten Schlägen der Thurmuhr, die eben mit all der Wichtigkeit, die ihr eigen ist, die fünfte Stunde verkündete. Es scheint mir, dass diessmal der Gott der Träume sich über meine Gewohnheiten lustig machen wollte, - es ist meine Gewohnheit, den Tag so zu beginnen, dass ich ihn für mich zurecht lege und erträglich mache, und es mag sein, dass ich diess öfters zu förmlich und zu prinzenhaft gethan habe.

23

Die Anzeichen der Corruption. - Man beachte an jenen von Zeit zu Zeit nothwendigen Zuständen der Gesellschaft, welche mit dem Wort "Corruption" bezeichnet werden, folgende Anzeichen. Sobald irgend wo die Corruption eintritt, nimmt ein bunter Aberglaube überhand und der bisherige Gesammtglaube eines Volkes wird blass und ohnmächtig dagegen: der Aberglaube ist nämlich die Freigeisterei zweiten Ranges, - wer sich ihm ergiebt, wählt gewisse ihm zusagende Formen und Formeln aus und erlaubt sich ein Recht der Wahl. Der Abergläubische ist, im Vergleich mit dem Religiösen, immer viel mehr "Person", als dieser, und eine abergläubische Gesellschaft wird eine solche sein, in der es schon viele Individuen und Lust am Individuellen giebt. Von diesem Standpuncte aus gesehen, erscheint der Aberglaube immer als ein Fortschritt gegen den Glauben und als Zeichen dafür, dass der Intellect unabhängiger wird und sein Recht haben will. Ueber Corruption klagen dann die Verehrer der alten Religion und Religiosität, - sie haben bisher auch den Sprachgebrauch bestimmt und dem Aberglauben eine üble Nachrede selbst bei den freiesten Geistern gemacht. Lernen wir, dass er ein Symptom der Aufklärung ist. - Zweitens beschuldigt man eine Gesellschaft, in der die Corruption Platz greift, der Erschlaffung: und ersichtlich nimmt in ihr die Schätzung des Krieges und die Lust am Kriege ab, und die Bequemlichkeiten des Lebens werden jetzt eben so heiss erstrebt, wie ehedem die kriegerischen und gymnastischen Ehren. Aber man pflegt zu übersehen, dass jene alte Volks-Energie und Volks-Leidenschaft, welche durch den Krieg und die Kampfspiele eine prachtvolle Sichtbarkeit bekam, jetzt sich in unzählige Privat-Leidenschaften umgesetzt hat und nur weniger sichtbar geworden ist; ja, wahrscheinlich ist in Zuständen der "Corruption" die Macht und Gewalt der jetzt verbrauchten Energie eines Volkes grösser, als je, und das Individuum giebt so verschwenderisch davon aus, wie es ehedem nicht konnte, - es war damals noch nicht reich genug dazu! Und so sind es gerade die Zeiten der "Erschlaffung", wo die Tragödie durch die Häuser und Gassen läuft, wo die grosse Liebe und der grosse Hass geboren werden, und die Flamme der Erkenntniss lichterloh zum Himmel aufschlägt. - Drittens pflegt man, gleichsam zur Entschädigung für den Tadel des Aberglaubens und der Erschlaffung, solchen Zeiten der Corruption nachzusagen, dass sie milder seien und dass jetzt die Grausamkeit, gegen die ältere gläubigere und stärkere Zeit gerechnet, sehr in Abnahme komme. Aber auch dem Lobe kann ich nicht beipflichten, ebensowenig als jenem Tadel: nur so viel gebe ich zu, dass jetzt die Grausamkeit sich verfeinert, und dass ihre älteren Formen von nun an wider den Geschmack gehen; aber die Verwundung und Folterung durch Wort und Blick erreicht in Zeiten der Corruption ihre höchste Ausbildung, - jetzt erst wird die Bosheit geschaffen und die Lust an der Bosheit. Die Menschen der Corruption sind witzig und verläumderisch; sie wissen, dass es noch andere Arten des Mordes giebt, als durch Dolch und Ueberfall, - sie wissen auch, dass alles Gutgesagte geglaubt wird. - Viertens: wenn "die Sitten verfallen", so tauchen zuerst jene Wesen auf, welche man Tyrannen nennt: es sind die Vorläufer und gleichsam die frühreifen Erstlinge der Individuen. Noch eine kleine Weile: und diese Frucht der Früchte hängt reif und gelb am Baume eines Volkes, - und nur um dieser Früchte willen gab es diesen Baum! Ist der Verfall auf seine Höhe gekommen und der Kampf aller Art Tyrannen ebenfalls, so kommt dann immer der Cäsar, der Schluss-Tyrann, der dem ermüdeten Ringen um Alleinherrschaft ein Ende macht, indem er die Müdigkeit für sich arbeiten lässt. Zu seiner Zeit ist gewöhnlich das Individuum am reifsten und folglich die "Cultur" am höchsten und fruchtbarsten, aber nicht um seinetwillen und nicht durch ihn: obwohl die höchsten Cultur-Menschen ihrem Cäsar damit zu schmeicheln lieben, dass sie sich als sein Werk ausgeben. Die Wahrheit aber ist, dass sie Ruhe von Aussen nöthig haben, weil sie ihre Unruhe und Arbeit in sich haben. In diesen Zeiten ist die Bestechlichkeit und der Verrath am grössten: denn die Liebe zu dem eben erst entdeckten ego ist jetzt viel mächtiger, als die Liebe zum alten, verbrauchten, todtgeredeten "Vaterlande"; und das Bedürfniss, sich irgendwie gegen die furchtbaren Schwankungen des Glückes sicherzustellen, öffnet auch edlere Hände, sobald ein Mächtiger und Reicher sich bereit zeigt, Gold in sie zu schütten. Es giebt jetzt so wenig sichere Zukunft: da lebt man für heute: ein Zustand der Seele, bei dem alle Verführer ein leichtes Spiel spielen, - man lässt sich nämlich auch nur "für heute" verführen und bestechen und behält sich die Zukunft und die Tugend vor! Die Individuen, diese wahren An- und Für-sich's, sorgen, wie bekannt, mehr für den Augenblick, als ihre Gegensätze, die Heerden-Menschen, weil sie sich selber für ebenso unberechenbar halten wie die Zukunft; ebenso knüpfen sie sich gerne an Gewaltmenschen an, weil sie sich Handlungen und Auskünfte zutrauen, die bei der Menge weder auf Verständniss noch auf Gnade rechnen können, - aber der Tyrann oder Cäsar versteht das Recht des Individuums auch in seiner Ausschreitung und hat ein Interesse daran, einer kühneren Privatmoral das Wort zu reden und selbst die Hand zu bieten. Denn er denkt von sich und will über sich gedacht haben, was Napoleon einmal in seiner classischen Art und Weise ausgesprochen hat: "ich habe das Recht, auf Alles, worüber man gegen mich Klage führt, durch ein ewiges "Das-bin-ich" zu antworten. Ich bin abseits von aller Welt, ich nehme von Niemandem Bedingungen an. Ich will, dass man sich auch meinen Phantasieen unterwerfe und es ganz einfach finde, wenn ich mich diesen oder jenen Zerstreuungen hingebe." So sprach Napoleon einmal zu seiner Gemahlin, als diese Gründe hatte, die eheliche Treue ihres Gatten in Frage zu ziehen. - Die Zeiten der Corruption sind die, in welchen die Aepfel vom Baume fallen: ich meine die Individuen, die Samenträger der Zukunft, die Urheber der geistigen Colonisation und Neubildung von Staats- und Gesellschaftsverbänden. Corruption ist nur ein Schimpfwort für die Herbstzeiten eines Volkes.

24

Verschiedene Unzufriedenheit. - Die schwachen und gleichsam weiblichen Unzufriedenen sind die Erfindsamen für die Verschönerung und Vertiefung des Lebens; die starken Unzufriedenen - die Mannspersonen unter ihnen, im Bilde zu bleiben - für Verbesserung und Sicherung des Lebens. Die Ersteren zeigen darin ihre Schwäche und Weiberart, dass sie sich gerne zeitweilig täuschen lassen und wohl schon mit ein Wenig Rausch und Schwärmerei einmal fürlieb nehmen, aber im Ganzen nie zu befriedigen sind und an der Unheilbarkeit ihrer Unzufriedenheit leiden; überdiess sind sie die Förderer aller Derer, welche opiatische und narkotische Tröstungen zu schaffen wissen, und eben darum jenen gram, die den Arzt höher als den Priester schätzen, - dadurch unterhalten sie die Fortdauer der wirklichen Nothstände! Hätte es nicht seit den Zeiten des Mittelalters eine Ueberzahl von Unzufriedenen dieser Art in Europa gegeben, so würde vielleicht die berühmte europäische Fähigkeit zur beständigen Verwandelung gar nicht entstanden sein: denn die Ansprüche der starken Unzufriedenen sind zu grob und im Grunde zu anspruchslos, um nicht endlich einmal zur Ruhe gebracht werden zu können. China ist das Beispiel eines Landes, wo die Unzufriedenheit im Grossen und die Fähigkeit der Verwandelung seit vielen Jahrhunderten ausgestorben ist; und die Socialisten und Staats-Götzendiener Europa's könnten es mit ihren Maassregeln zur Verbesserung und Sicherung des Lebens auch in Europa leicht zu chinesischen Zuständen und einem chinesischen "Glücke" bringen, vorausgesetzt, dass sie hier zuerst jene kränklichere, zartere, weiblichere, einstweilen noch überreichlich vorhandene Unzufriedenheit und Romantik ausrotten könnten. Europa ist ein Kranker, der seiner Unheilbarkeit und ewigen Verwandelung seines Leidens den höchsten Dank schuldig ist; diese beständigen neuen Lagen, diese ebenso beständigen neuen Gefahren, Schmerzen und Auskunftsmittel haben zuletzt eine intellectuale Reizbarkeit erzeugt, welche beinahe so viel, als Genie, und jedenfalls die Mutter alles Genie's ist.

25

Nicht zur Erkenntniss vorausbestimmt. - Es giebt eine gar nicht seltene blöde Demüthigkeit, mit der behaftet man ein für alle Mal nicht zum Jünger der Erkenntniss taugt. Nämlich: in dem Augenblick, wo ein Mensch dieser Art etwas Auffälliges wahrnimmt, dreht er sich gleichsam auf dem Fusse um und sagt sich: "Du hast dich getäuscht! Wo hast du deine Sinne gehabt! Diess darf nicht die Wahrheit sein!" - und nun, statt noch einmal schärfer hinzusehen und hinzuhören, läuft er wie eingeschüchtert dem auffälligen Dinge aus dem Wege und sucht es sich so schnell wie möglich aus dem Kopfe zu schlagen. Sein innerlicher Kanon nämlich lautet: Ich will Nichts sehen, was der üblichen Meinung über die Dinge widerspricht! Bin ich dazu gemacht, neue Wahrheiten zu entdecken? Es giebt schon der alten zu viele."

26

Was heisst Leben? - Leben - das heisst: fortwährend Etwas von sich abstossen, das sterben will; Leben - das heisst: grausam und unerbittlich gegen Alles sein, was schwach und alt an uns, und nicht nur an uns, wird. Leben - das heisst also: ohne Pietät gegen Sterbende, Elende und Greise sein? Immerfort Mörder sein? - Und doch hat der alte Moses gesagt: Du sollst nicht tödten!

27

Der Entsagende. - Was thut der Entsagende? Er strebt nach einer höheren Welt, er will weiter und ferner und höher fliegen, als alle Menschen der Bejahung, - er wirft Vieles weg, was seinen Flug beschweren würde, und Manches darunter, was ihm nicht unwerth, nicht unliebsam ist: er opfert es seiner Begierde zur Höhe. Dieses Opfern, dieses Wegwerfen ist nun gerade Das, was allein sichtbar an ihm wird: darnach giebt man ihm den Namen des Entsagenden, und als dieser steht er vor uns, eingehüllt in seine Kapuze und wie die Seele eines härenen Hemdes. Mit diesem Effecte, den er auf uns macht, ist er aber wohl zufrieden: er will vor uns seine Begierde, seinen Stolz, seine Absicht, über uns hinauszufliegen, verborgen halten. - ja! Er ist klüger, als wir dachten, und so höflich gegen uns - dieser Bejahende! Denn das ist er gleich uns, auch indem er entsagt.

28

Mit seinem Besten schaden. - Unsere Stärken treiben uns mitunter so weit vor, dass wir unsere Schwächen nicht mehr aushalten können und an ihnen zu Grunde gehen: wir sehen auch wohl diesen Ausgang voraus und wollen es trotzdem nicht anders. Da werden wir hart gegen Das an uns, was geschont sein will, und unsere Grösse ist auch unsere Unbarmherzigkeit. - Ein solches Erlebniss, das wir zuletzt mit dem Leben bezahlen müssen, ist ein Gleichniss für das gesammte Wirken grosser Menschen auf Andere und auf ihre Zeit: - gerade mit ihrem Besten, mit dem, was nur sie können, richten sie viele Schwache, Unsichere, Werdende, Wollende zu Grunde, und sind hierdurch schädlich. Ja es kann der Fall vorkommen, dass sie, im Ganzen gerechnet, nur schaden, weil ihr Bestes allein von Solchen angenommen und gleichsam aufgetrunken wird, welche an ihm, wie an einem zu starken Getränke, ihren Verstand und ihre Selbstsucht verlieren: sie werden so berauscht, dass sie ihre Glieder auf allen den Irrwegen brechen müssen, wohin sie der Rausch treibt.

29

Die Hinzu-Lügner. - Als man in Frankreich die Einheiten des Aristoteles zu bekämpfen und folglich auch zu vertheidigen anfieng, da war es wieder einmal zu sehen, was so oft zu sehen ist, aber so ungern gesehen wird: - man log sich Gründe vor, um derenthalben jene Gesetze bestehen sollten, blos um sich nicht einzugestehen, dass man sich an die Herrschaft dieser Gesetze gewöhnt habe und es nicht mehr anders haben wolle. Und so macht man es innerhalb jeder herrschenden Moral und Religion und hat es von jeher gemacht: die Gründe und die Absichten hinter der Gewohnheit werden immer zu ihr erst hinzugelogen, wenn Einige anfangen, die Gewohnheit zu bestreiten und nach Gründen und Absichten zu fragen. Hier steckt die grosse Unehrlichkeit der Conservativen aller Zeiten: - es sind die Hinzu-Lügner.

30

Komödienspiel der Berühmten. - Berühmte Männer, welche ihren Ruhm nöthig haben, wie zum Beispiel alle Politiker, wählen ihre Verbündeten und Freunde nie mehr ohne Hintergedanken: von diesem wollen sie ein Stück Glanz und Abglanz seiner Tugend, von jenem das Furchteinflössende gewisser bedenklicher Eigenschaften, die Jedermann an ihm kennt, einem andern stehlen sie den Ruf seines Müssigganges, seines In-der-Sonne-liegens, weil es ihren eigenen Zwecken frommt, zeitweilig für unachtsam und träge zu gelten: - es verdeckt, dass sie auf der Lauer liegen; bald brauchen sie den Phantasten, bald den Kenner, bald den Grübler, bald den Pedanten in ihrer Nähe und gleichsam als ihr gegenwärtiges Selbst, aber eben so bald brauchen sie dieselben nicht mehr! Und so sterben fortwährend ihre Umgebungen und Aussenseiten ab, während Alles sich in diese Umgebung zu drängen scheint und zu ihrem "Charakter" werden will: darin gleichen sie den grossen Städten. Ihr Ruf ist fortwährend im Wandel wie ihr Charakter, denn ihre wechselnden Mittel verlangen diesen Wechsel, und schieben bald diese, bald jene wirkliche oder erdichtete Eigenschaft hervor und auf die Bühne hinaus: ihre Freunde und Verbündeten gehören, wie gesagt, zu diesen Bühnen-Eigenschaften. Dagegen muss Das, was sie wollen, um so mehr fest und ehern und weithin glänzend stehen bleiben, - und auch diess hat bisweilen seine Komödie und sein Bühnenspiel nöthig.

31

Handel und Adel. - Kaufen und verkaufen gilt jetzt als gemein, wie die Kunst des Lesens und Schreibens; Jeder ist jetzt darin eingeübt, selbst wenn er kein Handelsmann ist, und übt sich noch an jedem Tage in dieser Technik: ganz wie ehemals, im Zeitalter der wilderen Menschheit, Jedermann Jäger war und sich Tag für Tag in der Technik der Jagd übte. Damals war die Jagd gemein: aber wie diese endlich ein Privilegium der Mächtigen und Vornehmen wurde und damit den Charakter der Alltäglichkeit und Gemeinheit verlor - dadurch, dass sie aufhörte nothwendig zu sein und eine Sache der Laune und des Luxus wurde: - so könnte es irgendwann einmal mit dem Kaufen und Verkaufen werden. Es sind Zustände der Gesellschaft denkbar, wo nicht verkauft und gekauft wird und wo die Nothwendigkeit dieser Technik allmählich ganz verloren geht: vielleicht, dass dann Einzelne, welche dem Gesetze des allgemeinen Zustandes weniger unterworfen sind, sich dann das Kaufen und Verkaufen wie einen Luxus der Empfindung erlauben. Dann erst bekäme der Handel Vornehmheit, und die Adeligen würden sich dann vielleicht ebenso gern mit dem Handel abgeben, wie bisher mit dem Kriege und der Politik: während umgekehrt die Schätzung der Politik sich dann völlig geändert haben könnte. Schon jetzt hört sie auf, das Handwerk des Edelmannes zu sein: und es wäre möglich, dass man sie eines Tages so gemein fände, um sie, gleich aller Partei- und Tageslitteratur, unter die Rubrik "Prostitution des Geistes" zu bringen.

32

Unerwünschte Jünger. - Was soll ich mit diesen beiden Jünglingen machen! rief mit Unmuth ein Philosoph, welcher die Jugend "verdarb", wie Sokrates sie einst verdorben hat, - es sind mir unwillkommene Schüler. Der da kann nicht Nein sagen und jener sagt zu Allem: "Halb und halb." Gesetzt, sie ergriffen meine Lehre, so würde der Erstere zu viel leiden, denn meine Denkweise erfordert eine kriegerische Seele, ein Wehethun-Wollen, eine Lust am Neinsagen, eine harte Haut, - er würde an offenen und inneren Wunden dahin siechen. Und der Andere wird sich aus jeder Sache, die er vertritt, eine Mittelmässigkeit zurecht machen und sie dergestalt zur Mittelmässigkeit machen, - einen solchen Jünger wünsche ich meinem Feinde.

33

Ausserhalb des Hörsaales. - "Um Ihnen zu beweisen, dass der Mensch im Grunde zu den gutartigen Thieren gehört, würde ich Sie daran erinnern, wie leichtgläubig er so lange gewesen ist. Jetzt erst ist er, ganz spät und nach ungeheurer Selbstüberwindung, ein misstrauisches Thier geworden, - ja! der Mensch ist jetzt böser als je." - Ich verstehe diess nicht: warum sollte der Mensch jetzt misstrauischer und böser sein? - "Weil er jetzt eine Wissenschaft hat, - nöthig hat!" -

34

Historia abscondita. - Jeder grosse Mensch hat eine rückwirkende Kraft: alle Geschichte wird um seinetwillen wieder auf die Wage gestellt, und tausend Geheimnisse der Vergangenheit kriechen aus ihren Schlupfwinkeln - hinein in seine Sonne. Es ist gar nicht abzusehen, was Alles einmal noch Geschichte sein wird. Die Vergangenheit ist vielleicht immer noch wesentlich unentdeckt! Es bedarf noch so vieler rückwirkender Kräfte!

35

Ketzerei und Hexerei. - Anders denken, als Sitte ist - das ist lange nicht so sehr die Wirkung eines besseren Intellectes, als die Wirkung starker, böser Neigungen, loslösender, isolirender, trotziger, schadenfroher, hämischer Neigungen. Die Ketzerei ist das Seitenstück zur Hexerei und gewiss ebensowenig, als diese, etwas Harmloses oder gar an sich selber Verehrungswürdiges. Die Ketzer und die Hexen sind zwei Gattungen böser Menschen: gemeinsam ist ihnen, dass sie sich auch als böse fühlen, dass aber ihre unbezwingliche Lust ist, an dem, was herrscht (Menschen oder Meinungen), sich schädigend auszulassen. Die Reformation, eine Art Verdoppelung des mittelalterlichen Geistes, zu einer Zeit, als er bereits das gute Gewissen nicht mehr bei sich hatte, brachte sie beide in grösster Fülle hervor.

36

Letzte Worte. - Man wird sich erinnern, dass der Kaiser Augustus, jener fürchterliche Mensch, der sich ebenso in der Gewalt hatte und der ebenso schweigen konnte wie irgend ein weiser Sokrates, mit seinem letzten Worte indiscret gegen sich selber wurde: er liess zum ersten Male seine Maske fallen, als er zu verstehen gab, dass er eine Maske getragen und eine Komödie gespielt habe, - er hatte den Vater des Vaterlandes und die Weisheit auf dem Throne gespielt, gut bis zur Illusion! Plaudite amici, comoedia finita est! - Der Gedanke des sterbenden Nero: qualis artifex pereo! war auch der Gedanke des sterbenden Augustus: Histrionen-Eitelkeit! Histrionen-Schwatzhaftigkeit! Und recht das Gegenstück zum sterbenden Sokrates! - Aber Tiberius starb schweigsam, dieser gequälteste aller Selbstquäler, - der war ächt und kein Schauspieler! Was mag dem wohl zuletzt durch den Kopf gegangen sein! Vielleicht diess: "Das Leben - das ist ein langer Tod. Ich Narr, der ich so Vielen das Leben verkürzte! War ich dazu gemacht, ein Wohltäter zu sein? Ich hätte ihnen das ewige Leben geben sollen: so hätte ich sie ewig sterben sehen können. Dafür hatte ich ja so gute Augen: qualis spectator pereo!" Als er nach einem langen Todeskampfe doch wieder zu Kräften zu kommen schien, hielt man es für rathsam, ihn mit Bettkissen zu ersticken, - er starb eines doppelten Todes.

37

Aus drei Irrthümern. - Man hat in den letzten Jahrhunderten die Wissenschaft gefördert, theils weil man mit ihr und durch sie Gottes Güte und Weisheit am besten zu verstehen hoffte - das Hauptmotiv in der Seele der grossen Engländer (wie Newton) -, theils weil man an die absolute Nützlichkeit der Erkenntniss glaubte, namentlich an den innersten Verband von Moral, Wissen und Glück - das Hauptmotiv in der Seele der grossen Franzosen (wie Voltaire) -, theils weil man in der Wissenschaft etwas Selbstloses, Harmloses, Sichselber-Genügendes, wahrhaft Unschuldiges zu haben und zu lieben meinte, an dem die bösen Triebe des Menschen überhaupt nicht betheiligt seien - das Hauptmotiv in der Seele Spinoza's, der sich als Erkennender göttlich fühlte: - also aus drei Irrthümern.

38

Die Explosiven. - Erwägt man, wie explosionsbedürftig die Kraft junger Männer daliegt, so wundert man sich nicht, sie so unfein und so wenig wählerisch sich für diese oder jene Sache entscheiden zu sehen: Das, was sie reizt, ist der Anblick des Eifers, der um eine Sache ist, und gleichsam der Anblick der brennenden Lunte, - nicht die Sache selber. Die feineren Verführer verstehen sich desshalb darauf, ihnen die Explosion in Aussicht zu stellen und von der Begründung ihrer Sache abzusehen: mit Gründen gewinnt man diese Pulverfässer nicht!

39

Veränderter Geschmack. - Die Veränderung des allgemeinen Geschmackes ist wichtiger, als die der Meinungen; Meinungen mit allen Beweisen, Widerlegungen und der ganzen intellectuellen Maskerade sind nur Symptome des veränderten Geschmacks und ganz gewiss gerade Das nicht, wofür man sie noch so häufig anspricht, dessen Ursachen. Wie verändert sich der allgemeine Geschmack? Dadurch, dass Einzelne, Mächtige, Einflussreiche ohne Schamgefühl ihr hoc est ridiculum, hoc est absurdum, also das Urtheil ihres Geschmacks und Ekels, aussprechen und tyrannisch durchsetzen. - - sie legen damit Vielen einen Zwang auf, aus dem allmählich eine Gewöhnung noch Mehrerer und zuletzt ein Bedürfniss Aller wird. Dass diese Einzelnen aber anders empfinden und "schmecken", das hat gewöhnlich seinen Grund in einer Absonderlichkeit ihrer Lebensweise, Ernährung, Verdauung, vielleicht in einem Mehr oder Weniger der anorganischen Salze in ihrem Blute und Gehirn, kurz in der Physis: sie haben aber den Muth, sich zu ihrer Physis zu bekennen und deren Forderungen noch in ihren feinsten Tönen Gehör zu schenken: ihre ästhetischen und moralischen Urtheile sind solche "feinste Töne" der Physis.

40

Vom Mangel der vornehmen Form. - Soldaten und Führer haben immer noch ein viel höheres Verhalten zu einander, als Arbeiter und Arbeitgeber. Einstweilen wenigstens steht alle militärisch begründete Cultur noch hoch über aller sogenannten industriellen Cultur: letztere in ihrer jetzigen Gestalt ist überhaupt die gemeinste Daseinsform, die es bisher gegeben hat. Hier wirkt einfach das Gesetz der Noth: man will leben und muss sich verkaufen, aber man verachtet Den, der diese Noth ausnützt und sich den Arbeiter kauft. Es ist seltsam, dass die Unterwerfung unter mächtige, furchterregende, ja schreckliche Personen, unter Tyrannen und Heerführer, bei Weitem nicht so peinlich empfunden wird, als diese Unterwerfung unter unbekannte und uninteressante Personen, wie es alle Grössen der Industrie sind: in dem Arbeitgeber sieht der Arbeiter gewöhnlich nur einen listigen, aussaugenden, auf alle Noth speculirenden Hund von Menschen, dessen Name, Gestalt, Sitte und Ruf ihm ganz gleichgültig sind. Den Fabricanten und Gross-Unternehmern des Handels fehlten bisher wahrscheinlich allzusehr alle jene Formen und Abzeichen der höheren Rasse, welche erst die Personen interessant werden lassen; hätten sie die Vornehmheit des Geburts-Adels im Blick und in der Gebärde, so gäbe es vielleicht keinen Socialismus der Massen. Denn diese sind im Grunde bereit zur Sclaverei jeder Art, vorausgesetzt, dass der Höhere über ihnen sich beständig als höher, als zum Befehlen geboren legitimirt - durch die vornehme Form! Der gemeinste Mann fühlt, dass die Vornehmheit nicht zu improvisiren ist und dass er in ihr die Frucht langer Zeiten zu ehren hat, - aber die Abwesenheit der höheren Form und die berüchtigte Fabricanten-Vulgarität mit rothen, feisten Händen, bringen ihn auf den Gedanken, dass nur Zufall und Glück hier den Einen über den Andern erhoben habe: wohlan, so schliesst er bei sich, versuchen wir einmal den Zufall und das Glück! Werfen wir einmal die Würfel! - und der Socialismus beginnt.

41

Gegen die Reue. - Der Denker sieht in seinen eigenen Handlungen Versuche und Fragen, irgend worüber Aufschluss zu erhalten: Erfolg und Misserfolg sind ihm zu allererst Antworten. Sich aber darüber, dass Etwas missräth, ärgern oder gar Reue empfinden - das überlässt er Denen, welche handeln, weil es ihnen befohlen wird, und welche Prügel zu erwarten haben, wenn der gnädige Herr mit dem Erfolg nicht zufrieden ist.

42

Arbeit und Langeweile. - Sich Arbeit suchen um des Lohnes willen - darin sind sich in den Ländern der Civilisation jetzt fast alle Menschen gleich; ihnen allen ist Arbeit ein Mittel, und nicht selber das Ziel; wesshalb sie in der Wahl der Arbeit wenig fein sind, vorausgesetzt, dass sie einen reichlichen Gewinn abwirft. Nun giebt es seltenere Menschen, welche lieber zu Grunde gehen wollen, als ohne Lust an der Arbeit arbeiten: jene Wählerischen, schwer zu Befriedigenden, denen mit einem reichlichen Gewinn nicht gedient wird, wenn die Arbeit nicht selber der Gewinn aller Gewinne ist. Zu dieser seltenen Gattung von Menschen gehören die Künstler und Contemplativen aller Art, aber auch schon jene Müssiggänger, die ihr Leben auf der Jagd, auf Reisen oder in Liebeshändeln und Abenteuern zubringen. Alle diese wollen Arbeit und Noth, sofern sie mit Lust verbunden ist, und die schwerste, härteste Arbeit, wenn es sein muss. Sonst aber sind sie von einer entschlossenen Trägheit, sei es selbst, dass Verarmung, Unehre, Gefahr der Gesundheit und des Lebens an diese Trägheit geknüpft sein sollte. Sie fürchten die Langeweile nicht so sehr, als die Arbeit ohne Lust: ja, sie haben viel Langeweile nöthig, wenn ihnen ihre Arbeit gelingen soll. Für den Denker und für alle erfindsamen Geister ist Langeweile jene unangenehme "Windstille" der Seele, welche der glücklichen Fahrt und den lustigen Winden vorangeht; er muss sie ertragen, muss ihre Wirkung bei sich abwarten: - das gerade ist es, was die geringeren Naturen durchaus nicht von sich erlangen können! Langeweile auf jede Weise von sich scheuchen ist gemein: wie arbeiten ohne Lust gemein ist. Es zeichnet vielleicht die Asiaten vor den Europäern aus, dass sie einer längeren, tieferen Ruhe fähig sind, als diese; selbst ihre Narcotica wirken langsam und verlangen Geduld, im Gegensatz zu der widrigen Plötzlichkeit des europäischen Giftes, des Alkohols.

43

Was die Gesetze verrathen. - Man vergreift sich sehr, wenn man die Strafgesetze eines Volkes studirt, als ob sie ein Ausdruck seines Charakters wären; die Gesetze verrathen nicht Das, was ein Volk ist, sondern Das, was ihm fremd, seltsam, ungeheuerlich, ausländisch erscheint. Die Gesetze beziehen sich auf die Ausnahmen der Sittlichkeit der Sitte; und die härtesten Strafen treffen Das, was der Sitte des Nachbarvolkes gemäss ist. So giebt es bei den Wahabiten nur zwei Todsünden: einen anderen Gott haben als den Wahabiten-Gott und - rauchen (es wird bei ihnen bezeichnet als "die schmachvolle Art des Trinkens"). "Und wie steht es mit Mord und Ehebruch?" - fragte erstaunt der Engländer, der diese Dinge erfuhr. "Nun, Gott ist gnädig und barmherzig!" - sagte der alte Häuptling. - So gab es bei den alten Römern die Vorstellung, dass ein Weib sich nur auf zweierlei Art tödtlich versündigen könne: einmal durch Ehebruch, sodann - durch Weintrinken. Der alte Cato meinte, man habe das Küssen unter Verwandten nur desshalb zur Sitte gemacht, um die Weiber in diesem Puncte unter Controle zu halten; ein Kuss bedeute: riecht sie nach Wein? Man hat wirklich Frauen, die beim Weine ertappt wurden, mit dem Tode gestraft: und gewiss nicht nur, weil die Weiber mitunter unter der Einwirkung des Weines alles Nein-Sagen verlernen; die Römer fürchteten vor Allem das orgiastische und dionysische Wesen, von dem die Weiber des europäischen Südens damals, als der Wein noch neu in Europa war, von Zeit zu Zeit heimgesucht wurden, als eine ungeheuerliche Ausländerei, welche den Grund der römischen Empfindung umwarf; es war ihnen wie ein Verrath an Rom, wie die Einverleibung des Auslandes.

44

Die geglaubten Motive. - So wichtig es sein mag, die Motive zu wissen, nach denen wirklich die Menschheit bisher gehandelt hat: vielleicht ist der Glaube an diese oder jene Motive, also Das, was die Menschheit sich selber als die eigentlichen Hebel ihres Thuns bisher untergeschoben und eingebildet hat, etwas noch Wesentlicheres für den Erkennenden. Das innere Glück und Elend der Menschen ist ihnen nämlich je nach ihrem Glauben an diese oder jene Motive zu Theil geworden, - nicht aber durch Das, was wirklich Motiv war! Alles diess Letztere hat ein Interesse zweiten Ranges.

45

Epikur. - Ja, ich bin stolz darauf, den Charakter Epikur's anders zu empfinden, als irgend Jemand vielleicht, und bei Allem, was ich von ihm höre und lese, das Glück des Nachmittags des Alterthums zu geniessen: - ich sehe sein Auge auf ein weites weissliches Meer blicken, über Uferfelsen hin, auf denen die Sonne liegt, während grosses und kleines Gethier in ihrem Lichte spielt, sicher und ruhig wie diess Licht und jenes Auge selber. Solch ein Glück hat nur ein fortwährend Leidender erfinden können, das Glück eines Auges, vor dem das Meer des Daseins stille geworden ist, und das nun an seiner Oberfläche und an dieser bunten, zarten, schaudernden Meeres-Haut sich nicht mehr satt sehen kann: es gab nie zuvor eine solche Bescheidenheit der Wollust.

46

Unser Erstaunen. - Es liegt ein tiefes und gründliches Glück darin, dass die Wissenschaft Dinge ermittelt, die Standhalten und die immer wieder den Grund zu neuen Ermittelungen abgeben: - es könnte ja anders sein! Ja, wir sind so sehr von all der Unsicherheit und Phantasterei unserer Urtheile und von dem ewigen Wandel aller menschlichen Gesetze und Begriffe überzeugt, dass es uns eigentlich ein Erstaunen macht, wie sehr die Ergebnisse der Wissenschaft Stand halten! Früher wusste man Nichts von dieser Wandelbarkeit alles Menschlichen, die Sitte der Sittlichkeit hielt den Glauben aufrecht, dass das ganze innere Leben des Menschen mit ewigen Klammern an die eherne Nothwendigkeit geheftet sei: vielleicht empfand man damals eine ähnliche Wollust des Erstaunens, wenn man sich Märchen und Feengeschichten erzählen liess. Das Wunderbare that jenen Menschen so wohl, die der Regel und der Ewigkeit mitunter wohl müde werden mochten. Einmal den Boden verlieren! Schweben! Irren! Toll sein! - das gehörte zum Paradies und zur Schwelgerei früherer Zeiten: während unsere Glückseligkeit der des Schiffbrüchigen gleicht, der an's Land gestiegen ist und mit beiden Füssen sich auf die alte feste Erde stellt - staunend, dass sie nicht schwankt.

47

Von der Unterdrückung der Leidenschaften. - Wenn man sich anhaltend den Ausdruck der Leidenschaften verbietet, wie als etwas den "Gemeinen", den gröberen, bürgerlichen, bäuerlichen Naturen zu Ueberlassendes, - also nicht die Leidenschaften selber unterdrücken will, sondern nur ihre Sprache und Gebärde: so erreicht man nichtsdestoweniger eben Das mit, was man nicht will: die Unterdrückung der Leidenschaften selber, mindestens ihre Schwächung und Veränderung: - wie diess zum belehrendsten Beispiele der Hof Ludwig's des Vierzehnten und Alles, was von ihm abhängig war, erlebt hat. Das Zeitalter darauf, erzogen in der Unterdrückung des Ausdrucks, hatte die Leidenschaften selber nicht mehr und ein anmuthiges, flaches, spielendes Wesen an ihrer Stelle, - ein Zeitalter, das mit der Unfähigkeit behaftet war, unartig zu sein: sodass selbst eine Beleidigung nicht anders als mit verbindlichen Worten angenommen und zurückgegeben wurde. Vielleicht giebt unsere Gegenwart das merkwürdigste Gegenstück dazu ab: ich sehe überall, im Leben und auf dem Theater, und nicht am wenigsten in Allem, was geschrieben wird, das Wohlbehagen an allen gröberen Ausbrüchen und Gebärden der Leidenschaft: es wird jetzt eine gewisse Convention der Leidenschaftlichkeit verlangt, - nur nicht die Leidenschaft selber! Trotzdem wird man sie damit zuletzt erreichen, und unsere Nachkommen werden eine ächte Wildheit haben und nicht nur eine Wildheit und Ungebärdigkeit der Formen.

48

Kenntniss der Noth. - Vielleicht werden die Menschen und Zeiten durch Nichts so sehr von einander geschieden, als durch den verschiedenen Grad von Kenntniss der Noth, den sie haben: Noth der Seele wie des Leibes. In Bezug auf letztere sind wir jetzigen vielleicht allesammt, trotz unserer Gebrechen und Gebrechlichkeiten, aus Mangel an reicher Selbst-Erfahrung Stümper und Phantasten zugleich: im Vergleich zu einem Zeitalter der Furcht - dem längsten aller Zeitalter -, wo der Einzelne sich selber gegen Gewalt zu schützen hatte und um dieses Zieles willen selber Gewaltmensch sein musste. Damals machte ein Mann seine reiche Schule körperlicher Qualen und Entbehrungen durch und begriff selbst in einer gewissen Grausamkeit gegen sich, in einer freiwilligen Uebung des Schmerzes, ein ihm nothwendiges Mittel seiner Erhaltung; damals erzog man seine Umgebung zum Ertragen des Schmerzes, damals fügte man gern Schmerz zu und sah das Furchtbarste dieser Art über Andere ergehen, ohne ein anderes Gefühl, als das der eigenen Sicherheit. Was die Noth der Seele aber betrifft, so sehe ich mir jetzt jeden Menschen darauf an, ob er sie aus Erfahrung oder Beschreibung kennt; ob er diese Kenntniss zu heucheln doch noch für nöthig hält, etwa als ein Zeichen der feineren Bildung, oder ob er überhaupt an grosse Seelenschmerzen im Grunde seiner Seele nicht glaubt und es ihm bei Nennung derselben ähnlich ergeht, wie bei Nennung grosser körperlicher Erduldungen: wobei ihm seine Zahn- und Magenschmerzen einfallen. So aber scheint es mir bei den Meisten jetzt zu stehen. Aus der allgemeinen Ungeübtheit im Schmerz beiderlei Gestalt und einer gewissen Seltenheit des Anblicks eines Leidenden ergiebt sich nun eine wichtige Folge: man hasst jetzt den Schmerz viel mehr, als frühere Menschen, und redet ihm viel übler nach als je, ja, man findet schon das Vorhandensein des Schmerzes als eines Gedankens kaum erträglich und macht dem gesammten Dasein eine Gewissenssache und einen Vorwurf daraus. Das Auftauchen pessimistischer Philosophien ist durchaus nicht das Merkmal grosser, furchtbarer Nothstände; sondern diese Fragezeichen am Werthe alles Lebens werden in Zeiten gemacht, wo die Verfeinerung und Erleichterung des Daseins bereits die unvermeidlichen Mückenstiche der Seele und des Leibes als gar zu blutig und bösartig befindet und in der Armuth an wirklichen Schmerz-Erfahrungen am liebsten schon quälende allgemeine Vorstellungen als das Leid höchster Gattung erscheinen lassen möchte. - Es gäbe schon ein Recept gegen pessimistische Philosophien und die übergrosse Empfindlichkeit, welche mir die eigentliche "Noth der Gegenwart" zu sein scheint: - aber vielleicht klingt diess Recept schon zu grausam und würde selber unter die Anzeichen gerechnet werden, auf Grund deren hin man jetzt urtheilt: "Das Dasein ist etwas Böses". Nun! Das Recept gegen "die Noth" lautet: Noth.

49

Grossmuth und Verwandtes. - Jene paradoxen Erscheinungen, wie die plötzliche Kälte im Benehmen des Gemüthsmenschen, wie der Humor des Melancholikers, wie vor Allem die Grossmuth, als eine plötzliche Verzichtleistung auf Rache oder Befriedigung des Neides - treten an Menschen auf, in denen eine mächtige innere Schleuderkraft ist, an Menschen der plötzlichen Sättigung und des plötzlichen Ekels. Ihre Befriedigungen sind so schnell und so stark, dass diesen sofort Ueberdruss und Widerwille und eine Flucht in den entgegengesetzten Geschmack auf dem Fusse folgt: in diesem Gegensatze löst sich der Krampf der Empfindung aus, bei Diesem durch plötzliche Kälte, bei jenem durch Gelächter, bei einem Dritten durch Thränen und Selbstaufopferung. Mir erscheint der Grossmüthige - wenigstens jene Art des Grossmüthigen, die immer am meisten Eindruck gemacht hat - als ein Mensch des äussersten Rachedurstes, dem eine Befriedigung sich in der Nähe zeigt und der sie so reichlich, gründlich und bis zum letzten Tropfen schon in der Vorstellung austrinkt, dass ein ungeheurer schneller Ekel dieser schnellen Ausschweifung folgt, - er erhebt sich nunmehr "über sich", wie man sagt, und verzeiht seinem Feinde, ja segnet und ehrt ihn. Mit dieser Vergewaltigung seiner selber, mit dieser Verhöhnung seines eben noch so mächtigen Rachetriebes giebt er aber nur dem neuen Triebe nach, der eben jetzt in ihm mächtig geworden ist (dem Ekel), und thut diess ebenso ungeduldig und ausschweifend wie er kurz vorher die Freude an der Rache mit der Phantasie vorwegnahm und gleichsam ausschöpfte. Es ist in der Grossmuth der selbe Grad von Egoismus wie in der Rache, aber eine andere Qualität des Egoismus.

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Das Argument der Vereinsamung. - Der Vorwurf des Gewissens ist auch beim Gewissenhaftesten schwach gegen das Gefühl: "Diess und jenes ist wider die gute Sitte deiner Gesellschaft." Ein kalter Blick, ein verzogener Mund von Seiten Derer, unter denen und für die man erzogen ist, wird auch vom Stärksten noch gefürchtet. Was wird da eigentlich gefürchtet? Die Vereinsamung! als das Argument, welches auch die besten Argumente für eine Person oder Sache niederschlägt! - So redet der Heerden-Instinct aus uns.

51

Wahrheitssinn. - Ich lobe mir eine jede Skepsis, auf welche mir erlaubt ist zu antworten: "Versuchen wir's!" Aber ich mag von allen Dingen und allen Fragen, welche das Experiment nicht zulassen, Nichts mehr hören. Diess ist die Grenze meines "Wahrheitssinnes": denn dort hat die Tapferkeit ihr Recht verloren.

52

Was Andere von uns wissen. - Das, was wir von uns selber wissen und im Gedächtniss haben, ist für das Glück unseres Lebens nicht so entscheidend, wie man glaubt. Eines Tages stürzt Das, was Andere von uns wissen (oder zu wissen meinen) über uns her - und jetzt erkennen wir, dass es das Mächtigere ist. Man wird mit seinem schlechten Gewissen leichter fertig, als mit seinem schlechten Rufe.

53

Wo das Gute beginnt. - Wo die geringe Sehkraft des Auges den bösen Trieb wegen seiner Verfeinerung nicht mehr als solchen zu sehen vermag, da setzt der Mensch das Reich des Guten an, und die Empfindung, nunmehr in's Reich des Guten übergetreten zu sein, bringt alle die Triebe in Miterregung, welche durch die bösen Triebe bedroht und eingeschränkt waren, wie das Gefühl der Sicherheit, des Behagens, des Wohlwollens. Also: je stumpfer das Auge, desto weiter reicht das Gute! Daher die ewige Heiterkeit des Volkes und der Kinder! Daher die Düsterkeit und der dem schlechten Gewissen verwandte Gram der grossen Denker!

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Das Bewusstsein vom Scheine. - Wie wundervoll und neu und zugleich wie schauerlich und ironisch fühle ich mich mit meiner Erkenntniss zum gesammten Dasein gestellt! Ich habe für mich entdeckt, dass die alte Mensch- und Thierheit, ja die gesammte Urzeit und Vergangenheit alles empfindenden Seins in mir fortdichtet, fortliebt, forthasst, fortschliesst, - ich bin plötzlich mitten in diesem Traume erwacht, aber nur zum Bewusstsein, dass ich eben träume und dass ich weiterträumen muss, um nicht zu Grunde zu gehen: wie der Nachtwandler weiterträumen muss, um nicht hinabzustürzen. Was ist mir jetzt "Schein"! Wahrlich nicht der Gegensatz irgend eines Wesens, - was weiss ich von irgend welchem Wesen auszusagen, als eben nur die Prädicate seines Scheines! Wahrlich nicht eine todte Maske, die man einem unbekannten X aufsetzen und auch wohl abnehmen könnte! Schein ist für mich das Wirkende und Lebende selber, das soweit in seiner Selbstverspottung geht, mich fühlen zu lassen, dass hier Schein und Irrlicht und Geistertanz und nichts Mehr ist, - dass unter allen diesen Träumenden auch ich, der "Erkennende", meinen Tanz tanze, dass der Erkennende ein Mittel ist, den irdischen Tanz in die Länge zu ziehen und insofern zu den Festordnern des Daseins gehört, und dass die erhabene Consequenz und Verbundenheit aller Erkenntnisse vielleicht das höchste Mittel ist und sein wird, die Allgemeinheit der Träumerei und die Allverständlichkeit aller dieser Träumenden unter einander und eben damit die Dauer des Traumes aufrecht zu erhalten.

55

Der letzte Edelsinn. - Was macht denn "edel"? Gewiss nicht, dass man Opfer bringt; auch der rasend Wolllüstige bringt Opfer. Gewiss nicht, dass man überhaupt einer Leidenschaft folgt; es giebt verächtliche Leidenschaften. Gewiss nicht, dass man für Andere Etwas thut und ohne Selbstsucht: vielleicht ist die Consequenz der Selbstsucht gerade bei dem Edelsten am grössten. - Sondern dass die Leidenschaft, die den Edeln befällt, eine Sonderheit ist, ohne dass er um diese Sonderheit weiss: der Gebrauch eines seltenen und singulären Maassstabes und beinahe eine Verrücktheit: das Gefühl der Hitze in Dingen, welche sich für alle Anderen kalt anfühlen: ein Errathen von Werthen, für die die Wage noch nicht erfunden ist: ein Opferbringen auf Altären, die einem unbekannten Gotte geweiht sind: eine Tapferkeit ohne den Willen zur Ehre: eine Selbstgenügsamkeit, welche Ueberfluss hat und an Menschen und Dinge mittheilt. Bisher war es also das Seltene und die Unwissenheit um diess Seltensein, was edel machte. Dabei erwäge man aber, dass durch diese Richtschnur alles Gewöhnte, Nächste und Unentbehrliche, kurz, das am meisten Arterhaltende, und überhaupt die Regel in der bisherigen Menschheit, unbillig beurtheilt und im Ganzen verleumdet worden ist, zu Gunsten der Ausnahmen. Der Anwalt der Regel werden - das könnte vielleicht die letzte Form und Feinheit sein, in welcher der Edelsinn auf Erden sich offenbart.

56

Die Begierde nach Leiden. - Denke ich an die Begierde, Etwas zu thun, wie sie die Millionen junger Europäer fortwährend kitzelt und stachelt, welche alle die Langeweile und sich selber nicht ertragen können, - so begreife ich, dass in ihnen eine Begierde, Etwas zu leiden, sein muss, um aus ihrem Leiden einen probablen Grund zum Thun, zur That herzunehmen. Noth ist nöthig! Daher das Geschrei der Politiker, daher die vielen falschen, erdichteten, übertriebenen "Nothstände" aller möglichen Classen und die blinde Bereitwilligkeit, an sie zu glauben. Diese junge Welt verlangt, von Aussen her solle - nicht etwa das Glück - sondern das Unglück kommen oder sichtbar werden; und ihre Phantasie ist schon voraus geschäftig, ein Ungeheuer daraus zu formen, damit sie nachher mit einem Ungeheuer kämpfen könne. Fühlten diese Nothsüchtigen in sich die Kraft, von Innen her sich selber wohlzuthun, sich selber Etwas anzuthun, so würden sie auch verstehen, von Innen her sich eine eigene, selbsteigene Noth zu schaffen. Ihre Erfindungen könnten dann feiner sein und ihre Befriedigungen könnten wie gute Musik klingen: während sie jetzt die Welt mit ihrem Nothgeschrei und folglich gar zu oft erst mit dem Nothgefühle anfüllen! Sie verstehen mit sich Nichts anzufangen - und so malen sie das Unglück Anderer an die Wand: sie haben immer Andere nöthig! Und immer wieder andere Andere! - Verzeihung, meine Freunde, ich habe gewagt, mein Glück an die Wand zu malen.

Zweites Buch

57

An die Realisten. - Ihr nüchternen Menschen, die ihr euch gegen Leidenschaft und Phantasterei gewappnet fühlt und gerne einen Stolz und einen Zierath aus eurer Leere machen möchtet, ihr nennt euch Realisten und deutet an, so wie euch die Welt erscheine, so sei sie wirklich beschaffen: vor euch allein stehe die Wirklichkeit entschleiert, und ihr selber wäret vielleicht der beste Theil davon, - oh ihr geliebten Bilder von Sais! Aber seid nicht auch ihr in eurem entschleiertsten Zustande noch höchst leidenschaftliche und dunkle Wesen, verglichen mit den Fischen, und immer noch einem verliebten Künstler allzu ähnlich? - und was ist für einen verliebten Künstler "Wirklichkeit"! Immer noch tragt ihr die Schätzungen der Dinge mit euch herum, welche in den Leidenschaften und Verliebtheiten früherer Jahrhunderte ihren Ursprung haben! Immer noch ist eurer Nüchternheit eine geheime und unvertilgbare Trunkenheit einverleibt! Eure Liebe zur "Wirklichkeit" zum Beispiel - oh das ist eine alte uralte "Liebe"! In jeder Empfindung, in jedem Sinneseindruck ist ein Stück dieser alten Liebe: und ebenso hat irgend eine Phantasterei, ein Vorurtheil, eine Unvernunft, eine Unwissenheit, eine Furcht und was sonst noch Alles! daran gearbeitet und gewebt. Da jener Berg! Da jene Wolke! Was ist denn daran "wirklich"? Zieht einmal das Phantasma und die ganze menschliche Zuthat davon ab, ihr Nüchternen! Ja, wenn ihr das könntet! Wenn ihr eure Herkunft, Vergangenheit, Vorschule vergessen könntet, - eure gesammte Menschheit und Thierheit! Es giebt für uns keine "Wirklichkeit" - und auch für euch nicht, ihr Nüchternen -, wir sind einander lange nicht so fremd, als ihr meint, und vielleicht ist unser guter Wille, über die Trunkenheit hinauszukommen, ebenso achtbar als euer Glaube, der Trunkenheit überhaupt unfähig zu sein.

58

Nur als Schaffende! - Diess hat mir die grösste Mühe gemacht und macht mir noch immerfort die grösste Mühe: einzusehen, dass unsäglich mehr daran liegt, wie die Dinge heissen, als was sie sind. Der Ruf, Name und Anschein, die Geltung, das übliche Maass und Gewicht eines Dinges - im Ursprunge zuallermeist ein Irrthum und eine Willkürlichkeit, den Dingen übergeworfen wie ein Kleid und seinem Wesen und selbst seiner Haut ganz fremd - ist durch den Glauben daran und sein Fortwachsen von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht dem Dinge allmählich gleichsam an- und eingewachsen und zu seinem Leibe selber geworden: der Schein von Anbeginn wird zuletzt fast immer zum Wesen und wirkt als Wesen! Was wäre das für ein Narr, der da meinte, es genüge, auf diesen Ursprung und diese Nebelhülle des Wahnes hinzuweisen, um die als wesenhaft geltende Welt, die sogenannte "Wirklichkeit", zu vernichten! Nur als Schaffende können wir vernichten! - Aber vergessen wir auch diess nicht: es genügt, neue Namen und Schätzungen und Wahrscheinlichkeiten zu schaffen, um auf die Länge hin neue "Dinge" zu schaffen.

59

Wir Künstler! - Wenn wir ein Weib lieben, so haben wir leicht einen Hass auf die Natur, aller der widerlichen Natürlichkeiten gedenkend, denen jedes Weib ausgesetzt ist; gerne denken wir überhaupt daran vorbei, aber wenn einmal unsere Seele diese Dinge streift, so zuckt sie ungeduldig und blickt, wie gesagt, verächtlich nach der Natur hin: - wir sind beleidigt, die Natur scheint in unsern Besitz einzugreifen und mit den ungeweihtesten Händen. Da macht man die Ohren zu gegen alle Physiologie und decretirt für sich insgeheim "ich will davon, dass der Mensch noch etwas Anderes ist, ausser Seele und Form, Nichts hören!" "Der Mensch unter der Haut" ist allen Liebenden ein Greuel und Ungedanke, eine Gottes- und Liebeslästerung. - Nun, so wie jetzt noch der Liebende empfindet, in Hinsicht der Natur und Natürlichkeit, so empfand ehedem jeder Verehrer Gottes und seiner "heiligen Allmacht": bei Allem, was von der Natur gesagt wurde, durch Astronomen, Geologen, Physiologen, Aerzte, sah er einen Eingriff in seinen köstlichsten Besitz und folglich einen Angriff, - und noch dazu eine Schamlosigkeit des Angreifenden! Das "Naturgesetz" klang ihm schon wie eine Verleumdung Gottes; im Grunde hätte er gar zu gerne alle Mechanik auf moralische Willens- und Willküracte zurückgeführt gesehn: - aber weil ihm Niemand diesen Dienst erweisen konnte, so verhehlte er sich die Natur und Mechanik, so gut er konnte und lebte im Traum. Oh diese Menschen von ehedem haben verstanden zu träumen und hatten nicht erst nöthig, einzuschlafen! - und auch wir Menschen von heute verstehen es noch viel zu gut, mit allem unseren guten Willen zum Wachsein und zum Tage! Es genügt, zu lieben, zu hassen, zu begehren, überhaupt zu empfinden, - sofort kommt der Geist und die Kraft des Traumes über uns, und wir steigen offenen Auges und kalt gegen alle Gefahr auf den gefährlichsten Wegen empor, hinauf auf die Dächer und Thürme der Phantasterei, und ohne allen Schwindel, wie geboren zum Klettern - wir Nachtwandler des Tages! Wir Künstler! Wir Verhehler der Natürlichkeit! Wir Mond- und Gottsüchtigen! Wir todtenstillen unermüdlichen Wanderer, auf Höhen, die wir nicht als Höhen sehen, sondern als unsere Ebenen, als unsere Sicherheiten!

60

Die Frauen und ihre Wirkung in die Ferne. - Habe ich noch Ohren? Bin ich nur noch Ohr und Nichts weiter mehr? Hier stehe ich inmitten des Brandes der Brandung, deren weisse Flammen bis zu meinem Fusse heraufzüngeln: - von allen Seiten heult, droht, schreit, schrillt es auf mich zu, während in der tiefsten Tiefe der alte Erderschütterer seine Arie singt, dumpf wie ein brüllender Stier: er stampft sich dazu einen solchen Erderschütterer-Tact, dass selbst diesen verwetterten Felsunholden hier das Herz darüber im Leibe zittert. Da, plötzlich, wie aus dem Nichts geboren, erscheint vor dem Thore dieses höllischen Labyrinthes, nur wenige Klafter weit entfernt, - ein grosses Segelschiff, schweigsam wie ein Gespenst dahergleitend. Oh diese gespenstische Schönheit! Mit welchem Zauber fasst sie mich an! Wie? Hat alle Ruhe und Schweigsamkeit der Welt sich hier eingeschifft? Sitzt mein Glück selber an diesem stillen Platze, mein glücklicheres Ich, mein zweites verewigtes Selbst? Nicht todt sein und doch auch nicht mehr lebend? Als ein geisterhaftes, stilles, schauendes, gleitendes, schwebendes Mittelwesen? Dem Schiffe gleichend, welches mit seinen weissen Segeln wie ein ungeheurer Schmetterling über das dunkle Meer hinläuft! Ja! Ueber das Dasein hinlaufen! Das ist es! Das wäre es! - - Es scheint, der Lärm hier hat mich zum Phantasten gemacht? Aller grosse Lärm macht, dass wir das Glück in die Stille und Ferne setzen. Wenn ein Mann inmitten seines Lärmes steht, inmitten seiner Brandung von Würfen und Entwürfen: da sieht er auch wohl stille zauberhafte Wesen an sich vorübergleiten, nach deren Glück und Zurückgezogenheit er sich sehnt, - es sind die Frauen. Fast meint er, dort bei den Frauen wohne sein besseres Selbst: an diesen stillen Plätzen werde auch die lauteste Brandung zur Todtenstille und das Leben selber zum Traume über das Leben. Jedoch! Jedoch! Mein edler Schwärmer, es giebt auch auf dem schönsten Segelschiffe so viel Geräusch und Lärm und leider so viel kleinen erbärmlichen Lärm! Der Zauber und die mächtigste Wirkung der Frauen ist, um die Sprache der Philosophen zu reden, eine Wirkung in die Ferne, eine actio in distans: dazu gehört aber, zuerst und vor Allem - Distanz

61

Zu Ehren der Freundschaft. - Dass das Gefühl der Freundschaft dem Alterthum als das höchste Gefühl galt, höher selbst als der gerühmteste Stolz des Selbstgenügsamen und Weisen, ja gleichsam als dessen einzige und noch heiligere Geschwisterschaft: diess drückt sehr gut die Geschichte von jenem macedonischen Könige aus, der einem weltverachtenden Philosophen Athen's ein Talent zum Geschenk machte und es von ihm zurückerhielt. "Wie? sagte der König, hat er denn keinen Freund?" Damit wollte er sagen: "ich ehre diesen Stolz des Weisen und Unabhängigen, aber ich würde seine Menschlichkeit noch höher ehren, wenn der Freund in ihm den Sieg über seinen Stolz davongetragen hätte. Vor mir hat sich der Philosoph herabgesetzt, indem er zeigte, dass er eines der beiden höchsten Gefühle nicht kennt, - und zwar das höhere nicht!"

62

Liebe. - Die Liebe vergiebt dem Geliebten sogar die Begierde.

63

Das Weib in der Musik. - Wie kommt es, dass warme und regnerische Winde auch die musikalische Stimmung und die erfinderische Lust der Melodie mit sich führen? Sind es nicht die selben Winde, welche die Kirchen füllen und den Frauen verliebte Gedanken geben?

64

Skeptiker. - Ich fürchte, dass altgewordene Frauen im geheimsten Verstecke ihres Herzens skeptischer sind, als alle Männer: sie glauben an die Oberflächlichkeit des Daseins als an sein Wesen, und alle Tugend und Tiefe ist ihnen nur Verhüllung dieser "Wahrheit", die sehr wünschenswerthe Verhüllung eines pudendum -, also eine Sache des Anstandes und der Scham, und nicht mehr!

65

Hingebung. - Es giebt edle Frauen mit einer gewissen Armuth des Geistes, welche, um ihre tiefste Hingebung auszudrücken, sich nicht anders zu helfen wissen, als so, dass sie ihre Tugend und Scham anbieten: es ist ihnen ihr Höchstes. Und oft wird diess Geschenk angenommen, ohne so tief zu verpflichten, als die Geberinnen voraussetzen, - eine sehr schwermüthige Geschichte!

66

Die Stärke der Schwachen. - Alle Frauen sind fein darin, ihre Schwäche zu übertreiben, ja sie sind erfinderisch in Schwächen, um ganz und gar als zerbrechliche Zierathen zu erscheinen, denen selbst ein Stäubchen wehe thut: ihr Dasein soll dem Manne seine Plumpheit zu Gemüthe führen und in's Gewissen schieben. So wehren sie sich gegen die Starken und alles "Faustrecht".

67

Sich selber heucheln. - Sie liebt ihn nun und blickt seitdem mit so ruhigem Vertrauen vor sich hin wie eine Kuh: aber wehe! Gerade diess war seine Bezauberung, dass sie durchaus veränderlich und unfassbar schien! Er hatte eben schon zu viel beständiges Wetter an sich selber! Sollte sie nicht gut thun, ihren alten Charakter zu heucheln? Lieblosigkeit zu heucheln? Räth ihr also nicht - die Liebe? Vivat comoedia!

68

Wille und Willigkeit. - Man brachte einen Jüngling zu einem weisen Manne und sagte: "Siehe, das ist Einer, der durch die Weiber verdorben wird!" Der weise Mann schüttelte den Kopf und lächelte. "Die Männer sind es, rief er, welche die Weiber verderben: und Alles, was die Weiber fehlen, soll an den Männern gebüsst und gebessert werden, - denn der Mann macht sich das Bild des Weibes, und das Weib bildet sich nach diesem Bilde." - "Du bist zu mildherzig gegen die Weiber, sagte einer der Umstehenden, du kennst sie nicht!" Der weise Mann antwortete: "Des Mannes Art ist Wille, des Weibes Art Willigkeit, - so ist es das Gesetz der Geschlechter, wahrlich! ein hartes Gesetz für das Weib! Alle Menschen sind unschuldig für ihr Dasein, die Weiber aber sind unschuldig im zweiten Grade: wer könnte für sie des Oels und der Milde genug haben." - Was Oel! Was Milde! rief ein Anderer aus der Menge; "Man muss die Weiber besser erziehen! - Man muss die Männer besser erziehen," sagte der weise Mann und winkte dem Jünglinge, dass er ihm folge. - Der Jüngling aber folgte ihm nicht.

69

Fähigkeit zur Rache. - Dass Einer sich nicht vertheidigen kann und folglich auch nicht will, gereicht ihm in unsern Augen noch nicht zur Schande: aber wir schätzen Den gering, der zur Rache weder das Vermögen noch den guten Willen hat, - gleichgültig ob Mann oder Weib. Würde uns ein Weib festhalten (oder wie man sagt "fesseln") können, dem wir nicht zutrauten, dass es unter Umständen den Dolch (irgend eine Art von Dolch) gegen uns gut zu handhaben wüsste? Oder gegen sich: was in einem bestimmten Falle die empfindlichere Rache wäre (die chinesische Rache).

70

Die Herrinnen der Herren. - Eine tiefe mächtige Altstimme, wie man sie bisweilen im Theater hört, zieht uns plötzlich den Vorhang vor Möglichkeiten auf, an die wir für gewöhnlich nicht glauben: wir glauben mit Einem Male daran, dass es irgendwo in der Welt Frauen mit hohen, heldenhaften, königlichen Seelen geben könne, fähig und bereit zu grandiosen Entgegnungen, Entschliessungen und Aufopferungen, fähig und bereit zur Herrschaft über Männer, weil in ihnen das Beste vom Manne, über das Geschlecht hinaus, zum leibhaften Ideale geworden ist. Zwar sollen solche Stimmen nach der Absicht des Theaters gerade nicht diesen Begriff vom Weibe geben: gewöhnlich sollen sie den idealen männlichen Liebhaber, zum Beispiel einen Romeo, darstellen; aber nach meiner Erfahrung zu urtheilen, verrechnet sich dabei das Theater und der Musiker, der von einer solchen Stimme solche Wirkungen erwartet, ganz regelmässig. Man glaubt nicht an diese Liebhaber: diese Stimmen enthalten immer noch eine Farbe des Mütterlichen und Hausfrauenhaften, und gerade dann am meisten, wenn Liebe in ihrem Klange ist.

71

Von der weiblichen Keuschheit. - Es ist etwas ganz Erstaunliches und Ungeheures in der Erziehung der vornehmen Frauen, ja vielleicht giebt es nichts Paradoxeres. Alle Welt ist darüber einverstanden, sie in eroticis so unwissend wie möglich zu erziehen und ihnen eine tiefe Scham vor dergleichen und die äusserste Ungeduld und Flucht beim Andeuten dieser Dinge in die Seele zu geben. Alle "Ehre" des Weibes steht im Grunde nur hier auf dem Spiele: was verziehe man ihnen sonst nicht! Aber hierin sollen sie unwissend bis in's Herz hinein bleiben: - sie sollen weder Augen, noch Ohren, noch Worte, noch Gedanken für diess ihr "Böses" haben: ja das Wissen ist hier schon das Böse. Und nun! Wie mit einem grausigen Blitzschlage in die Wirklichkeit und das Wissen geschleudert werden, mit der Ehe - und zwar durch Den, welchen sie am meisten lieben und hochhalten: Liebe und Scham im Widerspruch ertappen, ja Entzücken, Preisgebung, Pflicht, Mitleid und Schrecken über die unerwartete Nachbarschaft von Gott und Thier und was Alles sonst noch! in Einem empfinden müssen! - Da hat man in der That sich einen Seelen-Knoten geknüpft, der seines Gleichen sucht! Selbst die mitleidige Neugier des weisesten Menschenkenners reicht nicht aus, zu errathen, wie sich dieses und jenes Weib in diese Lösung des Räthsels und in diess Räthsel von Lösung zu finden weiss, und was für schauerliche, weithin greifende Verdachte sich dabei in der armen aus den Fugen gerathenen Seele regen müssen, ja wie die letzte Philosophie und Skepsis des Weibes an diesem Puncte ihre Anker wirft! - Hinterher das selbe tiefe Schweigen wie vorher: und oft ein Schweigen vor sich selber, ein Augen-Zuschliessen vor sich selber. - Die jungen Frauen bemühen sich sehr darum, oberflächlich und gedankenlos zu erscheinen; die feinsten unter ihnen erheucheln eine Art Frechheit. - Die Frauen empfinden leicht ihre Männer als ein Fragezeichen ihrer Ehre und ihre Kinder als eine Apologie oder Busse, - sie bedürfen der Kinder und wünschen sie sich, in einem ganz anderen Sinne als ein Mann sich Kinder wünscht. - Kurz, man kann nicht mild genug gegen die Frauen sein!

72

Die Mütter. - Die Thiere denken anders über die Weiber, als die Menschen; ihnen gilt das Weibchen als das productive Wesen. Vaterliebe giebt es bei ihnen nicht, aber so Etwas wie Liebe zu den Kindern einer Geliebten und Gewöhnung an sie. Die Weibchen haben an den Kindern Befriedigung ihrer Herrschsucht, ein Eigenthum, eine Beschäftigung, etwas ihnen ganz Verständliches, mit dem man schwätzen kann: diess Alles zusammen ist Mutterliebe, - sie ist mit der Liebe des Künstlers zu seinem Werke zu vergleichen. Die Schwangerschaft hat die Weiber milder, abwartender, furchtsamer, unterwerfungslustiger gemacht; und ebenso erzeugt die geistige Schwangerschaft den Charakter der Contemplativen, welcher dem weiblichen Charakter verwandt ist: - es sind die männlichen Mütter. - Bei den Thieren gilt das männliche Geschlecht als das schöne.

73

Heilige Grausamkeit. - Zu einem Heiligen trat ein Mann, der ein eben geborenes Kind in den Händen hielt. "Was soll ich mit dem Kinde machen? fragte er, es ist elend, missgestaltet und hat nicht genug Leben, um zu sterben." "Tödte es, rief der Heilige mit schrecklicher Stimme, tödte es und halte es dann drei Tage und drei Nächte lang in deinen Armen, auf dass du dir ein Gedächtniss machest: - so wirst du nie wieder ein Kind zeugen, wenn es nicht an der Zeit für dich ist, zu zeugen." - Als der Mann diess gehört hatte, gieng er enttäuscht davon; und Viele tadelten den Heiligen, weil er zu einer Grausamkeit gerathen hatte, denn er hatte gerathen, das Kind zu tödten. "Aber ist es nicht grausamer, es leben zu lassen?" sagte der Heilige.

74

Die Erfolglosen. - Jenen armen Frauen fehlt es immer an Erfolg, welche in Gegenwart Dessen, den sie lieben, unruhig und unsicher werden und zu viel reden: denn die Männer werden am sichersten durch eine gewisse heimliche und phlegmatische Zärtlichkeit verführt.

75

Das dritte Geschlecht. - "Ein kleiner Mann ist eine Paradoxie, aber doch ein Mann, - aber die kleinen Weibchen scheinen mir, im Vergleich mit hochwüchsigen Frauen, von einem anderen Geschlechte zu sein" - sagte ein alter Tanzmeister. Ein kleines Weib ist niemals schön - sagte der alte Aristoteles.

76

Die grösste Gefahr. - Hätte es nicht allezeit eine Ueberzahl von Menschen gegeben, welche die Zucht ihres Kopfes - ihre "Vernünftigkeit" - als ihren Stolz, ihre Verpflichtung, ihre Tugend fühlten, welche durch alles Phantasiren und Ausschweifen des Denkens beleidigt oder beschämt wurden, als die Freunde "des gesunden Menschenverstandes": so wäre die Menschheit längst zu Grunde gegangen! Ueber ihr schwebte und schwebt fortwährend als ihre grösste Gefahr der ausbrechende Irrsinn - das heisst eben das Ausbrechen des Beliebens im Empfinden, Sehen und Hören, der Genuss in der Zuchtlosigkeit des Kopfes, die Freude am Menschen-Unverstande. Nicht die Wahrheit und Gewissheit ist der Gegensatz der Welt des Irrsinnigen, sondern die Allgemeinheit und Allverbindlichkeit eines Glaubens, kurz das Nicht-Beliebige im Urtheilen. Und die grösste Arbeit der Menschen bisher war die, über sehr viele Dinge mit einander übereinzustimmen und sich ein Gesetz der Uebereinstimmung aufzulegen - gleichgültig, ob diese Dinge wahr oder falsch sind. Diess ist die Zucht des Kopfes, welche die Menschheit erhalten hat; - aber die Gegentriebe sind immer noch so mächtig, dass man im Grunde von der Zukunft der Menschheit mit wenig Vertrauen reden darf. Fortwährend schiebt und verschiebt sich noch das Bild der Dinge, und vielleicht von jetzt ab mehr und schneller als je; fortwährend sträuben sich gerade die ausgesuchtesten Geister gegen jene Allverbindlichkeit - die Erforscher der Wahrheit voran! Fortwährend erzeugt jener Glaube als Allerweltsglaube einen Ekel und eine neue Lüsternheit bei feineren Köpfen: und schon das langsame Tempo, welches er für alle geistigen Processe verlangt, jene Nachahmung der Schildkröte, welche hier als die Norm anerkannt wird, macht Künstler und Dichter zu Ueberläufern: - diese ungeduldigen Geister sind es, in denen eine förmliche Lust am Irrsinn ausbricht, weil der Irrsinn ein so fröhliches Tempo hat! Es bedarf also der tugendhaften Intellecte, - ach! ich will das unzweideutigste Wort gebrauchen - es bedarf der tugendhaften Dummheit, es bedarf unerschütterlicher Tactschläger des langsamen Geistes, damit die Gläubigen des grossen Gesammtglaubens bei einander bleiben und ihren Tanz weitertanzen: es ist eine Nothdurft ersten Ranges, welche hier gebietet und fordert. Wir Andern sind die Ausnahme und die Gefahr, - wir bedürfen ewig der Vertheidigung! - Nun, es lässt sich wirklich etwas zu Gunsten der Ausnahme sagen, vorausgesetzt, dass sie nie Regel werden will.

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Das Thier mit gutem Gewissen. - Das Gemeine in Alledem, was im Süden Europa's gefällt - sei diess nun die italiänische Oper (zum Beispiel Rossini's und Bellini's) oder der spanische Abenteuer-Roman (uns in der französischen Verkleidung des Gil Blas am besten zugänglich) - bleibt mir nicht verborgen, aber es beleidigt mich nicht, ebensowenig als die Gemeinheit, der man bei einer Wanderung durch Pompeji und im Grunde selbst beim Lesen jedes antiken Buches begegnet: woher kommt diess? Ist es, dass hier die Scham fehlt und dass alles Gemeine so sicher und seiner gewiss auftritt, wie irgend etwas Edles, Liebliches und Leidenschaftliches in der selben Art Musik oder Roman? "Das Thier hat sein Recht wie der Mensch: so mag es frei herumlaufen, und du, mein lieber Mitmensch, bist auch diess Thier noch, trotz Alledem!" - das scheint mir die Moral der Sache und die Eigenheit der südländischen Humanität zu sein. Der schlechte Geschmack hat sein Recht wie der gute, und sogar ein Vorrecht vor ihm, falls er das grosse Bedürfniss, die sichere Befriedigung und gleichsam eine allgemeine Sprache, eine unbedingt verständliche Larve und Gebärde ist: der gute, gewählte Geschmack hat dagegen immer etwas Suchendes, Versuchtes, seines Verständnisses nicht völlig Gewisses, - er ist und war niemals volksthümlich! Volksthümlich ist und bleibt die Maske! So mag denn alles diess Maskenhafte in den Melodien und Cadenzen, in den Sprüngen und Lustigkeiten des Rhythmus dieser Opern dahinlaufen! Gar das antike Leben! Was versteht man von dem, wenn man die Lust an der Maske, das gute Gewissen alles Maskenhaften nicht versteht! Hier ist das Bad und die Erholung des antiken Geistes: - und vielleicht war diess Bad den seltenen und erhabenen Naturen der alten Welt noch nöthiger, als den gemeinen. - Dagegen beleidigt mich eine gemeine Wendung in nordischen Werken, zum Beispiel in deutscher Musik, unsäglich. Hier ist Scham dabei, der Künstler ist vor sich selber hinabgestiegen und konnte es nicht einmal verhüten, dabei zu erröthen: wir schämen uns mit ihm und sind so beleidigt, weil wir ahnen, dass er unseretwegen glaubte hinabsteigen zu müssen.

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Wofür wir dankbar sein sollen. - Erst die Künstler, und namentlich die des Theaters, haben den Menschen Augen und Ohren eingesetzt, um Das mit einigem Vergnügen zu hören und zu sehen, was jeder selber ist, selber erlebt, selber will; erst sie haben uns die Schätzung des Helden, der in jedem von allen diesen Alltagsmenschen verborgen ist, und die Kunst gelehrt, wie man sich selber als Held, aus der Ferne und gleichsam vereinfacht und verklärt ansehen könne, - die Kunst, sich vor sich selber "in Scene zu setzen". So allein kommen wir über einige niedrige Details an uns hinweg! Ohne jene Kunst würden wir Nichts als Vordergrund sein und ganz und gar im Banne jener Optik leben, welche das Nächste und Gemeinste als ungeheuer gross und als die Wirklichkeit an sich erscheinen lässt. - Vielleicht giebt es ein Verdienst ähnlicher Art an jener Religion, welche die Sündhaftigkeit jedes einzelnen Menschen mit dem Vergrösserungsglase ansehen hiess und aus dem Sünder einen grossen, unsterblichen Verbrecher machte: indem sie ewige Perspectiven um ihn beschrieb, lehrte sie den Menschen, sich aus der Ferne und als etwas Vergangenes, Ganzes sehen.

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Reiz der Unvollkommenheit. - Ich sehe hier einen Dichter, der, wie so mancher Mensch, durch seine Unvollkommenheiten einen höheren Reiz ausübt, als durch alles Das, was sich unter seiner Hand rundet und vollkommen gestaltet, - ja er hat den Vortheil und den Ruhm vielmehr von seinem letzten Unvermögen, als von seiner reichen Kraft. Sein Werk spricht es niemals ganz aus, was er eigentlich aussprechen möchte, was er gesehen haben möchte: es scheint, dass er den Vorgeschmack einer Vision gehabt hat, und niemals sie selber: - aber eine ungeheure Lüsternheit nach dieser Vision ist in seiner Seele zurückgeblieben, und aus ihr nimmt er seine ebenso ungeheure Beredtsamkeit des Verlangens und Heisshungers. Mit ihr hebt er Den, welcher ihm zuhört, über sein Werk und alle "Werke" hinaus und giebt ihm Flügel, um so hoch zu steigen, wie Zuhörer nie sonst steigen: und so, selber zu Dichtern und Sehern geworden, zollen sie dem Urheber ihres Glückes eine Bewunderung, wie als ob er sie unmittelbar zum Schauen seines Heiligsten und Letzten geführt hätte, wie als ob er sein Ziel erreicht und seine Vision wirklich gesehen und mitgetheilt hätte. Es kommt seinem Ruhme zu Gute, nicht eigentlich an's Ziel gekommen zu sein.

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Kunst und Natur. - Die Griechen (oder wenigstens die Athener) hörten gerne gut reden: ja sie hatten einen gierigen Hang darnach, der sie mehr als alles Andere von den Nicht-Griechen unterscheidet. Und so verlangten sie selbst von der Leidenschaft auf der Bühne, dass sie gut rede, und liessen die Unnatürlichkeit des dramatischen Verses mit Wonne über sich ergehen: - in der Natur ist ja die Leidenschaft so wortkarg! so stumm und verlegen! Oder wenn sie Worte findet, so verwirrt und unvernünftig und sich selber zur Scham! Nun haben wir uns Alle, Dank den Griechen, an diese Unnatur auf der Bühne gewöhnt, wie wir jene andere Unnatur, die singende Leidenschaft ertragen und gerne ertragen, Dank den Italiänern. - Es ist uns ein Bedürfniss geworden, welches wir aus der Wirklichkeit nicht befriedigen können: Menschen in den schwersten Lagen gut und ausführlich reden zu hören: es entzückt uns jetzt, wenn der tragische Held da noch Worte, Gründe, beredte Gebärden und im Ganzen eine helle Geistigkeit findet, wo das Leben sich den Abgründen nähert, und der wirkliche Mensch meistens den Kopf und gewiss die schöne Sprache verliert. Diese Art Abweichung von der Natur ist vielleicht die angenehmste Mahlzeit für den Stolz des Menschen; ihretwegen überhaupt liebt er die Kunst, als den Ausdruck einer hohen, heldenhaften Unnatürlichkeit und Convention. Man macht mit Recht dem dramatischen Dichter einen Vorwurf daraus, wenn er nicht Alles in Vernunft und Wort verwandelt, sondern immer einen Rest Schweigen in der Hand zurückbehält: - so wie man mit dem Musiker der Oper unzufrieden ist, der für den höchsten Affect nicht eine Melodie, sondern nur ein affectvolles "natürliches" Stammeln und Schreien zu finden weiss. Hier soll eben der Natur widersprochen werden! Hier soll eben der gemeine Reiz der Illusion einem höheren Reize weichen! Die Griechen gehen auf diesem Wege weit, weit - zum Erschrecken weit! Wie sie die Bühne so schmal wie möglich bilden und alle Wirkung durch tiefe Hintergründe sich verbieten, wie sie dem Schauspieler das Mienenspiel und die leichte Bewegung unmöglich machen und ihn in einen feierlichen, steifen, maskenhaften Popanz verwandeln, so haben sie auch der Leidenschaft selber den tiefen Hintergrund genommen und ihr ein Gesetz der schönen Rede dictirt, ja sie haben überhaupt Alles gethan, um der elementaren Wirkung furcht- und mitleiderweckender Bilder entgegenzuwirken: sie wollten eben nicht Furcht und Mitleid, - Aristoteles in Ehren und höchsten Ehren! aber er traf sicherlich nicht den Nagel, geschweige den Kopf des Nagels, als er vom letzten Zweck der griechischen Tragödie sprach! Man sehe sich doch die griechischen Dichter der Tragödie darauf hin an, was am Meisten ihren Fleiss, ihre Erfindsamkeit, ihren Wetteifer erregt hat, - gewiss nicht die Absicht auf Ueberwältigung der Zuschauer durch Affecte! Der Athener gieng in's Theater, um schöne Reden zu hören! Und um schöne Reden war es dem Sophokles zu thun! - man vergebe mir diese Ketzerei! - Sehr verschieden steht es mit der ernsten Oper: alle ihre Meister lassen es sich angelegen sein, zu verhüten, dass man ihre Personen verstehe. Ein gelegentlich aufgerafftes Wort mag dem unaufmerksamen Zuhörer zu Hülfe kommen: im Ganzen muss die Situation sich selber erklären, - es liegt Nichts an den Reden! - so denken sie Alle und so haben sie Alle mit den Worten ihre Possen getrieben. Vielleicht hat es ihnen nur an Muth gefehlt, um ihre letzte Geringschätzung des Wortes ganz auszudrücken: ein wenig Frechheit mehr bei Rossini und er hätte durchweg la-la-la-la singen lassen - und es wäre Vernunft dabei gewesen! Es soll den Personen der Oper eben nicht "auf's Wort" geglaubt werden, sondern auf den Ton! Das ist der Unterschied, das ist die schöne Unnatürlichkeit, derentwegen man in die Oper geht! Selbst das recitativo secco will nicht eigentlich als Wort und Text angehört sein: diese Art von Halbmusik soll vielmehr dem musicalischen Ohre zunächst eine kleine Ruhe geben (die Ruhe von der Melodie, als dem sublimsten und desshalb auch anstrengendsten Genusse dieser Kunst) -, aber sehr bald etwas Anderes: nämlich eine wachsende Ungeduld, ein wachsendes Widerstreben, eine neue Begierde nach ganzer Musik, nach Melodie. - Wie verhält es sich, von diesem Gesichtspuncte aus gesehen, mit der Kunst Richard Wagner's? Vielleicht anders? Oft wollte es mir scheinen, als ob man Wort und Musik seiner Schöpfungen vor der Aufführung auswendig gelernt haben müßte: denn ohne diess - so schien es mir - höre man weder die Worte noch selber die Musik.

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Griechischer Geschmack. - "Was ist Schönes daran? - sagte jener Feldmesser nach einer Aufführung der Iphigenie - es wird Nichts darin bewiesen!" Sollten die Griechen so fern von diesem Geschmacke gewesen sein? Bei Sophokles wenigstens wird "Alles bewiesen".

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Der esprit ungriechisch. - Die Griechen sind in allem ihrem Denken unbeschreiblich logisch und schlicht; sie sind dessen, wenigstens für ihre lange gute Zeit, nicht überdrüssig geworden, wie die Franzosen es so häufig werden: welche gar zu gerne einen kleinen Sprung in's Gegentheil machen und den Geist der Logik eigentlich nur vertragen, wenn er durch eine Menge solcher kleiner Sprünge in's Gegentheil seine gesellige Artigkeit, seine gesellige Selbstverleugnung verräth. Logik erscheint ihnen als nothwendig, wie Brod und Wasser, aber auch gleich diesen als eine Art Gefangenenkost, sobald sie rein und allein genossen werden sollen. In der guten Gesellschaft muss man niemals vollständig und allein Recht haben wollen, wie es alle reine Logik will: daher die kleine Dosis Unvernunft in allem französischen esprit. - Der gesellige Sinn der Griechen war bei Weitem weniger entwickelt, als der der Franzosen es ist und war: daher so wenig esprit bei ihren geistreichsten Männern, daher so wenig Witz selbst bei ihren Witzbolden, daher - ach! Man wird mir schon diese meine Sätze nicht glauben, und wie viele der Art habe ich noch auf der Seele! - Est res magna tacere - sagt Martial mit allen Geschwätzigen.

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Uebersetzungen. - Man kann den Grad des historischen Sinnes, welchen eine Zeit besitzt, daran abschätzen, wie diese Zeit Uebersetzungen macht und vergangene Zeiten und Bücher sich einzuverleiben sucht. Die Franzosen Corneille's, und auch noch die der Revolution, bemächtigten sich des römischen Alterthums in einer Weise, zu der wir nicht den Muth mehr hätten - Dank unserem höheren historischen Sinne. Und das römische Alterthum selbst: wie gewaltsam und naiv zugleich legte es seine Hand auf alles Gute und Hohe des griechischen älteren Alterthums! Wie übersetzten sie in die römische Gegenwart hinein! Wie verwischten sie absichtlich und unbekümmert den Flügelstaub des Schmetterlings Augenblick! So übersetzte Horaz hier und da den Alcäus oder den Archilochus, so Properz den Callimachus und Philetas (Dichter gleichen Ranges mit Theokrit, wenn wir urtheilen dürfen): was lag ihnen daran, dass der eigentliche Schöpfer Diess und Jenes erlebt und die Zeichen davon in sein Gedicht hineingeschrieben hatte! - als Dichter waren sie dem antiquarischen Spürgeiste, der dem historischen Sinne voranläuft, abhold, als Dichter liessen sie diese ganz persönlichen Dinge und Namen und Alles, was einer Stadt, einer Küste, einem Jahrhundert als seine Tracht und Maske zu eigen war, nicht gelten, sondern stellten flugs das Gegenwärtige und das Römische an seine Stelle. Sie scheinen uns zu fragen: "Sollen wir das Alte nicht für uns neu machen und uns in ihm zurechtlegen? Sollen wir nicht unsere Seele diesem todten Leibe einblasen dürfen? denn todt ist er nun einmal: wie hässlich ist alles Todte!" - Sie kannten den Genuss des historischen Sinnes nicht; das Vergangene und Fremde war ihnen peinlich, und als Römern ein Anreiz zu einer römischen Eroberung. In der That, man eroberte damals, wenn man übersetzte, - nicht nur so, dass man das Historische wegliess: nein, man fügte die Anspielung auf das Gegenwärtige hinzu, man strich vor Allem den Namen des Dichters hinweg und setzte den eigenen an seine Stelle - nicht im Gefühl des Diebstahls, sondern mit dem allerbesten Gewissen des imperium Romanum.

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Vom Ursprunge der Poesie. - Die Liebhaber des Phantastischen am Menschen, welche zugleich die Lehre von der instinctiven Moralität vertreten, schliessen so: "gesetzt, man habe zu allen Zeiten den Nutzen als die höchste Gottheit verehrt, woher dann in aller Welt ist die Poesie gekommen? - diese Rhythmisirung der Rede, welche der Deutlichkeit der Mittheilung eher entgegenwirkt, als förderlich ist, und die trotzdem wie ein Hohn auf alle nützliche Zweckmässigkeit überall auf Erden aufgeschossen ist und noch aufschiesst! Die wildschöne Unvernünftigkeit der Poesie widerlegt euch, ihr Utilitarier! Gerade vom Nutzen einmal loskommen wollen - das hat den Menschen erhoben, das hat ihn zur Moralität und Kunst inspirirt!" Nun ich muss hierin einmal den Utilitariern zu Gefallen reden, - sie haben ja so selten Recht, dass es zum Erbarmen ist! Man hatte in jenen alten Zeiten, welche die Poesie in's Dasein riefen, doch die Nützlichkeit dabei im Auge und eine sehr grosse Nützlichkeit - damals als man den Rhythmus in die Rede dringen liess, jene Gewalt die alle Atome des Satzes neu ordnet, die Worte wählen heisst und den Gedanken neu färbt und dunkler, fremder, ferner macht: freilich eine abergläubische Nützlichkeit! Es sollte vermöge des Rhythmus den Göttern ein menschliches Anliegen tiefer eingeprägt werden, nachdem man bemerkt hatte, dass der Mensch einen Vers besser im Gedächtniss behält, als eine ungebundene Rede; ebenfalls meinte man durch das rhythmische Tiktak über grössere Fernen hin sich hörbar zu machen; das rhythmisirte Gebet schien den Göttern näher an's Ohr zu kommen. Vor Allem aber wollte man den Nutzen von jener elementaren Ueberwältigung haben, welche der Mensch an sich beim Hören der Musik erfährt: der Rhythmus ist ein Zwang; er erzeugt eine unüberwindliche Lust, nachzugeben, mit einzustimmen; nicht nur der Schritt der Füsse, auch die Seele selber geht dem Tacte nach, - wahrscheinlich, so schloss man, auch die Seele der Götter! Man versuchte sie also durch den Rhythmus zu zwingen und eine Gewalt über sie auszuüben: man warf ihnen die Poesie wie eine magische Schlinge um. Es gab noch eine wunderlichere Vorstellung: und diese gerade hat vielleicht am mächtigsten zur Entstehung der Poesie gewirkt. Bei den Phythagoreern erscheint sie als philosophische Lehre und als Kunstgriff der Erziehung: aber längst bevor es Philosophen gab, gestand man der Musik die Kraft zu, die Affecte zu entladen, die Seele zu reinigen, die ferocia animi zu mildern - und zwar gerade durch das Rhythmische in der Musik. Wenn die richtige Spannung und Harmonie der Seele verloren gegangen war, musste man tanzen, in dem Tacte des Sängers, - das war das Recept dieser Heilkunst. Mit ihr stillte Terpander einen Aufruhr, besänftigte Empedokles einen Rasenden, reinigte Damon einen liebessiechen Jüngling; mit ihr nahm man auch die wildgewordenen rachsüchtigen Götter in Cur. Zuerst dadurch, dass man den Taumel und die Ausgelassenheit ihrer Affecte auf's Höchste trieb, also den Rasenden toll, den Rachsüchtigen rachetrunken machte: - alle orgiastischen Culte wollen die ferocia einer Gottheit auf Ein Mal entladen und zur Orgie machen, damit sie hinterher sich freier und ruhiger fühle und den Menschen in Ruhe lasse. Melos bedeutet seiner Wurzel nach ein Besänftigungsmittel, nicht weil es selber sanft ist, sondern weil seine Nachwirkung sanft macht. - Und nicht nur im Cultusliede, auch bei dem weltlichen Liede der ältesten Zeiten ist die Voraussetzung, dass das Rhythmische eine magische Kraft übe, zum Beispiel beim Wasserschöpfen oder Rudern, das Lied ist eine Bezauberung der hierbei thätig gedachten Dämonen, es macht sie willfährig, unfrei und zum Werkzeug des Menschen. Und so oft man handelt, hat man einen Anlass zu singen, - jede Handlung ist an die Beihülfe von Geistern geknüpft: Zauberlied und Besprechung scheinen die Urgestalt der Poesie zu sein. Wenn der Vers auch beim Orakel verwendet wurde - die Griechen sagten, der Hexameter sei in Delphi erfunden -, so sollte der Rhythmus auch hier einen Zwang ausüben. Sich prophezeien lassen - das bedeutet ursprünglich (nach der mir wahrscheinlichen Ableitung des griechischen Wortes): sich Etwas bestimmen lassen; man glaubt die Zukunft erzwingen zu können dadurch, dass man Apollo für sich gewinnt: er, der nach der ältesten Vorstellung viel mehr, als ein vorhersehender Gott ist. So wie die Formel ausgesprochen wird, buchstäblich und rhythmisch genau, so bindet sie die Zukunft: die Formel aber ist die Erfindung Apollo's, welcher als Gott der Rhythmen auch die Göttinnen des Schicksals binden kann. - Im Ganzen gesehen und gefragt: gab es für die alte abergläubische Art des Menschen überhaupt etwas Nützlicheres, als den Rhythmus? Mit ihm konnte man Alles: eine Arbeit magisch fördern; einen Gott nöthigen, zu erscheinen, nahe zu sein, zuzuhören; die Zukunft sich nach seinem Willen zurecht machen; die eigene Seele von irgend einem Uebermaasse (der Angst, der Manie, des Mitleids, der Rachsucht) entladen, und nicht nur die eigene Seele, sondern die des bösesten Dämons, - ohne den Vers war man Nichts, durch den Vers wurde man beinahe ein Gott. Ein solches Grundgefühl lässt sich nicht mehr völlig ausrotten, - und noch jetzt, nach Jahrtausende langer Arbeit in der Bekämpfung solchen Aberglaubens, wird auch der Weiseste von uns gelegentlich zum Narren des Rhythmus, sei es auch nur darin, dass er einen Gedanken als wahrer empfindet, wenn er eine metrische Form hat und mit einem göttlichen Hopsasa daher kommt. Ist es nicht eine sehr lustige Sache, dass immer noch die ernstesten Philosophen, so streng sie es sonst mit aller Gewissheit nehmen, sich auf Dichtersprüche berufen, um ihren Gedanken Kraft und Glaubwürdigkeit zu geben? - und doch ist es für eine Wahrheit gefährlicher, wenn der Dichter ihr zustimmt, als wenn er ihr widerspricht! Denn wie Homer sagt: Viel ja lügen die Sänger! " -

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Das Gute und das Schöne. - Die Künstler verherrlichen fortwährend - sie thun nichts Anderes -: und zwar alle jene Zustände und Dinge, welche in dem Rufe stehen, dass bei ihnen und in ihnen der Mensch sich einmal gut oder gross, oder trunken, oder lustig, oder wohl und weise fühlen kann. Diese ausgelesenen Dinge und Zustände, deren Werth für das menschliche Glück als sicher und abgeschätzt gilt, Sind die Objecte der Künstler: sie liegen immer auf der Lauer, dergleichen zu entdecken und in's Gebiet der Kunst hinüberzuziehen. Ich will sagen: sie sind nicht selber die Taxatoren des Glückes und des Glücklichen, aber sie drängen sich immer in die Nähe dieser Taxatoren, mit der grössten Neugierde und Lust, sich ihre Schätzungen sofort zu Nutze zu machen. So werden sie, weil sie ausser ihrer Ungeduld auch die grossen Lungen der Herolde und die Füsse der Läufer haben, immer auch unter den Ersten sein, die das neue Gute verherrlichen, und oft als Die erscheinen, welche es zuerst gut nennen und als gut taxiren. Diess aber ist, wie gesagt, ein Irrthum: sie sind nur geschwinder und lauter, als die wirklichen Taxatoren. - Und wer sind denn diese? - Es sind die Reichen und die Müssigen.

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Vom Theater. - Dieser Tag gab mir wieder starke und hohe Gefühle, und wenn ich an seinem Abende Musik und Kunst haben könnte, so weiss ich wohl, welche Musik und Kunst ich nicht haben möchte, nämlich alle jene nicht, welche ihre Zuhörer berauschen und zu einem Augenblicke starken und hohen Gefühls emportreiben möchte, - jene Menschen des Alltags der Seele, die am Abende nicht Siegern auf Triumphwägen gleichen, sondern müden Maulthieren, an denen das Leben die Peitsche etwas zu oft geübt hat. Was würden jene Menschen überhaupt von "höheren Stimmungen" wissen, wenn es nicht rauscherzeugende Mittel und idealische Peitschenschläge gäbe! - und so haben sie ihre Begeisterer, wie sie ihre Weine haben. Aber was ist mir ihr Getränk und ihre Trunkenheit! Was braucht der Begeisterte den Wein! Vielmehr blickt er mit einer Art von Ekel auf die Mittel und Mittler hin, welche hier eine Wirkung ohne zureichenden Grund erzeugen sollen, - eine Nachäffung der hohen Seelenfluth! - Wie? Man schenkt dem Maulwurf Flügel und stolze Einbildungen, - vor Schlafengehen, bevor er in seine Höhle kriecht? Man schickt ihn in's Theater und setzt ihm grosse Gläser vor seine blinden und müden Augen? Menschen, deren Leben keine "Handlung", sondern ein Geschäft ist, sitzen vor der Bühne und schauen fremdartigen Wesen zu, denen das Leben mehr ist, als ein Geschäft? "So ist es anständig", sagt ihr, "So ist es unterhaltend, so will es die Bildung!" - Nun denn! So fehlt mir allzuoft die Bildung: denn dieser Anblick ist mir allzuoft ekelhaft. Wer an sich der Tragödie und Komödie genug hat, bleibt wohl am Liebsten fern vom Theater; oder, zur Ausnahme, der ganze Vorgang - Theater und Publicum und Dichter eingerechnet - wird ihm zum eigentlichen tragischen und komischen Schauspiel, sodass das aufgeführte Stück dagegen ihm nur wenig bedeutet. Wer Etwas wie Faust und Manfred ist, was liegt dem an den Fausten und Manfreden des Theaters! - während es ihm gewiss noch zu denken giebt, dass man überhaupt dergleichen Figuren aufs Theater bringt. Die stärksten Gedanken und Leidenschaften vor Denen, welche des Denkens und der Leidenschaft nicht fähig sind - aber des Rausches! Und jene als ein Mittel zu diesem! Und Theater und Musik das Haschisch-Rauchen und Betel-Kauen der Europäer! Oh wer erzählt uns die ganze Geschichte der Narcotica! - Es ist beinahe die Geschichte der "Bildung", der sogenannten höheren Bildung!

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Von der Eitelkeit der Künstler. - Ich glaube, dass die Künstler oft nicht wissen, was sie am besten können, weil sie zu eitel sind und ihren Sinn auf etwas Stolzeres gerichtet haben, als diese kleinen Pflanzen zu sein scheinen, welche neu, seltsam und schön, in wirklicher Vollkommenheit auf ihrem Boden zu wachsen vermögen. Das letzthin Gute ihres eigenen Gartens und Weinbergs wird von ihnen obenhin abgeschätzt, und ihre Liebe und ihre Einsicht sind nicht gleichen Ranges. Da ist ein Musiker, der mehr als irgend ein Musiker darin seine Meisterschaft hat, die Töne aus dem Reiche leidender, gedrückter, gemarterter Seelen zu finden und auch noch den stummen Thieren Sprache zu geben. Niemand kommt ihm gleich in den Farben des späten Herbstes, dem unbeschreiblich rührenden Glücke eines letzten, allerletzten, allerkürzesten Geniessens, er kennt einen Klang für jene heimlich-unheimlichen Mitternächte der Seele, wo Ursache und Wirkung aus den Fugen gekommen zu sein scheinen und jeden Augenblick Etwas "aus dem Nichts" entstehen kann; er schöpft am glücklichsten von Allen aus dem unteren Grunde des menschlichen Glückes und gleichsam aus dessen ausgetrunkenem Becher, wo die herbsten und widrigsten Tropfen zu guter- und böserletzt mit den süssesten zusammengelaufen sind; er kennt jenes müde Sich-schieben der Seele, die nicht mehr springen und fliegen, ja nicht mehr gehen kann; er hat den scheuen Blick des verhehlten Schmerzes, des Verstehens ohne Trost, des Abschiednehmens ohne Geständniss; ja, als der Orpheus alles heimlichen Elendes ist er grösser, als irgend Einer, und Manches ist durch ihn überhaupt der Kunst hinzugefügt worden, was bisher unausdrückbar und selbst der Kunst unwürdig erschien, und mit Worten namentlich nur zu verscheuchen, nicht zu fassen war, - manches ganz Kleine und Mikroskopische der Seele: ja, es ist der Meister des ganz Kleinen. Aber er will es nicht sein! Sein Charakter liebt vielmehr die grossen Wände und die verwegene Wandmalerei! Es entgeht ihm, dass sein Geist einen anderen Geschmack und Hang hat und am liebsten still in den Winkeln zusammengestürzter Häuser sitzt: - da, verborgen, sich selber verborgen, malt er seine eigentlichen Meisterstücke, welche alle sehr kurz sind, oft nur Einen Tact lang, - da erst wird er ganz gut, gross und vollkommen, da vielleicht allein. - Aber er weiss es nicht! Er ist zu eitel dazu, es zu wissen.

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Der Ernst um die Wahrheit. - Ernst um die Wahrheit! Wie Verschiedenes verstehen die Menschen bei diesen Worten! Eben die selben Ansichten und Arten von Beweis und Prüfung, welche ein Denker an sich wie eine Leichtfertigkeit empfindet, der er zu seiner Scham in dieser oder jener Stunde unterlegen ist, - eben die selben Ansichten können einem Künstler, der auf sie stösst und mit ihnen zeitweilig lebt, das Bewusstsein geben, jetzt habe ihn der tiefste Ernst um die Wahrheit erfasst, und es sei bewunderungswürdig, dass er, obschon Künstler, doch zugleich die ernsthafteste Begierde nach dem Gegensatze des Scheinenden zeige. So ist es möglich, dass Einer gerade mit seinem Pathos von Ernsthaftigkeit verräth, wie oberflächlich und genügsam sein Geist bisher im Reiche der Erkenntniss gespielt hat. - Und ist nicht Alles, was wir wichtig nehmen, unser Verräther? Es zeigt, wo unsere Gewichte liegen und wofür wir keine Gewichte besitzen.

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Jetzt und ehedem. - Was liegt an aller unsrer Kunst der Kunstwerke, wenn jene höhere Kunst, die Kunst der Feste, uns abhanden kommt! Ehemals waren alle Kunstwerke an der grossen Feststrasse der Menschheit aufgestellt, als Erinnerungszeichen und Denkmäler hoher und seliger Momente. Jetzt will man mit den Kunstwerken die armen Erschöpften und Kranken von der grossen Leidensstrasse der Menschheit bei Seite locken, für ein lüsternes Augenblickchen; man bietet ihnen einen kleinen Rausch und Wahnsinn an.

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Lichter und Schatten. - Die Bücher und Niederschriften sind bei verschiedenen Denkern Verschiedenes: der Eine hat im Buche die Lichter zusammengebracht, die er geschwind aus den Strahlen einer ihm aufleuchtenden Erkenntniss wegzustehlen und heimzutragen wusste; ein Anderer giebt nur die Schatten, die Nachbilder in Grau und Schwarz von dem wieder, was Tags zuvor in seiner Seele sich aufbaute.

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Vorsicht. - Alfieri hat, wie bekannt, sehr viel gelogen, als er den erstaunten Zeitgenossen seine Lebensgeschichte erzählte. Er log aus jenem Despotismus gegen sich selber, den er zum Beispiel in der Art bewies, wie er sich seine eigene Sprache schuf und sich zum Dichter tyrannisirte: - er hatte endlich eine strenge Form von Erhabenheit gefunden, in welche er sein Leben und sein Gedächtniss hineinpresste: es wird viel Qual dabei gewesen sein. - Ich würde auch einer Lebensgeschichte Platon's, von ihm selber geschrieben, keinen Glauben schenken: so wenig, als der Rousseau's, oder der vita nuova Dante's.

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Prosa und Poesie. - Man beachte doch, dass die grossen Meister der Prosa fast immer auch Dichter gewesen sind, sei es öffentlich, oder auch nur im Geheimen und für das "Kämmerlein"; und fürwahr, man schreibt nur im Angesichte der Poesie gute Prosa! Denn diese ist ein ununterbrochener artiger Krieg mit der Poesie: alle ihre Reize bestehen darin, dass beständig der Poesie ausgewichen und widersprochen wird; jedes Abstractum will als Schalkheit gegen diese und wie mit spöttischer Stimme vorgetragen sein; jede Trockenheit und Kühle soll die liebliche Göttin in eine liebliche Verzweifelung bringen; oft giebt es Annäherungen, Versöhnungen des Augenblickes und dann ein plötzliches Zurückspringen und Auslachen; oft wird der Vorhang aufgezogen und grelles Licht hereingelassen, während gerade die Göttin ihre Dämmerungen und dumpfen Farben geniesst; oft wird ihr das Wort aus dem Munde genommen und nach einer Melodie abgesungen, bei der sie die feinen Hände vor die feinen Oehrchen hält - und so giebt es tausend Vergnügungen des Krieges, die Niederlagen mitgezählt, von denen die Unpoetischen, die sogenannten Prosa-Menschen, gar Nichts wissen: - diese schreiben und sprechen denn auch nur schlechte Prosa! Der Krieg ist der Vater aller guten Dinge, der Krieg ist auch der Vater der guten Prosa! - Vier sehr seltsame und wahrhaft dichterische Menschen waren es in diesem Jahrhundert, welche an die Meisterschaft der Prosa gereicht haben, für die sonst diess Jahrhundert nicht gemacht ist - aus Mangel an Poesie, wie angedeutet. Um von Goethe abzusehen, welchen billigerweise das Jahrhundert in Anspruch nimmt, das ihn hervorbrachte: so sehe ich nur Giacomo Leopardi, Prosper Mérimée, Ralph Waldo Emerson und Walter Savage Landor, den Verfasser der Imaginary Conversations, als würdig an, Meister der Prosa zu heissen.

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Aber warum schreibst denn du? - A.: Ich gehöre nicht zu Denen, welche mit der nassen Feder in der Hand denken; und noch weniger zu jenen, die sich gar vor dem offenen Tintenfasse ihren Leidenschaften überlassen, auf ihrem Stuhle sitzend und auf's Papier starrend. Ich ärgere oder schäme mich alles Schreibens; Schreiben ist für mich eine Nothdurft, - selbst im Gleichniss davon zu reden, ist mir widerlich. B.: Aber warum schreibst du dann? A.: Ja, mein Lieber, im Vertrauen gesagt: ich habe bisher noch kein anderes Mittel gefunden, meine Gedanken los zu werden. B.: Und warum willst du sie los werden? A.: Warum ich will? Will ich denn? Ich muss. - B.: Genug! Genug!

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Wachsthum nach dem Tode. - Jene kleinen verwegenen Worte über moralische Dinge, welche Fontenelle in seinen unsterblichen Todtengesprächen hinwarf, galten seiner Zeit als Paradoxien und Spiele eines nicht unbedenklichen Witzes; selbst die höchsten Richter des Geschmackes und des Geistes sahen nicht mehr darin, - ja, vielleicht Fontenelle selber nicht. Nun ereignet sich etwas Unglaubliches: diese Gedanken werden Wahrheiten! Die Wissenschaft beweist sie! Das Spiel wird zum Ernst! Und wir lesen jene Dialoge mit einer anderen Empfindung, als Voltaire und Helvetius sie lasen, und heben unwillkürlich ihren Urheber in eine andere und viel höhere Rangclasse der Geister, als jene thaten, - mit Recht? Mit Unrecht?

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Chamfort. - Dass ein solcher Kenner der Menschen und der Menge, wie Chamfort, eben der Menge beisprang und nicht in philosophischer Entsagung und Abwehr seitwärts stehen blieb, das weiss ich mir nicht anders zu erklären, als so: Ein Instinct war in ihm stärker, als seine Weisheit, und war nie befriedigt worden, der Hass gegen alle Noblesse des Geblüts: vielleicht der alte nur zu erklärliche Hass seiner Mutter, welcher durch die Liebe zur Mutter in ihm heilig gesprochen - war, - ein Instinct der Rache von seinen Knabenjahren her, der die Stunde erwartete, die Mutter zu rächen. Und nun hatte ihn das Leben und sein Genie, und ach! am meisten wohl das väterliche Blut in seinen Adern dazu verführt, eben dieser Noblesse sich einzureihen und gleichzustellen - viele viele Jahre lang! Endlich ertrug er aber seinen eigenen Anblick, den Anblick des "alten Menschen" unter dem alten Regime nicht mehr; er gerieth in eine heftige Leidenschaft der Busse, und in dieser zog er das Gewand des Pöbels an, als seine Art von härener Kutte! Sein böses Gewissen war die Versäumniss der Rache. - Gesetzt, Chamfort wäre damals um einen Grad mehr Philosoph geblieben, so hätte die Revolution ihren tragischen Witz und ihren schärfsten Stachel nicht bekommen: sie würde als ein viel dümmeres Ereigniss gelten und keine solche Verführung der Geister sein. Aber der Hass und die Rache Chamfort's erzogen ein ganzes Geschlecht: und die erlauchtesten Menschen machten diese Schule durch. Man erwäge doch, dass Mirabeau zu Chamfort wie zu seinem höheren und älteren Selbst aufsah, von dem er Antriebe, Warnungen und Richtersprüche erwartete und ertrug, - Mirabeau, der als Mensch zu einem ganz anderen Range der Grösse gehört, als selbst die Ersten unter den staatsmännischen Grössen von gestern und heute. - Seltsam, dass trotz einem solchen Freunde und Fürsprecher - man hat ja die Briefe Mirabeau's an Chamfort - dieser witzigste aller Moralisten den Franzosen fremd geblieben ist, nicht anders, als Stendhal, der vielleicht unter allen Franzosen dieses Jahrhunderts die gedankenreichsten Augen und Ohren gehabt hat. Ist es, dass Letzterer im Grunde zu viel von einem Deutschen und Engländer an sich hatte, um den Parisern noch erträglich zu sein? - während Chamfort, ein Mensch, reich an Tiefen und Hintergründen der Seele, düster, leidend, glühend, - ein Denker, der das Lachen als das Heilmittel gegen das Leben nöthig fand, und der sich beinahe verloren gab, an jedem Tage, wo er nicht gelacht hatte, - vielmehr wie ein Italiäner und Blutsverwandter Dante's und Leopardi's erscheint, als wie ein Franzose! Man kennt die letzten Worte Chamfort's: "Ah! mon ami, sagte er zu Sieyès, je m'en vais enfin de ce monde, où il faut que le cњur se brise ou se bronze -". Das sind sicherlich nicht Worte eines sterbenden Franzosen.

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Zwei Redner. - Von diesen beiden Rednern erreicht der eine die ganze Vernunft seiner Sache nur dann, wenn er sich der Leidenschaft überlässt: erst diese pumpt genug Blut und Hitze ihm in's Gehirn, um seine hohe Geistigkeit zur Offenbarung zu zwingen. Der Andere versucht wohl hier und da das Selbe: mit Hülfe der Leidenschaft seine Sache volltönend, heftig und hinreissend vorzubringen, - aber gewöhnlich mit einem schlechten Erfolge. Er redet dann sehr bald dunkel und verwirrt, er übertreibt, macht Auslassungen und erregt gegen die Vernunft seiner Sache Misstrauen: ja, er selber empfindet dabei diess Misstrauen, und daraus erklären sich plötzliche Sprünge in die kältesten und abstossendsten Töne, welche in dem Zuhörer einen Zweifel erregen, ob seine ganze Leidenschaftlichkeit ächt gewesen sei. Bei ihm überfluthet jedes Mal die Leidenschaft den Geist; vielleicht, weil sie stärker ist, als bei dem Ersten. Aber er ist auf der Höhe seiner Kraft, wenn er dem andringenden Sturme seiner Empfindung widersteht und ihn gleichsam verhöhnt: da erst tritt sein Geist ganz aus seinem Versteck heraus, ein logischer, spöttischer, spielender, und doch furchtbarer Geist.

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Von der Geschwätzigkeit der Schriftsteller. - Es giebt eine Geschwätzigkeit des Zornes, - häufig bei Luther, auch bei Schopenhauer. Eine Geschwätzigkeit aus einem zu grossen Vorrathe von Begriffsformeln wie bei Kant. Eine Geschwätzigkeit aus Lust an immer neuen Wendungen der selben Sache: man findet sie bei Montaigne. Eine Geschwätzigkeit hämischer Naturen: wer Schriften dieser Zeit liest, wird sich hierbei zweier Schriftsteller erinnern. Eine Geschwätzigkeit aus Lust an guten Worten und Sprachformen: nicht selten in der Prosa Goethe's. Eine Geschwätzigkeit aus innerem Wohlgefallen an Lärm und Wirrwarr der Empfindungen: zum Beispiel bei Carlyle.

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Zum Ruhme Shakespeare's. - Das Schönste, was ich zum Ruhme Shakespeare's, des Menschen, zu sagen wüsste, ist diess: er hat an Brutus geglaubt und kein Stäubchen Misstrauens auf diese Art Tugend geworfen! Ihm hat er seine beste Tragödie geweiht - sie wird jetzt immer noch mit einem falschen Namen genannt -, ihm und dem furchtbarsten Inbegriff hoher Moral. Unabhängigkeit der Seele! - das gilt es hier! Kein Opfer kann da zu gross sein: seinen liebsten Freund selbst muss man ihr opfern können, und sei er noch dazu der herrlichste Mensch, die Zierde der Welt, das Genie ohne Gleichen, - wenn man nämlich die Freiheit als die Freiheit grosser Seelen liebt, und durch ihn dieser Freiheit Gefahr droht: - derart muss Shakespeare gefühlt haben! Die Höhe, in welche er Cäsar stellt, ist die feinste Ehre, die er Brutus erweisen konnte: so erst erhebt er dessen inneres Problem in's Ungeheure und ebenso die seelische Kraft, welche diesen Knoten zu zerhauen vermochte! - Und war es wirklich die politische Freiheit, welche diesen Dichter zum Mitgefühl mit Brutus trieb, - zum Mitschuldigen des Brutus machte? Oder war die politische Freiheit nur eine Symbolik für irgend etwas Unaussprechbares? Stehen wir vielleicht vor irgend einem unbekannt gebliebenen dunklen Ereignisse und Abenteuer aus des Dichters eigener Seele, von dem er nur durch Zeichen reden mochte? Was ist alle Hamlet-Melancholie gegen die Melancholie des Brutus! - und vielleicht kennt Shakespeare auch diese, wie er jene kannte, aus Erfahrung! Vielleicht hatte auch er seine finstere Stunde und seinen bösen Engel, gleich Brutus! - Was es aber auch derart von Aehnlichkeiten und geheimen Bezügen gegeben haben mag: vor der ganzen Gestalt und Tugend des Brutus warf Shakespeare sich auf den Boden und fühlte sich unwürdig und ferne: - das Zeugniss dafür hat er in seine Tragödie hineingeschrieben. Zweimal hat er in ihr einen Poeten vorgeführt und zweimal eine solche ungeduldige und allerletzte Verachtung über ihn geschüttet, dass es wie ein Schrei klingt, - wie der Schrei der Selbstverachtung. Brutus, selbst Brutus verliert die Geduld, als der Poet auftritt, eingebildet, pathetisch, zudringlich, wie Poeten zu sein pflegen, als ein Wesen, welches von Möglichkeiten der Grösse, auch der sittlichen Grösse, zu strotzen scheint und es doch in der Philosophie der That und des Lebens selten selbst bis zur gemeinen Rechtschaffenheit bringt. "Kennt er die Zeit, so kenn' ich seine Launen, - fort mit dem Schellen-Hanswurst!" - ruft Brutus. Man übersetze sich diess' zurück in die Seele des Poeten, der es dichtete.

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Die Anhänger Schopenhauer's. - Was man beider Berührung von Cultur-Völkern und Barbaren zu sehen bekommt: dass regelmässig die niedrigere Cultur von der höheren zuerst deren Laster, Schwächen und Ausschweifungen annimmt, von da aus einen Reiz auf sich ausgeübt fühlt und endlich vermittelst der angeeigneten Laster und Schwächen Etwas von der werthhaltigen Kraft der höheren Cultur mit auf sich überströmen lässt: - das kann man auch in der Nähe und ohne Reisen zu Barbaren-Völkern mit ansehen, freilich etwas verfeinert und vergeistigt und nicht so leicht mit Händen zu greifen. Was pflegen doch die Anhänger Schopenhauer's in Deutschland von ihrem Meister zuerst anzunehmen? - als welche, im Vergleich zu dessen überlegener Cultur, sich barbarenhaft genug vorkommen müssen, um auch durch ihn zuerst barbarenhaft fascinirt und verführt zu werden. Ist es sein harter Thatsachen-Sinn, sein guter Wille zu Helligkeit und Vernunft, der ihn oft so englisch und so wenig deutsch erscheinen lässt? Oder die Stärke seines intellectuellen Gewissens, das einen lebenslangen Widerspruch zwischen Sein und Wollen aushielt und ihn dazu zwang, sich auch in seinen Schriften beständig und fast in jedem Puncte zu widersprechen? Oder seine Reinlichkeit in Dingen der Kirche und des christlichen Gottes? - denn hierin war er reinlich wie kein deutscher Philosoph bisher, so dass er "als Voltairianer" lebte und starb. Oder seine unsterblichen Lehren von der Intellectualität der Anschauung, von der Apriorität des Causalitätsgesetzes, von der Werkzeug-Natur des Intellects und der Unfreiheit des Willens? Nein, diess Alles bezaubert nicht und wird nicht als bezaubernd gefühlt: aber die mystischen Verlegenheiten und Ausflüchte Schopenhauer's, an jenen Stellen, wo der Thatsachen-Denker sich vom eitlen Triebe, der Enträthseler der Welt zu sein, verführen und verderben liess, die unbeweisbare Lehre von Eine in Willen ("alle Ursachen sind nur Gelegenheitsursachen der Erscheinung des Willens zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Orte", der Wille zum Leben ist in jedem Wesen, auch dem geringsten, ganz und ungetheilt vorhanden, so vollständig, wie in Allen, die je waren, sind und sein werden, zusammengenommen"), die Leugnung des Individuums ("alle Löwen sind im Grunde nur Ein Löwe", die Vielheit der Individuen ist ein Schein"; sowie auch die Entwicklung nur ein Schein ist: - er nennt den Gedanken de Lamarck's, "einen genialen, absurden Irrthum"), die Schwärmerei vom Genie ("in der ästhetischen Anschauung ist das Individuum nicht mehr Individuum, sondern reines, willenloses, Schmerzloses, zeitloses Subject der Erkenntniss"; "das Subject, indem es in dem angeschauten Gegenstande ganz aufgeht, ist dieser Gegenstand selbst geworden"), der Unsinn vom Mitleide und der in ihm ermöglichten Durchbrechung des principii individuationis als der Quelle aller Moralität, hinzugerechnet solche Behauptungen "das Sterben ist eigentlich der Zweck des Daseins", "es lässt sich a priori nicht geradezu die Möglichkeit ableugnen, dass eine magische Wirkung nicht auch sollte von einem bereits Gestorbenen ausgehen können": diese und ähnliche Ausschweifungen und Laster des Philosophen werden immer am ersten angenommen und zur Sache des Glaubens gemacht: - Laster und Ausschweifungen sind nämlich immer am leichtesten nachzuahmen und wollen keine lange Vorübung. Doch reden wir von dem berühmtesten der lebenden Schopenhauerianer, von Richard Wagner. - Ihm ist es ergangen, wie es schon manchem Künstler ergangen ist: er vergriff sich in der Deutung der Gestalten, die er schuf, und verkannte die unausgesprochene Philosophie seiner eigensten Kunst. Richard Wagner hat sich bis in die Mitte seines Lebens durch Hegel irreführen lassen; er that das Selbe noch einmal, als er später Schopenhauer's Lehre aus seinen Gestalten herauslas und mit "Wille", "Genie" und "Mitleid" sich selber zu formuliren begann. Trotzdem wird es wahr bleiben: Nichts geht gerade so sehr wider den Geist Schopenhauer's, als das eigentlich Wagnerische an den Helden Wagner's: ich meine die Unschuld der höchsten Selbstsucht, der Glaube an die grosse Leidenschaft als an das Gute an sich, mit Einem Worte, das Siegfriedhafte im Antlitze seiner Helden. "Das Alles riecht eher noch nach Spinoza als nach mir" - würde vielleicht Schopenhauer sagen. So gute Gründe also Wagner hätte, sich gerade nach anderen Philosophen umzusehen als nach Schopenhauer: die Bezauberung, der er in Betreff dieses Denkers unterlegen ist, hat ihn nicht nur gegen alle anderen Philosophen, sondern sogar gegen die Wissenschaft selber blind gemacht; immer mehr will seine ganze Kunst sich als Seitenstück und Ergänzung der Schopenhauerschen Philosophie geben und immer ausdrücklicher verzichtet sie auf den höheren Ehrgeiz, Seitenstück und Ergänzung der menschlichen Erkenntniss und Wissenschaft zu werden. Und nicht nur reizt ihn dazu der ganze geheimnissvolle Prunk dieser Philosophie, welche auch einen Cagliostro gereizt haben würde: auch die einzelnen Gebärden und die Affecte der Philosophen waren stets Verführer! Schopenhauerisch ist zum Beispiel Wagner's Ereiferung über die Verderbniss der deutschen Sprache; und wenn man hierin die Nachahmung gut heissen sollte, so darf doch auch nicht verschwiegen werden, dass Wagner's Stil selber nicht wenig an all den Geschwüren und Geschwülsten krankt, deren Anblick Schopenhauern so wüthend machte, und dass, in Hinsicht auf die deutsch schreibenden Wagnerianer, die Wagnerei sich so gefährlich zu erweisen beginnt, als nur irgend eine Hegelei sich erwiesen hat. Schopenhauerisch ist Wagner's Hass gegen die Juden, denen er selbst in ihrer grössten That nicht gerecht zu werden vermag: die Juden sind ja die Erfinder des Christenthums. Schopenhauerisch ist der Versuch Wagner's, das Christenthum als ein verwehtes Korn des Buddhismus aufzufassen und für Europa, unter zeitweiliger Annäherung an katholisch-christliche Formeln und Empfindungen, ein buddhistisches Zeitalter vorzubereiten. Schopenhauerisch ist Wagner's Predigt zu Gunsten der Barmherzigkeit im Verkehre mit Thieren; Schopenhauer's Vorgänger hierin war bekanntlich Voltaire, der vielleicht auch schon, gleich seinen Nachfolgern, seinen Hass gegen gewisse Dinge und Menschen als Barmherzigkeit gegen Thiere zu verkleiden wusste. Wenigstens ist Wagner's Hass gegen die Wissenschaft, der aus seiner Predigt spricht, gewiss nicht vom Geiste der Mildherzigkeit und Güte eingegeben - noch auch, wie es sich von selber versteht, vom Geiste überhaupt. - Zuletzt ist wenig an der Philosophie eines Künstlers gelegen, falls sie eben nur eine nachträgliche Philosophie ist und seiner Kunst selber keinen Schaden thut. Man kann sich nicht genug davor hüten, einem Künstler um einer gelegentlichen, vielleicht sehr unglücklichen und anmaasslichen Maskerade willen gram zu werden; vergessen wir doch nicht, dass die lieben Künstler sammt und sonders ein wenig Schauspieler sind und sein müssen und ohne Schauspielerei es schwerlich auf die Länge aushielten. Bleiben wir Wagnern in dem treu, was an ihm wahr und ursprünglich ist, - und namentlich dadurch, dass wir, seine Jünger, uns selber in dem treu bleiben, was an uns wahr und ursprünglich ist. Lassen wir ihm seine intellectuellen Launen und Krämpfe, erwägen wir vielmehr in Billigkeit, welche seltsamen Nahrungen und Nothdürfte eine Kunst, wie die seine, haben darf, um leben und wachsen zu können! Es liegt Nichts daran, dass er als Denker so oft Unrecht hat; Gerechtigkeit und Geduld sind nicht seine Sache. Genug, dass sein Leben vor sich selber Recht hat und Recht behält: - dieses Leben, welches Jedem von uns zuruft: "Sei ein Mann und folge mir nicht nach, - sondern dir! Sondern dir!" Auch unser Leben soll vor uns selber Recht behalten! Auch wir sollen frei und furchtlos, in unschuldiger Selbstigkeit aus uns selber wachsen und blühen! Und so klingen mir, bei der Betrachtung eines solchen Menschen, auch heute noch, wie ehedem, diese Sätze an's Ohr: "dass Leidenschaft besser ist, als Stoicismus und Heuchelei, dass Ehrlich-sein, selbst im Bösen, besser ist, als sich selber an die Sittlichkeit des Herkommens verlieren, dass der freie Mensch sowohl gut als böse sein kann, dass aber der unfreie Mensch eine Schande der Natur ist, und an keinem himmlischen noch irdischen Troste Antheil hat; endlich dass Jeder, der frei werden will, es durch sich selber werden muss, und dass Niemandem die Freiheit als ein Wundergeschenk in den Schooss fällt". (Richard Wagner in Bayreuth S- 94.)

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Huldigen lernen. - Auch das Huldigen müssen die Menschen lernen wie das Verachten. Jeder, der auf neuen Bahnen geht und Viele auf neue Bahnen geführt hat, entdeckt mit Staunen, wie ungeschickt und arm diese Vielen im Ausdruck ihrer Dankbarkeit sind, ja wie selten sich überhaupt auch nur die Dankbarkeit äussern kann. Es ist als ob ihr immer, wenn sie einmal reden will, Etwas in die Kehle komme, sodass sie sich nur räuspert und im Räuspern wieder verstummt. Die Art, wie ein Denker die Wirkung seiner Gedanken und ihre umbildende und erschütternde Gewalt zu spüren bekommt, ist beinahe eine Komödie; mitunter hat es das Ansehen, als ob Die, auf welche gewirkt worden ist, sich im Grunde dadurch beleidigt fühlten und ihre, wie sie fürchten, bedrohte Selbständigkeit nur in allerlei Unarten zu äussern wüssten. Es bedarf ganzer Geschlechter, um auch nur eine höfliche Convention des Dankes zu erfinden: und erst sehr spät kommt jener Zeitpunct, wo selbst in die Dankbarkeit eine Art Geist und Genialität gefahren ist: dann ist gewöhnlich auch Einer da, welcher der grosse Dank-Empfänger ist, nicht nur für Das, was er selber Gutes gethan hat, sondern zumeist für Das, was von seinen Vorgängern als ein Schatz des Höchsten und Besten allmählich aufgehäuft worden ist.

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Voltaire. - Ueberall, wo es einen Hof gab, hat er das Gesetz des Gut-Sprechens und damit auch das Gesetz des Stils für alle Schreibenden gegeben. Die höfische Sprache ist aber die Sprache des Höflings, der kein Fach hat und der sich selbst in Gesprächen über wissenschaftliche Dinge alle bequemen technischen Ausdrücke verbietet, weil sie nach dem Fache schmecken, desshalb ist der technische Ausdruck und Alles, was den Specialisten verräth, in den Ländern einer höfischen Cultur ein Flecken des Stils. Man ist jetzt, wo alle Höfe Caricaturen von sonst und jetzt geworden sind, erstaunt, selbst Voltaire in diesem Puncte unsäglich spröde und peinlich zu finden (zum Beispiel in seinem Urtheil über solche Stilisten, wie Fontenelle und Montesquieu), - wir sind eben alle vom höfischen Geschmack emancipirt, während Voltaire dessen Vollender war!

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Ein Wort für die Philologen. - Dass es Bücher giebt, so werthvolle und königliche, dass ganze Gelehrten-Geschlechter gut verwendet sind, wenn durch ihre Mühe diese Bücher rein erhalten und verständlich erhalten werden, - diesen Glauben immer wieder zu befestigen ist die Philologie da. Sie setzt voraus, dass es an jenen seltenen Menschen nicht fehlt (wenn man sie gleich nicht sieht), die so werthvolle Bücher wirklich zu benutzen wissen: - es werden wohl die sein, welche selber solche Bücher machen oder machen könnten. Ich wollte sagen, die Philologie setzt einen vornehmen Glauben voraus, - dass zu Gunsten einiger Weniger, die immer "kommen werden" und nicht da sind, eine sehr grosse Menge von peinlicher, selbst unsauberer Arbeit voraus abzuthun sei: es ist Alles Arbeit in usum Delphinorum.

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Von der deutschen Musik. - Die deutsche Musik ist jetzt schon desshalb, mehr als jede andere, die europäische Musik, weil in ihr allein die Veränderung, welche Europa durch die Revolution erfuhr, einen Ausdruck bekommen hat: nur die deutschen Musiker verstehen sich auf den Ausdruck bewegter Volksmassen, auf jenen ungeheuren künstlichen Lärm, der nicht einmal sehr laut zu sein braucht, - während zum Beispiel die italiänische Oper nur Chöre von Bedienten oder Soldaten kennt, aber kein "Volk". Es kommt hinzu, dass aus aller deutschen Musik eine tiefe bürgerliche Eifersucht auf die noblesse herauszuhören ist, namentlich auf esprit und élégance, als den Ausdruck einer höfischen, ritterlichen, alten, ihrer selber sicheren Gesellschaft. Das ist keine Musik, wie die des Goethischen Sängers vor dem Thore, die auch "im Saale", und zwar dem Könige wohlgefällt; da heisst es nicht: "die Ritter schauten muthig drein und in den Schooss die Schönen". Schon die Grazie tritt nicht ohne Anwandelung von Gewissensbissen in der deutschen Musik auf; erst bei der Anmuth, der ländlichen Schwester der Grazie, fängt der Deutsche an, sich ganz moralisch zu fühlen - und von da an immer mehr bis hinauf zu seiner schwärmerischen, gelehrten, oft bärbeissigen "Erhabenheit", der Beethoven'schen Erhabenheit. Will man sich den Menschen zu dieser Musik denken, nun, so denke man sich eben Beethoven, wie er neben Goethe, etwa bei jener Begegnung in Teplitz, erscheint: als die Halbbarbarei neben der Cultur, als Volk neben Adel, als der gutartige Mensch neben dem guten und mehr noch als "guten" Menschen, als der Phantast neben dem Künstler, als der Trostbedürftige neben dem Getrösteten, als der Uebertreiber und Verdächtiger neben dem Billigen, als der Grillenfänger und Selbstquäler, als der Närrisch-Verzückte, der Selig-Unglückliche, der Treuherzig-Maasslose, als der Anmaassliche und Plumpe - und Alles in Allem als der "ungebändigte Mensch": so empfand und bezeichnete ihn Goethe selber, Goethe der Ausnahme-Deutsche, zu dem eine ebenbürtige Musik noch nicht gefunden ist! - Zuletzt erwäge man noch, ob nicht jene jetzt immer mehr um sich greifende Verachtung der Melodie und Verkümmerung des melodischen Sinnes bei Deutschen als eine demokratische Unart und Nachwirkung der Revolution zu verstehen ist. Die Melodie hat nämlich eine solche offene Lust an der Gesetzlichkeit und einen solchen Widerwillen bei allem Werdenden, Ungeformten, Willkürlichen, dass sie wie ein Klang aus der alten Ordnung der europäischen Dinge und wie eine Verführung und Rückführung zu dieser klingt.

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Vom Klange der deutschen Sprache. - Man weiss, woher das Deutsch stammt, welches seit ein paar Jahrhunderten das allgemeine Schriftdeutsch ist. Die Deutschen, mit ihrer Ehrfurcht vor Allem, was vom Hofe kam, haben sich geflissentlich die Kanzleien zum Muster genommen, in Allem, was sie zu schreiben hatten, also namentlich in ihren Briefen, Urkunden, Testamenten und so weiter. Kanzleimässig schreiben, das war hof- und regierungsmässig schreiben, - das war etwas Vornehmes, gegen das Deutsch der Stadt gehalten, in der man gerade lebte. Allmählich zog man den Schluss und sprach auch so, wie man schrieb, - so wurde man noch vornehmer, in den Wortformen, in der Wahl der Worte und Wendungen und zuletzt auch im Klange: man affectirte einen höfischen Klang, wenn man sprach, und die Affectation wurde zuletzt Natur. Vielleicht hat sich etwas ganz Gleiches nirgendswo ereignet: die Uebergewalt des Schreibestils über die Rede und die Ziererei und Vornehmthuerei eines ganzen Volkes als Grundlage einer gemeinsamen nicht mehr dialektischen Sprache. Ich glaube, der Klang der deutschen Sprache war im Mittelalter, und namentlich nach dem Mittelalter, tief bäuerisch und gemein: er hat sich in den letzten Jahrhunderten etwas veredelt, hauptsächlich dadurch, dass man sich genöthigt fand, so viel französische, italiänische und spanische Klänge nachzuahmen und zwar gerade von Seiten des deutschen (und österreichischen) Adels, der mit der Muttersprache sich durchaus nicht begnügen konnte. Aber für Montaigne oder gar Racine muss trotz dieser Uebung Deutsch unerträglich gemein geklungen haben: und selbst jetzt klingt es) im Munde der Reisenden, mitten unter italiänischem Pöbel, noch immer sehr roh, wälderhaft, heiser, wie aus räucherigen Stuben und unhöflichen Gegenden stammend. - Nun bemerke ich, dass jetzt wieder unter den ehemaligen Bewunderern der Kanzleien ein ähnlicher Drang nach Vornehmheit des Klanges um sich greift, und dass die Deutschen einem ganz absonderlichen "Klangzauber" sich zu fügen anfangen, der auf die Dauer eine wirkliche Gefahr für die deutsche Sprache werden könnte, - denn abscheulichere Klänge sucht man in Europa vergebens. Etwas Höhnisches, Kaltes, Gleichgültiges, Nachlässiges in der Stimme: das klingt jetzt den Deutschen "vornehm" - und ich höre den guten Willen zu dieser Vornehmheit in den Stimmen der jungen Beamten, Lehrer, Frauen, Kaufleute; ja die kleinen Mädchen machen schon dieses Offizierdeutsch nach. Denn der Offizier, und zwar der preussische, ist der Erfinder dieser Klänge: dieser selbe Offizier, der als Militär und Mann des Fachs jenen bewunderungswürdigen Tact der Bescheidenheit besitzt, an dem die Deutschen allesammt zu lernen hätten (die deutschen Professoren und Musicanten eingerechnet!). Aber sobald er spricht und sich bewegt, ist er die unbescheidenste und geschmackwidrigste Figur im alten Europa - sich selber unbewusst, ohne allen Zweifel! Und auch den guten Deutschen unbewusst, die in ihm den Mann der ersten und vornehmsten Gesellschaft anstaunen und sich gerne "den Ton von ihm angeben" lassen. Das thut er denn auch! - und zunächst sind es die Feldwebel und Unteroffiziere, welche seinen Ton nachahmen und vergröbern. Man gebe Acht auf die Commandorufe, von denen die deutschen Städte förmlich umbrüllt werden, jetzt wo man vor allen Thoren exerciert: welche Anmaassung, welches wüthende Autoritätsgefühl, welche höhnische Kälte klingt aus diesem Gebrüll heraus! Sollten die Deutschen wirklich ein musicalisches Volk sein? - Sicher ist, dass die Deutschen sich jetzt im Klange ihrer Sprache militarisiren: wahrscheinlich ist, dass sie, eingeübt militärisch zu sprechen, endlich auch militärisch schreiben werden. Denn die Gewohnheit an bestimmte Klänge greift tief in den Charakter: - man hat bald die Worte und Wendungen und schliesslich auch die Gedanken, welche eben zu diesem Klange passen! Vielleicht schreibt man jetzt schon offiziermäßig; vielleicht lese ich nur zu wenig von dem, was man jetzt in Deutschland schreibt. Aber Eines weiss ich um so sicherer: die öffentlichen deutschen Kundgebungen, die auch in's Ausland dringen, sind nicht von der deutschen Musik inspirirt, sondern von eben jenem neuen Klange einer geschmackwidrigen Anmaassung. Fast in jeder Rede des ersten deutschen Staatsmannes und selbst dann, wenn er sich durch sein kaiserliches Sprachrohr vernehmen lässt, ist ein Accent, den das Ohr eines Ausländers mit Widerwillen zurückweist: aber die Deutschen ertragen ihn, - sie ertragen sich selber.

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Die Deutschen als Künstler. - Wenn der Deutsche einmal wirklich in Leidenschaft geräth (und nicht nur, wie gewöhnlich, in den guten Willen zur Leidenschaft!), so benimmt er sich dann in derselben, wie er eben muss, und denkt nicht weiter an sein Benehmen. Die Wahrheit aber ist, dass er sich dann sehr ungeschickt und hässlich und wie ohne Tact und Melodie benimmt, sodass die Zuschauer ihre Pein oder ihre Rührung dabei haben und nicht mehr: - es sei denn, dass er sich in das Erhabene und Entzückte hinaufhebt, dessen manche Passionen fähig sind. Dann wird sogar der Deutsche schön! Die Ahnung davon, auf welcher Höhe erst die Schönheit ihren Zauber selbst über Deutsche ausgiesst, treibt die deutschen Künstler in die Höhe und Ueberhöhe und in die Ausschweifungen der Leidenschaft: ein wirkliches tiefes Verlangen also, über die Hässlichkeit und Ungeschicktheit hinauszukommen, mindestens hinauszublicken - hin nach einer besseren, leichteren, südlicheren, sonnenhafteren Welt. Und so sind ihre Krämpfe oftmals nur Anzeichen dafür, dass sie tanzen möchten: diese armen Bären, in denen versteckte Nymphen und Waldgötter ihr Wesen treiben - und mitunter noch höhere Gottheiten!

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Musik als Fürsprecherin. - "Ich habe Durst nach einem Meister der Tonkunst, sagte ein Neuerer zu seinem Jünger, dass er mir meine Gedanken ablerne und sie fürderhin in seiner Sprache rede: so werde ich den Menschen besser zu Ohr und Herzen dringen. Mit Tönen kann man die Menschen zu jedem Irrthume und jeder Wahrheit verführen: wer vermöchte einen Ton zu widerlegen?" - "Also möchtest du für unwiderlegbar gelten?" sagte sein Jünger. Der Neuerer erwiderte. "Ich möchte, dass der Keim zum Baume werde. Damit eine Lehre zum Baume werde, muss sie eine gute Zeit geglaubt werden: damit sie geglaubt werde, muss sie für unwiderlegbar gelten. Dem Baume thun Stürme, Zweifel, Gewürm, Bosheit noth, damit er die Art und Kraft seines Keimes offenbar mache; mag er brechen, wenn er nicht stark genug ist! Aber ein Keim wird immer nur vernichtet, - nicht widerlegt!" - Als er das gesagt hatte, rief sein Jünger mit Ungestüm: "Aber ich glaube an deine Sache und halte sie für so stark, dass ich Alles, Alles sagen werde, was ich noch gegen sie auf dem Herzen habe". - Der Neuerer lachte bei sich und drohte ihm mit dem Finger. "Diese Art Jüngerschaft, sagte er dann, ist die beste, aber sie ist gefährlich und nicht jede Art Lehre verträgt sie".

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Unsere letzte Dankbarkeit gegen die Kunst. - Hätten wir nicht die Künste gut geheissen und diese Art von Cultus des Unwahren erfunden: so wäre die Einsicht in die allgemeine Unwahrheit und Verlogenheit, die uns jetzt durch die Wissenschaft gegeben wird - die Einsicht in den Wahn und Irrthum als in eine Bedingung des erkennenden und empfindenden Daseins -, gar nicht auszuhalten. Die Redlichkeit würde den Ekel und den Selbstmord im Gefolge haben. Nun aber hat unsere Redlichkeit eine Gegenmacht, die uns solchen Consequenzen ausweichen hilft: die Kunst, als den guten Willen zum Scheine. Wir verwehren es unserm Auge nicht immer, auszurunden, zu Ende zu dichten: und dann ist es nicht mehr die ewige Unvollkommenheit, die wir über den Fluss des Werdens tragen - dann meinen wir, eine Göttin zu tragen und sind stolz und kindlich in dieser Dienstleistung. Als ästhetisches Phänomen ist uns das Dasein immer noch erträglich, und durch die Kunst ist uns Auge und Hand und vor Allem das gute Gewissen dazu gegeben, aus uns selber ein solches Phänomen machen zu können. Wir müssen zeitweilig von uns ausruhen, dadurch, dass wir auf uns hin und hinab sehen und, aus einer künstlerischen Ferne her, über uns lachen oder über uns weinen; wir müssen den Helden und ebenso den Narren entdecken, der in unsrer Leidenschaft der Erkenntniss steckt, wir müssen unsrer Thorheit ab und zu froh werden, um unsrer Weisheit froh bleiben zu können! Und gerade weil wir im letzten Grunde schwere und ernsthafte Menschen und mehr Gewichte als Menschen sind, so thut uns Nichts so gut als die Schelmenkappe: wir brauchen sie vor uns selber - wir brauchen alle übermüthige, schwebende, tanzende, spottende, kindische und selige Kunst, um jener Freiheit über den Dingen nicht verlustig zu gehen, welche unser Ideal von uns fordert. Es wäre ein Rückfall für uns, gerade mit unsrer reizbaren Redlichkeit ganz in die Moral zu gerathen und um der überstrengen Anforderungen willen, die wir hierin an uns stellen, gar noch selber zu tugendhaften Ungeheuern und Vogelscheuchen zu werden. Wir sollen auch über der Moral stehen können: und nicht nur stehen, mit der ängstlichen Steifigkeit eines Solchen, der jeden Augenblick auszugleiten und zu fallen fürchtet, sondern auch über ihr schweben und spielen! Wie könnten wir dazu der Kunst, wie des Narren entbehren? - Und so lange ihr euch noch irgendwie vor euch selber schämt, gehört ihr noch nicht zu uns!

Drittes Buch

108

Neue Kämpfe. - Nachdem Buddha todt war, zeigte man noch Jahrhunderte lang seinen Schatten in einer Höhle, - einen ungeheuren schauerlichen Schatten. Gott ist todt: aber so wie die Art der Menschen ist, wird es vielleicht noch Jahrtausende lang Höhlen geben, in denen man seinen Schatten zeigt. - Und wir - wir müssen auch noch seinen Schatten besiegen!

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Hüten wir uns. - Hüten wir uns, zu denken, dass die Welt ein lebendiges Wesen sei. Wohin sollte sie sich ausdehnen? Wovon sollte sie sich nähren? Wie könnte sie wachsen und sich vermehren? Wir wissen ja ungefähr, was das Organische ist: und wir sollten das unsäglich Abgeleitete, Späte, Seltene, Zufällige, das wir nur auf der Kruste der Erde wahrnehmen, zum Wesentlichen, Allgemeinen, Ewigen umdeuten, wie es jene thun, die das All einen Organismus nennen? Davor ekelt mir. Hüten wir uns schon davor, zu glauben, dass das All eine Maschine sei; es ist gewiss nicht auf Ein Ziel construirt, wir thun ihm mit dem Wort "Maschine" eine viel zu hohe Ehre an. Hüten wir uns, etwas so Formvolles, wie die kyklischen Bewegungen unserer Nachbar-Sterne überhaupt und überall vorauszusetzen; schon ein Blick in die Milchstrasse lässt Zweifel auftauchen, ob es dort nicht viel rohere und widersprechendere Bewegungen giebt, ebenfalls Sterne mit ewigen geradlinigen Fallbahnen und dergleichen. Die astrale Ordnung, in der wir leben, ist eine Ausnahme; diese Ordnung und die ziemliche Dauer, welche durch sie bedingt ist, hat wieder die Ausnahme der Ausnahmen ermöglicht - die Bildung des Organischen. Der Gesammt-Charakter der Welt ist dagegen in alle Ewigkeit Chaos, nicht im Sinne der fehlenden Nothwendigkeit, sondern der fehlenden Ordnung, Gliederung, Form, Schönheit, Weisheit, und wie alle unsere ästhetischen Menschlichkeiten heissen. Von unserer Vernunft aus geurtheilt, sind die verunglückten Würfe weitaus die Regel, die Ausnahmen sind nicht das geheime Ziel, und das ganze Spielwerk wiederholt ewig seine Weise, die nie eine Melodie heissen darf, - und zuletzt ist selbst das Wort "verunglückter Wurf" schon eine Vermenschlichung, die einen Tadel in sich schliesst. Aber wie dürften wir das All tadeln oder loben! Hüten wir uns, ihm Herzlosigkeit und Unvernunft oder deren Gegensätze nachzusagen: es ist weder vollkommen, noch schön, noch edel, und will Nichts von alledem werden, es strebt durchaus nicht darnach, den Menschen nachzuahmen! Es wird durchaus durch keines unserer ästhetischen und moralischen Urtheile getroffen! Es hat auch keinen Selbsterhaltungstrieb und überhaupt keine Triebe; es kennt auch keine Gesetze. Hüten wir uns, zu sagen, dass es Gesetze in der Natur gebe. Es giebt nur Nothwendigkeiten: da ist Keiner, der befiehlt, Keiner, der gehorcht, Keiner, der übertritt. Wenn ihr wisst, dass es keine Zwecke giebt, so wisst ihr auch, dass es keinen Zufall giebt: denn nur neben einer Welt von Zwecken hat das Wort "Zufall" einen Sinn. Hüten wir uns, zu sagen, dass Tod dem Leben entgegengesetzt sei. Das Lebende ist nur eine Art des Todten, und eine sehr seltene Art. - Hüten wir uns, zu denken, die Welt schaffe ewig Neues. Es giebt keine ewig dauerhaften Substanzen; die Materie ist ein eben solcher Irrthum, wie der Gott der Eleaten. Aber wann werden wir am Ende mit unserer Vorsicht und Obhut sein! Wann werden uns alle diese Schatten Gottes nicht mehr verdunkeln? Wann werden wir die Natur ganz entgöttlicht haben! Wann werden wir anfangen dürfen, uns Menschen mit der reinen, neu gefundenen, neu erlösten Natur zu vernatürlichen.

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Ursprung der Erkenntniss. - Der Intellect hat ungeheure Zeitstrecken hindurch Nichts als Irrthümer erzeugt; einige davon ergaben sich als nützlich und arterhaltend: wer auf sie stiess, oder sie vererbt bekam, kämpfte seinen Kampf für sich und seinen Nachwuchs mit grösserem Glücke. Solche irrthümliche Glaubenssätze, die immer weiter vererbt und endlich fast zum menschlichen Art- und Grundbestand wurden, sind zum Beispiel diese: dass es dauernde Dinge gebe, dass es gleiche Dinge gebe, dass es Dinge, Stoffe, Körper gebe, dass ein Ding Das sei, als was es erscheine, dass unser Wollen frei sei, dass was für mich gut ist, auch an und für sich gut sei. Sehr spät erst traten die Leugner und Anzweifler solcher Sätze auf, - sehr spät erst trat die Wahrheit auf, als die unkräftigste Form der Erkenntniss. Es schien, dass man mit ihr nicht zu leben vermöge, unser Organismus war auf ihren Gegensatz eingerichtet; alle seine höheren Functionen, die Wahrnehmungen der Sinne und jede Art von Empfindung überhaupt, arbeiteten mit jenen uralt einverleibten Grundirrthümern. Mehr noch: jene Sätze wurden selbst innerhalb der Erkenntniss zu den Normen, nach denen man "wahr" und "unwahr" bemass - bis hinein in die entlegensten Gegenden der reinen Logik. Also: die Kraft der Erkenntnisse liegt nicht in ihrem Grade von Wahrheit, sondern in ihrem Alter, ihrer Einverleibtheit, ihrem Charakter als Lebensbedingung. Wo Leben und Erkennen in Widerspruch zu kommen schienen, ist nie ernstlich gekämpft worden; da galt Leugnung und Zweifel als Tollheit. Jene Ausnahme-Denker, wie die Eleaten, welche trotzdem die Gegensätze der natürlichen Irrthümer aufstellten und festhielten, glaubten daran, dass es möglich sei, dieses Gegentheil auch zu leben: sie erfanden den Weisen als den Menschen der Unveränderlichkeit, Unpersönlichkeit, Universalität der Anschauung, als Eins und Alles zugleich, mit einem eigenen Vermögen für jene umgekehrte Erkenntniss; sie waren des Glaubens, dass ihre Erkenntniss zugleich das Princip des Lebens sei. Um diess Alles aber behaupten zu können, mussten sie sich über ihren eigenen Zustand täuschen: sie mussten sich Unpersönlichkeit und Dauer ohne Wechsel andichten, das Wesen des Erkennenden verkennen, die Gewalt der Triebe im Erkennen leugnen und überhaupt die Vernunft als völlig freie, sich selbst entsprungene Activität fassen; sie hielten sich die Augen dafür zu, dass auch sie im Widersprechen gegen das Gültige, oder im Verlangen nach Ruhe oder Alleinbesitz oder Herrschaft zu ihren Sätzen gekommen waren. Die feinere Entwickelung der Redlichkeit und der Skepsis machte endlich auch diese Menschen unmöglich; auch ihr Leben und Urtheilen ergab sich als abhängig von den uralten Trieben und Grundirrthümern alles empfindenden Daseins. - Jene feinere Redlichkeit und Skepsis hatte überall dort ihre Entstehung, wo zwei entgegengesetzte Sätze auf das Leben anwendbar erschienen, weil sich beide mit den Grundirrthümern vertrugen, wo also über den höheren oder geringeren Grad des Nutzens für das Leben gestritten werden konnte; ebenfalls dort, wo neue Sätze sich dem Leben zwar nicht nützlich, aber wenigstens auch nicht schädlich zeigten, als Aeusserungen eines intellectuellen Spieltriebes, und unschuldig und glücklich gleich allem Spiele. Allmählich füllte sich das menschliche Gehirn mit solchen Urtheilen und Ueberzeugungen, so entstand in diesem Knäuel Gährung, Kampf und Machtgelüst. Nützlichkeit und Lust nicht nur, sondern jede Art von Trieben nahm Partei in dem Kampfe um die "Wahrheiten"; der intellectuelle Kampf wurde Beschäftigung, Reiz, Beruf, Pflicht, Würde -: das Erkennen und das Streben nach dem Wahren ordnete sich endlich als Bedürfniss in die anderen Bedürfnisse ein. Von da an war nicht nur der Glaube und die Ueberzeugung, sondern auch die Prüfung, die Leugnung, das Misstrauen, der Widerspruch eine Macht, alle "bösen" Instincte waren der Erkenntniss untergeordnet und in ihren Dienst gestellt und bekamen den Glanz des Erlaubten, Geehrten, Nützlichen und zuletzt das Auge und die Unschuld des Guten. Die Erkenntniss wurde also zu einem Stück Leben selber und als Leben zu einer immerfort wachsenden Macht: bis endlich die Erkenntnisse und jene uralten Grundirrthümer auf einander stiessen, beide als Leben, beide als Macht, beide in dem selben Menschen. Der Denker: das ist jetzt das Wesen, in dem der Trieb zur Wahrheit und jene lebenerhaltenden Irrthümer ihren ersten Kampf kämpfen, nachdem auch der Trieb zur Wahrheit sich als eine lebenerhaltende Macht bewiesen hat. Im Verhältniss zu der Wichtigkeit dieses Kampfes ist alles Andere gleichgültig: die letzte Frage um die Bedingung des Lebens ist hier gestellt, und der erste Versuch wird hier gemacht, mit dem Experiment auf diese Frage zu antworten. Inwieweit verträgt die Wahrheit die Einverleibung? - das ist die Frage, das ist das Experiment.

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Herkunft des Logischen. - Woher ist die Logik im menschlichen Kopfe entstanden? Gewiss aus der Unlogik, deren Reich ursprünglich ungeheuer gewesen sein muss. Aber unzählig viele Wesen, welche anders schlossen, als wir jetzt schliessen, giengen zu Grunde: es könnte immer noch wahrer gewesen sein! Wer zum Beispiel das "Gleiche" nicht oft genug aufzufinden wusste, in Betreff der Nahrung oder in Betreff der ihm feindlichen Thiere, wer also zu langsam subsumirte, zu vorsichtig in der Subsumption war, hatte nur geringere Wahrscheinlichkeit des Fortlebens als Der, welcher bei allem Aehnlichen sofort auf Gleichheit rieth. Der überwiegende Hang aber, das Aehnliche als gleich zu behandeln, ein unlogischer Hang - denn es giebt an sich nichts Gleiches -, hat erst alle Grundlage der Logik geschaffen. Ebenso musste, damit der Begriff der Substanz entstehe, der unentbehrlich für die Logik ist, ob ihm gleich im strengsten Sinne nichts Wirkliches entspricht, - lange Zeit das Wechselnde an den Dingen nicht gesehen, nicht empfunden worden sein; die nicht genau sehenden Wesen hatten einen Vorsprung vor denen, welche Alles "im Flusse" sahen. An und für sich ist schon jeder hohe Grad von Vorsicht im Schliessen, jeder skeptische Hang eine grosse Gefahr für das Leben. Es würden keine lebenden Wesen erhalten sein, wenn nicht der entgegengesetzte Hang, lieber zu bejahen als das Urtheil auszusetzen, lieber zu irren und zu dichten als abzuwarten, lieber zuzustimmen als zu verneinen, lieber zu urtheilen als gerecht zu sein - ausserordentlich stark angezüchtet worden wäre. - Der Verlauf logischer Gedanken und Schlüsse in unserem jetzigen Gehirne entspricht einem Processe und Kampfe von Trieben, die an sich einzeln alle sehr unlogisch und ungerecht sind; wir erfahren gewöhnlich nur das Resultat des Kampfes: so schnell und so versteckt spielt sich jetzt dieser uralte Mechanismus in uns ab.

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Ursache und Wirkung. - "Erklärung" nennen wir's: aber "Beschreibung" ist es, was uns vor älteren Stufen der Erkenntniss und Wissenschaft auszeichnet. Wir beschreiben besser, - wir erklären ebenso wenig wie alle Früheren. Wir haben da ein vielfaches Nacheinander aufgedeckt, wo der naive Mensch und Forscher älterer Culturen nur Zweierlei sah, "Ursache" und "Wirkung", wie die Rede lautete; wir haben das Bild des Werdens vervollkommnet, aber sind über das Bild, hinter das Bild nicht hinaus gekommen. Die Reihe der "Ursachen" steht viel vollständiger in jedem Falle vor uns, wir schliessen: diess und das muss erst vorangehen, damit jenes folge, - aber begriffen haben wir damit Nichts. Die Qualität, zum Beispiel bei jedem chemischen Werden, erscheint nach wie vor als ein "Wunder", ebenso jede Fortbewegung; Niemand hat den Stoss "erklärt". Wie könnten wir auch erklären! Wir operiren mit lauter Dingen, die es nicht giebt, mit Linien, Flächen, Körpern, Atomen, theilbaren Zeiten, theilbaren Räumen -, wie soll Erklärung auch nur möglich sein, wenn wir Alles erst zum Bilde machen, zu unserem Bilde! Es ist genug, die Wissenschaft als möglichst getreue Anmenschlichung der Dinge zu betrachten, wir lernen immer genauer uns selber beschreiben, indem wir die Dinge und ihr Nacheinander beschreiben. Ursache und Wirkung: eine solche Zweiheit giebt es wahrscheinlich nie, - in Wahrheit steht ein continuum vor uns, von dem wir ein paar Stücke isoliren; so wie wir eine Bewegung immer nur als isolirte Puncte wahrnehmen, also eigentlich nicht sehen, sondern erschliessen. Die Plötzlichkeit, mit der sich viele Wirkungen abheben, führt uns irre; es ist aber nur eine Plötzlichkeit für uns. Es giebt eine unendliche Menge von Vorgängen in dieser Secunde der Plötzlichkeit, die uns entgehen. Ein Intellect, der Ursache und Wirkung als continuum, nicht nach unserer Art als willkürliches Zertheilt- und Zerstücktsein, sähe, der den Fluss des Geschehens sähe, - würde den Begriff Ursache und Wirkung verwerfen und alle Bedingtheit leugnen.

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Zur Lehre von den Giften. - Es gehört so viel zusammen, damit ein wissenschaftliches Denken entstehe: und alle diese nöthigen Kräfte haben einzeln erfunden, geübt, gepflegt werden müssen! In ihrer Vereinzelung haben sie aber sehr häufig eine ganz andere Wirkung gehabt als jetzt, wo sie innerhalb des wissenschaftlichen Denkens sich gegenseitig beschränken und in Zucht halten: - sie haben als Gifte gewirkt, zum Beispiel der anzweifelnde Trieb, der verneinende Trieb, der abwartende Trieb, der sammelnde Trieb, der auflösende Trieb. Viele Hekatomben von Menschen sind zum Opfer gebracht worden, ehe diese Triebe lernten, ihr Nebeneinander zu begreifen und sich mit einander als Functionen Einer organisirenden Gewalt in Einem Menschen zu fühlen! Und wie ferne sind wir noch davon, dass zum wissenschaftlichen Denken sich auch noch die künstlerischen Kräfte und die practische Weisheit des Lebens hinzufinden, dass ein höheres organisches System sich bildet, in Bezug auf welches der Gelehrte, der Arzt, der Künstler und der Gesetzgeber, so wie wir jetzt diese kennen, als dürftige Alterthümer erscheinen müssten!

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Umfang des Moralischen. - Wir construiren ein neues Bild, das wir sehen, sofort mit Hülfe aller alten Erfahrungen, die wir gemacht haben, je nach dem Grade unserer Redlichkeit und Gerechtigkeit. Es giebt gar keine anderen als moralische Erlebnisse, selbst nicht im Bereiche der Sinneswahrnehmung.

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Die vier Irrthümer. - Der Mensch ist durch seine Irrthümer erzogen worden: er sah sich erstens immer nur unvollständig, zweitens legte er sich erdichtete Eigenschaften bei, drittens fühlte er sich in einer falschen Rangordnung zu Thier und Natur, viertens erfand er immer neue Gütertafeln und nahm sie eine Zeit lang als ewig und unbedingt, sodass bald dieser, bald jener menschliche Trieb und Zustand an der ersten Stelle stand und in Folge dieser Schätzung veredelt wurde. Rechnet man die Wirkung dieser vier Irrthümer weg, so hat man auch Humanität, Menschlichkeit und "Menschenwürde" hinweggerechnet.

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Heerden-Instinct. - Wo wir eine Moral antreffen, da finden wir eine Abschätzung und Rangordnung der menschlichen Triebe und Handlungen. Diese Schätzungen und Rangordnungen sind immer der Ausdruck der Bedürfnisse einer Gemeinde und Heerde: Das, was ihr am ersten frommt - und am zweiten und dritten -, das ist auch der oberste Maassstab für den Werth aller Einzelnen. Mit der Moral wird der Einzelne angeleitet, Function der Heerde zu sein und nur als Function sich Werth zuzuschreiben. Da die Bedingungen der Erhaltung einer Gemeinde sehr verschieden von denen einer anderen Gemeinde gewesen sind, so gab es sehr verschiedene Moralen; und in Hinsicht auf noch bevorstehende wesentliche Umgestaltungen der Heerden und Gemeinden, Staaten und Gesellschaften kann man prophezeien, dass es noch sehr abweichende Moralen geben wird. Moralität ist Heerden-Instinct im Einzelnen.

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Heerden-Gewissensbiss. - In den längsten und fernsten Zeiten der Menschheit gab es einen ganz anderen Gewissensbiss als heut zu Tage. Heute fühlt man sich nur verantwortlich für Das, was man will und thut, und hat in sich selber seinen Stolz: alle unsere Rechtslehrer gehen von diesem Selbst- und Lustgefühle des Einzelnen aus, wie als ob hier von jeher die Quelle des Rechts entsprungen sei. Aber die längste Zeit der Menschheit hindurch gab es nichts Fürchterlicheres, als sich einzeln zu fühlen. Allein sein, einzeln empfinden, weder gehorchen noch herrschen, ein Individuum bedeuten - das war damals keine Lust, sondern eine Strafe; man wurde verurtheilt "zum Individuum". Gedankenfreiheit galt als das Unbehagen selber. Während wir Gesetz und Einordnung als Zwang und Einbusse empfinden, empfand man ehedem den Egoismus als eine peinliche Sache, als eine eigentliche Noth. Selbst sein, sich selber nach eigenem Maass und Gewicht schätzen - das gieng damals wider den Geschmack. Die Neigung dazu würde als Wahnsinn empfunden worden sein: denn mit dem Alleinsein war jedes Elend und jede Furcht verknüpft. Damals hatte der "freie Wille" das böse Gewissen in seiner nächsten Nachbarschaft: und je unfreier man handelte, je mehr der Heerden-Instinct und nicht der persönliche Sinn aus der Handlung sprach, um so moralischer schätzte man sich. Alles, was der Heerde Schaden that, sei es, dass der Einzelne es gewollt oder nicht gewollt hatte, machte damals dem Einzelnen Gewissensbisse - und seinem Nachbar noch dazu, ja der ganzen Heerde! - Darin haben wir am allermeisten umgelernt.

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Wohlwollen. - Ist es tugendhaft, wenn eine Zelle sich in die Function einer stärkeren Zelle verwandelt? Sie muss es. Und ist es böse, wenn die stärkere jene sich assimilirt? Sie muss es ebenfalls; so ist es für sie nothwendig, denn sie strebt nach überreichlichem Ersatz und will sich regeneriren. Demnach hat man im Wohlwollen zu unterscheiden: den Aneignungstrieb und den Unterwerfungstrieb, je nachdem der Stärkere oder der Schwächere Wohlwollen empfindet. Freude und Begehren sind bei dem Stärkeren, der Etwas zu seiner Function umbilden will, beisammen: Freude und Begehrtwerdenwollen bei dem Schwächeren, der Function werden möchte. - Mitleid ist wesentlich das Erstere, eine angenehme Regung des Aneignungstriebes, beim Anblick des Schwächeren: wobei noch zu bedenken ist, dass "stark" und "schwach" relative Begriffe sind.

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Kein Altruismus! - Ich sehe an vielen Menschen eine überschüssige Kraft und Lust, Function sein zu wollen; sie drängen sich dorthin und haben die feinste Witterung für alle jene Stellen, wo gerade sie Function sein können. Dahin gehören jene Frauen, die sich in die Function eines Mannes verwandeln, welche an ihm gerade schwach entwickelt ist, und dergestalt zu seinem Geldbeutel oder zu seiner Politik oder zu seiner Geselligkeit werden. Solche Wesen erhalten sich selber am besten, wenn sie sich in einen fremden Organismus einfügen; gelingt es ihnen nicht, so werden sie ärgerlich, gereizt und fressen sich selber auf.

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Gesundheit der Seele. - Die beliebte medicinische Moralformel (deren Urheber Ariston von Chios ist): "Tugend ist die Gesundheit der Seele" - müsste wenigstens, um brauchbar zu sein, dahin abgeändert werden: "deine Tugend ist die Gesundheit deiner Seele". Denn eine Gesundheit an sich giebt es nicht, und alle Versuche, ein Ding derart zu definiren, sind kläglich missrathen. Es kommt auf dein Ziel, deinen Horizont, deine Kräfte, deine Antriebe, deine Irrthümer und namentlich auf die Ideale und Phantasmen deiner Seele an, um zu bestimmen, was selbst für deinen Leib Gesundheit zu bedeuten habe. Somit giebt es unzählige Gesundheiten des Leibes; und je mehr man dem Einzelnen und Unvergleichlichen wieder erlaubt, sein Haupt zu erheben, je mehr man das Dogma von der "Gleichheit der Menschen" verlernt, um so mehr muss auch der Begriff einer Normal-Gesundheit, nebst Normal-Diät, Normal-Verlauf der Erkrankung unsern Medicinern abhanden kommen. Und dann erst dürfte es an der Zeit sein, über Gesundheit und Krankheit der Seele nachzudenken und die eigenthümliche Tugend eines Jeden in deren Gesundheit zu setzen: welche freilich bei dem Einen so aussehen könnte wie der Gegensatz der Gesundheit bei einem Anderen. Zuletzt bliebe noch die grosse Frage offen, ob wir der Erkrankung entbehren könnten, selbst zur Entwickelung unserer Tugend, und ob nicht namentlich unser Durst nach Erkenntniss und Selbsterkenntniss der kranken Seele so gut bedürfe als der gesunden: kurz, ob nicht der alleinige Wille zur Gesundheit ein Vorurtheil, eine Feigheit und vielleicht ein Stück feinster Barbarei und Rückständigkeit sei.

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Das Leben kein Argument. Wir haben uns eine Welt zurecht gemacht, in der wir leben können - mit der Annahme von Körpern, Linien, Flächen, Ursachen und Wirkungen, Bewegung und Ruhe, Gestalt und Inhalt: ohne diese Glaubensartikel hielte es jetzt Keiner aus zu leben! Aber damit sind sie noch nichts Bewiesenes. Das Leben ist kein Argument; unter den Bedingungen des Lebens könnte der Irrthum sein.

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Die moralische Skepsis im Christenthum. - Auch das Christenthum hat einen grossen Beitrag zur Aufklärung gegeben: es lehrte die moralische Skepsis auf eine sehr eindringliche und wirksame Weise: anklagend, verbitternd, aber mit unermüdlicher Geduld und Feinheit: es vernichtete in jedem einzelnen Menschen den Glauben an seine "Tugenden": es liess für immer jene grossen Tugendhaften von der Erde verschwinden, an denen das Alterthum nicht arm war, jene populären Menschen, die im Glauben an ihre Vollendung mit der Würde eines Stiergefechtshelden umherzogen. Wenn wir jetzt, erzogen in dieser christlichen Schule der Skepsis, die moralischen Bücher der Alten, zum Beispiel Seneca's und Epiktet's, lesen, so fühlen wir eine kurzweilige Ueberlegenheit und sind voller geheimer Einblicke und Ueberblicke, es ist uns dabei zu Muthe, als ob ein Kind vor einem alten Manne oder eine junge schöne Begeisterte vor La Rochefoucauld redete: wir kennen Das, was Tugend ist, besser! Zuletzt haben wir aber diese selbe Skepsis auch auf alle religiösen Zustände und Vorgänge, wie Sünde, Reue, Gnade, Heiligung, angewendet und den Wurm so gut graben lassen, dass wir nun auch beim Lesen aller christlichen Bücher das selbe Gefühl der feinen Ueberlegenheit und Einsicht haben: - wir kennen auch die religiösen Gefühle besser! Und es ist Zeit, sie gut zu kennen und gut zu beschreiben, denn auch die Frommen des alten Glaubens sterben aus: - retten wir ihr Abbild und ihren Typus wenigstens für die Erkenntniss!

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Die Erkenntniss mehr, als ein Mittel. - Auch ohne diese neue Leidenschaft - ich meine die Leidenschaft der Erkenntniss - würde die Wissenschaft gefördert werden: die Wissenschaft ist ohne sie bisher gewachsen und gross geworden. Der gute Glaube an die Wissenschaft, das ihr günstige Vorurtheil, von dem unsere Staaten jetzt beherrscht sind (ehedem war es sogar die Kirche), ruht im Grunde darauf, dass jener unbedingte Hang und Drang sich so selten in ihr offenbart hat, und dass Wissenschaft eben nicht als Leidenschaft, sondern als Zustand und "Ethos" gilt. Ja, es genügt oft schon amour-plaisir der Erkenntniss (Neugierde), es genügt amour-vanité, Gewöhnung an sie, mit der Hinterabsicht auf Ehre und Brod, es genügt selbst für Viele, dass sie mit einem Ueberschuss von Musse Nichts anzufangen wissen als lesen, sammeln, ordnen, beobachten, weiter erzählen: ihr "wissenschaftlicher Trieb" ist ihre Langeweile. Der Papst Leo der Zehnte hat einmal (im Breve an Beroaldus) das Lob der Wissenschaft gesungen: er bezeichnet sie als den schönsten Schmuck und den grössten Stolz unseres Lebens, als eine edle Beschäftigung in Glück und Unglück; "ohne sie, sagt er endlich, wäre alles menschliche Unternehmen ohne festen Halt, - auch mit ihr ist es ja noch veränderlich und unsicher genug!" Aber dieser leidlich skeptische Papst verschweigt, wie alle anderen kirchlichen Lobredner der Wissenschaft, sein letztes Urtheil über sie. Mag man nun aus seinen Worten heraushören, was für einen solchen Freund der Kunst merkwürdig genug ist, dass er die Wissenschaft über die Kunst stellt; zuletzt ist es doch nur eine Artigkeit, wenn er hier nicht von dem redet, was auch er hoch über alle Wissenschaft stellt: von der "geoffenbarten Wahrheit" und von dem "ewigen Heil der Seele", - was sind ihm dagegen Schmuck, Stolz, Unterhaltung, Sicherung des Lebens! "Die Wissenschaft ist Etwas von zweitem Range, nichts Letztes, Unbedingtes, kein Gegenstand der Passion", - diess Urtheil blieb in der Seele Leo's zurück: das eigentlich christliche Urtheil über die Wissenschaft! Im Alterthum war ihre Würde und Anerkennung dadurch verringert, dass selbst unter ihren eifrigsten Jüngern das Streben nach der Tugend voranstand, und dass man der Erkenntniss schon ihr höchstes Lob gegeben zu haben glaubte, wenn man sie als das beste Mittel der Tugend feierte. Es ist etwas Neues in der Geschichte, dass die Erkenntniss mehr sein will, als ein Mittel.

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Im Horizont des Unendlichen. - Wir haben das Land verlassen und sind zu Schiff gegangen! Wir haben die Brücke hinter uns, - mehr noch, wir haben das Land hinter uns abgebrochen! Nun, Schifflein! sieh' dich vor! Neben dir liegt der Ocean, es ist wahr, er brüllt nicht immer, und mitunter liegt er da, wie Seide und Gold und Träumerei der Güte. Aber es kommen Stunden, wo du erkennen wirst, dass er unendlich ist und dass es nichts Furchtbareres giebt, als Unendlichkeit. Oh des armen Vogels, der sich frei gefühlt hat und nun an die Wände dieses Käfigs stösst! Wehe, wenn das Land-Heimweh dich befällt, als ob dort mehr Freiheit gewesen wäre, - und es giebt kein "Land" mehr!

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Der tolle Mensch. - Habt ihr nicht von jenem tollen Menschen gehört, der am hellen Vormittage eine Laterne anzündete, auf den Markt lief und unaufhörlich schrie: "ich suche Gott! Ich suche Gott!" - Da dort gerade Viele von Denen zusammen standen, welche nicht an Gott glaubten, so erregte er ein grosses Gelächter. Ist er denn verloren gegangen? sagte der Eine. Hat er sich verlaufen wie ein Kind? sagte der Andere. Oder hält er sich versteckt? Fürchtet er sich vor uns? Ist er zu Schiff gegangen? ausgewandert? - so schrieen und lachten sie durcheinander. Der tolle Mensch sprang mitten unter sie und durchbohrte sie mit seinen Blicken. "Wohin ist Gott? rief er, ich will es euch sagen! Wir haben ihn getödtet, - ihr und ich! Wir Alle sind seine Mörder! Aber wie haben wir diess gemacht? Wie vermochten wir das Meer auszutrinken? Wer gab uns den Schwamm, um den ganzen Horizont wegzuwischen? Was thaten wir, als wir diese Erde von ihrer Sonne losketteten? Wohin bewegt sie sich nun? Wohin bewegen wir uns? Fort von allen Sonnen? Stürzen wir nicht fortwährend? Und rückwärts, seitwärts, vorwärts, nach allen Seiten? Giebt es noch ein Oben und ein Unten? Irren wir nicht wie durch ein unendliches Nichts? Haucht uns nicht der leere Raum an? Ist es nicht kälter geworden? Kommt nicht immerfort die Nacht und mehr Nacht? Müssen nicht Laternen am Vormittage angezündet werden? Hören wir noch Nichts von dem Lärm der Todtengräber, welche Gott begraben? Riechen wir noch Nichts von der göttlichen Verwesung? - auch Götter verwesen! Gott ist todt! Gott bleibt todt! Und wir haben ihn getödtet! Wie trösten wir uns, die Mörder aller Mörder? Das Heiligste und Mächtigste, was die Welt bisher besass, es ist unter unseren Messern verblutet, - wer wischt diess Blut von uns ab? Mit welchem Wasser könnten wir uns reinigen? Welche Sühnfeiern, welche heiligen Spiele werden wir erfinden müssen? Ist nicht die Grösse dieser That zu gross für uns? Müssen wir nicht selber zu Göttern werden, um nur ihrer würdig zu erscheinen? Es gab nie eine grössere That, - und wer nur immer nach uns geboren wird, gehört um dieser That willen in eine höhere Geschichte, als alle Geschichte bisher war!" - Hier schwieg der tolle Mensch und sah wieder seine Zuhörer an: auch sie schwiegen und blickten befremdet auf ihn. Endlich warf er seine Laterne auf den Boden, dass sie in Stücke sprang und erlosch. "Ich komme zu früh, sagte er dann, ich bin noch nicht an der Zeit. Diess ungeheure Ereigniss ist noch unterwegs und wandert, - es ist noch nicht bis zu den Ohren der Menschen gedrungen. Blitz und Donner brauchen Zeit, das Licht der Gestirne braucht Zeit, Thaten brauchen Zeit, auch nachdem sie gethan sind, um gesehen und gehört zu werden. Diese That ist ihnen immer noch ferner, als die fernsten Gestirne, - und doch haben sie dieselbe gethan!" - Man erzählt noch, dass der tolle Mensch des selbigen Tages in verschiedene Kirchen eingedrungen sei und darin sein Requiem aeternam deo angestimmt habe. Hinausgeführt und zur Rede gesetzt, habe er immer nur diess entgegnet: "Was sind denn diese Kirchen noch, wenn sie nicht die Grüfte und Grabmäler Gottes sind?" -

126

Mystische Erklärungen. - Die mystischen Erklärungen gelten für tief; die Wahrheit ist, dass sie noch nicht einmal oberflächlich sind.

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Nachwirkung der ältesten Religiosität. - Jeder Gedankenlose meint, der Wille sei das allein Wirkende; Wollen sei etwas Einfaches, schlechthin Gegebenes, Unableitbares, An-sich-Verständliches. Er ist überzeugt, wenn er Etwas thut, zum Beispiel einen Schlag ausführt, er sei es, der da schlage, und er habe geschlagen, weil er schlagen wollte. Er merkt gar Nichts von einem Problem daran, sondern das Gefühl des Willens genügt ihm, nicht nur zur Annahme von Ursache und Wirkung, sondern auch zum Glauben, ihr Verhältniss zu verstehen. Von dem Mechanismus des Geschehens und der hundertfältigen feinen Arbeit, die abgethan werden muss, damit es zu dem Schlage komme, ebenso von der Unfähigkeit des Willens an sich, auch nur den geringsten Theil dieser Arbeit zu thun, weiss er Nichts. Der Wille ist ihm eine magisch wirkende Kraft: der Glaube an den Willen, als an die Ursache von Wirkungen, ist der Glaube an magisch wirkende Kräfte. Nun hat ursprünglich der Mensch überall, wo er ein Geschehen sah, einen Willen als Ursache und persönlich wollende Wesen im Hintergrunde wirkend geglaubt, - der Begriff der Mechanik lag ihm ganz ferne. Weil aber der Mensch ungeheure Zeiten lang nur an Personen geglaubt hat (und nicht an Stoffe, Kräfte, Sachen und so weiter), ist ihm der Glaube an Ursache und Wirkung zum Grundglauben geworden, den er überall, wo Etwas geschieht, verwendet, - auch jetzt noch instinctiv und als ein Stück Atavismus ältester Abkunft. Die Sätze "keine Wirkung ohne Ursache", "jede Wirkung wieder Ursache" erscheinen als Verallgemeinerungen viel engerer Sätze: "wo gewirkt wird, da ist gewollt worden", "es kann nur auf wollende Wesen gewirkt werden", "es giebt nie ein reines, folgenloses Erleiden einer Wirkung, sondern alles Erleiden ist eine Erregung des Willens" (zur That, Abwehr, Rache, Vergeltung), - aber in den Urzeiten der Menschheit waren diese und jene Sätze identisch, die ersten nicht Verallgemeinerungen der zweiten, sondern die zweiten Erläuterungen der ersten. - Schopenhauer, mit seiner Annahme, dass Alles, was da sei, nur etwas Wollendes sei, hat eine uralte Mythologie auf den Thron gehoben; er scheint nie eine Analyse des Willens versucht zu haben, weil er an die Einfachheit und Unmittelbarkeit alles Wollens glaubte, gleich Jedermann: - während Wollen nur ein so gut eingespielter Mechanismus ist dass er dem beobachtenden Auge fast entläuft. Ihm gegenüber stelle ich diese Sätze auf. erstens, damit Wille entstehe, ist eine Vorstellung von Lust und Unlust nöthig. Zweitens: dass ein heftiger Reiz als Lust oder Unlust empfunden werde, das ist die Sache des interpretirenden Intellects, der freilich zumeist dabei uns unbewusst arbeitet; und ein und derselbe Reiz kann als Lust oder Unlust interpretirt werden. Drittens: nur bei den intellectuellen Wesen giebt es Lust, Unlust und Wille; die ungeheure Mehrzahl der Organismen hat Nichts davon.

128

Der Werth des Gebetes. - Das Gebet ist für solche Menschen erfunden, welche eigentlich nie von sich aus Gedanken haben und denen eine Erhebung der Seele unbekannt ist oder unbemerkt verläuft: was sollen Diese an heiligen Stätten und in allen wichtigen Lagen des Lebens, welche Ruhe und eine Art Würde erfordern? Damit sie wenigstens nicht stören, hat die Weisheit aller Religionsstifter, der kleinen wie der grossen, ihnen die Formel des Gebetes anbefohlen, als eine lange mechanische Arbeit der Lippen, verbunden mit Anstrengung des Gedächtnisses und mit einer gleichen festgesetzten Haltung von Händen und Füssen und Augen! Da mögen sie nun gleich den Tibetanern ihr "om mane padme hum" unzählige Male wiederkäuen, oder, wie in Benares, den Namen des Gottes Ram-Ram-Ram (und so weiter mit oder ohne Grazie) an den Fingern abzählen: oder den Wischnu mit seinen tausend, den Allah mit seinen neunundneunzig Anrufnamen ehren: oder sie mögen sich der Gebetmühlen und der Rosenkränze bedienen, - die Hauptsache ist, dass sie mit dieser Arbeit für eine Zeit festgemacht sind und einen erträglichen Anblick gewähren: ihre Art Gebet ist zum Vortheil der Frommen erfunden, welche Gedanken und Erhebungen von sich aus kennen. Und selbst Diese haben ihre müden Stunden, wo ihnen eine Reihe ehrwürdiger Worte und Klänge und eine fromme Mechanik wohlthut. Aber angenommen, dass diese seltenen Menschen - in jeder Religion ist der religiöse Mensch eine Ausnahme - sich zu helfen wissen: jene Armen im Geiste wissen sich nicht zu helfen, und ihnen das Gebets-Geklapper verbieten heisst ihnen ihre Religion nehmen: wie es der Protestantismus mehr und mehr an den Tag bringt. Die Religion will von Solchen eben nicht mehr, als dass sie Ruhehalten, mit Augen, Händen, Beinen und Organen aller Art: dadurch werden sie zeitweilig verschönert und - menschenähnlicher!

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Die Bedingungen Gottes. "Gott selber kann nicht ohne weise Menschen bestehen" - hat Luther gesagt und mit gutem Rechte; aber "Gott kann noch weniger ohne unweise Menschen bestehen" - das hat der gute Luther nicht gesagt!

130

Ein gefährlicher Entschluss. - Der christliche Entschluss, die Welt hässlich und schlecht zu finden, hat die Welt hässlich und schlecht gemacht.

131

Christenthum und Selbstmord. - Das Christenthum hat das zur Zeit seiner Entstehung ungeheure Verlangen nach dem Selbstmorde zu einem Hebel seiner Macht gemacht: es liess nur zwei Formen des Selbstmordes übrig, umkleidete sie mit der höchsten Würde und den höchsten Hoffnungen und verbot alle anderen auf eine furchtbare Weise. Aber das Martyrium und die langsame Selbstentleibung des Asketen waren erlaubt.

132

Gegen das Christenthum. - Jetzt entscheidet unser Geschmack gegen das Christenthum, nicht mehr unsere Gründe.

133

Grundsatz. - Eine unvermeidliche Hypothese, auf welche die Menschheit immer wieder verfallen muss, ist auf die Dauer doch mächtiger, als der bestgeglaubte Glaube an etwas Unwahres (gleich dem christlichen Glauben). Auf die Dauer: das heisst hier auf hunderttausend Jahre hin.

134

Die Pessimisten als Opfer. - Wo eine tiefe Unlust am Dasein überhand nimmt, kommen die Nachwirkungen eines grossen Diätfehlers, dessen sich ein Volk lange schuldig gemacht hat, an's Licht. So ist die Verbreitung des Buddhismus (nicht seine Entstehung) zu einem guten Theile abhängig von der übermässigen und fast ausschliesslichen Reiskost der Inder und der dadurch bedingten allgemeinen Erschlaffung. Vielleicht ist die europäische Unzufriedenheit der neuen Zeit daraufhin anzusehen, dass unsere Vorwelt, das ganze Mittelalter, Dank den Einwirkungen der germanischen Neigungen auf Europa, dem Trunk ergeben war: Mittelalter, das heisst die Alkoholvergiftung Europa's. - Die deutsche Unlust am Leben ist wesentlich Wintersiechthum, eingerechnet die Wirkungen der Kellerluft und des Ofengiftes in deutschen Wohnräumen.

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Herkunft der Sünde. - Sünde, so wie sie jetzt überall empfunden wird, wo das Christenthum herrscht oder einmal geherrscht hat: Sünde ist ein jüdisches Gefühl und eine jüdische Erfindung, und in Hinsicht auf diesen Hintergrund aller christlichen Moralität war in der That das Christenthum darauf aus, die ganze Welt zu "verjüdeln". Bis zu welchem Grade ihm diess in Europa gelungen ist, das spürt man am feinsten an dem Grade von Fremdheit, den das griechische Alterthum - eine Welt ohne Sündengefühle - immer noch für unsere Empfindung hat, trotz allem guten Willen zur Annäherung und Einverleibung, an dem es ganze Geschlechter und viele ausgezeichnete Einzelne nicht haben fehlen lassen. "Nur wenn du bereuest, ist Gott dir gnädig" - das ist einem Griechen ein Gelächter und ein Aergerniss: er würde sagen "so mögen Sclaven empfinden". Hier ist ein Mächtiger, Uebermächtiger und doch Rachelustiger vorausgesetzt: seine Macht ist so gross, dass ihm ein Schaden überhaupt nicht zugefügt werden kann, ausser in dem Puncte der Ehre. Jede Sünde ist eine Respects-Verletzung, ein crimen laesae majestatis divinae - und Nichts weiter! Zerknirschung, Entwürdigung, Sich-im-Staube-wälzen - das ist die erste und letzte Bedingung, an die seine Gnade sich knüpft: Wiederherstellung also seiner göttlichen Ehre! Ob mit der Sünde sonst Schaden gestiftet wird, ob ein tiefes wachsendes Unheil mit ihr gepflanzt ist, das einen Menschen nach dem andern wie eine Krankheit fasst und würgt - das lässt diesen ehrsüchtigen Orientalen im Himmel unbekümmert: Sünde ist ein Vergehen an ihm, nicht an der Menschheit! - wem er seine Gnade geschenkt hat, dem schenkt er auch diese Unbekümmertheit um die natürlichen Folgen der Sünde. Gott und Menschheit sind hier so getrennt, so entgegengesetzt gedacht, dass im Grunde an letzterer überhaupt nicht gesündigt werden kann, - jede That soll nur auf ihre übernatürlichen Folgen hin angesehen werden: nicht auf ihre natürlichen: so will es das jüdische Gefühl, dem alles Natürliche das Unwürdige an sich ist. Den Griechen dagegen lag der Gedanke näher, dass auch der Frevel Würde haben könne - selbst der Diebstahl, wie bei Prometheus, selbst die Abschlachtung von Vieh als Aeusserung eines wahnsinnigen Neides, wie bei Ajax: sie haben in ihrem Bedürfniss, dem Frevel Würde anzudichten und einzuverleiben, die Tragödie erfunden, - eine Kunst und eine Lust, die dem Juden, trotz aller seiner dichterischen Begabung und Neigung zum Erhabenen, im tiefsten Wesen fremd geblieben ist.

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Das auserwählte Volk. - Die Juden, die sich als das auserwählte Volk unter den Völkern fühlen, und zwar weil sie das moralische Genie unter den Völkern sind (vermöge der Fähigkeit, dass sie den Menschen in sich tiefer verachtet haben, als irgend ein Volk) - die Juden haben an ihrem göttlichen Monarchen und Heiligen einen ähnlichen Genuss wie der war, welchen der französische Adel an Ludwig dem Vierzehnten hatte. Dieser Adel hatte sich alle seine Macht und Selbstherrlichkeit nehmen lassen und war verächtlich geworden: um diess nicht zu fühlen, um diess vergessen zu können, bedurfte es eines königlichen Glanzes, einer königlichen Autorität und Machtfülle ohne Gleichen, zu der nur dem Adel der Zugang offen stand. Indem man gemäss diesem Vorrecht sich zur Höhe des Hofes erhob und von da aus blickend Alles unter sich, Alles verächtlich sah, kam man über alle Reizbarkeit des Gewissens hinaus. So thürmte man absichtlich den Thurm der königlichen Macht immer mehr in die Wolken hinein und setzte die letzten Bausteine der eigenen Macht daran.

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Im Gleichniss gesprochen. - Ein Jesus Christus war nur in einer jüdischen Landschaft möglich - ich meine in einer solchen, über der fortwährend die düstere und erhabene Gewitterwolke des zürnenden Jehovah hieng. Hier allein wurde das seltene plötzliche Hindurchleuchten eines einzelnen Sonnenstrahls durch die grauenhafte allgemeine und andauernde Tag-Nacht wie ein Wunder der "Liebe" empfunden, als der Strahl der unverdientesten "Gnade". Hier allein konnte Christus seinen Regenbogen und seine Himmelsleiter träumen, auf der Gott zu den Menschen hinabstieg; überall sonst galt das helle Wetter und die Sonne zu sehr als Regel und Alltäglichkeit.

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Der Irrthum Christi. - Der Stifter des Christenthums meinte, an Nichts litten die Menschen so sehr, als an ihren Sünden: - es war sein Irrthum, der Irrthum Dessen, der sich ohne Sünde fühlte, dem es hierin an Erfahrung gebrach! So füllte sich seine Seele mit jenem wundervollen phantastischen Erbarmen, das einer Noth galt, welche selbst bei seinem Volke, dem Erfinder der Sünde, selten eine grosse Noth war! - Aber die Christen haben es verstanden, ihrem Meister nachträglich Recht zu schaffen und seinen Irrthum zur "Wahrheit" zu heiligen.

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Farbe der Leidenschaften. - Solche Naturen, wie die des Apostel Paulus, haben für die Leidenschaften einen bösen Blick; sie lernen von ihnen nur das Schmutzige, Entstellende und Herzbrechende kennen, - ihr idealer Drang geht daher auf Vernichtung der Leidenschaften aus: im Göttlichen sehen sie die völlige Reinheit davon. Ganz anders, als Paulus und die Juden, haben die Griechen ihren idealen Drang gerade auf die Leidenschaften gewendet und diese geliebt, gehoben, vergoldet und vergöttlicht; offenbar fühlten sie sich in der Leidenschaft nicht nur glücklicher, sondern auch reiner und göttlicher, als sonst. - Und nun die Christen? Wollten sie hierin zu Juden werden? Sind sie es vielleicht geworden?

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Zu jüdisch. - Wenn Gott ein Gegenstand der Liebe werden wollte, so hätte er sich zuerst des Richtens und der Gerechtigkeit begeben müssen: - ein Richter, und selbst ein gnädiger Richter, ist kein Gegenstand der Liebe. Der Stifter des Christenthums empfand hierin nicht fein genug, - als Jude.

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Zu orientalisch. - Wie? Ein Gott, der die Menschen liebt, vorausgesetzt, dass sie an ihn glauben, und der fürchterliche Blicke und Drohungen gegen Den schleudert, der nicht an diese Liebe glaubt! Wie? eine verclausulirte Liebe als die Empfindung eines allmächtigen Gottes! Eine Liebe, die nicht einmal über das Gefühl der Ehre und der gereizten Rachsucht Herr geworden ist! Wie orientalisch ist das Alles! "Wenn ich dich liebe, was geht's dich an?" ist schon eine ausreichende Kritik des ganzen Christenthums.

142

Räucherwerk. - Buddha sagt: "schmeichle deinem Wohlthäter nicht!" Man spreche diesen Spruch nach in einer christlichen Kirche: - er reinigt sofort die Luft von allem Christlichen.

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Grösster Nutzen des Polytheismus. - Dass der Einzelne sich sein eigenes Ideal aufstelle und aus ihm sein Gesetz, seine Freuden und seine Rechte ableite - das galt wohl bisher als die ungeheuerlichste aller menschlichen Verirrungen und als die Abgötterei an sich; in der That haben die Wenigen, die diess wagten, immer vor sich selber eine Apologie nöthig gehabt, und diese lautete gewöhnlich: "nicht ich! nicht ich! sondern ein Gott durch mich!" Die wundervolle Kunst und Kraft, Götter zu schaffen - der Polytheismus - war es, in der dieser Trieb sich entladen durfte, in der er sich reinigte, vervollkommnete, veredelte: denn ursprünglich war es ein gemeiner und unansehnlicher Trieb, verwandt dem Eigensinn, dem Ungehorsame und dem Neide. Diesem Triebe zum eigenen Ideale feind sein: das war ehemals das Gesetz jeder Sittlichkeit. Da gab es nur Eine Norm:, "der Mensch" - und jedes Volk glaubte diese Eine und letzte Norm zu haben. Aber über sich und ausser sich, in einer fernen Ueberwelt, durfte man eine Mehrzahl von Normen sehen: der eine Gott war nicht die Leugnung oder Lästerung des anderen Gottes! Hier erlaubte man sich zuerst Individuen, hier ehrte man zuerst das Recht von Individuen. Die Erfindung von Göttern, Heroen und Uebermenschen aller Art, sowie von Neben- und Untermenschen, von Zwergen, Feen, Centauren, Satyrn, Dämonen und Teufeln, war die unschätzbare Vorübung zur Rechtfertigung der Selbstsucht und Selbstherrlichkeit des Einzelnen: die Freiheit, welche man dem Gotte gegen die anderen Götter gewährte, gab man zuletzt sich selber gegen Gesetze und Sitten und Nachbarn. Der Monotheismus dagegen, diese starre Consequenz der Lehre von Einem Normalmenschen - also der Glaube an einen Normalgott, neben dem es nur noch falsche Lügengötter giebt - war vielleicht die grösste Gefahr der bisherigen Menschheit: da drohte ihr jener vorzeitige Stillstand, welchen, soweit wir sehen können, die meisten anderen Thiergattungen schon längst erreicht haben; als welche alle an Ein Normalthier und Ideal in ihrer Gattung glauben und die Sittlichkeit der Sitte sich endgültig in Fleisch und Blut übersetzt haben. Im Polytheismus lag die Freigeisterei und Vielgeisterei des Menschen vorgebildet: die Kraft, sich neue und eigene Augen zu schaffen und immer wieder neue und noch eigenere: sodass es für den Menschen allein unter allen Thieren keine ewigen Horizonte und Perspectiven giebt.

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Religionskriege. - Der grösste Fortschritt der Massen war bis jetzt der Religionskrieg: denn er beweist, dass die Masse angefangen hat, Begriffe mit Ehrfurcht zu behandeln. Religionskriege entstehen erst, wenn durch die feineren Streitigkeiten der Secten die allgemeine Vernunft verfeinert ist: sodass selbst der Pöbel spitzfindig wird und Kleinigkeiten wichtig nimmt, ja es für möglich hält, dass das "ewige Heil der Seele" an den kleinen Unterschieden der Begriffe hängt.

145

Gefahr der Vegetarianer. - Der vorwiegende ungeheure Reisgenuss treibt zur Anwendung von Opium und narkotischen Dingen, in gleicher Weise wie der vorwiegende ungeheure Kartoffelgenuss zu Branntwein treibt -: er treibt aber, in feinerer Nachwirkung, auch zu Denk- und Gefühlsweisen, die narkotisch wirken. Damit stimmt zusammen, dass die Förderer narkotischer Denk- und Gefühlsweisen, wie jene indischen Lehrer, gerade eine Diät preisen und zum Gesetz der Masse machen möchten, welche rein vegetabilisch ist: sie wollen so das Bedürfniss hervorrufen und mehren, welches sie zu befriedigen im Stande sind.

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Deutsche Hoffnungen. - Vergessen wir doch nicht, dass die Völkernamen gewöhnlich Schimpfnamen sind. Die Tartaren sind zum Beispiel ihrem Namen nach "die Hunde": so wurden sie von den Chinesen getauft. Die "Deutschen": das bedeutet ursprünglich "die Heiden": so nannten die Gothen nach ihrer Bekehrung die grosse Masse ihrer ungetauften Stammverwandten, nach Anleitung ihrer Uebersetzung der Septuaginta, in der die Heiden mit dem Worte bezeichnet werden, welches im Griechischen "die Völker" bedeutet: man sehe Ulfilas. - Es wäre immer noch möglich, dass die Deutschen aus ihrem alten Schimpfnamen sich nachträglich einen Ehrennamen machten, indem sie das erste unchristliche Volk Europa's würden: wozu in hohem Maasse angelegt zu sein Schopenhauer ihnen zur Ehre anrechnete. So käme das Werk Luther's zur Vollendung, der sie gelehrt hat, unrömisch zu sein und zu sprechen: "hier stehe ich! Ich kann nicht anders!" -

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Frage und Antwort. - Was nehmen jetzt wilde Völkerschaften zuerst von den Europäern an? Branntwein und Christenthum, die europäischen Narcotica. - Und woran gehen sie am schnellsten zu Grunde? - An den europäischen Narcoticis.

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Wo die Reformationen entstehen. - Zur Zeit der grossen Kirchen-Verderbniss war in Deutschland die Kirche am wenigsten verdorben: desshalb entstand hier die Reformation, als das Zeichen, dass schon die Anfänge der Verderbniss unerträglich empfunden wurden. Verhältnissmässig war nämlich kein Volk jemals christlicher, als die Deutschen zur Zeit Luther's: ihre christliche Cultur war eben bereit, zu einer hundertfältigen Pracht der Blüthe auszuschlagen, - es fehlte nur noch Eine Nacht; aber diese brachte den Sturm, der Allem ein Ende machte.

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Misslingen der Reformationen. - Es spricht für die höhere Cultur der Griechen selbst in ziemlich frühen Zeiten, dass mehrere Male die Versuche, neue griechische Religionen zu gründen, gescheitert sind; es spricht dafür, dass es schon früh eine Menge verschiedenartiger Individuen in Griechenland gegeben haben muss, deren verschiedenartige Noth nicht mit einem einzigen Recepte des Glaubens und Hoffens abzuthun war. Pythagoras und Plato, vielleicht auch Empedokles, und bereits viel früher die orphischen Schwarmgeister, waren darauf aus, neue Religionen zu gründen; und die beiden Erstgenannten hatten so ächte Religionsstifter-Seelen und -Talente, dass man sich über ihr Misslingen nicht genug verwundern kann: sie brachten es aber nur zu Secten. Jedes Mal, wo die Reformation eines ganzen Volkes misslingt und nur Secten ihr Haupt emporheben, darf man schliessen, dass das Volk schon sehr vielartig in sich ist und sich von den groben Heerdeninstincten und der Sittlichkeit der Sitte loszulösen beginnt: ein bedeutungsvoller Schwebezustand, den man als Sittenverfall und Corruption zu verunglimpfen gewohnt ist: während er das Reifwerden des Eies und das nahe Zerbrechen der Eierschaale ankündigt. Dass Luther's Reformation im Norden gelang, ist ein Zeichen dafür, dass der Norden gegen den Süden Europa's zurückgeblieben war und noch ziemlich einartige und einfarbige Bedürfnisse kannte; und es hätte überhaupt keine Verchristlichung Europa's gegeben, wenn nicht die Cultur der alten Welt des Südens allmählich durch eine übermässige Hinzumischung von germanischem Barbarenblut barbarisirt und ihres Cultur-Uebergewichtes verlustig gegangen wäre. Je allgemeiner und unbedingter ein Einzelner oder der Gedanke eines Einzelnen wirken kann, um so gleichartiger und um so niedriger muss die Masse sein, auf die da gewirkt wird; während Gegenbestrebungen innere Gegenbedürfnisse verrathen, welche auch sich befriedigen und durchsetzen wollen. Umgekehrt darf man immer auf eine wirkliche Höhe der Cultur schliessen, wenn mächtige und herrschsüchtige Naturen es nur zu einer geringen und sectirerischen Wirkung bringen: diess gilt auch für die einzelnen Künste und die Gebiete der Erkenntniss. Wo geherrscht wird, da giebt es Massen: wo Massen sind, da giebt es ein Bedürfniss nach Sclaverei. Wo es Sclaverei giebt, da sind der Individuen nur wenige, und diese haben die Heerdeninstincte und das Gewissen gegen sich.

150

Zur Kritik der Heiligen. - Muss man denn, um eine Tugend zu haben, sie gerade in ihrer brutalsten Gestalt haben wollen? - wie es die christlichen Heiligen wollten und nöthig hatten; als welche das Leben nur mit dem Gedanken ertrugen, dass beim Anblick ihrer Tugend einen jeden die Verachtung seiner selber anwandelte. Eine Tugend aber mit solcher Wirkung nenne ich brutal.

151

Vom Ursprunge der Religion. - Das metaphysische Bedürfniss ist nicht der Ursprung der Religionen, wie Schopenhauer will, sondern nur ein Nachschössling derselben. Man hat sich unter der Herrschaft religiöser Gedanken an die Vorstellung einer "anderen (hinteren, unteren, oberen) Welt" gewöhnt und fühlt bei der Vernichtung des religiösen Wahns eine unbehagliche Leere und Entbehrung, - und nun wächst aus diesem Gefühle wieder eine "andere Welt" heraus, aber jetzt nur eine metaphysische und nicht mehr religiöse. Das aber, was in Urzeiten zur Annahme einer "anderen Welt" überhaupt führte, war nicht ein Trieb und Bedürfniss, sondern ein Irrthum in der Auslegung bestimmter Naturvorgänge, eine Verlegenheit des Intellects.

152

Die grösste Veränderung. - Die Beleuchtung und die Farben aller Dinge haben sich verändert! Wir verstehen nicht mehr ganz, wie die alten Menschen das Nächste und Häufigste empfanden, - zum Beispiel den Tag und das Wachen: dadurch, dass die Alten an Träume glaubten, hatte das wache Leben andere Lichter. Und ebenso das ganze Leben, mit der Zurückstrahlung des Todes und seiner Bedeutung: unser "Tod" ist ein ganz anderer Tod. Alle Erlebnisse leuchteten anders, denn ein Gott glänzte aus ihnen; alle Entschlüsse und Aussichten auf die ferne Zukunft ebenfalls: denn man hatte Orakel und geheime Winke und glaubte an die Vorhersagung. "Wahrheit" wurde anders empfunden, denn der Wahnsinnige konnte ehemals als ihr Mundstück gelten, - was uns schaudern oder lachen macht. Jedes Unrecht wirkte anders auf das Gefühl: denn man fürchtete eine göttliche Vergeltung und nicht nur eine bürgerliche Strafe und Entehrung. Was war die Freude in der Zeit, als man an die Teufel und die Versucher glaubte! Was die Leidenschaft, wenn man die Dämonen in der Nähe lauern sah! Was die Philosophie, wenn der Zweifel als Versündigung der gefährlichsten Art gefühlt wurde, und zwar als ein Frevel an der ewigen Liebe, als Misstrauen gegen Alles, was gut, hoch, rein und erbarmend war! - Wir haben die Dinge neu gefärbt, wir malen immerfort an ihnen, - aber was vermögen wir einstweilen gegen die Farbenpracht jener alten Meisterin! - ich meine die alte Menschheit.

153

Homo poeta. - "Ich selber, der ich höchst eigenhändig diese Tragödie der Tragödien gemacht habe, soweit sie fertig ist; ich, der ich den Knoten der Moral erst in's Dasein hineinknüpfte und so fest zog, dass nur ein Gott ihn lösen kann, - so verlangt es ja Horaz! - ich selber habe jetzt im vierten Act alle Götter umgebracht, - aus Moralität! Was soll nun aus dem fünften werden! Woher noch die tragische Lösung nehmen! - Muss ich anfangen, über eine komische Lösung nachzudenken?"

154

Verschiedene Gefährlichkeit des Lebens. - Ihr wisst gar nicht, was ihr erlebt, ihr lauft wie betrunken durch's Leben und fallt ab und zu eine Treppe hinab. Aber, Dank eurer Trunkenheit, brecht ihr doch nicht dabei die Glieder: eure Muskeln sind zu matt und euer Kopf zu dunkel, als dass ihr die Steine dieser Treppe so hart fändet, wie wir Anderen! Für uns ist das Leben eine grössere Gefahr: wir sind von Glas - wehe, wenn wir uns stossen! Und Alles ist verloren, wenn wir fallen!

155

Was uns fehlt. - Wir lieben die grosse Natur und haben sie entdeckt: das kommt daher, dass in unserem Kopfe die grossen Menschen fehlen. Umgekehrt die Griechen - ihr Naturgefühl ist ein anderes, als das unsrige.

156

Der Einflussreichste. - Dass ein Mensch seiner ganzen Zeit Widerstand leistet, sie am Thore aufhält und zur Rechenschaft zieht, das muss Einfluss üben! Ob er es will, ist gleichgültig; dass er es kann, ist die Sache.

157

Mentiri. - Gieb Acht! - er sinnt nach: sofort wird er eine Lüge bereit haben. Diess ist eine Stufe der Cultur, auf der ganze Völker gestanden haben. Man erwäge doch, was die Römer mit mentiri ausdrückten!

158

Unbequeme Eigenschaft. - Alle Dinge tief finden - das ist eine unbequeme Eigenschaft: sie macht, dass man beständig seine Augen anstrengt und am Ende immer mehr findet, als man gewünscht hat.

159

Jede Tugend hat ihre Zeit. - Wer jetzt unbeugsam ist, dem macht seine Redlichkeit oft Gewissensbisse: denn die Unbeugsamkeit ist die Tugend eines anderen Zeitalters, als: die Redlichkeit.

160

Im Verkehre mit Tugenden. - Man kann auch gegen eine Tugend würdelos und schmeichlerisch sein.

161

An die Liebhaber der Zeit. - Der entlaufene Priester und der entlassene Sträfling machen fortwährend Gesichter: was sie wollen, ist ein Gesicht ohne Vergangenheit. - Habt ihr aber schon Menschen gesehen, welche wissen, dass die Zukunft in ihrem Gesichte sich spiegelt, und welche so höflich gegen euch, ihr Liebhaber der "Zeit", sind, dass sie ein Gesicht, ohne Zukunft machen? -

162

Egoismus. - Egoismus ist das perspectivische Gesetz der Empfindung, nach dem das Nächste gross und schwer erscheint: während nach der Ferne zu alle Dinge an Grösse und Gewicht abnehmen.

163

Nach einem grossen Siege. - Das Beste an einem grossen Siege ist, dass er dem Sieger die Furcht vor einer Niederlage nimmt. "Warum nicht auch einmal unterliegen? - sagt er sich: ich bin jetzt reich genug dazu".

164

Die Ruhesuchenden. - Ich erkenne die Geister, welche Ruhe suchen, an den vielen dunklen Gegenständen, welche sie um sich aufstellen: wer schlafen will, macht sein Zimmer dunkel oder kriecht in eine Höhle. - Ein Wink für Die, welche nicht wissen, was sie eigentlich am meisten suchen, und es wissen möchten!

165

Vom Glücke der Entsagenden. - Wer sich Etwas gründlich und auf lange Zeit hin versagt, wird, bei einem zufälligen Wiederantreffen desselben, fast vermeinen, es entdeckt zu haben, - und welches Glück hat jeder Entdecker! Seien wir klüger, als die Schlangen, welche zu lange in der selben Sonne liegen.

166

Immer in unserer Gesellschaft. - Alles, was meiner Art ist, in Natur und Geschichte, redet zu mir, lobt mich, treibt mich vorwärts, tröstet mich -: das Andere höre ich nicht oder vergesse es gleich. Wir sind stets nur in unserer Gesellschaft.

167

Misanthropie und Liebe. - Man spricht nur dann davon, dass man der Menschen satt sei, wenn man sie nicht mehr verdauen kann und doch noch den Magen voll davon hat. Misanthropie ist die Folge einer allzubegehrlichen Menschenliebe und "Menschenfresserei", - aber, wer hiess dich auch Menschen zu verschlucken wie Austern, mein Prinz Hamlet?

168

Von einem Kranken. - "Es steht schlecht um ihn!" - Woran fehlt es? - "Er leidet an der Begierde, gelobt zu werden, und findet keine Nahrung für sie." - Unbegreiflich! Alle Welt feiert ihn, und man trägt ihn nicht nur auf den Händen, sondern auch auf den Lippen! - "Ja, aber er hat ein schlechtes Gehör für das Lob. Lobt ihn ein Freund, so klingt es ihm, als ob dieser sich selber lobe; lobt ihn ein Feind, so klingt es ihm, als ob dieser dafür gelobt werden wolle; lobt ihn endlich einer der Uebrigen - es sind gar nicht so Viele übrig, so berühmt ist er! - so beleidigt es ihn, dass man ihn nicht zum Freund oder Feind haben wolle; er pflegt zu sagen: Was liegt mir an Einem, der gar noch gegen mich den Gerechten zu spielen vermag!"

169

Offene Feinde. - Die Tapferkeit vor dem Feinde ist ein Ding für sich: damit kann man immer noch ein Feigling und ein unentschlossener Wirrkopf sein. So urtheilte Napoleon in Hinsicht auf den "tapfersten Menschen", der ihm bekannt sei, Murat: - woraus sich ergiebt, dass offene Feinde für manche Menschen unentbehrlich sind, falls sie sich zu ihrer Tugend, ihrer Männlichkeit und Heiterkeit erheben sollen.

170

Mit der Menge. - Er läuft bisher mit der Menge und ist ihr Lobredner: aber eines Tages wird er ihr Gegner sein! Denn er folgt ihr im Glauben, dass seine Faulheit dabei ihre Rechnung fände: er hat noch nicht erfahren, dass die Menge nicht faul genug für ihn ist! dass sie immer vorwärts drängt! dass sie Niemandem erlaubt, stehen zu bleiben! - Und er bleibt so gern stehen!

171

Ruhm. - Wenn die Dankbarkeit Vieler gegen Einen alle Scham wegwirft, so entsteht der Ruhm.

172

Der Geschmacks-Verderber. - A.: "Du bist ein Geschmacks-Verderber, - so sagt man überall!"

B.: "Sicherlich! Ich verderbe Jedermann den Geschmack an seiner Partei: - das verzeiht mir keine Partei."

173

Tief sein und tief scheinen. - Wer sich tief weiss, bemüht sich um Klarheit; wer der Menge tief scheinen möchte, bemüht sich um Dunkelheit. Denn die Menge hält Alles für tief, dessen Grund sie nicht sehen kann: sie ist so furchtsam und geht so ungern in's Wasser.

174

Abseits. - Der Parlamentarismus, das heisst die öffentliche Erlaubniss, zwischen fünf politischen Grundmeinungen wählen zu dürfen, schmeichelt sich bei jenen Vielen ein, welche gerne selbständig und individuell scheinen und für ihre Meinungen kämpfen möchten. Zuletzt aber ist es gleichgültig, ob der Heerde Eine Meinung befohlen oder fünf Meinungen gestattet sind. - Wer von den fünf öffentlichen Meinungen abweicht und bei Seite tritt, hat immer die ganze Heerde gegen sich.

175

Von der Beredtsamkeit. - Wer besass bis jetzt die überzeugendste Beredtsamkeit? Der Trommelwirbel: und so lange die Könige diesen in der Gewalt haben, sind sie immer noch die besten Redner und Volksaufwiegler.

176

Mitleiden. - Die armen regierenden Fürsten! Alle ihre Rechte verwandeln sich jetzt unversehens in Ansprüche, und all diese Ansprüche klingen bald wie Anmaassungen! Und wenn sie nur "Wir" sagen oder "mein Volk", so lächelt schon das alte boshafte Europa. Wahrhaftig, ein Oberceremonienmeister der modernen Welt würde wenig Ceremonien mit ihnen machen; vielleicht würde er decretiren: "les souverains rangent aux parvenus".

177

Zum Erziehungswesen". - In Deutschland fehlt dem höheren Menschen ein grosses Erziehungsmittel: das Gelächter höherer Menschen; diese lachen nicht in Deutschland.

178

Zur moralischen Aufklärung. - Man muss den Deutschen ihren Mephistopheles ausreden: und ihren Faust dazu. Es sind zwei moralische Vorurtheile gegen den Werth der Erkenntniss.

179

Gedanken. - Gedanken sind die Schatten unserer Empfindungen, - immer dunkler, leerer, einfacher, als diese.

180

Die gute Zeit der freien Geister. - Die freien Geister nehmen sich auch vor der Wissenschaft noch ihre Freiheiten - und einstweilen giebt man sie ihnen auch, - so lange die Kirche noch steht! - In so fern haben sie jetzt ihre gute Zeit.

181

Folgen und Vorangehen. - A.: "Von den Beiden wird der Eine immer folgen, der Andere immer vorangehen, wohin sie auch das Schicksal führt. Und doch steht der Erstere über dem Anderen, nach seiner Tugend und seinem Geiste!" B.: "Und doch? Und doch? Das ist für die Anderen geredet; nicht für mich, nicht für uns! - Fit secundum regulam."

182

In der Einsamkeit. - Wenn man allein lebt, so spricht man nicht zu laut, man schreibt auch nicht zu laut: denn man fürchtet den hohlen Widerhall - die Kritik der Nymphe Echo. - Und alle Stimmen klingen anders in der Einsamkeit!

183

Die Musik der besten Zukunft. - Der erste Musiker würde mir der sein, welcher nur die Traurigkeit des tiefsten Glückes kennte, und sonst keine Traurigkeit: einen solchen gab es bisher nicht.

184

Justiz. - Lieber sich bestehlen lassen, als Vogelscheuchen um sich haben - das ist mein Geschmack. Und es ist unter allen Umständen eine Sache des Geschmackes - und nicht mehr!

185

Arm. - Er ist heute arm: aber nicht weil man ihm Alles genommen, sondern weil er Alles weggeworfen hat: - was macht es ihm? Er ist daran gewöhnt, zu finden. - Die Armen sind es, welche seine freiwillige Armuth missverstehen.

186

Schlechtes Gewissen. - Alles, was er jetzt thut, ist brav und ordentlich - und doch hat er ein schlechtes Gewissen dabei. Denn das Ausserordentliche ist seine Aufgabe.

187

Das Beleidigende im Vortrage. - Dieser Künstler beleidigt mich durch die Art, wie er seine Einfälle, seine sehr guten Einfälle vorträgt: so breit und nachdrücklich, und mit so groben Kunstgriffen der Ueberredung, als ob er zum Pöbel spräche. Wir sind immer nach einiger Zeit, die wir seiner Kunst schenkten, wie "in schlechter Gesellschaft".

188

Arbeit. - Wie nah steht jetzt auch dem Müssigsten von uns die Arbeit und der Arbeiter! Die königliche Höflichkeit in dem Worte "wir Alle sind Arbeiter!" wäre noch unter Ludwig dem Vierzehnten ein Cynismus und eine Indecenz gewesen.

189

Der Denker. - Er ist ein Denker: das heisst, er versteht sich darauf, die Dinge einfacher zu nehmen, als sie sind.

190

Gegen die Lobenden. - A.: "Man wird nur von Seinesgleichen gelobt!" B.: "Ja! Und wer dich lobt, sagt zu dir: du bist Meinesgleichen!"

191

Gegen manche Vertheidigung. - Die perfideste Art, einer Sache zu schaden, ist, sie absichtlich mit fehlerhaften Gründen vertheidigen.

192

Die Gutmüthigen. - Was unterscheidet jene Gutmüthigen, denen Wohlwollen aus dem Gesichte strahlt, von den anderen Menschen? Sie fühlen sich in Gegenwart einer neuen Person wohl und sind schnell in sie verliebt; sie wollen ihr dafür wohl, ihr erstes Urtheil ist "sie gefällt mir". Bei ihnen folgt auf einander: Wunsch der Aneignung (sie machen sich wenig Scrupel über den Werth des Anderen), rasche Aneignung, Freude am Besitz und Handeln zu Gunsten des Besessenen.

193

Kant's Witz. - Kant wollte auf eine "alle Welt" vor den Kopf stossende Art beweisen, dass "alle Welt" Recht habe: - das war der heimliche Witz dieser Seele. Er schrieb gegen die Gelehrten zu Gunsten des Volks-Vorurtheils, aber für Gelehrte und nicht für das Volk.

194

Der "Offenherzige". - Jener Mensch handelt wahrscheinlich immer nach verschwiegenen Gründen: denn er trägt immer mittheilbare Gründe auf der Zunge und beinahe in der offnen Hand.

195

Zum Lachen! - Seht hin! Seht hin! Er läuft von den Menschen weg -: diese aber folgen ihm nach, weil er vor ihnen herläuft, - so sehr sind sie Heerde!

196

Grenze unseres Hörsinns. - Man hört nur die Fragen, auf welche man im Stande ist, eine Antwort zu finden.

197

Darum Vorsicht! - Nichts theilen wir so gern an Andere mit, als das Siegel der Verschwiegenheit - sammt dem, was darunter ist.

198

Verdruss des Stolzen. - Der Stolze hat selbst an Denen, welche ihn vorwärts bringen, seinen Verdruss: er blickt böse auf die Pferde seines Wagens.

199

Freigebigkeit. - Freigebigkeit ist bei Reichen oft nur eine Art Schüchternheit.

200

Lachen. - Lachen heisst: schadenfroh sein, aber mit gutem Gewissen.

201

Im Beifall. - Im Beifall ist immer eine Art Lärm: selbst in dem Beifall, den wir uns selber zollen.

202

Ein Verschwender. - Er hat noch nicht jene Armuth des Reichen, der seinen ganzen Schatz schon einmal überzählt hat, - er verschwendet seinen Geist mit der Unvernunft der Verschwenderin Natur.

203

Hic niger est. - Er hat für gewöhnlich keinen Gedanken, - aber für die Ausnahme kommen ihm schlechte Gedanken.

204

Die Bettler und die Höflichkeit. - "Man ist nicht unhöflich, wenn man mit einem Steine an die Thüre klopft, welcher der Klingelzug fehlt" - so denken Bettler und Nothleidende aller Art; aber Niemand giebt ihnen Recht.

205

Bedürfniss. - Das Bedürfniss gilt als die Ursache der Entstehung: in Wahrheit ist es oft nur eine Wirkung des Entstandenen.

206

Beim Regen. - Es regnet, und ich gedenke der armen Leute, die sich jetzt zusammen drängen, mit ihrer vielen Sorge und ohne Uebung, diese zu verbergen, also jeder bereit und guten Willens, dem Andern wehe zu thun und sich auch bei schlechtem Wetter eine erbärmliche Art von Wohlgefühl zu machen. - Das, nur das ist die Armuth der Armen!

207

Der Neidbold. - Das ist ein Neidbold, - dem muss man keine Kinder wünschen; er würde auf sie neidisch sein, weil er nicht mehr Kind sein kann.

208

Grosser Mann! - Daraus, dass einer "ein grosser Mann" ist, darf man noch nicht schliessen, dass er ein Mann ist; vielleicht ist es nur ein Knabe, oder ein Chamäleon aller Lebensalter, oder ein verhextes Weiblein.

209

Eine Art, nach Gründen zu fragen. - Es giebt eine Art, uns nach unseren Gründen zu fragen, bei der wir nicht nur unsre besten Gründe vergessen, sondern auch einen Trotz und Widerwillen gegen Gründe überhaupt in uns erwachen fühlen: - eine sehr verdummende Art zu fragen und recht ein Kunstgriff tyrannischer Menschen!

210

Maass im Fleisse. - Man muss den Fleiss seines Vaters nicht überbieten wollen - das macht krank.

211

Geheime Feinde. - Einen geheimen Feind sich halten können - das ist ein Luxus, für den die Moralität selbst hochgesinnter Geister nicht reich genug zu sein pflegt.

212

Sich nicht täuschen lassen. - Sein Geist hat schlechte Manieren, er ist hastig und stottert immer vor Ungeduld: so ahnt man kaum, in welcher langathmigen und breitbrüstigen Seele er zu Hause ist.

213

Der Weg zum Glücke. - Ein Weiser fragte einen Narren, welches der Weg zum Glücke sei. Dieser antwortete ohne Verzug, wie Einer, der nach dem Wege zur nächsten Stadt gefragt wird: "Bewundere dich selbst und lebe auf der Gasse!". "Halt, rief der Weise, du verlangst zu viel, es genügt schon sich selber zu bewundern!" Der Narr entgegnete: "Aber wie kann man beständig bewundern, ohne beständig zu verachten?"

214

Der Glaube macht selig. Die Tugend giebt nur Denen Glück und eine Art Seligkeit, welche den guten Glauben an ihre Tugend haben: - nicht aber jenen feineren Seelen, deren Tugend im tiefen Misstrauen gegen sich und alle Tugend besteht. Zuletzt macht also auch hier "der Glaube selig!" - und wohlgemerkt, nicht die Tugend!

215

Ideal und Stoff. - Du hast da ein vornehmes Ideal vor Augen: aber bist du auch ein so vornehmer Stein, dass aus dir solch ein Götterbild gebildet werden dürfte? Und ohne diess - ist all deine Arbeit nicht eine barbarische Bildhauerei? Eine Lästerung deines Ideals?

216

Gefahr in der Stimme. - Mit einer sehr lauten Stimme im Halse, ist man fast ausser Stande, feine Sachen zu denken.

217

Ursache und Wirkung. - Vor der Wirkung glaubt man an andere Ursachen, als nach der Wirkung.

218

Meine Antipathie. - Ich liebe die Menschen nicht, welche, um überhaupt Wirkung zu thun, zerplatzen müssen, gleich Bomben, und in deren Nähe man immer in Gefahr ist, plötzlich das Gehör - oder noch mehr zu verlieren.

219

Zweck der Strafe. - Die Strafe hat den Zweck, Den zu bessern, welcher straft, - das ist die letzte Zuflucht für die Vertheidiger der Strafe.

220

Opfer. - Ueber Opfer und Aufopferung denken die Opferthiere anders, als die Zuschauer: aber man hat sie von jeher nicht zu Worte kommen lassen.

221

Schonung. - Väter und Söhne schonen sich viel mehr unter einander, als Mütter und Töchter.

222

Dichter und Lügner. - Der Dichter sieht in dem Lügner seinen Milchbruder, dem er die Milch weggetrunken hat; so ist Jener elend geblieben und hat es nicht einmal bis zum guten Gewissen gebracht.

223

Vicariat der Sinne. - "Man hat auch die Augen um zu hören - sagte ein alter Beichtvater, der taub wurde; und unter den Blinden ist Der König, wer die längsten Ohren hat."

224

Kritik der Thiere. - Ich fürchte, die Thiere betrachten den Menschen als ein Wesen Ihresgleichen, das in höchst gefährlicher Weise den gesunden Thierverstand verloren hat, - als das wahnwitzige Thier, als das lachende Thier, als das weinende Thier, als das unglückselige Thier.

225

Die Natürlichen. - "Das Böse hat immer den grossen Effect für sich gehabt! Und die Natur ist böse! Seien wir also natürlich!" - so schliessen im Geheimen die grossen Effecthascher der Menschheit, welche man gar zu oft unter die grossen Menschen gerechnet hat.

226

Die Misstrauischen und der Stil. - Wir sagen die stärksten Dinge schlicht, vorausgesetzt, dass Menschen um uns sind, die an unsere Stärke glauben: - eine solche Umgebung erzieht zur "Einfachheit des Stils". Die Misstrauischen reden emphatisch; die Misstrauischen machen emphatisch.

227

Fehlschluss, Fehlschuss. - Er kann sich nicht beherrschen: und daraus schliesst jene Frau, es werde leicht sein, ihn zu beherrschen und wirft ihre Fangseile nach ihm aus; - die Arme, die in Kürze seine Sclavin sein wird.

228

Gegen die Vermittelnden. - Wer zwischen zwei entschlossenen Denkern vermitteln will, ist gezeichnet als mittelmässig: er hat das Auge nicht dafür, das Einmalige zu sehen; die Aehnlichseherei und Gleichmacherei ist das Merkmal schwacher Augen.

229

Trotz und Treue. - Er hält aus Trotz an einer Sache fest, die ihm durchsichtig geworden ist, - er nennt es aber "Treue".

230

Mangel an Schweigsamkeit. - Sein ganzes Wesen überredet nicht - das kommt daher, dass er nie eine gute Handlung, die er that, verschwiegen hat.

231

Die "Gründlichen". - Die Langsamen der Erkenntniss meinen, die Langsamkeit gehöre zur Erkenntniss.

232

Träumen. - Man träumt gar nicht, oder interessant. - Man muss lernen, ebenso zu wachen: - gar nicht, oder interessant.

233

Gefährlichster Gesichtspunct. - Was ich jetzt thue oder lasse, ist für alles Kommende so wichtig, als das grösste Ereigniss der Vergangenheit: in dieser ungeheuren Perspective der Wirkung sind alle Handlungen gleich gross und klein.

234

Trostrede eines Musicanten. - "Dein Leben klingt den Menschen nicht in die Ohren: für sie lebst du ein stummes Leben, und alle Feinheit der Melodie, alle zarte Entschliessung im Folgen oder Vorangehen, bleibt ihnen verborgen. Es ist wahr: du kommst nicht auf breiter Strasse mit Regimentsmusik daher, - aber desshalb haben diese Guten doch kein Recht, zu sagen, es fehle deinem Lebenswandel an Musik. Wer Ohren hat, der höre."

235

Geist und Charakter. - Mancher erreicht seinen Gipfel als Charakter, aber sein Geist ist gerade dieser Höhe nicht angemessen - und Mancher umgekehrt.

236

Um die Menge zu bewegen. - Muss nicht Der, welcher die Menge bewegen will, der Schauspieler seiner selber sein? Muss er nicht sich selber erst in's Grotesk-Deutliche übersetzen und seine ganze Person und Sache in dieser Vergröberung und Vereinfachung vortragen?

237

Der Höfliche. - "Er ist so höflich!" - Ja, er hat immer einen Kuchen für den Cerberus bei sich und ist so furchtsam, dass er Jedermann für den Cerberus hält, auch dich und mich, - das ist seine Höflichkeit

238

Neidlos. - Er ist ganz ohne Neid, aber es ist kein Verdienst dabei: denn er will ein Land erobern, das Niemand noch besessen und kaum Einer auch nur gesehen hat.

239

Der Freudlose. - Ein einziger freudloser Mensch genügt schon, um einem ganzen Hausstande dauernden Missmuth und trüben Himmel zu machen; und nur durch ein Wunder geschieht es, dass dieser Eine fehlt! - Das Glück ist lange nicht eine so ansteckende Krankheit, - woher kommt das?

240

Am Meere. - Ich würde mir kein Haus bauen (und es gehört selbst zu meinem Glücke, kein Hausbesitzer zu sein!). Müsste ich aber, so würde ich, gleich manchem Römer, es bis in's Meer hineinbauen, - ich möchte schon mit diesem schönen Ungeheuer einige Heimlichkeiten gemeinsam haben.

241

Werk und Künstler. - Dieser Künstler ist ehrgeizig und Nichts weiter: zuletzt ist sein Werk nur ein Vergrösserungsglas, welches er Jedermann anbietet, der nach ihm hinblickt.

242

Suum cuique. - Wie gross auch die Habsucht meiner Erkenntniss ist: ich kann aus den Dingen nichts Anderes herausnehmen, als was mir schon gehört, - das Besitzthum Anderer bleibt in den Dingen zurück. Wie ist es möglich, dass ein Mensch Dieb oder Räuber sei!

243

Ursprung von "Gut" und "Schlecht". - Eine Verbesserung erfindet nur Der, welcher zu fühlen weiss: "Diess ist nicht gut".

244

Gedanken und Worte. - Man kann auch seine Gedanken nicht ganz in Worten wiedergeben.

245

Lob in der Wahl. - Der Künstler wählt seine Stoffe aus: das ist seine Art zu loben.

246

Mathematik. - Wir wollen die Feinheit und Strenge der Mathematik in alle Wissenschaften hineintreiben, so weit diess nur irgend möglich ist, nicht im Glauben, dass wir auf diesem Wege die Dinge erkennen werden, sondern um damit unsere menschliche Relation zu den Dingen festzustellen. Die Mathematik ist nur das Mittel der allgemeinen und letzten Menschenkenntniss.

247

Gewohnheit. - Alle Gewohnheit macht unsere Hand witziger und unseren Witz unbehender.

248

Bücher. - Was ist an einem Buche gelegen, das uns nicht einmal über alle Bücher hinweg trägt?

249

Der Seufzer des Erkennenden. - "Oh über meine Habsucht! In dieser Seele wohnt keine Selbstlosigkeit, - vielmehr ein Alles begehrendes Selbst, welches durch viele Individuen wie durch seine Augen sehen und wie mit seinen Händen greifen möchte, - ein auch die ganze Vergangenheit noch zurückholendes Selbst, welches Nichts verlieren will, was ihm überhaupt gehören könnte! Oh über diese Flamme meiner Habsucht! Oh, dass ich in hundert Wesen wiedergeboren würde!" - Wer diesen Seufzer nicht aus Erfahrung kennt, kennt auch die Leidenschaft des Erkennenden nicht.

250

Schuld. - Obschon die scharfsinnigsten Richter der Hexen und sogar die Hexen selber von der Schuld der Hexerei überzeugt waren, war die Schuld trotzdem nicht vorhanden. So steht es mit aller Schuld.

251

Verkannte Leidende. - Die grossartigen Naturen leiden anders, als ihre Verehrer sich einbilden: sie leiden am härtesten durch die unedlen, kleinlichen Wallungen mancher bösen Augenblicke, kurz, durch ihren Zweifel an der eigenen Grossartigkeit, - nicht aber durch die Opfer und Martyrien, welche ihre Aufgabe von ihnen verlangt. So lange Prometheus Mitleid mit den Menschen hat und sich ihnen opfert, ist er glücklich und gross in sich; aber wenn er neidisch auf Zeus und die Huldigungen wird, welche Jenem die Sterblichen bringen, - da leidet er!

252

Lieber schuldig. - "Lieber schuldig bleiben, als mit einer Münze zahlen, die nicht unser Bild trägt!" - so will es unsere Souveränität.

253

Immer zu Hause. - Eines Tages erreichen wir unser Ziel - und weisen nunmehr mit Stolz darauf hin, was für lange Reisen wir dazu gemacht haben. In Wahrheit merkten wir nicht, dass wir reisten. Wir kamen aber dadurch so weit, dass wir an jeder Stelle wähnten, zu Hause zu sein.

254

Gegen die Verlegenheit. - Wer immer tief beschäftigt ist, ist über alle Verlegenheit hinaus.

255

Nachahmer. - A.: "Wie? Du willst keine Nachahmer?" B.: "Ich will nicht, dass man mir Etwas nachmache, ich will, dass Jeder sich Etwas vormache: das Selbe, was ich thue." A.: "Also -?"

256

Hautlichkeit. - Alle Menschen der Tiefe haben ihre Glückseligkeit darin, einmal den fliegenden Fischen zu gleichen und auf den äussersten Spitzen der Wellen zu spielen; sie schätzen als das Beste an den Dingen, - dass sie eine Oberfläche haben: ihre Hautlichkeit - sit venia verbo.

257

Aus der Erfahrung. - Mancher weiss nicht, wie reich er ist, bis er erfährt, was für reiche Menschen an ihm noch zu Dieben werden.

258

Die Leugner des Zufalls. - Kein Sieger glaubt an den Zufall.

259

Aus dem Paradiese. - "Gut und böse sind die Vorurtheile Gottes" - sagte die Schlange.

260

Ein Mal eins. - Einer hat immer Unrecht: aber mit Zweien beginnt die Wahrheit. - Einer kann sich nicht beweisen: aber Zweie kann man bereits nicht widerlegen.

261

Originalität. - Was ist Originalität? Etwas sehen, das noch keinen Namen trägt, noch nicht genannt werden kann, ob es gleich vor Aller Augen liegt. Wie die Menschen gewöhnlich sind, macht ihnen erst der Name ein Ding überhaupt sichtbar. - Die Originalen sind zumeist auch die Namengeber gewesen.

262

Sub specie aeterni. - A.: "Du entfernst dich immer schneller von den Lebenden: bald werden sie dich aus ihren Listen streichen!" - B.: "Es ist das einzige Mittel, um an dem Vorrecht der Todten theilzuhaben." - A.: "An welchem Vorrecht?" - B.: "Nicht mehr zu sterben."

263

Ohne Eitelkeit. - Wenn wir lieben, so wollen wir, dass unsere Mängel verborgen bleiben, - nicht aus Eitelkeit, sondern, weil das geliebte Wesen nicht leiden soll. Ja, der Liebende möchte ein Gott scheinen, - und auch diess nicht aus Eitelkeit.

264

Was wir thun. - Was wir thun, wird nie verstanden, sondern immer nur gelobt und getadelt.

265

Letzte Skepsis. - Was sind denn zuletzt die Wahrheiten des Menschen? - Es sind die unwiderlegbaren Irrthümer des Menschen.

266

Wo Grausamkeit noth thut. - Wer Größe hat, ist grausam gegen seine Tugenden und Erwägungen zweiten Ranges.

267

Mit einem grossen Ziele. - Mit einem grossen Ziele ist man sogar der Gerechtigkeit überlegen, nicht nur seinen Thaten und seinen Richtern.

268

Was macht heroisch? - Zugleich seinem höchsten Leide und seiner höchsten Hoffnung entgegengehn.

269

Woran glaubst du? - Daran: dass die Gewichte aller Dinge neu bestimmt werden müssen.

270

Was sagt dein Gewissen? - "Du sollst der werden, der du bist."

271

Wo liegen deine grössten Gefahren? - Im Mitleiden.

272

Was liebst du an Anderen? - Meine Hoffnungen.

273

Wen nennst du schlecht? - Den, der immer beschämen will.

274

Was ist dir das Menschlichste? - Jemandem Scham ersparen.

275

Was ist das Siegel der erreichten Freiheit? - Sich nicht mehr vor sich selber schämen.

Viertes Buch

Sanctus Januarius

Der du mit dem Flammenspeere Meiner Seele Eis zertheilt, Dass sie brausend nun zum Meere Ihrer höchsten Hoffnung eilt: Heller stets und stets gesunder, Frei im liebevollsten Muss: - Also preist sie deine Wunder, Schönster Januarius!

Genua im Januar 1882.

276

Zum neuen Jahre. - Noch lebe ich, noch denke ich: ich muss noch leben, denn ich muss noch denken. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. Heute erlaubt sich Jedermann seinen Wunsch und liebsten Gedanken auszusprechen: nun, so will auch ich sagen, was ich mir heute von mir selber wünschte und welcher Gedanke mir dieses Jahr zuerst über das Herz lief, - welcher Gedanke mir Grund, Bürgschaft und Süssigkeit alles weiteren Lebens sein soll! Ich will immer mehr lernen, das Nothwendige an den Dingen als das Schöne sehen: - so werde ich Einer von Denen sein, welche die Dinge schön machen. Amor fati: das sei von nun an meine Liebe! Ich will keinen Krieg gegen das Hässliche führen. Ich will nicht anklagen, ich will nicht einmal die Ankläger anklagen. Wegsehen sei meine einzige Verneinung! Und, Alles in Allem und Grossen: ich will irgendwann einmal nur noch ein Ja-sagender sein!

277

Persönliche Providenz. - Es giebt einen gewissen hohen Punct des Lebens: haben wir den erreicht, so sind wir mit all unserer Freiheit, und so sehr wir dem schönen Chaos des Daseins alle fürsorgende Vernunft und Güte abgestritten haben, noch einmal in der grössten Gefahr der geistigen Unfreiheit und haben unsere schwerste Probe abzulegen. Jetzt nämlich stellt sich erst der Gedanke an eine persönliche Providenz mit der eindringlichsten Gewalt vor uns hin und hat den besten Fürsprecher, den Augenschein, für sich, jetzt wo wir mit Händen greifen, dass uns alle, alle Dinge, die uns treffen, fortwährend zum Besten gereichen. Das Leben jedes Tages und jeder Stunde scheint Nichts mehr zu wollen, als immer nur diesen Satz neu beweisen; sei es was es sei, böses wie gutes Wetter, der Verlust eines Freundes, eine Krankheit, eine Verleumdung, das Ausbleiben eines Briefes, die Verstauchung eines Fusses, ein Blick in einen Verkaufsladen, ein Gegenargument, das Aufschlagen eines Buches, ein Traum, ein Betrug: es erweist sich sofort oder sehr bald nachher als ein Ding, das "nicht fehlen durfte", - es ist voll tiefen Sinnes und Nutzens gerade für uns! Giebt es eine gefährlichere Verführung, den Göttern Epikur's, jenen sorglosen Unbekannten, den Glauben zu kündigen und an irgend eine sorgenvolle und kleinliche Gottheit zu glauben, welche selbst jedes Härchen auf unserem Kopfe persönlich kennt und keinen Ekel in der erbärmlichsten Dienstleistung findet? Nun - ich meine trotzalledem! wir wollen die Götter in Ruhe lassen und die dienstfertigen Genien ebenfalls und uns mit der Annahme begnügen, dass unsere eigene practische und theoretische Geschicklichkeit im Auslegen und Zurechtlegen der Ereignisse jetzt auf ihren Höhepunct gelangt sei. Wir wollen auch nicht zu hoch von dieser Fingerfertigkeit unserer Weisheit denken, wenn uns mitunter die wunderbare Harmonie allzusehr überrascht, welche beim Spiel auf unserem Instrumente entsteht: eine Harmonie, welche zu gut klingt, als dass wir es wagten, sie uns selber zuzurechnen. In der That, hier und da spielt Einer mit uns - der liebe Zufall: er führt uns gelegentlich die Hand, und die allerweiseste Providenz könnte keine schönere Musik erdenken, als dann dieser unserer thörichten Hand gelingt.

278

Der Gedanke an den Tod. - Es macht mir ein melancholisches Glück, mitten in diesem Gewirr der Gässchen, der Bedürfnisse, der Stimmen zu leben: wieviel Geniessen, Ungeduld, Begehren, wieviel durstiges Leben und Trunkenheit des Lebens kommt da jeden Augenblick an den Tag! Und doch wird es für alle diese Lärmenden, Lebenden, Lebensdurstigen bald so stille sein! Wie steht hinter jedem sein Schatten, sein dunkler Weggefährte! Es ist immer wie im letzten Augenblicke vor der Abfahrt eines Auswandererschiffes: man hat einander mehr zu sagen als je, die Stunde drängt, der Ozean und sein ödes Schweigen wartet ungeduldig hinter alle dem Lärme - so begierig, so sicher seiner Beute. Und Alle, Alle meinen, das Bisher sei Nichts oder Wenig, die nahe Zukunft sei Alles: und daher diese Hast, diess Geschrei, dieses Sich-Uebertäuben und Sich-Uebervortheilen! Jeder will der Erste in dieser Zukunft sein, - und doch ist Tod und Todtenstille das einzig Sichere und das Allen Gemeinsame dieser Zukunft! Wie seltsam, dass diese einzige Sicherheit und Gemeinsamkeit fast gar Nichts über die Menschen vermag und dass sie am Weitesten davon entfernt sind, sich als die Brüderschaft des Todes zu fühlen! Es macht mich glücklich, zu sehen, dass die Menschen den Gedanken an den Tod durchaus nicht denken wollen! Ich möchte gern Etwas dazu thun, ihnen den Gedanken an das Leben noch hundertmal denkenswerther zumachen.

279

Sternen-Freundschaft. - Wir waren Freunde und sind uns fremd geworden. Aber das ist recht so und wir wollen's uns nicht verhehlen und verdunkeln, - als ob wir uns dessen zu schämen hätten. Wir sind zwei Schiffe, deren jedes sein Ziel und seine Bahn hat; wir können uns wohl kreuzen und ein Fest miteinander feiern, wie wir es gethan haben, - und dann lagen die braven Schiffe so ruhig in Einem Hafen und in Einer Sonne, dass es scheinen mochte, sie seien schon am Ziele und hätten Ein Ziel gehabt. Aber dann trieb uns die allmächtige Gewalt unserer Aufgabe wieder auseinander, in verschiedene Meere und Sonnenstriche und vielleicht sehen wir uns nie wieder, - vielleicht auch sehen wir uns wohl, aber erkennen uns nicht wieder: die verschiedenen Meere und Sonnen haben uns verändert! Dass wir uns fremd werden müssen, ist das Gesetz über uns: eben dadurch sollen wir uns auch ehrwürdiger werden! Eben dadurch soll der Gedanke an unsere ehemalige Freundschaft heiliger werden! Es giebt wahrscheinlich eine ungeheure unsichtbare Curve und Sternenbahn, in der unsere so verschiedenen Strassen und Ziele als kleine Wegstrecken einbegriffen sein mögen, - erheben wir uns zu diesem Gedanken! Aber unser Leben ist zu kurz und unsere Sehkraft zu gering, als dass wir mehr als Freunde im Sinne jener erhabenen Möglichkeit sein könnten. - Und so wollen wir an unsere Sternen-Freundschaft glauben, selbst wenn wir einander Erden-Feinde sein müssten.

280

Architektur der Erkennenden. - Es bedarf einmal und wahrscheinlich bald einmal der Einsicht, was vor Allem unseren grossen Städten fehlt: stille und weite, weitgedehnte Orte zum Nachdenken, Orte mit hochräumigen langen Hallengängen für schlechtes oder allzu sonniges Wetter, wohin kein Geräusch der Wagen und der Ausrufer dringt und wo ein feinerer Anstand selbst dem Priester das laute Beten untersagen würde: Bauwerke und Anlagen, welche als Ganzes die Erhabenheit des Sich-Besinnens und Bei-Seitegehens ausdrücken. Die Zeit ist vorbei, wo die Kirche das Monopol des Nachdenkens besass, wo die vita contemplativa immer zuerst vita religiosa sein musste: und Alles, was die Kirche gebaut hat, drückt diesen Gedanken aus. Ich wüsste nicht, wie wir uns mit ihren Bauwerken, selbst wenn sie ihrer kirchlichen Bestimmung entkleidet würden, genügen lassen könnten; diese Bauwerke reden eine viel zu pathetische und befangene Sprache, als Häuser Gottes und Prunkstätten eines überweltlichen Verkehrs, als dass wir Gottlosen hier unsere Gedanken denken könnten. Wir wollen uns in Stein und Pflanze übersetzt haben, wir wollen in uns spazieren gehen, wenn wir in diesen Hallen und Gärten wandeln.

281

Das Ende zu finden wissen. - Die Meister des ersten Ranges geben sich dadurch zu erkennen, dass sie im Grossen wie im Kleinen auf eine vollkommene Weise das Ende zu finden wissen, sei es das Ende einer Melodie oder eines Gedankens, sei es der fünfte Act einer Tragödie oder Staats-Action. Die ersten der zweiten Stufe werden immer gegen das Ende hin unruhig, und fallen nicht in so stolzem ruhigem Gleichmaasse in's Meer ab, wie zum Beispiel das Gebirge bei Porto fino - dort, wo die Bucht von Genua ihre Melodie zu Ende singt.

282

Der Gang. - Es giebt Manieren des Geistes, an denen auch grosse Geister verrathen, dass sie vom Pöbel oder Halbpöbel herkommen: - der Gang und Schritt ihrer Gedanken ist es namentlich, der den Verräther macht; sie können nicht gehen. So konnte auch Napoleon zu seinem tiefen Verdrusse nicht fürstenmässig und "legitim" gehen, bei Gelegenheiten, wo man es eigentlich verstehen muss, wie bei grossen Krönungs-Processionen und Aehnlichem: auch da war er immer nur der Anführer einer Colonne - stolz und hastig zugleich und sich dessen sehr bewusst. - Man hat Etwas zum Lachen, diese Schriftsteller zu sehen, welche die faltigen Gewänder der Periode um sich rauschen machen: sie wollen so ihre Füsse verdecken.

283

Vorbereitende Menschen. - Ich begrüsse alle Anzeichen dafür, dass ein männlicheres, ein kriegerisches Zeitalter anhebt, das vor allem die Tapferkeit wieder zu Ehren bringen wird! Denn es soll einem noch höheren Zeitalter den Weg bahnen und die Kraft einsammeln, welche jenes einmal nöthig haben wird, - jenes Zeitalter, das den Heroismus in die Erkenntniss trägt und Kriege führt um der Gedanken und ihrer Folgen willen. Dazu bedarf es für jetzt vieler vorbereitender tapferer Menschen, welche doch nicht aus dem Nichts entspringen können - und ebensowenig aus dem Sand und Schleim der jetzigen Civilisation und Grossstadt-Bildung: Menschen, welche es verstehen, schweigend, einsam, entschlossen, in unsichtbarer Thätigkeit zufrieden und beständig zu sein: Menschen, die mit innerlichem Hange an allen Dingen nach dem suchen, was an ihnen zu überwinden ist: Menschen, denen Heiterkeit, Geduld, Schlichtheit und Verachtung der grossen Eitelkeiten ebenso zu eigen ist, als Grossmuth im Siege und Nachsicht gegen die kleinen Eitelkeiten aller Besiegten: Menschen mit einem scharfen und freien Urtheile über alle Sieger und über den Antheil des Zufalls an jedem Siege und Ruhme: Menschen mit eigenen Festen, eigenen Werktagen, eigenen Trauerzeiten, gewohnt und sicher im Befehlen und gleich bereit, wo es gilt, zu gehorchen, im Einen wie im Anderen gleich stolz, gleich ihrer eigenen Sache dienend: gefährdetere Menschen, fruchtbarere Menschen, glücklichere Menschen! Denn, glaubt es mir! - das Geheimniss, um die grösste Fruchtbarkeit und den grössten Genuss vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben! Baut eure Städte an den Vesuv! Schickt eure Schiffe in unerforschte Meere! Lebt im Kriege mit Euresgleichen und mit euch selber! Seid Räuber und Eroberer, so lange ihr nicht Herrscher und Besitzer sein könnt, ihr Erkennenden! Die Zeit geht bald vorbei, wo es euch genug sein durfte, gleich scheuen Hirschen in Wäldern versteckt zu leben! Endlich wird die Erkenntniss die Hand nach dem ausstrecken, was ihr gebührt: - sie wird herrschen und besitzen wollen, und ihr mit ihr!

284

Der Glaube an sich. - Wenige Menschen überhaupt haben den Glauben an sich: - und von diesen Wenigen bekommen ihn die Einen mit, als eine nützliche Blindheit oder theilweise Verfinsterung ihres Geistes - (was würden sie erblicken, wenn sie sich selber auf den Grund sehen könnten!), die Anderen müssen ihn sich erst erwerben: Alles, was sie Gutes, Tüchtiges, Grosses thun, ist zunächst ein Argument gegen den Skeptiker, der in ihnen haust: es gilt, diesen zu überzeugen oder zu überreden, und dazu bedarf es beinahe des Genie's. Es sind die grossen Selbst-Ungenügsamen.

285

Excelsior. - "Du wirst niemals mehr beten, niemals mehr anbeten, niemals mehr im endlosen Vertrauen ausruhen - du versagst es dir, vor einer letzten Weisheit, letzten Güte, letzten Macht stehen zu bleiben und deine Gedanken abzuschirren - du hast keinen fortwährenden Wächter und Freund für deine sieben Einsamkeiten - du lebst ohne den Ausblick auf ein Gebirge, das Schnee auf dem Haupte und Gluthen in seinem Herzen trägt - es giebt für dich keinen Vergelter, keinen Verbesserer letzter Hand mehr - es giebt keine Vernunft in dem mehr, was geschieht, keine Liebe in dem, was dir geschehen wird - deinem Herzen steht keine Ruhestatt mehr offen, wo es nur zu finden und nicht mehr zu suchen hat, du wehrst dich gegen irgend einen letzten Frieden, du willst die ewige Wiederkunft von Krieg und Frieden: - Mensch der Entsagung, in Alledem willst du entsagen? Wer wird dir die Kraft dazu geben? Noch hatte Niemand diese Kraft!" - Es giebt einen See, der es sich eines Tages versagte, abzufliessen, und einen Damm dort aufwarf, wo er bisher abfloss: seitdem steigt dieser See immer höher. Vielleicht wird gerade jene Entsagung uns auch die Kraft verleihen, mit der die Entsagung selber ertragen werden kann; vielleicht wird der Mensch von da an immer höher steigen, wo er nicht mehr in einen Gott ausfliesst.

286

Zwischenrede. - Hier sind Hoffnungen; was werdet ihr aber von ihnen sehen und hören, wenn ihr nicht in euren eigenen Seelen Glanz und Gluth und Morgenröthen erlebt habt? Ich kann nur erinnern - mehr kann ich nicht! Steine bewegen, Thiere zu Menschen machen - wollt ihr das von mir? Ach, wenn ihr noch Steine und Thiere seid, so sucht euch erst euren Orpheus!

287

Lust an der Blindheit. - "Meine Gedanken, sagte der Wanderer zu seinem Schatten, sollen mir anzeigen, wo ich stehe: aber sie sollen mir nicht verrathen, wohin ich gehe. Ich liebe die Unwissenheit um die Zukunft und will nicht an der Ungeduld und dem Vorwegkosten verheissener Dinge zu Grunde gehen."

288

Hohe Stimmungen. - Mir scheint es, dass die meisten Menschen an hohe Stimmungen überhaupt nicht glauben, es sei denn für Augenblicke, höchstens Viertelstunden, - jene Wenigen ausgenommen, welche eine längere Dauer des hohen Gefühls aus Erfahrung kennen. Aber gar der Mensch Eines hohen Gefühls, die Verkörperung einer einzigen grossen Stimmung sein - das ist bisher nur ein Traum und eine entzückende Möglichkeit gewesen: die Geschichte giebt uns noch kein sicheres Beispiel davon. Trotzdem könnte sie einmal auch solche Menschen gebären - dann, wenn eine Menge günstige Vorbedingungen geschaffen und festgestellt worden sind, die jetzt auch der glücklichste Zufall nicht zusammenzuwürfeln vermag. Vielleicht wäre diesen zukünftigen Seelen eben Das der gewöhnliche Zustand, was bisher als die mit Schauder empfundene Ausnahme hier und da einmal in unseren Seelen eintrat: eine fortwährende Bewegung zwischen hoch und tief und das Gefühl von hoch und tief, ein beständiges Wie-auf-Treppensteigen und zugleich Wie-auf-Wolken-ruhen.

289

Auf die Schiffe! - Erwägt man, wie auf jeden Einzelnen eine philosophische Gesammt-Rechtfertigung seiner Art, zu leben und zu denken, wirkt - nämlich gleich einer wärmenden, segnenden, befruchtenden, eigens ihm leuchtenden Sonne, wie sie unabhängig von Lob und Tadel, selbstgenugsam, reich, freigebig an Glück und Wohlwollen macht, wie sie unaufhörlich das Böse zum Guten umschafft, alle Kräfte zum Blühen und Reifwerden bringt und das kleine und grosse Unkraut des Grams und der Verdriesslichkeit gar nicht aufkommen lässt: - so ruft man zuletzt verlangend aus: oh dass doch viele solche neue Sonnen noch geschaffen würden! Auch der Böse, auch der Unglückliche, auch der Ausnahme-Mensch soll seine Philosophie, sein gutes Recht, seinen Sonnenschein haben! Nicht Mitleiden mit ihnen thut noth! - diesen Einfall des Hochmuths müssen wir verlernen, so lange auch bisher die Menschheit gerade an ihm gelernt und geübt hat - keine Beichtiger, Seelenbeschwörer und Sündenvergeber haben wir für sie aufzustellen! Sondern eine neue Gerechtigkeit thut noth! Und eine neue Losung! Und neue Philosophen! Auch die moralische Erde ist rund! Auch die moralische Erde hat ihre Antipoden! Auch die Antipoden haben ihr Recht des Daseins! Es giebt noch eine andere Welt zu entdecken - und mehr als eine! Auf die Schiffe, ihr Philosophen!

290

Eins ist Noth. - Seinem Charakter "Stil geben" - eine grosse und seltene Kunst! Sie übt Der, welcher Alles übersieht, was seine Natur an Kräften und Schwächen bietet, und es dann einem künstlerischen Plane einfügt, bis ein jedes als Kunst und Vernunft erscheint und auch die Schwäche noch das Auge entzückt. Hier ist eine grosse Masse zweiter Natur hinzugetragen worden, dort ein Stück erster Natur abgetragen: - beidemal mit langer Uebung und täglicher Arbeit daran. Hier ist das Hässliche, welches sich nicht abtragen liess, versteckt, dort ist es in's Erhabene umgedeutet. Vieles Vage, der Formung Widerstrebende ist für Fernsichten aufgespart und ausgenutzt worden: - es soll in das Weite und Unermessliche hinaus winken. Zuletzt, wenn das Werk vollendet ist, offenbart sich, wie es der Zwang des selben Geschmacks war, der im Grossen und Kleinen herrschte und bildete: ob der Geschmack ein guter oder ein schlechter war, bedeutet weniger, als man denkt, - genug, dass es Ein Geschmack ist! - Es werden die starken, herrschsüditigen Naturen sein, welche in einem solchen Zwange, in einer solchen Gebundenheit und Vollendung unter dem eigenen Gesetz ihre feinste Freude geniessen; die Leidenschaft ihres gewaltigen Wollens erleichtert sich beim Anblick aller stilisirten Natur, aller besiegten und dienenden Natur; auch wenn sie Paläste zu bauen und Gärten anzulegen haben, widerstrebt es ihnen, die Natur frei zu geben. - Umgekehrt sind es die schwachen, ihrer selber nicht mächtigen Charaktere, welche die Gebundenheit des Stils hassen: sie fühlen, dass, wenn ihnen dieser bitterböse Zwang auferlegt würde, sie unter ihm gemein werden müssten: - sie werden Sclaven, sobald sie dienen, sie hassen das Dienen. Solche Geister - es können Geister ersten Rangs sein - sind immer darauf aus, sich selber und ihre Umgebungen als freie Natur - wild, willkürlich, phantastisch, unordentlich, überraschend - zu gestalten oder auszudeuten, - und sie thun wohl daran, weil sie nur so sich selber wohlthun! Denn Eins ist Noth: dass der Mensch seine Zufriedenheit mit sich erreiche - sei es nun durch diese oder jene Dichtung und Kunst: nur dann erst ist der Mensch überhaupt erträglich anzusehen! Wer mit sich unzufrieden ist, ist fortwährend bereit, sich dafür zu rächen: wir Anderen werden seine Opfer sein, und sei es auch nur darin, dass wir immer seinen hässlichen Anblick zu ertragen haben. Denn der Anblick des Hässlichen macht schlecht und düster.

291

Genua. - Ich habe mir diese Stadt, ihre Landhäuser und Lustgärten und den weiten Umkreis ihrer bewohnten Höhen und Hänge eine gute Weile angesehen; endlich muss ich sagen: ich sehe Gesichter aus vergangenen Geschlechtern, - diese Gegend ist mit den Abbildern kühner und selbstherrlicher Menschen übersäet. Sie haben gelebt und haben fortleben wollen - das sagen sie mir mit ihren Häusern, gebaut und geschmückt für Jahrhunderte und nicht für die flüchtige Stunde: sie waren dem Leben gut, so böse sie oft gegen sich gewesen sein mögen. Ich sehe immer den Bauenden, wie er mit seinen Blicken auf allem fern und nah um ihn her Gebauten ruht und ebenso auf Stadt, Meer und Gebirgslinien, wie er mit diesem Blick Gewalt und Eroberung ausübt. Alles diess will er seinem Plane einfügen und zuletzt zu seinem Eigenthum machen, dadurch dass es ein Stück desselben wird. Diese ganze Gegend ist mit dieser prachtvollen unersättlichen Selbstsucht der Besitz- und Beutelust überwachsen; und wie diese Menschen in der Ferne keine Grenze anerkannten und in ihrem Durste nach Neuem eine neue Welt neben die alte hinstellten, so empörte sich auch in der Heimat immer noch jeder gegen jeden und erfand eine Weise, seine Ueberlegenheit auszudrücken und zwischen sich und seinen Nachbar seine persönliche Unendlichkeit dazwischen zu legen. Jeder eroberte sich seine Heimat noch einmal für sich, indem er sie mit seinen architektonischen Gedanken überwältigte und gleichsam zur Augenweide seines Hauses umschuf. Im Norden imponirt das Gesetz und die allgemeine Lust an Gesetzlichkeit und Gehorsam, wenn man die Bauweise der Städte ansieht: man erräth dabei jenes innerliche Sich-Gleichsetzen, Sich-Einordnen, welches die Seele aller Bauenden beherrscht haben muss. Hier aber findest du, um jede Ecke biegend, einen Menschen für sich, der das Meer, das Abenteuer und den Orient kennt, einen Menschen, welcher dem Gesetze und dem Nachbar wie einer Art von Langerweile abhold ist und der alles schon Begründete, Alte mit neidischen Blicken misst: er möchte, mit einer wundervollen Verschmitztheit der Phantasie, diess Alles mindestens im Gedanken noch einmal neu gründen, seine Hand darauf-, seinen Sinn hineinlegen - sei es auch nur für den Augenblick eines sonnigen Nachmittags, wo seine unersättliche und melancholische Seele einmal Sattheit fühlt, und seinem Auge nur Eigenes und nichts Fremdes mehr sich zeigen darf.

292

An die Moral-Prediger. - Ich will keine Moral machen, aber Denen, welche es thun, gebe ich diesen Rath: wollt ihr die besten Dinge und Zustände zuletzt um alle Ehre und Werth bringen, so fahrt fort, sie in den Mund zu nehmen, wie bisher! Stellt sie an die Spitze eurer Moral und redet von früh bis Abend von dem Glück der Tugend, von der Ruhe der Seele, von der Gerechtigkeit und der immanenten Vergeltung: so wie ihr es treibt, bekommen alle diese guten Dinge dadurch endlich eine Popularität und ein Geschrei der Gasse für sich: aber dann wird auch alles Gold daran abgegriffen sein und mehr noch: alles Gold darin wird sich in Blei verwandelt haben. Wahrlich, ihr versteht euch auf die umgekehrte Kunst der Alchymie, auf die Entwerthung des Werthvollsten! Greift einmal zum Versuche nach einem andern Recepte, um nicht wie bisher das Gegentheil von dem, was ihr sucht, zu erreichen: leugnet jene guten Dinge, entzieht ihnen den Pöbel-Beifall und den leichten Umlauf, macht sie wieder zu verborgenen Schamhaftigkeiten einsamer Seelen, sagt, Moral sei etwas Verbotenes! Vielleicht gewinnt ihr so die Art von Menschen für diese Dinge, auf welche einzig Etwas ankommt, ich meine die Heroischen. Aber dann muss Etwas zum Fürchten daran sein und nicht, wie bisher, zum Ekeln! Möchte man nicht heute in Hinsicht der Moral sagen, wie Meister Eckardt: "ich bitte Gott, dass er mich quitt mache Gottes!"

293

Unsere Luft. - Wir wissen es wohl: wer nur wie im Spazierengehen einmal einen Blick nach der Wissenschaft hin thut, nach Art der Frauen und leider auch vieler Künstler: für den hat die Strenge ihres Dienstes, diese Unerbittlichkeit im Kleinen wie im Grossen, diese Schnelligkeit im Wägen, Urtheilen, Verurtheilen etwas Schwindel- und Furchteinflössendes. Namentlich erschreckt ihn, wie hier das Schwerste gefordert, das Beste gethan wird, ohne dass dafür Lob und Auszeichnungen da sind, vielmehr, wie unter Soldaten, fast nur Tadel und scharfe Verweise laut werden, - denn das Gutmachen gilt als die Regel, das Verfehlte als die Ausnahme; die Regel aber hat hier wie überall einen schweigsamen Mund. Mit dieser "Strenge der Wissenschaft" steht es nun wie mit der Form und Höflichkeit der allerbesten Gesellschaft: - sie erschreckt den Uneingeweihten. Wer aber an sie gewöhnt ist, mag gar nicht anderswo leben, als in dieser hellen, durchsichtigen, kräftigen, stark elektrischen Luft, in dieser männlichen Luft. Ueberall sonst ist es ihm nicht reinlich und luftig genug: er argwöhnt, dass dort seine beste Kunst Niemandem recht von Nutzen und ihm selber nicht zur Freude sein werde, dass unter Missverständnissen ihm sein halbes Leben durch die Finger schlüpfe, dass fortwährend viel Vorsicht, viel Verbergen und Ansichhalten noth thue, - lauter grosse und unnütze Einbussen an Kraft! In diesem strengen und klaren Elemente aber hat er seine Kraft ganz: hier kann er fliegen! Wozu sollte er wieder hinab in jene trüben Gewässer, wo man schwimmen und waten muss und seine Flügel missfarbig macht! - Nein! Da ist es zu schwer für uns, zu leben: was können wir dafür, dass wir für die Luft, die reine Luft geboren sind, wir Nebenbuhler des Lichtstrahls, und dass wir am liebsten auf Aetherstäubchen, gleich ihm, reiten würden und nicht von der Sonne weg, sondern zu der Sonne hin! Das aber können wir nicht: - so wollen wir denn thun, was wir einzig können: der Erde Licht bringen, "das Licht der Erde" sein! Und dazu haben wir unsere Flügel und unsere Schnelligkeit und Strenge, um dessenthalben sind wir männlich und selbst schrecklich, gleich dem Feuer. Mögen Die uns fürchten, welche sich nicht an uns zu wärmen und zu erhellen verstehen!

294

Gegen die Verleumder der Natur. - Das sind mir unangenehme Menschen, bei denen jeder natürliche Hang sofort zur Krankheit wird, zu etwas Entstellendem oder gar Schmählichem, - diese haben uns zu der Meinung verführt, die Hänge und Triebe des Menschen seien böse; sie sind die Ursache unserer grossen Ungerechtigkeit gegen unsere Natur, gegen alle Natur! Es giebt genug Menschen, die sich ihren Trieben mit Anmuth und Sorglosigkeit überlassen dürfen: aber sie thun es nicht, aus Angst vor jenem eingebildeten "bösen Wesen" der Natur! Daher ist es gekommen, dass so wenig Vornehmheit unter den Menschen zu finden ist: deren Kennzeichen es immer sein wird, vor sich keine Furcht zu haben, von sich nichts Schmähliches zu erwarten, ohne Bedenken zu fliegen, wohin es uns treibt - uns freigeborene Vögel! Wohin wir auch nur kommen, immer wird es frei und sonnenlicht um uns sein.

295

Kurze Gewohnheiten. - Ich liebe die kurzen Gewohnheiten und halte sie für das unschätzbare Mittel, viele Sachen und Zustände kennen zu lernen und hinab bis auf den Grund ihrer Süssen und Bitterkeiten; meine Natur ist ganz für kurze Gewohnheiten eingerichtet, selbst in den Bedürfnissen ihrer leiblichen Gesundheit und überhaupt soweit ich nur sehen kann: vom Niedrigen bis zum Höchsten. Immer glaube ich, diess werde mich nun dauernd befriedigen - auch die kurze Gewohnheit hat jenen Glauben der Leidenschaft, den Glauben an die Ewigkeit - und ich sei zu beneiden, es gefunden und erkannt zu haben: - und nun nährt es mich am Mittage und am Abende und verbreitet eine tiefe Genügsamkeit um sich und in mich hinein, sodass mich nach Anderem nicht verlangt, ohne dass ich zu vergleichen oder zu verachten oder zu hassen hätte. Und eines Tages hat es seine Zeit gehabt: die gute Sache scheidet von mir, nicht als Etwas, das mir nun Ekel einflösst - sondern friedlich und an mir gesättigt, wie ich an ihm, und wie als ob wir einander dankbar sein müssten und uns so die Hände zum Abschied reichten. Und schon wartet das Neue an der Thüre und ebenso mein Glaube - der unverwüstliche Thor und Weise! - diess Neue werde das Rechte, das letzte Rechte sein. So geht es mir mit Speisen, Gedanken, Menschen, Städten, Gedichten, Musiken, Lehren, Tagesordnungen, Lebensweisen. - Dagegen hasse ich die dauernden Gewohnheiten und meine, dass ein Tyrann in meine Nähe kommt und dass meine Lebensluft sich verdickt, wo die Ereignisse sich so gestalten, dass dauernde Gewohnheiten daraus mit Nothwendigkeit zu wachsen scheinen: zum Beispiel durch ein Amt, durch ein beständiges Zusammensein mit den selben Menschen, durch einen festen Wohnsitz, durch eine einmalige Art Gesundheit. Ja, ich bin allem meinem Elend und Kranksein, und was nur immer unvollkommen an mir ist, - im untersten Grunde meiner Seele erkenntlich gesinnt, weil dergleichen mir hundert Hinterthüren lässt, durch die ich den dauernden Gewohnheiten entrinnen kann. - Das Unerträglichste freilich, das eigentlich Fürchterliche, wäre mir ein Leben ganz ohne Gewohnheiten, ein Leben, das fortwährend die Improvisation verlangt: - diess wäre meine Verbannung und mein Sibirien.

296

Der feste Ruf. - Der feste Ruf war ehedem eine Sache der äussersten Nützlichkeit; und wo nur immer die Gesellschaft noch vom Heerden-Instinct beherrscht wird, ist es auch jetzt noch für jeden Einzelnen am zweckmässigsten, seinen Charakter und seine Beschäftigung als unveränderlich zu geben, - selbst wenn sie es im Grunde nicht sind. "Man kann sich auf ihn verlassen, er bleibt sich gleich": - das ist in allen gefährlichen Lagen der Gesellschaft das Lob, welches am meisten zu bedeuten hat. Die Gesellschaft fühlt mit Genugthuung, ein zuverlässiges, jederzeit bereites Werkzeug in der Tugend Dieses, in dem Ehrgeize jenes, in dem Nachdenken und der Leidenschaft des Dritten zu haben, - sie ehrt diese Werkzeug-Natur, diess Sich-Treubleiben, diese Unwandelbarkeit in Ansichten, Bestrebungen, und selbst in Untugenden, mit ihren höchsten Ehren. Eine solche Schätzung, welche überall zugleich mit der Sittlichkeit der Sitte blüht und geblüht hat, erzieht "Charaktere" und bringt alles Wechseln, Umlernen, Sich-Verwandeln in Verruf. Diess ist nun jedenfalls, mag sonst der Vortheil dieser Denkweise noch so gross sein, für die Erkenntniss die allerschädlichste Art des allgemeinen Urtheils: denn gerade der gute Wille des Erkennenden, unverzagt sich jederzeit gegen seine bisherige Meinung zu erklären und überhaupt in Bezug auf Alles, was in uns fest werden will, misstrauisch zu sein, - ist hier verurtheilt und in Verruf gebracht. Die Gesinnung des Erkennenden als im Widerspruch mit dem "festen Rufe" gilt als unehrenhaft, während die Versteinerung der Ansichten alle Ehre für sich hat: - unter dem Banne solcher Geltung müssen wir heute noch leben! Wie schwer lebt es sich, wenn man das Urtheil vieler Jahrtausende gegen sich und um sich fühlt! Es ist wahrscheinlich, dass viele Jahrtausende die Erkenntniss mit dem schlechten Gewissen behaftet war, und dass viel Selbstverachtung und geheimes Elend in der Geschichte der grössten Geister gewesen sein muss.

297

Widersprechen können. - Jeder weiss jetzt, dass Widerspruch-Vertragen-können ein hohes Zeichen von Cultur ist. Einige wissen sogar, dass der höhere Mensch den Widerspruch gegen sich wünscht und hervorruft, um einen Fingerzeig über seine ihm bisher unbekannte Ungerechtigkeit zu bekommen. Aber das Widersprechen-Können, das erlangte gute Gewissen bei der Feindseligkeit gegen das Gewohnte, Ueberlieferte, Geheiligte, - das ist mehr als jenes Beides und das eigentlich Grosse, Neue, Erstaunliche unserer Cultur, der Schritt aller Schritte des befreiten Geistes: wer weiss das? -

298

Seufzer. - Ich erhaschte diese Einsicht unterwegs und nahm rasch die nächsten schlechten Worte, sie festzumachen, damit sie mir nicht wieder davonfliege. Und nun ist sie mir an diesen dürren Worten gestorben und hängt und schlottert in ihnen - und ich weiss kaum mehr, wenn ich sie ansehe, wie ich ein solches Glück haben konnte, als ich diesen Vogel fieng.

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Was man den Künstlern ablernen soll. - Welche Mittel haben wir, uns die Dinge schön, anziehend, begehrenswerth zu machen, wenn sie es nicht sind? - und ich meine, sie sind es an sich niemals! Hier haben wir von den Aerzten Etwas zu lernen, wenn sie zum Beispiel das Bittere verdünnen oder Wein und Zucker in den Mischkrug thun; aber noch mehr von den Künstlern, welche eigentlich fortwährend darauf aus sind, solche Erfindungen und Kunststücke zu machen. Sich von den Dingen entfernen, bis man Vieles von ihnen nicht mehr sieht und Vieles hinzusehen muss, um sie noch zu sehen - oder die Dinge um die Ecke und wie in einem Ausschnitte sehen - oder sie so stellen, dass sie sich theilweise verstellen und nur perspectivische Durchblicke gestatten - oder sie durch gefärbtes Glas oder im Lichte der Abendröthe anschauen - oder ihnen eine Oberfläche und Haut geben, welche keine volle Transparenz hat: das Alles sollen wir den Künstlern ablernen und im Uebrigen weiser sein, als sie. Denn bei ihnen hört gewöhnlich diese ihre feine Kraft auf, wo die Kunst aufhört und das Leben beginnt; wir aber wollen die Dichter unseres Lebens sein, und im Kleinsten und Alltäglichsten zuerst.

300

Vorspiele der Wissenschaft. - Glaubt ihr denn, dass die Wissenschaften entstanden und gross geworden wären, wenn ihnen nicht die Zauberer, Alchymisten, Astrologen und Hexen vorangelaufen wären als Die, welche mit ihren Verheissungen und Vorspiegelungen erst Durst, Hunger und Wohlgeschmack an verborgenen und verbotenen Mächten schaffen mussten? Ja, dass unendlich mehr hat verheissen werden müssen, als je erfüllt werden kann, damit überhaupt Etwas im Reiche der Erkenntniss sich erfülle? - Vielleicht erscheint in gleicher Weise, wie uns sich hier Vorspiele und Vorübungen der Wissenschaft darstellen, die durchaus nicht als solche geübt und empfunden wurden, auch irgend einem fernen Zeitalter die gesammte Religion als Uebung und Vorspiel: vielleicht könnte sie das seltsame Mittel dazu gewesen sein, dass einmal einzelne Menschen die ganze Selbstgenügsamkeit eines Gottes und alle seine Kraft der Selbsterlösung geniessen können: ja! - darf man fragen - würde denn der Mensch überhaupt ohne jene religiöse Schule und Vorgeschichte es gelernt haben, nach sich Hunger und Durst zu spüren und aus sich Sattheit und Fülle zu nehmen? Musste Prometheus erst wähnen, das Licht gestohlen zu haben und dafür büssen, - um endlich zu entdecken, dass er das Licht geschaffen habe, indem er nach dem Lichte begehrte, und dass nicht nur der Mensch, sondern auch der Gott das Werk seiner Hände und Thon in seinen Händen gewesen sei? Alles nur Bilder des Bildners? - ebenso wie der Wahn, der Diebstahl, der Kaukasus, der Geier und die ganze tragische Prometheia aller Erkennenden?

301

Wahn der Contemplativen. - Die hohen Menschen unterscheiden sich von den niederen dadurch, dass sie unsäglich mehr sehen und hören und denkend sehen und hören - und eben diess unterscheidet den Menschen vom Thiere und die oberen Thiere von den unteren. Die Welt wird für Den immer voller, welcher in die Höhe der Menschlichkeit hinauf wächst; es werden immer mehr Angelhaken des Interesses nach ihm ausgeworfen; die Menge seiner Reize ist beständig im Wachsen und ebenso die Menge seiner Arten von Lust und Unlust, - der höhere Mensch wird immer zugleich glücklicher und unglücklicher. Dabei aber bleibt ein Wahn sein beständiger Begleiter: er meint, als Zuschauer und Zuhörer vor das grosse Schau- und Tonspiel gestellt zu sein, welches das Leben ist: er nennt seine Natur eine contemplative und übersieht dabei, dass er selber auch der eigentliche Dichter und Fortdichter des Lebens ist, - dass er sich freilich vom Schauspieler dieses Drama's, dem sogenannten handelnden Menschen, sehr unterscheidet, aber noch mehr von einem blossen Betrachter und Festgaste vor der Bühne. Ihm, als dem Dichter, ist gewiss vis contemplativa und der Rückblick auf sein Werk zu eigen, aber zugleich und vorerst die vis creativa, welche dem handelnden Menschen fehlt, was auch der Augenschein und der Allerweltsglaube sagen mag. Wir, die Denkend-Empfindenden, sind es, die wirklich und immerfort Etwas machen, das noch nicht da ist: die ganze ewig wachsende Welt von Schätzungen, Farben, Gewichten, Perspectiven, Stufenleitern, Bejahungen und Verneinungen. Diese von uns erfundene Dichtung wird fortwährend von den sogenannten practischen Menschen (unsern Schauspielern wie gesagt) eingelernt, eingeübt, in Fleisch und Wirklichkeit, ja Alltäglichkeit übersetzt. Was nur Werth hat in der jetzigen Welt, das hat ihn nicht an sich, seiner Natur nach, - die Natur ist immer werthlos: - sondern dem hat man einen Werth einmal gegeben, geschenkt, und wir waren diese Gebenden und Schenkenden! Wir erst haben die Welt, die den Menschen Etwas angeht, geschaffen! - Gerade dieses Wissen aber fehlt uns, und wenn wir es einen Augenblick einmal erhaschen, so haben wir es im nächsten wieder vergessen: wir verkennen unsere beste Kraft und schätzen uns, die Contemplativen, um einen Grad zu gering, - wir sind weder so stolz, noch so glücklich, als wir sein könnten.

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Gefahr des Glücklichsten. - Feine Sinne und einen feinen Geschmack haben; an das Ausgesuchte und Allerbeste des Geistes wie an die rechte und nächste Kost gewöhnt sein; einer starken, kühnen, verwegenen Seele geniessen; mit ruhigem Auge und festem Schritt durch das Leben gehen, immer zum Aeussersten bereit, wie zu einem Feste und voll des Verlangens nach unentdeckten Welten und Meeren, Menschen und Göttern; auf jede heitere Musik hinhorchen, als ob dort wohl tapfere Männer, Soldaten, Seefahrer sich eine kurze Rast und Lust machen, und im tiefsten Genusse des Augenblicks überwältigt werden von Thränen und von der ganzen purpurnen Schwermuth des Glücklichen: wer möchte nicht, dass das Alles gerade sein Besitz, sein Zustand wäre! Es war das Glück Homer's! Der Zustand Dessen, der den Griechen ihre Götter, - nein, sich selber seine Götter erfunden hat! Aber man verberge es sich nicht: mit diesem Glücke Homer's in der Seele ist man auch das leidensfähigste Geschöpf unter der Sonne! Und nur um diesen Preis kauft man die kostbarste Muschel, welche die Wellen des Daseins bisher an's Ufer gespült haben! Man wird als ihr Besitzer immer feiner im Schmerz und zuletzt zu fein: ein kleiner Missmuth und Ekel genügte am Ende, um Homer das Leben zu verleiden. Er hatte ein thörichtes Räthselchen, das ihm junge Fischer aufgaben, nicht zu rathen vermocht! ja, die kleinen Räthsel sind die Gefahr der Glücklichsten! -

303

Zwei Glückliche. - Wahrlich, dieser Mensch, trotz seiner Jugend, versteht sich auf die Improvisation des Lebens und setzt auch den feinsten Beobachter in Erstaunen: - es scheint nämlich, dass er keinen Fehlgriff thut, ob er schon fortwährend das gewagteste Spiel spielt. Man wird an jene improvisirenden Meister der Tonkunst erinnert, denen auch der Zuhörer eine göttliche Unfehlbarkeit der Hand zuschreiben möchte, trotzdem, dass sie sich hier und da vergreifen, wie jeder Sterbliche sich vergreift. Aber sie sind geübt und erfinderisch, und im Augenblicke immer bereit, den zufälligsten Ton, wohin ein Wurf des Fingers, eine Laune sie treibt, sofort in das thematische Gefüge einzuordnen und dem Zufalle einen schönen Sinn und eine Seele einzuhauchen. - Hier ist ein ganz anderer Mensch: dem missräth im Grunde Alles, was er will und plant. Das, woran er gelegentlich sein Herz gehängt hat, brachte ihn schon einige Male an den Abgrund und in die nächste Nähe des Unterganges; und wenn er dem noch entwischte, so doch gewiss nicht nur "mit einem blauen Auge". Glaubt ihr, dass er darüber unglücklich ist? Er hat längst bei sich beschlossen, eigene Wünsche und Pläne nicht so wichtig zu nehmen. "Gelingt mir Diess nicht, so redet er sich zu, dann gelingt mir vielleicht jenes; und im Ganzen weiss ich nicht, ob ich nicht meinem Misslingen mehr zu Danke verpflichtet bin, als irgend welchem Gelingen. Bin ich dazu gemacht, eigensinnig zu sein und die Hörner des Stieres zu tragen? Das, was mir Werth und Ergebniss des Lebens ausmacht, liegt wo anders; mein Stolz und ebenso mein Elend liegt wo anders. Ich weiss mehr vom Leben, weil ich so oft daran war, es zu verlieren: und eben darum habe ich mehr vom Leben, als ihr Alle!"

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Indem wir thun, lassen wir. - Im Grunde sind mir alle jene Moralen zuwider, welche sagen: "Thue diess nicht! Entsage! Ueberwinde dich!" - ich bin dagegen jenen Moralen gut, welche mich antreiben, Etwas zu thun und wieder zu thun und von früh bis Abend, und Nachts davon zu träumen, und an gar Nichts zu denken als: diess gut zu thun, so gut als es eben mir allein möglich ist! Wer so lebt, von dem fällt fortwährend Eins um das Andere ab, was nicht zu einem solchen Leben gehört: ohne Hass und Widerwillen sieht er heute Diess und morgen Jenes von sich Abschied nehmen, den vergilbten Blättern gleich, welche jedes bewegtere Lüftchen dem Baume entführt: oder er sieht gar nicht, dass es Abschied nimmt, so streng blickt sein Auge nach seinem Ziele und überhaupt vorwärts, nicht seitwärts, rückwärts, abwärts. "Unser Thun soll bestimmen, was wir lassen: indem wir thun, lassen wir" - so gefällt es mir, so lautet mein placitum. Aber ich will nicht mit offenen Augen meine Verarmung anstreben, ich mag alle negativen Tugenden nicht, - Tugenden, deren Wesen das Verneinen und Sichversagen selber ist.

305

Selbstbeherrschung. - Jene Morallehrer, welche zuerst und zuoberst dem Menschen anbefehlen, sich in seine Gewalt zu bekommen, bringen damit eine eigenthümliche Krankheit über ihn: nämlich eine beständige Reizbarkeit bei allen natürlichen Regungen und Neigungen und gleichsam eine Art Juckens. Was auch fürderhin ihn stossen, ziehen, anlocken, antreiben mag, von innen oder von aussen her - immer scheint es diesem Reizbaren, als ob jetzt seine Selbstbeherrschung in Gefahr gerathe: er darf sich keinem Instincte, keinem freien Flügelschlage mehr anvertrauen, sondern steht beständig mit abwehrender Gebärde da, bewaffnet gegen sich selber, scharfen und misstrauischen Auges, der ewige Wächter seiner Burg, zu der er sich gemacht hat. Ja, er kann gross damit sein! Aber wie unausstehlich ist er nun für Andere geworden, wie schwer für sich selber, wie verarmt und abgeschnitten von den schönsten Zufälligkeiten der Seele! Ja auch von aller weiteren Belehrung! Denn man muss sich auf Zeiten verlieren können, wenn man den Dingen, die wir nicht selber sind, Etwas ablernen will.

306

Stoiker und Epikureer. - Der Epikureer sucht sich die Lage, die Personen und selbst die Ereignisse aus, welche zu seiner äusserst reizbaren intellectuellen Beschaffenheit passen, er verzichtet auf das Uebrige - das heisst das Allermeiste -, weil es eine zu starke und schwere Kost für ihn sein würde. Der Stoiker dagegen übt sich, Steine und Gewürm, Glassplitter und Skorpionen zu verschlucken und ohne Ekel zu sein; sein Magen soll endlich gleichgültig gegen Alles werden, was der Zufall des Daseins in ihn schüttet: - er erinnert an jene arabische Secte der Assaua, die man in Algier kennen lernt; und gleich diesen Unempfindlichen hat auch er gerne ein eingeladenes Publicum bei der Schaustellung seiner Unempfindlichkeit, dessen gerade der Epikureer gerne enträth: - der hat ja seinen "Garten!" Für Menschen, mit denen das Schicksal improvisirt, für solche, die in gewaltsamen Zeiten und abhängig von plötzlichen und veränderlichen Menschen leben, mag der Stoicismus sehr rathsam sein. Wer aber einigermaassen absieht, dass das Schicksal ihm einen langen Faden zu spinnen erlaubt, thut wohl, sich epikureisch einzurichten; alle Menschen der geistigen Arbeit haben es bisher gethan! Ihnen wäre es nämlich der Verlust der Verluste, die feine Reizbarkeit einzubüssen und die stoische harte Haut mit Igelstacheln dagegen geschenkt zu bekommen.

307

Zu Gunsten der Kritik. - Jetzt erscheint dir Etwas als Irrthum, das du ehedem als eine Wahrheit oder Wahrscheinlichkeit geliebt hast: du stösst es von dir ab und wähnst, dass deine Vernunft darin einen Sieg erfochten habe. Aber vielleicht war jener Irrthum damals, als du noch ein Anderer warst - du bist immer ein Anderer -, dir ebenso nothwendig wie alle deine jetzigen "Wahrheiten", gleichsam als eine Haut, die dir Vieles verhehlte und verhüllte, was du noch nicht sehen durftest. Dein neues Leben hat jene Meinung für dich getödtet, nicht deine Vernunft: du brauchst sie nicht mehr, und nun bricht sie in sich selbst zusammen, und die Unvernunft kriecht wie ein Gewürm aus ihr an's Licht. Wenn wir Kritik üben, so ist es nichts Willkürliches und Unpersönliches, - es ist, wenigstens sehr oft, ein Beweis davon, dass lebendige treibende Kräfte in uns da sind, welche eine Rinde abstossen. Wir verneinen und müssen verneinen, weil Etwas in uns leben und sich bejahen will, Etwas, das wir vielleicht noch nicht kennen, noch nicht sehen! - Diess zu Gunsten der Kritik.

308

Die Geschichte jedes Tages. - Was macht bei dir die Geschichte jedes Tages? Siehe deine Gewohnheiten an, aus denen sie besteht: sind sie das Erzeugniss zahlloser kleiner Feigheiten und Faulheiten oder das deiner Tapferkeit und erfinderischen Vernunft? So verschieden beide Fälle sind, es wäre möglich, dass die Menschen dir das gleiche Lob spendeten und dass du ihnen auch wirklich so wie so den gleichen Nutzen brächtest. Aber Lob und Nutzen und Respectabilität mögen genug für Den sein, der nur ein gutes Gewissen haben will, - nicht aber für dich Nierenprüfer, der du ein Wissen um das Gewissen hast!

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Aus der siebenten Einsamkeit. - Eines Tages warf der Wanderer eine Thür hinter sich zu, blieb stehen und weinte. Dann sagte er: "Dieser Hang und Drang zum Wahren, Wirklichen, Un-Scheinbaren, Gewissen! Wie bin ich ihm böse! Warum folgt mir gerade dieser düstere und leidenschaftliche Treiber! Ich möchte ausruhen, aber er lässt es nicht zu. Wie Vieles verführt mich nicht, zu verweilen! Es giebt überall Gärten Armidens für mich: und daher immer neue Losreissungen und neue Bitternisse des Herzens! Ich muss den Fuss weiter heben, diesen müden, verwundeten Fuss: und weil ich muss, so habe ich oft für das Schönste, das mich nicht halten konnte, einen grimmigen Rückblick, - weil es mich nicht halten konnte!"

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Wille und Welle. - Wie gierig kommt diese Welle heran, als ob es Etwas zu erreichen gälte! Wie kriecht sie mit furchterregender Hast in die innersten Winkel des felsigen Geklüftes hinein! Es scheint, sie will Jemandem zuvorkommen; es scheint, dass dort Etwas versteckt ist, das Werth, hohen Werth hat. - Und nun kommt sie zurück, etwas langsamer, immer noch ganz weiss vor Erregung, - ist sie enttäuscht? Hat sie gefunden, was sie suchte? Stellt sie sich enttäuscht? - Aber schon naht eine andere Welle, gieriger und wilder noch als die erste, und auch ihre Seele scheint voll von Geheimnissen und dem Gelüste der Schatzgräberei zu sein. So leben die Wellen, - so leben wir, die Wollenden! - mehr sage ich nicht. - So? Ihr misstraut mir? Ihr zürnt auf mich, ihr schönen Unthiere? Fürchtet ihr, dass ich euer Geheimniss ganz verrathe? Nun! Zürnt mir nur, hebt eure grünen gefährlichen Leiber so hoch ihr könnt, macht eine Mauer zwischen mir und der Sonne - so wie jetzt! Wahrlich, schon ist Nichts mehr von der Welt übrig, als grüne Dämmerung und grüne Blitze. Treibt es wie ihr wollt, ihr Uebermüthigen, brüllt vor Lust und Bosheit - oder taucht wieder hinunter, schüttet eure Smaragden hinab in die tiefste Tiefe, werft euer unendliches weisses Gezottel von Schaum und Gischt darüber weg - es ist mir Alles recht, denn Alles steht euch so gut, und ich bin euch für Alles so gut: wie werde ich euch verrathen! Denn - hört es wohl! - ich kenne euch und euer Geheimniss, ich kenne euer Geschlecht! Ihr und ich, wir sind ja aus Einem Geschlecht! - Ihr und ich, wir haben ja Ein Geheimniss!

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Gebrochenes Licht. - Man ist nicht immer tapfer, und wenn man müde wird, dann jammert unser Einer auch wohl einmal in dieser Weise. "Es ist so schwer, den Menschen wehe zu thun - oh, dass es nöthig ist! Was nützt es uns, verborgen zu leben, wenn wir nicht Das für uns behalten wollen, was Aergerniss giebt? Wäre es nicht räthlicher, im Gewühle zu leben und an den Einzelnen gutzumachen, was an Allen gesündigt werden soll und muss? Thöricht mit dem Thoren, eitel mit dem Eitelen, schwärmerisch mit dem Schwärmer zu sein? Wäre es nicht billig, bei einem solchen übermüthigen Grade der Abweichung im Ganzen? Wenn ich von den Bosheiten Anderer gegen mich höre, - ist nicht mein erstes Gefühl das einer Genugthuung? So ist es recht! - scheine ich mir zu ihnen zu sagen - ich stimme so wenig zu euch und habe so viel Wahrheit auf meiner Seite: macht euch immerhin einen guten Tag auf meine Kosten, so oft ihr könnt! Hier sind meine Mängel und Fehlgriffe, hier ist mein Wahn, mein Ungeschmack, meine Verwirrung, meine Thränen, meine Eitelkeit, meine Eulen-Verborgenheit, meine Widersprüche! Hier habt ihr zu lachen! So lacht denn auch und freut euch! Ich bin nicht böse auf Gesetz und Natur der Dinge, welche wollen, dass Mängel und Fehlgriffe Freude machen! - Freilich, es gab einmal "schönere" Zeiten, wo man sich noch mit jedem einigermaassen neuen Gedanken so unentbehrlich fühlen konnte, um mit ihm auf die Strasse zu treten und Jedermann zuzurufen: "Siehe! Das Himmelreich ist nahe herbeigekommen!" - Ich würde mich nicht vermissen, wenn ich fehlte. Entbehrlich sind wir Alle!" - Aber, wie gesagt, so denken wir nicht, wenn wir tapfer sind; wir denken nicht daran.

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Mein Hund. - Ich habe meinem Schmerze einen Namen gegeben und rufe ihn "Hund", - er ist ebenso treu, ebenso zudringlich und schamlos, ebenso unterhaltend, ebenso klug, wie jeder andere Hund - und ich kann ihn anherrschen und meine bösen Launen an ihm auslassen: wie es Andere mit ihren Hunden, Dienern und Frauen machen.

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Kein Marterbild. - Ich will es machen wie Raffael und kein Marterbild mehr malen. Es giebt der erhabenen Dinge genug, als dass man die Erhabenheit dort aufzusuchen hätte, wo sie mit der Grausamkeit in Schwesterschaft lebt; und mein Ehrgeiz würde zudem kein Genügen daran finden, wenn ich mich zum sublimen Folterknecht machen wollte.

314

Neue Hausthiere. - Ich will meinen Löwen und meinen Adler um mich haben, damit ich allezeit Winke und Vorbedeutungen habe, zu wissen, wie gross oder wie gering meine Stärke ist. Muss ich heute zu ihnen hinabblicken und mich vor ihnen fürchten? Und wird die Stunde wiederkommen, wo sie zu mir hinaufblicken und in Furcht? -

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Vom letzten Stündlein. - Stürme sind meine Gefahr, - werde ich meinen Sturm haben, an dem ich zu Grunde gehe, wie Oliver Cromwell an seinem Sturme zu Grunde gierig? Oder werde ich verlöschen wie ein Licht, das nicht erst der Wind ausbläst, sondern das seiner selber müde und satt wurde, - ein ausgebranntes Licht? Oder endlich: werde ich mich ausblasen, um nicht auszubrennen? -

316

Prophetische Menschen. - Ihr habt kein Gefühl dafür, dass prophetische Menschen sehr leidende Menschen sind: ihr meint nur, es sei ihnen eine schöne "Gabe" gegeben, und möchtet diese wohl gern selber haben, - doch ich will mich durch ein Gleichniss ausdrücken. Wie viel mögen die Thiere durch die Luft- und Wolken-Electricität leiden! Wir sehen, dass einige Arten von ihnen ein prophetisches Vermögen hinsichtlich des Wetters haben, zum Beispiel die Affen (wie man selbst noch in Europa gut beobachten kann, und nicht nur in Menagerien, nämlich auf Gibraltar). Aber wir denken nicht daran, dass ihre Schmerzen - für sie die Propheten sind! Wenn eine starke positive Electricität plötzlich unter dem Einflusse einer heranziehenden, noch lange nicht sichtbaren Wolke in negative Electricität umschlägt und eine Veränderung des Wetters sich vorbereitet, da benehmen sich diese Thiere so, als ob ein Feind herannahe, und richten sich zur Abwehr oder zur Flucht ein; meistens verkriechen sie sich, - sie verstehen das schlechte Wetter nicht als Wetter, sondern als Feind, dessen Hand sie schon fühlen.

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Rückblick. - Wir werden uns des eigentlichen Pathos jeder Lebensperiode selten als eines solchen bewusst, so lange wir in ihr stehen, sondern meinen immer, es sei der einzig uns nunmehr mögliche und vernünftige Zustand und durchaus Ethos, nicht Pathos - mit den Griechen zu reden und zu trennen. Ein paar Töne von Musik riefen mir heute einen Winter und ein Haus und ein höchst einsiedlerisches Leben in's Gedächtniss zurück und zugleich das Gefühl, in dem ich damals lebte: - ich meinte ewig so fortleben zu können. Aber jetzt begreife ich, dass es ganz und gar Pathos und Leidenschaft war, ein Ding, vergleichbar dieser schmerzhaft-muthigen und trost-sichern Musik, - dergleichen darf man nicht auf Jahre oder gar auf Ewigkeiten haben: man würde für diesen Planeten damit zu "überirdisch".

318

Weisheit im Schmerz. - Im Schmerz ist soviel Weisheit wie in der Lust: er gehört gleich dieser zu den arterhaltenden Kräften ersten Ranges. Wäre er diess nicht, so würde er längst zu Grunde gegangen sein; dass er weh thut, ist kein Argument gegen ihn, es ist sein Wesen. Ich höre im Schmerze den Commandoruf des Schiffscapitains: "zieht die Segel ein!" Auf tausend Arten die Segel zu stellen, muss der kühne Schifffahrer "Mensch" sich eingeübt haben, sonst wäre es gar zu schnell mit ihm vorbei, und der Ozean schlürfte ihn zu bald hinunter. Wir müssen auch mit verminderter Energie zu leben wissen: sobald der Schmerz sein Sicherheitssignal giebt, ist es an der Zeit, sie zu vermindern, - irgend eine grosse Gefahr, ein Sturm ist im Anzuge, und wir thun gut, uns so wenig als möglich aufzubauschen'". - Es ist wahr, dass es Menschen giebt, welche beim Herannahen des grossen Schmerzes gerade den entgegengesetzten Commandoruf hören, und welche nie stolzer, kriegerischer und glücklicher dreinschauen, als wenn der Sturm heraufzieht; ja, der Schmerz selber giebt ihnen ihre grössten Augenblicke! Das sind die heroischen Menschen, die grossen Schmerzbringer der Menschheit: jene Wenigen oder Seltenen, die eben die selbe Apologie nöthig haben, wie der Schmerz überhaupt, - und wahrlich! man soll sie ihnen nicht versagen! Es sind arterhaltende, artfördernde Kräfte ersten Ranges: und wäre es auch nur dadurch, dass sie der Behaglichkeit widerstreben und vor dieser Art Glück ihren Ekel nicht verbergen.

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Als Interpreten unserer Erlebnisse. - Eine Art von Redlichkeit ist allen Religionsstiftern und Ihresgleichen fremd gewesen: - sie haben nie sich aus ihren Erlebnissen eine Gewissenssache der Erkenntniss gemacht. "Was habe ich eigentlich erlebt? Was gierig damals in mir und um mich vor? War meine Vernunft hell genug? War mein Wille gegen alle Betrügereien der Sinne gewendet und tapfer in seiner Abwehr des Phantastischen?" - so hat Keiner von ihnen gefragt, so fragen alle die lieben Religiösen auch jetzt noch nicht: sie haben vielmehr einen Durst nach Dingen, welche wider die Vernunft sind, und wollen es sich nicht zu schwer machen, ihn zu befriedigen, - so erleben sie denn "Wunder" und "Wiedergeburten" und hören die Stimmen der Englein! Aber wir, wir Anderen, Vernunft-Durstigen, wollen unseren Erlebnissen so streng in's Auge sehen, wie einem wissenschaftlichen Versuche, Stunde für Stunde, Tag um Tag! Wir selber wollen unsere Experimente und Versuchs-Thiere sein.

320

Beim Wiedersehen. - A.: Verstehe ich dich noch ganz? Du suchst? Wo ist inmitten der jetzt wirklichen Welt dein Winkel und Stern? Wo kannst du dich in die Sonne legen, sodass auch dir ein Ueberschuss von Wohl kommt und dein Dasein sich rechtfertigt? Möge das jeder für sich selber thun - scheinst du mir zu sagen - und das Reden in's Allgemeine, das Sorgen für den Anderen und die Gesellschaft sich aus dem Sinne schlagen! - B.: Ich will mehr, ich bin kein Suchender. Ich will für mich eine eigene Sonne schaffen.

321

Neue Vorsicht. - Lasst uns nicht mehr so viel an Strafen, Tadeln und Bessern denken! Einen Einzelnen werden wir selten verändern; und wenn es uns gelingen sollte, so ist vielleicht unbesehens auch Etwas mitgelungen: wir sind durch ihn verändert worden! Sehen wir vielmehr zu, dass unser eigener Einfluss auf alles Kommende seinen Einfluss aufwiegt und überwiegt! Ringen wir nicht im directen Kampfe! - und das ist auch alles Tadeln, Strafen und Bessernwollen. Sondern erheben wir uns selber um so höher! Geben wir unserm Vorbilde immer leuchtendere Farben! Verdunkeln wir den Andern durch unser Licht! Nein! Wir wollen nicht um seinetwillen selber dunkler werden, gleich allen Strafenden und Unzufriedenen! Gehen wir lieber bei Seite! Sehen wir weg!

322

Gleichniss. - Jene Denker, in denen alle Sterne sich in kyklischen Bahnen bewegen, sind nicht die tiefsten; wer in sich wie in einen ungeheuren Weltraum hineinsieht und Milchstrassen in sich trägt, der weiss auch, wie unregelmässig alle Milchstrassen sind; sie führen bis in's Chaos und Labyrinth des Daseins hinein.

323

Glück im Schicksal. - Die grösste Auszeichnung erweist uns das Schicksal, wenn es uns eine Zeit lang auf der Seite unserer Gegner hat kämpfen lassen. Damit sind wir vorher bestimmt zu einem grossen Siege.

324

In media vita. - Nein! Das Leben hat mich nicht enttäuscht! Von Jahr zu Jahr finde ich es vielmehr wahrer, begehrenswerther und geheimnissvoller, - von jenem Tage an, wo der grosse Befreier über mich kam, jener Gedanke, dass das Leben ein Experiment des Erkennenden sein dürfe - und nicht eine Pflicht, nicht ein Verhängniss, nicht eine Betrügerei! - Und die Erkenntniss selber: mag sie für Andere etwas Anderes sein, zum Beispiel ein Ruhebett oder der Weg zu einem Ruhebett, oder eine Unterhaltung, oder ein Müssiggang, - für mich ist sie eine Welt der Gefahren und Siege, in der auch die heroischen Gefühle ihre Tanz- und Tummelplätze haben. "Das Leben ein Mittel der Erkenntniss" - mit diesem Grundsatze im Herzen kann man nicht nur tapfer, sondern sogar fröhlich leben und fröhlich lachen! Und wer verstünde überhaupt gut zu lachen und zu leben, der sich nicht vorerst auf Krieg und Sieg gut verstünde?

325

Was zur Grösse gehört. - Wer wird etwas Grosses erreichen, wenn er nicht die Kraft und den Willen in sich fühlt, grosse Schmerzen zuzufügen? Das Leidenkönnen ist das Wenigste: darin bringen es schwache Frauen und selbst Sclaven oft zur Meisterschaft. Aber nicht an innerer Noth und Unsicherheit zu Grunde gehn, wenn man grosses Leid zufügt und den Schrei dieses Leides hört - das ist gross, das gehört zur Grösse.

326

Die Seelen-Aerzte und der Schmerz. - Alle Moralprediger, wie auch alle Theologen, haben eine gemeinsame Unart: alle suchen den Menschen aufzureden, sie befänden sich sehr schlecht und es thue eine harte letzte radicale Cur noth. Und weil die Menschen insgesammt jenen Lehren ihr Ohr zu eifrig und ganze Jahrhunderte lang hingehalten haben, ist zuletzt wirklich Etwas von jenem Aberglauben, dass es ihnen sehr schlecht gehe, auf sie übergegangen: sodass sie jetzt gar zu gerne einmal bereit sind, zu seufzen und Nichts mehr am Leben zu finden und miteinander betrübte Mienen zu machen, wie als ob es doch gar schwer auszuhalten sei. In Wahrheit sind sie unbändig ihres Lebens sicher und in dasselbe verliebt und voller unsäglicher Listen und Feinheiten, um das Unangenehme zu brechen und dem Schmerze und Unglücke seinen Dorn auszuziehen. Es will mir scheinen, dass vom Schmerze und Unglücke immer übertrieben geredet werde, wie als ob es eine Sache der guten Lebensart sei, hier zu übertreiben: man schweigt dagegen geflissentlich davon, dass es gegen den Schmerz eine Unzahl Linderungsmittel giebt, wie Betäubungen, oder die fieberhafte Hast der Gedanken, oder eine ruhige Lage, oder gute und schlimme Erinnerungen, Absichten, Hoffnungen, und viele Arten von Stolz und Mitgefühl, die beinahe die Wirkung von Anästheticis haben: während bei den höchsten Graden des Schmerzes schon von selber Ohnmachten eintreten. Wir verstehen uns ganz gut darauf, Süssigkeiten auf unsere Bitternisse zu träufeln, namentlich auf die Bitternisse der Seele; wir haben Hülfsmittel in unserer Tapferkeit und Erhabenheit, sowie in den edleren Delirien der Unterwerfung und der Resignation. Ein Verlust ist kaum eine Stunde ein Verlust: irgendwie ist uns damit auch ein Geschenk vom Himmel gefallen - eine neue Kraft zum Beispiel: und sei es auch nur eine neue Gelegenheit zur Kraft! Was haben die Moralprediger vom inneren "Elend" der bösen Menschen phantasirt! Was haben sie gar vom Unglücke der leidenschaftlichen Menschen uns vorgelogen! - ja, lügen ist hier das rechte Wort: sie haben um das überreiche Glück dieser Art von Menschen recht wohl gewusst, aber es todtgeschwiegen, weil es eine Widerlegung ihrer Theorie war, nach der alles Glück erst mit der Vernichtung der Leidenschaft und dem Schweigen des Willens entsteht! Und was zuletzt das Recept aller dieser Seelen-Aerzte betrifft und ihre Anpreisung einer harten radicalen Cur: so ist es erlaubt, zu fragen: ist dieses unser Leben wirklich schmerzhaft und lästig genug, um mit Vortheil eine stoische Lebensweise und Versteinerung dagegen einzutauschen? Wir befinden uns nicht schlecht genug, um uns auf stoische Art schlecht befinden zu müssen!

327

Ernst nehmen. - Der Intellect ist bei den Allermeisten eine schwerfällige, finstere und knarrende Maschine, welche übel in Gang zu bringen ist: sie nennen es "die Sache ernst nehmen", wenn sie mit dieser Maschine arbeiten und gut denken wollen - oh wie lästig muss ihnen das Gut-Denken sein! Die liebliche Bestie Mensch verliert jedesmal, wie es scheint, die gute Laune, wenn sie gut denkt; sie wird "ernst"! Und "wo Lachen und Fröhlichkeit ist, da taugt das Denken Nichts": - so lautet das Vorurtheil dieser ernsten Bestie gegen alle "fröhliche Wissenschaft". - Wohlan! Zeigen wir, dass es ein Vorurtheil ist!

328

Der Dummheit Schaden thun. - Gewiss hat der so hartnäckig und überzeugt gepredigte Glaube von der Verwerflichkeit des Egoismus im Ganzen dem Egoismus Schaden gethan (zu Gunsten, wie ich hundertmal wiederholen werde, der Heerden-Instincte!), namentlich dadurch, dass er ihm das gute Gewissen nahm und in ihm die eigentliche Quelle alles Unglücks suchen hiess. "Deine Selbstsucht ist das Unheil deines Lebens" - so klang die Predigt Jahrtausende lang: es that, wie gesagt, der Selbstsucht Schaden und nahm ihr viel Geist, viel Heiterkeit, viel Erfindsamkeit, viel Schönheit, es verdummte und verhässlichte und vergiftete die Selbstsucht! - Das philosophische Alterthum lehrte dagegen eine andere Hauptquelle des Unheils: von Sokrates an wurden die Denker nicht müde, zu predigen: "eure Gedankenlosigkeit und Dummheit, euer Dahinleben nach der Regel, eure Unterordnung unter die Meinung des Nachbars ist der Grund, wesshalb ihr es so selten zum Glück bringt, - wir Denker sind als Denker die Glücklichsten." Entscheiden wir hier nicht, ob diese Predigt gegen die Dummheit bessere Gründe für sich hatte, als jene Predigt gegen die Selbstsucht; gewiss aber ist das, dass sie der Dummheit das gute Gewissen nahm: - diese Philosophen haben der Dummheit Schaden gethan.

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Musse und Müssiggang. - Es ist eine indianerhafte, dem Indianer-Bluthe eigenthümliche Wildheit in der Art, wie die Amerikaner nach Gold trachten: und ihre athemlose Hast der Arbeit - das eigentliche Laster der neuen Welt - beginnt bereits durch Ansteckung das alte Europa wild zu machen und eine ganz wunderliche Geistlosigkeit darüber zu breiten. Man schämt sich jetzt schon der Ruhe; das lange Nachsinnen macht beinahe Gewissensbisse. Man denkt mit der Uhr in der Hand, wie man zu Mittag isst, das Auge auf das Börsenblatt gerichtet, - man lebt, wie Einer, der fortwährend Etwas "versäumen könnte". "Lieber irgend Etwas thun, als Nichts" - auch dieser Grundsatz ist eine Schnur, um aller Bildung und allem höheren Geschmack den Garaus zu machen. Und so wie sichtlich alle Formen an dieser Hast der Arbeitenden zu Grunde gehen: so geht auch das Gefühl für die Form selber, das Ohr und Auge für die Melodie der Bewegungen zu Grunde. Der Beweis dafür liegt in der jetzt überall geforderten plumpen Deutlichkeit, in allen den Lagen, wo der Mensch einmal redlich mit Menschen sein will, im Verkehre mit Freunden, Frauen, Verwandten, Kindern, Lehrern, Schülern, Führern und Fürsten, - man hat keine Zeit und keine Kraft mehr für die Ceremonien, für die Verbindlichkeit mit Umwegen, für allen Esprit der Unterhaltung und überhaupt für alles Otium. Denn das Leben auf der Jagd nach Gewinn zwingt fortwährend dazu, seinen Geist bis zur Erschöpfung auszugeben, im beständigen Sich-Verstellen oder Ueberlisten oder Zuvorkommen: die eigentliche Tugend ist jetzt, Etwas in weniger Zeit zu thun, als ein Anderer. Und so giebt es nur selten Stunden der erlaubten Redlichkeit: in diesen aber ist man müde und möchte sich nicht nur "gehen lassen", sondern lang und breit und plump sich hinstrecken. Gemäss diesem Hange schreibt man jetzt seine Briefe; deren Stil und Geist immer das eigentliche "Zeichen der Zeit" sein werden. Giebt es noch ein Vergnügen an Gesellschaft und an Künsten, so ist es ein Vergnügen, wie es müde-gearbeitete Sclaven sich zurecht machen. Oh über diese Genügsamkeit der "Freude" bei unsern Gebildeten und Ungebildeten! Oh über diese zunehmende Verdächtigung aller Freude! Die Arbeit bekommt immer mehr alles gute Gewissen auf ihre Seite: der Hang zur Freude nennt sich bereits "Bedürfniss der Erholung" und fängt an, sich vor sich selber zu schämen. "Man ist es seiner Gesundheit schuldig" - so redet man, wenn man auf einer Landpartie ertappt wird. Ja, es könnte bald so weit kommen, dass man einem Hange zur vita contemplativa (das heisst zum Spazierengehen mit Gedanken und Freunden) nicht ohne Selbstverachtung und schlechtes Gewissen nachgäbe. - Nun! Ehedem war es umgekehrt: die Arbeit hatte das schlechte Gewissen auf sich. Ein Mensch von guter Abkunft verbarg seine Arbeit, wenn die Noth ihn zum Arbeiten zwang. Der Sclave arbeitete unter dem Druck des Gefühls, dass er etwas Verächtliches thue: - das "Thun" selber war etwas Verächtliches. "Die Vornehmheit und die Ehre sind allein bei otium und bellum": so klang die Stimme des antiken Vorurtheils!

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Beifall. - Der Denker bedarf des Beifalls und des Händeklatschens nicht, vorausgesetzt, dass er seines eigenen Händeklatschens sicher ist: diess aber kann er nicht entbehren. Giebt es Menschen, welche auch dessen und überhaupt jeder Gattung von Beifall entrathen könnten? Ich zweifle: und selbst in Betreff der Weisesten sagt Tacitus, der kein Verleumder der Weisen ist, quando etiam sapientibus gloriae cupido novissima exuitur - das heisst bei ihm: niemals.

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Lieber taub, als betäubt. - Ehemals wollte man sich einen Ruf machen: das genügt jetzt nicht mehr, da der Markt zu gross geworden ist, - es muss ein Geschrei sein. Die Folge ist, dass auch gute Kehlen sich überschreien, und die besten Waaren von heiseren Stimmen ausgeboten werden; ohne Marktschreierei und Heiserkeit giebt es jetzt kein Genie mehr. - Das ist nun freilich ein böses Zeitalter für den Denker: er muss lernen, zwischen zwei Lärmen noch seine Stille zu finden, und sich so lange taub stellen, bis er es ist. So lange er diess noch nicht gelernt hat, ist er freilich in Gefahr, vor Ungeduld und Kopfschmerzen zu Grunde zu gehen.

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Die böse Stunde. - Es hat wohl für jeden Philosophen eine böse Stunde gegeben, wo er dachte: was liegt an mir, wenn man mir nicht auch meine schlechten Argumente glaubt! - Und dann flog irgend ein schadenfrohes Vögelchen an ihm vorüber und zwitscherte: Was liegt an dir? Was liegt an dir?"

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Was heisst erkennen. - Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere! sagt Spinoza, so schlicht und erhaben, wie es seine Art ist. Indessen: was ist diess intelligere im letzten Grunde Anderes, als die Form, in der uns eben jene Drei auf Einmal fühlbar werden? Ein Resultat aus den verschiedenen und sich widerstrebenden Trieben des Verlachen-, Beklagen-, Verwünschen-wollens? Bevor ein Erkennen möglich ist, muss jeder dieser Triebe erst seine einseitige Ansicht über das Ding oder Vorkommniss vorgebracht haben; hinterher entstand der Kampf dieser Einseitigkeiten und aus ihm bisweilen eine Mitte, eine Beruhigung, ein Rechtgeben nach allen drei Seiten, eine Art Gerechtigkeit und Vertrag: denn, vermöge der Gerechtigkeit und des Vertrags können alle diese Triebe sich im Dasein behaupten und mit einander Recht behalten. Wir, denen nur die letzten Versöhnungsscenen und Schluss-Abrechnungen dieses langen Processes zum Bewusstsein kommen, meinen demnach, intelligere sei etwas Versöhnliches, Gerechtes, Gutes, etwas wesentlich den Trieben Entgegengesetztes; während es nur ein gewisses Verhalten der Triebe zu einander ist. Die längsten Zeiten hindurch hat man bewusstes Denken als das Denken überhaupt betrachtet: jetzt erst dämmert uns die Wahrheit auf, dass der allergrösste Theil unseres geistigen Wirkens uns unbewusst, ungefühlt verläuft; ich meine aber, diese Triebe, die hier mit einander kämpfen, werden recht wohl verstehen, sich einander dabei fühlbar zu machen und wehe zu thun -: jene gewaltige plötzliche Erschöpfung, von der alle Denker heimgesucht werden, mag da ihren Ursprung haben (es ist die Erschöpfung auf dem Schlachtfelde). Ja, vielleicht giebt es in unserm kämpfenden Innern manches verborgene Heroenthum, aber gewiss nichts Göttliches, Ewig-in-sich-Ruhendes, wie Spinoza meinte. Das bewusste Denken, und namentlich das des Philosophen, ist die unkräftigste und desshalb auch die verhältnissmässig mildeste und ruhigste Art des Denkens: und so kann gerade der Philosoph am leichtesten über die Natur des Erkennens irre geführt werden.

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Man muss lieben lernen. - So geht es uns in der Musik: erst muss man eine Figur und Weise überhaupt hören lernen, heraushören, unterscheiden, als ein Leben für sich isoliren und abgrenzen; dann braucht es Mühe und guten Willen, sie zu ertragen, trotz ihrer Fremdheit, Geduld gegen ihren Blick und Ausdruck, Mildherzigkeit gegen das Wunderliche an ihr zu üben: - endlich kommt ein Augenblick, wo wir ihrer gewohnt sind, wo wir sie erwarten, wo wir ahnen, dass sie uns fehlen würde, wenn sie fehlte; und nun wirkt sie ihren Zwang und Zauber fort und fort und endet nicht eher, als bis wir ihre demüthigen und entzückten Liebhaber geworden sind, die nichts Besseres von der Welt mehr wollen, als sie und wieder sie. - So geht es uns aber nicht nur mit der Musik: gerade so haben wir alle Dinge, die wir jetzt lieben, lieben gelernt. Wir werden schließlich immer für unseren guten Willen, unsere Geduld, Billigkeit, Sanftmüthigkeit gegen das Fremde belohnt, indem das Fremde langsam seinen Schleier abwirft und sich als neue unsägliche Schönheit darstellt: - es ist sein Dank für unsere Gastfreundschaft. Auch wer sich selber liebt, wird es auf diesem Wege gelernt haben: es giebt keinen anderen Weg. Auch die Liebe muss man lernen.

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Hoch die Physik - Wie viel Menschen verstehen denn zu beobachten! Und unter den wenigen, die es verstehen, - wie viele beobachten sich selber! "Jeder ist sich selber der Fernste" - das wissen alle Nierenprüfer, zu ihrem Unbehagen; und der Spruch "erkenne dich selbst!" ist, im Munde eines Gottes und zu Menschen geredet, beinahe eine Bosheit. Dass es aber so verzweifelt mit der Selbstbeobachtung steht, dafür zeugt Nichts mehr, als die Art, wie über das Wesen einer moralischen Handlung fast von Jedermann gesprochen wird, diese schnelle, bereitwillige, überzeugte, redselige Art, mit ihrem Blick, ihrem Lächeln, ihrem gefälligen Eifer! Man scheint dir sagen zu wollen: "Aber, mein Lieber, das gerade ist meine Sache! Du wendest dich mit deiner Frage an Den, der antworten darf: ich bin zufällig in Nichts so weise, wie hierin. Also: wenn der Mensch urtheilt, "so ist es recht", wenn er darauf schliesst, "darum muss es geschehen!" und nun thut, was er dergestalt als recht erkannt und als nothwendig bezeichnet hat, - so ist das Wesen seiner Handlung moralisch! " Aber, mein Freund, du sprichst mir da von drei Handlungen statt von einer: auch dein Urtheilen zum Beispiel "so ist es recht" ist eine Handlung, - könnte nicht schon auf eine moralische und auf eine unmoralische Weise geurtheilt werden? Warum hältst du diess und gerade diess für recht? - "Weil mein Gewissen es mir sagt; das Gewissen redet nie unmoralisch, es bestimmt ja erst, was moralisch sein soll!" - Aber warum hörst du auf die Sprache deines Gewissens? Und inwiefern hast du ein Recht, ein solches Urtheil als wahr und untrüglich anzusehen? Für diesen Glauben - giebt es da kein Gewissen mehr? Weisst du Nichts von einem intellectuellen Gewissen? Einem Gewissen hinter deinem "Gewissen"? Dein Urtheil "so ist es recht" hat eine Vorgeschichte in deinen Trieben, Neigungen, Abneigungen, Erfahrungen und Nicht-Erfahrungen; "wie ist es da entstanden?" musst du fragen, und hinterher noch:, "was treibt mich eigentlich, ihm Gehör zu schenken?" Du kannst seinem Befehle Gehör schenken, wie ein braver Soldat, der den Befehl seines Offiziers vernimmt. Oder wie ein Weib, das Den liebt, der befiehlt. Oder wie ein Schmeichler und Feigling, der sich vor dem Befehlenden fürchtet. Oder wie ein Dummkopf, welcher folgt, weil er Nichts dagegen zu sagen hat. Kurz, auf hundert Arten kannst du deinem Gewissen Gehör geben. Dass du aber diess und jenes Urtheil als Sprache des Gewissens hörst, also, dass du Etwas als recht empfindest, kann seine Ursache darin haben, dass du nie über dich nachgedacht hast und blindlings annahmst, was dir als recht von Kindheit an bezeichnet worden ist: oder darin, dass dir Brod und Ehren bisher mit dem zu Theil wurde, was du deine Pflicht nennst, - es gilt dir als "recht", weil es dir deine "Existenz-Bedingung" scheint (dass du aber ein Recht auf Existenz habest, dünkt dich unwiderleglich!). Die Festigkeit deines moralischen Urtheils könnte immer noch ein Beweis gerade von persönlicher Erbärmlichkeit, von Unpersönlichkeit sein, deine "moralische Kraft" könnte ihre Quelle in deinem Eigensinn haben - oder in deiner Unfähigkeit, neue Ideale zu schauen! Und, kurz gesagt: wenn du feiner gedacht, besser beobachtet und mehr gelernt hättest, würdest du diese deine "Pflicht" und diess dein "Gewissen" unter allen Umständen nicht mehr Pflicht und Gewissen benennen: die Einsicht darüber, wie überhaupt jemals moralische Urtheile entstanden sind, würde dir diese pathetischen Worte verleiden, - so wie dir schon andere pathetische Worte, zum Beispiel "Sünde", "Seelenheil", "Erlösung" verleidet sind. - Und nun rede mir nicht vom kategorischen Imperativ, mein Freund! - diess Wort kitzelt mein Ohr, und ich muss lachen, trotz deiner so ernsthaften Gegenwart: ich gedenke dabei des alten Kant, der, zur Strafe dafür, dass er "das Ding an sich" - auch eine sehr lächerliche Sache! - sich erschlichen hatte, vom "kategorischen Imperativ" beschlichen wurde und mit ihm im Herzen sich wieder zu "Gott", "Seele", Freiheit" und, "Unsterblichkeit" zurückverirrte, einem Fuchse gleich, der sich in seinen Käfig zurückverirrt: - und seine Kraft und Klugheit war es gewesen, welche diesen Käfig erbrochen hatte! - Wie? Du bewunderst den kategorischen Imperativ in dir? Diese "Festigkeit" deines sogenannten moralischen Urtheils? Diese "Unbedingtheit" des Gefühls "so wie ich, müssen hierin Alle urtheilen"? Bewundere vielmehr deine Selbstsucht darin! Und die Blindheit, Kleinlichkeit und Anspruchslosigkeit deiner Selbstsucht! Selbstsucht nämlich ist es, sein Urtheil als Allgemeingesetz zu empfinden; und eine blinde, kleinliche und anspruchslose Selbstsucht hinwiederum, weil sie verräth, dass du dich selber noch nicht entdeckt, dir selber noch kein eigenes, eigenstes Ideal geschaffen hast: - diess nämlich könnte niemals das eines Anderen sein, geschweige denn Aller, Aller! - - Wer noch urtheilt "so müsste in diesem Falle Jeder handeln", ist noch nicht fünf Schritt weit in der Selbsterkenntniss gegangen: sonst würde er wissen, dass es weder gleiche Handlungen giebt, noch geben kann, - dass jede Handlung, die gethan worden ist, auf eine ganz einzige und unwiederbringliche Art gethan wurde, und dass es ebenso mit jeder zukünftigen Handlung stehen wird, - dass alle Vorschriften des Handelns sich nur auf die gröbliche Aussenseite beziehen (und selbst die innerlichsten und feinsten Vorschriften aller bisherigen Moralen), - dass mit ihnen wohl ein Schein der Gleichheit, aber eben nur ein Schein erreicht werden kann, - dass jede Handlung, beim Hinblick oder Rückblick auf sie, eine undurchdringliche Sache ist und bleibt, - dass unsere Meinungen von "gut", "edel", "gross" durch unsere Handlungen nie bewiesen werden können, weil jede Handlung unerkennbar ist, - dass sicherlich unsere Meinungen, Werthschätzungen und Gütertafeln zu den mächtigsten Hebeln im Räderwerk unserer Handlungen gehören, dass aber für jeden einzelnen Fall das Gesetz ihrer Mechanik unnachweisbar ist. Beschränken wir uns also auf die Reinigung unserer Meinungen und Werthschätzungen und auf die Schöpfung neuer eigener Gütertafeln: - über den "moralischen Werth unserer Handlungen" aber wollen wir nicht mehr grübeln! Ja, meine Freunde! In Hinsicht auf das ganze moralische Geschwätz der Einen über die Andern ist der Ekel an der Zeit! Moralisch zu Gericht sitzen soll uns wider den Geschmack gehen! Ueberlassen wir diess Geschwätz und diesen üblen Geschmack Denen, welche nicht mehr zu thun haben, als die Vergangenheit um ein kleines Stück weiter durch die Zeit zu schleppen und welche selber niemals Gegenwart sind, - den Vielen also, den Allermeisten! Wir aber wollen Die werden, die wir sind, - die Neuen, die Einmaligen, die Unvergleichbaren, die Sich-selber-Gesetzgebenden, die Sich-selberSchaffenden! Und dazu müssen wir die besten Lerner und Entdecker alles Gesetzlichen und Nothwendigen in der Welt werden: wir müssen Physiker sein, um, in jenem Sinne, Schöpfer sein zu können, - während bisher alle Werthschätzungen und Ideale auf Unkenntniss der Physik oder im Widerspruch mit ihr aufgebaut waren. Und darum: Hoch die Physik! Und höher noch das, was uns zu ihr zwingt, - unsre Redlichkeit!

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Geiz der Natur. - Warum ist die Natur so kärglich gegen den Menschen gewesen, dass sie ihn nicht leuchten liess, Diesen mehr, jenen weniger, je nach seiner innern Lichtfülle? Warum haben grosse Menschen nicht eine so schöne Sichtbarkeit in ihrem Aufgange und Niedergange, wie die Sonne? Wie viel unzweideutiger wäre alles Leben unter Menschen!

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Die zukünftige "Menschlichkeit". - Wenn ich mit den Augen eines fernen Zeitalters nach diesem hinsehe, so weiss ich an dem gegenwärtigen Menschen nichts Merkwürdigeres zu finden, als seine eigenthümliche Tugend und Krankheit, genannt "der historische Sinn". Es ist ein Ansatz zu etwas ganz Neuem und Fremdem in der Geschichte: gebe man diesem Keime einige Jahrhunderte und mehr, so könnte daraus am Ende ein wundervolles Gewächs mit einem eben so wundervollen Geruche werden, um dessentwillen unsere alte Erde angenehmer zu bewohnen wäre, als bisher. Wir Gegenwärtigen fangen eben an, die Kette eines zukünftigen sehr mächtigen Gefühls zu bilden, Glied um Glied, - wir wissen kaum, was wir thun. Fast scheint es uns, als ob es sich nicht um ein neues Gefühl, sondern um die Abnahme aller alten Gefühle handele: - der historische Sinn ist noch etwas so Armes und Kaltes, und Viele werden von ihm wie von einem Froste befallen und durch ihn noch ärmer und kälter gemacht. Anderen erscheint er als das Anzeichen des heranschleichenden Alters, und unser Planet gilt ihnen als ein schwermüthiger Kranker, der, um seine Gegenwart zu vergessen, sich seine Jugendgeschichte aufschreibt. In der That: diess ist Eine Farbe dieses neuen Gefühls: wer die Geschichte der Menschen insgesammt als eigene Geschichte zu fühlen weiss, der empfindet in einer ungeheuren Verallgemeinerung allen jenen Gram des Kranken, der an die Gesundheit, des Greises, der an den Jugendtraum denkt, des Liebenden, der der Geliebten beraubt wird, des Märtyrers, dem sein Ideal zu Grunde geht, des Helden am Abend der Schlacht, welche Nichts entschieden hat und doch ihm Wunden und den Verlust des Freundes brachte -; aber diese ungeheure Summe von Gram aller Art tragen, tragen können und nun doch noch der Held sein, der beim Anbruch eines zweiten Schlachttages die Morgenröthe und sein Glück begrüsst, als der Mensch eines Horizontes von Jahrtausenden vor sich und hinter sich, als der Erbe aller Vornehmheit alles vergangenen Geistes und der verpflichtete Erbe, als der Adeligste aller alten Edlen und zugleich der Erstling eines neuen Adels, dessen Gleichen noch keine Zeit sah und träumte: diess Alles auf seine Seele nehmen, Aeltestes, Neuestes, Verluste, Hoffnungen, Eroberungen, Siege der Menschheit: diess Alles endlich in Einer Seele haben und in Ein Gefühl zusammendrängen: - diess müsste doch ein Glück ergeben, das bisher der Mensch noch nicht kannte, - eines Gottes Glück voller Macht und Liebe, voller Thränen und voll Lachens, ein Glück, welches, wie die Sonne am Abend, fortwährend aus seinem unerschöpflichen Reichthume wegschenkt und in's Meer schüttet und, wie sie, sich erst dann am reichsten fühlt, wenn auch der ärmste Fischer noch mit goldenem Ruder rudert! Dieses göttliche Gefühl hiesse dann - Menschlichkeit!

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Der Wille zum Leiden und die Mitleidigen. - Ist es euch selber zuträglich, vor Allem mitleidige Menschen zu sein? Und ist es den Leidenden zuträglich, wenn ihr es seid? Doch lassen wir die erste Frage für einen Augenblick ohne Antwort. - Das, woran wir am tiefsten und persönlichsten leiden, ist fast allen Anderen unverständlich und unzugänglich: darin sind wir dem Nächsten verborgen, und wenn er mit uns aus Einem Topfe isst. Ueberall aber, wo wir als Leidende bemerkt werden, wird unser Leiden flach ausgelegt; es gehört zum Wesen der mitleidigen Affection, dass sie das fremde Leid des eigentlich Persönlichen entkleidet: - unsre "Wohlthäter" sind mehr als unsre Feinde die Verkleinerer unsres Werthes und Willens. Bei den meisten Wohlthaten, die Unglücklichen erwiesen werden, liegt etwas Empörendes in der intellectuellen Leichtfertigkeit, mit der da der Mitleidige das Schicksal spielt: er weiss Nichts von der ganzen inneren Folge und Verflechtung, welche Unglück für mich oder für dich heisst! Die gesammte Oekonomie meiner Seele und deren Ausgleichung durch das "Unglück", das Aufbrechen neuer Quellen und Bedürfnisse, das Zuwachsen alter Wunden, das Abstossen ganzer Vergangenheiten - das Alles, was mit dem Unglück verbunden sein kann, kümmert den lieben Mitleidigen nicht: er will helfen und denkt nicht daran, dass es eine persönliche Nothwendigkeit des Unglücks giebt, dass mir und dir Schrecken, Entbehrungen, Verarmungen, Mitternächte, Abenteuer, Wagnisse, Fehlgriffe so nöthig sind, wie ihr Gegentheil, ja dass, um mich mystisch auszudrücken, der Pfad zum eigenen Himmel immer durch die Wollust der eigenen Hölle geht. Nein, davon weiss er Nichts: die "Religion des Mitleidens" (oder "das Herz") gebietet, zu helfen, und man glaubt am besten geholfen zu haben, wenn man am schnellsten geholfen hat! Wenn ihr Anhänger dieser Religion die selbe Gesinnung, die ihr gegen die Mitmenschen habt, auch wirklich gegen euch selber habt, wenn ihr euer eigenes Leiden nicht eine Stunde auf euch liegen lassen wollt und immerfort allem möglichen Unglücke von ferne her schon vorbeugt, wenn ihr Leid und Unlust überhaupt als böse, hassenswerth, vernichtungswürdig, als Makel am Dasein empfindet: nun, dann habt ihr, ausser eurer Religion des Mitleidens, auch noch eine andere Religion im Herzen, und diese ist vielleicht die Mutter von jener: - die Religion der Behaglichkeit. Ach, wie wenig wisst ihr vom Glücke des Menschen, ihr Behaglichen und Gutmüthigen! - denn das Glück und das Unglück sind zwei Geschwister und Zwillinge, die mit einander gross wachsen oder, wie bei euch, mit einander - klein bleiben! Aber nun zur ersten Frage zurück. - Wie ist es nur möglich, auf seinem Wege zu bleiben! Fortwährend ruft uns irgend ein Geschrei seitwärts; unser Auge sieht da selten Etwas, wobei es nicht nöthig wird, augenblicklich unsre eigne Sache zu lassen und zuzuspringen. Ich weiss es. es giebt hundert anständige und rühmliche Arten, um mich von meinem Wege zu verlieren, und wahrlich höchst "moralische" Arten! Ja, die Ansicht der jetzigen Mitleid-Moralprediger geht sogar dahin, dass eben Diess und nur Diess allein moralisch sei: - sich dergestalt von seinem Wege zu verlieren und dem Nächsten beizuspringen. Ich weiss es ebenso gewiss: ich brauche mich nur dem Anblicke einer wirklichen Noth auszuliefern, so bin ich auch verloren! Und wenn ein leidender Freund zu mir sagte: "Siehe, ich werde bald sterben; versprich mir doch, mit mir zu sterben" - ich verspräche es, ebenso wie mich der Anblick jenes für seine Freiheit kämpfenden Bergvölkchens dazu bringen würde, ihm meine Hand und mein Leben anzubieten: - um einmal aus guten Gründen schlechte Beispiele zu wählen. Ja, es giebt eine heimliche Verführung sogar in alle diesem Mitleid-Erweckenden und Hülfe-Rufenden: eben unser "eigener Weg" ist eine zu harte und anspruchsvolle Sache und zu ferne von der Liebe und Dankbarkeit der Anderen, - wir entlaufen ihm gar nicht ungerne, ihm und unserm eigensten Gewissen, und flüchten uns unter das Gewissen der Anderen und hinein in den lieblichen Tempel der, "Religion des Mitleidens". Sobald jetzt irgend ein Krieg ausbricht, so bricht damit immer auch gerade in den Edelsten eines Volkes eine freilich geheim gehaltene Lust aus: sie werfen sich mit Entzücken der neuen Gefahr des Todes entgegen, weil sie in der Aufopferung für das Vaterland endlich jene lange gesuchte Erlaubniss zu haben glauben - die Erlaubniss, ihrem Ziele auszuweichen: - der Krieg ist für sie ein Umweg zum Selbstmord, aber ein Umweg mit gutem Gewissen. Und, um hier Einiges zu verschweigen: so will ich doch meine Moral nicht verschweigen, welche zu mir sagt: Lebe im Verborgenen, damit du dir leben kannst! Lebe unwissend über Das, was deinem Zeitalter das Wichtigste dünkt! Lege zwischen dich und heute wenigstens die Haut von drei Jahrhunderten! Und das Geschrei von heute, der Lärm der Kriege und Revolutionen, soll dir ein Gemurmel sein! Du wirst auch helfen wollen: aber nur Denen, deren Noth du ganz verstehst, weil sie mit dir Ein Leid und Eine Hoffnung haben - deinen Freunden: und nur auf die Weise, wie du dir selber hilfst: - ich will sie muthiger, aushaltender, einfacher, fröhlicher machen! Ich will sie Das lehren, was jetzt so Wenige verstehen und jene Prediger des Mitleidens am wenigsten: - die Mitfreude!

339

Vita femina. - Die letzten Schönheiten eines Werkes zu sehen - dazu reicht alles Wissen und aller guter Wille nicht aus; es bedarf der seltensten glücklichen Zufälle, damit einmal der Wolkenschleier von diesen Gipfeln für uns weiche und die Sonne auf ihnen glühe. Nicht nur müssen wir gerade an der rechten Stelle stehen, diess zu sehen: es muss gerade unsere Seele selber den Schleier von ihren Höhen weggezogen haben und eines äusseren Ausdruckes und Gleichnisses bedürftig sein, wie um einen Halt zu haben und ihrer selber mächtig zu bleiben. Diess Alles aber kommt so selten gleichzeitig zusammen, dass ich glauben möchte, die höchsten Höhen alles Guten, sei es Werk, That, Mensch, Natur, seien bisher für die Meisten und selbst für die Besten etwas Verborgenes und Verhülltes gewesen: - was sich aber uns enthüllt, das enthüllt sich uns Ein Mal! - Die Griechen beteten wohl: "Zwei und drei Mal alles Schöne!" Ach, sie hatten da einen guten Grund, Götter anzurufen, denn die ungöttliche Wirklichkeit giebt uns das Schöne gar nicht oder Ein Mal! Ich will sagen, dass die Welt übervoll von schönen Dingen ist, aber trotzdem arm, sehr arm an schönen Augenblicken und Enthüllungen dieser Dinge. Aber vielleicht ist diess der stärkste Zauber des Lebens: es liegt ein golddurchwirkter Schleier von schönen Möglichkeiten über ihm, verheissend, widerstrebend, schamhaft, spöttisch, mitleidig, verführerisch. Ja, das Leben ist ein Weib!

340

Der sterbende Sokrates. - Ich bewundere die Tapferkeit und Weisheit des Sokrates in Allem, was er that, sagte - und nicht sagte. Dieser spöttische und verliebte Unhold und Rattenfänger Athens, der die übermüthigsten Jünglinge zittern und schluchzen machte, war nicht nur der weiseste Schwätzer, den es gegeben hat: er war ebenso gross im Schweigen. Ich wollte, er wäre auch im letzten Augenblicke des Lebens schweigsam gewesen, - vielleicht gehörte er dann in eine noch höhere Ordnung der Geister. War es nun der Tod oder das Gift oder die Frömmigkeit oder die Bosheit - irgend Etwas löste ihm in jenem Augenblick die Zunge und er sagte: "Oh Kriton, ich bin dem Asklepios einen Hahn schuldig". Dieses lächerliche und furchtbare "letzte Wort" heisst für Den, der Ohren hat: "Oh Kriton, das Leben ist eine Krankheit!" Ist es möglich! Ein Mann, wie er, der heiter und vor Aller Augen wie ein Soldat gelebt hat, - war Pessimist! Er hatte eben nur eine gute Miene zum Leben gemacht und zeitlebens sein letztes Urtheil, sein innerstes Gefühl versteckt! Sokrates, Sokrates hat am Leben gelitten! Und er hat noch seine Rache dafür genommen - mit jenem verhüllten, schauerlichen, frommen und blasphemischen Worte! Musste ein Sokrates sich auch noch rächen? War ein Gran Grossmuth zu wenig in seiner überreichen Tugend? - Ach Freunde! Wir müssen auch die Griechen überwinden!

341

Das grösste Schwergewicht. - Wie, wenn dir eines Tages oder Nachts, ein Dämon in deine einsamste Einsamkeit nachschliche und dir sagte: "Dieses Leben, wie du es jetzt lebst und gelebt hast, wirst du noch einmal und noch unzählige Male leben müssen; und es wird nichts Neues daran sein, sondern jeder Schmerz und jede Lust und jeder Gedanke und Seufzer und alles unsäglich Kleine und Grosse deines Lebens muss dir wiederkommen, und Alles in der selben Reihe und Folge - und ebenso diese Spinne und dieses Mondlicht zwischen den Bäumen, und ebenso dieser Augenblick und ich selber. Die ewige Sanduhr des Daseins wird immer wieder umgedreht - und du mit ihr, Stäubchen vom Staube!" - Würdest du dich nicht niederwerfen und mit den Zähnen knirschen und den Dämon verfluchen, der so redete? Oder hast du einmal einen ungeheuren Augenblick erlebt, wo du ihm antworten würdest: "du bist ein Gott und nie hörte ich Göttlicheres!" Wenn jener Gedanke über dich Gewalt bekäme, er würde dich, wie du bist, verwandeln und vielleicht zermalmen; die Frage bei Allem und jedem "willst du diess noch einmal und noch unzählige Male?" würde als das grösste Schwergewicht auf deinem Handeln liegen! Oder wie müsstest du dir selber und dem Leben gut werden, um nach Nichts mehr zu verlangen, als nach dieser letzten ewigen Bestätigung und Besiegelung? -

342

Incipit tragoedia. - Als Zarathustra dreissig Jahr alt war, verliess er seine Heimath und den See Urmi und gieng in das Gebirge. Hier genoss er seines Geistes und seiner Einsamkeit und wurde dessen zehn Jahre nicht müde. Endlich aber verwandelte sich sein Herz, - und eines Morgens stand er mit der Morgenröthe auf, trat vor die Sonne hin und sprach zu ihr also: "Du grosses Gestirn! Was wäre dein Glück, wenn du nicht Die hättest, welchen du leuchtest! Zehn Jahre kamst du hier herauf zu meiner Höhle: du würdest deines Lichtes und dieses Weges satt geworden sein, ohne mich, meinen Adler und meine Schlange; aber wir warteten deiner an jedem Morgen, nahmen dir deinen Ueberfluss ab und segneten dich dafür. Siehe! Ich bin meiner Weisheit überdrüssig, wie die Biene, die des Honigs zu viel gesammelt hat, ich bedarf der Hände, die sich ausstrecken, ich möchte verschenken und austheilen, bis die Weisen unter den Menschen wieder einmal ihrer Thorheit und die Armen wieder einmal ihres Reichthums froh geworden sind. Dazu muss ich in die Tiefe steigen: wie du des Abends thust, wenn du hinter das Meer gehst und noch der Unterwelt Licht bringst, du überreiches Gestirn! - ich muss, gleich dir, untergehen, wie die Menschen es nennen, zu denen ich hinab will. So segne mich denn, du ruhiges Auge, das ohne Neid auch ein allzugrosses Glück sehen kann! Segne den Becher, welcher überfliessen will, dass das Wasser golden aus ihm fliesse und überallhin den Abglanz deiner Wonne trage! Siehe! Dieser Becher will wieder leer werden, und Zarathustra will wieder Mensch werden." - Also begann Zarathustra's Untergang.

Fünftes Buch

Wir Furchtlosen

Carcasse, tu trembles? Tu tremblerais bien davantage, si tu savais, où je te mène.

Turenne.

343

Was es mit unserer Heiterkeit auf sich hat. - Das grösste neuere Ereigniss, - dass "Gott todt ist", dass der Glaube an den christlichen Gott unglaubwürdig geworden ist - beginnt bereits seine ersten Schatten über Europa zu werfen. Für die Wenigen wenigstens, deren Augen, deren Argwohn in den Augen stark und fein genug für dies Schauspiel ist, scheint eben irgend eine Sonne untergegangen, irgend ein altes tiefes Vertrauen in Zweifel umgedreht: ihnen muss unsre alte Welt täglich abendlicher, misstrauischer, fremder, "älter" scheinen. In der Hauptsache aber darf man sagen: das Ereigniss selbst ist viel zu gross, zu fern, zu abseits vom Fassungsvermögen Vieler, als dass auch nur seine Kunde schon angelangt heissen dürfte; geschweige denn, dass Viele bereits wüssten, was eigentlich sich damit begeben hat - und was Alles, nachdem dieser Glaube untergraben ist, nunmehr einfallen muss, weil es auf ihm gebaut, an ihn gelehnt, in ihn hineingewachsen war: zum Beispiel unsre ganze europäische Moral. Diese lange Fülle und Folge von Abbruch, Zerstörung, Untergang, Umsturz, die nun bevorsteht: wer erriethe heute schon genug davon, um den Lehrer und Vorausverkünder dieser ungeheuren Logik von Schrecken abgeben zu müssen, den Propheten einer Verdüsterung und Sonnenfinsterniss, deren Gleichen es wahrscheinlich noch nicht auf Erden gegeben hat? ... Selbst wir geborenen Räthselrather, die wir gleichsam auf den Bergen warten, zwischen Heute und Morgen hingestellt und in den Widerspruch zwischen Heute und Morgen hineingespannt, wir Erstlinge und Frühgeburten des kommenden Jahrhunderts, denen eigentlich die Schatten, welche Europa alsbald einwickeln müssen, jetzt schon zu Gesicht gekommen sein sollten: woran liegt es doch, dass selbst wir ohne rechte Theilnahme für diese Verdüsterung, vor Allem ohne Sorge und Furcht für uns ihrem Heraufkommen entgegensehn? Stehen wir vielleicht zu sehr noch unter den nächsten Folgen dieses Ereignisses - und diese nächsten Folgen, seine Folgen für uns sind, umgekehrt als man vielleicht erwarten könnte, durchaus nicht traurig und verdüsternd, vielmehr wie eine neue schwer zu beschreibende Art von Licht, Glück, Erleichterung, Erheiterung, Ermuthigung, Morgenröthe... In der That, wir Philosophen und "freien Geister" fühlen uns bei der Nachricht, dass der "alte Gott todt" ist, wie von einer neuen Morgenröthe angestrahlt; unser Herz strömt dabei über von Dankbarkeit, Erstaunen, Ahnung, Erwartung, - endlich erscheint uns der Horizont wieder frei, gesetzt selbst, dass er nicht hell ist, endlich dürfen unsre Schiffe wieder auslaufen, auf jede Gefahr hin auslaufen, jedes Wagniss des Erkennenden ist wieder erlaubt, das Meer, unser Meer liegt wieder offen da, vielleicht gab es noch niemals ein so "offnes Meer". -

344

Inwiefern auch wir noch fromm sind. - In der Wissenschaft haben die Ueberzeugungen kein Bürgerrecht, so sagt man mit gutem Grunde: erst wenn sie sich entschliessen, zur Bescheidenheit einer Hypothese, eines vorläufigen Versuchs-Standpunktes, einer regulativen Fiktion herabzusteigen, darf ihnen der Zutritt und sogar ein gewisser Werth innerhalb des Reichs der Erkenntniss zugestanden werden, - immerhin mit der Beschränkung, unter polizeiliche Aufsicht gestellt zu bleiben, unter die Polizei des Misstrauens. - Heisst das aber nicht, genauer besehen: erst, wenn die Ueberzeugung aufhört, Ueberzeugung zu sein, darf sie Eintritt in die Wissenschaft erlangen? Fienge nicht die Zucht des wissenschaftlichen Geistes damit an, sich keine Ueberzeugungen mehr zu gestatten?... So steht es wahrscheinlich: nur bleibt übrig zu fragen, ob nicht, damit diese Zucht anfangen könne, schon eine Ueberzeugung da sein müsse, und zwar eine so gebieterische und bedingungslose, dass sie alle andren Ueberzeugungen sich zum Opfer bringt. Man sieht, auch die Wissenschaft ruht auf einem Glauben, es giebt gar keine "voraussetzungslose" Wissenschaft. Die Frage, ob Wahrheit noth thue, muss nicht nur schon vorher bejaht, sondern in dem Grade bejaht sein, dass der Satz, der Glaube, die Ueberzeugung darin zum Ausdruck kommt "es thut nichts mehr noth als Wahrheit, und im Verhältniss zu ihr hat alles Uebrige nur einen Werth zweiten Rangs". - Dieser unbedingte Wille zur Wahrheit: was ist er? Ist es der Wille, sich nicht täuschen zu lassen? Ist es der Wille, nicht zu täuschen? Nämlich auch auf diese letzte Weise könnte der Wille zur Wahrheit interpretirt werden: vorausgesetzt, dass man unter der Verallgemeinerung "ich will nicht täuschen" auch den einzelnen Fall "ich will mich nicht täuschen" einbegreift. Aber warum nicht täuschen? Aber warum nicht sich täuschen lassen? - Man bemerke, dass die Gründe für das Erstere auf einem ganz andern Bereiche liegen als die für das Zweite: man will sich nicht täuschen lassen, unter der Annahme, dass es schädlich, gefährlich, verhängnissvoll ist, getäuscht zu werden, - in diesem Sinne wäre Wissenschaft eine lange Klugheit, eine Vorsicht, eine Nützlichkeit, gegen die man aber billigerweise einwenden dürfte: wie? ist wirklich das Sich-nicht-täuschen-lassen-wollen weniger schädlich, weniger gefährlich, weniger verhängnissvoll: Was wisst ihr von vornherein vom Charakter des Daseins, um entscheiden zu können, ob der grössere Vortheil auf Seiten des Unbedingt-Misstrauischen oder des Unbedingt-Zutraulichen ist? Falls aber Beides nöthig sein sollte, viel Zutrauen und viel Misstrauen: woher dürfte dann die Wissenschaft ihren unbedingten Glauben, ihre Ueberzeugung nehmen, auf dem sie ruht, dass Wahrheit wichtiger sei als irgend ein andres Ding, auch als jede andre Ueberzeugung? Eben diese Ueberzeugung könnte nicht entstanden sein, wenn Wahrheit und Unwahrheit sich beide fortwährend als nützlich bezeigten: wie es der Fall ist. Also - kann der Glaube an die Wissenschaft, der nun einmal unbestreitbar da ist, nicht aus einem solchen Nützlichkeits-Calcul seinen Ursprung genommen haben, sondern vielmehr trotzdem, dass ihm die Unnützlichkeit und Gefährlichkeit des "Willens zur Wahrheit", der "Wahrheit um jeden Preis" fortwährend bewiesen wird. "Um jeden Preis": oh wir verstehen das gut genug, wenn wir erst einen Glauben nach dem andern auf diesem Altare dargebracht und abgeschlachtet haben! - Folglich bedeutet "Wille zur Wahrheit" nicht ich will mich nicht täuschen lassen", sondern - es bleibt keine Wahl - "ich will nicht täuschen, auch mich selbst nicht": - und hiermit sind wir auf dem Boden der Moral. Denn man frage sich nur gründlich: "warum willst du nicht täuschen?" namentlich wenn es den Anschein haben sollte, - und es hat den Anschein! - als wenn das Leben auf Anschein, ich meine auf Irrthum, Betrug, Verstellung, Blendung, Selbstverblendung angelegt wäre, und wenn andrerseits thatsächlich die grosse Form des Lebens sich immer auf der Seite der unbedenklichsten polÝtfopoi gezeigt hat. Es könnte ein solcher Vorsatz vielleicht, mild ausgelegt, eine Don Quixoterie, ein kleiner schwärmerischer Aberwitz sein; er könnte aber auch noch etwas Schlimmeres sein, nämlich ein lebensfeindliches zerstörerisches Princip... "Wille zur Wahrheit" - das könnte ein versteckter Wille zum Tode sein. - Dergestalt führt die Frage: warum Wissenschaft? zurück auf das moralische Problem- wozu überhaupt Moral, wenn Leben, Natur, Geschichte "unmoralisch" sind? Es ist kein Zweifel, der Wahrhaftige, in jenem verwegenen und letzten Sinne, wie ihn der Glaube an die Wissenschaft voraussetzt, bejaht damit eine andre Welt als die des Lebens, der Natur und der Geschichte; und insofern er diese "andre Welt" bejaht, wie? muss er nicht eben damit ihr Gegenstück, diese Welt, unsre Welt - verneinen?... Doch man wird es begriffen haben, worauf ich hinaus will, nämlich dass es immer noch ein metaphysischer Glaube ist, auf dem unser Glaube an die Wissenschaft ruht, - dass auch wir Erkennenden von heute, wir Gottlosen und Antimetaphysiker, auch unser Feuer noch von dem Brande nehmen, den ein Jahrtausende alter Glaube entzündet hat, jener Christen-Glaube, der auch der Glaube Plato's war, dass Gott die Wahrheit ist, dass die Wahrheit göttlich ist... Aber wie, wenn dies gerade immer mehr unglaubwürdig wird, wenn Nichts sich mehr als göttlich erweist, es sei denn der Irrthum, die Blindheit, die Lüge, - wenn Gott selbst sich als unsre längste Lüge erweist? -

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Moral als Problem. - Der Mangel an Person rächt sich überall; eine geschwächte, dünne, ausgelöschte, sich selbst leugnende und verleugnende Persönlichkeit taugt zu keinem guten Dinge mehr, - sie taugt am wenigsten zur Philosophie. Die "Selbstlosigkeit" hat keinen Werth im Himmel und auf Erden; die grossen Probleme verlangen alle die grosse Liebe, und dieser sind nur die starken, runden, sicheren Geister fähig, die fest auf sich selber sitzen. Es macht den erheblichsten Unterschied, ob ein Denker zu seinen Problemen persönlich steht, so dass er in ihnen sein Schicksal, seine Noth und auch sein bestes Glück hat, oder aber "unpersönlich": nämlich sie nur mit den Fühlhörnern des kalten neugierigen Gedankens anzutasten und zu fassen versteht. Im letzteren Falle kommt Nichts dabei heraus, so viel lässt sich versprechen: denn die grossen Probleme, gesetzt selbst, dass sie sich fassen lassen, lassen sich von Fröschen und Schwächlingen nicht halten, das ist ihr Geschmack seit Ewigkeit, - ein Geschmack übrigens, den sie mit allen wackern Weiblein theilen. - Wie kommt es nun, dass ich noch Niemandem begegnet bin, auch in Büchern nicht, der zur Moral in dieser Stellung als Person stünde, der die Moral als Problem und dies Problem als seine persönliche Noth, Qual, Wollust, Leidenschaft kennte? Ersichtlich war bisher die Moral gar kein Problem; vielmehr Das gerade, worin man, nach allem Misstrauen, Zwiespalt, Widerspruch, mit einander überein kam, der geheiligte Ort des Friedens, wo die Denker auch von sich selbst ausruhten, aufathmeten, auflebten. Ich sehe Niemanden, der eine Kritik der moralischen Werthurtheile gewagt hätte; ich vermisse hierfür selbst die Versuche der wissenschaftlichen Neugierde, der verwöhnten versucherischen Psychologen- und Historiker-Einbildungskraft, welche leicht ein Problem vorwegnimmt und im Fluge erhascht, ohne recht zu wissen, was da erhascht ist. Kaum dass ich einige spärliche Ansätze ausfindig gemacht habe, es zu einer Entstehungsgeschichte dieser Gefühle und Werthschätzungen zu bringen (was etwas Anderes ist als eine Kritik derselben und noch einmal etwas Anderes als die Geschichte der ethischen Systeme): in einem einzelnen Falle habe ich Alles gethan, um eine Neigung und Begabung für diese Art Historie zu ermuthigen - umsonst, wie mir heute scheinen will. Mit diesen Moral-Historikern (namentlich Engländern) hat es wenig auf sich: sie stehen gewöhnlich selbst noch arglos unter dem Kommando einer bestimmten Moral und geben, ohne es zu wissen, deren Schildträger und Gefolge ab; etwa mit jenem noch immer so treuherzig nachgeredeten Volks-Aberglauben des christlichen Europa, dass das Charakteristicum der moralischen Handlung im Selbstlosen, Selbstverleugnenden, Sich-Selbst-Opfernden, oder im Mitgefühle, im Mitleiden belegen sei. Ihr gewöhnlicher Fehler in der Voraussetzung ist, dass sie irgend einen consensus der Völker, mindestens der zahmen Völker über gewisse Sätze der Moral behaupten und daraus deren unbedingte Verbindlichkeit, auch für dich und mich, schliessen; oder dass sie umgekehrt, nachdem ihnen die Wahrheit aufgegangen ist, dass bei verschiedenen Völkern die moralischen Schätzungen nothwendig verschieden sind, einen Schluss auf Unverbindlichkeit aller Moral machen: was Beides gleich grosse Kindereien sind. Der Fehler der Feineren unter ihnen ist, dass sie die vielleicht thörichten Meinungen eines Volkes über seine Moral oder der Menschen über alle menschliche Moral aufdecken und kritisiren, also über deren Herkunft, religiöse Sanktion, den Aberglauben des freien Willens und dergleichen, und ebendamit vermeinen, diese Moral selbst kritisirt zu haben. Aber der Werth einer Vorschrift "du sollst" ist noch gründlich verschieden und unabhängig von solcherlei Meinungen über dieselbe und von dem Unkraut des Irrthums, mit dem sie vielleicht überwachsen ist: so gewiss der Werth eines Medikaments für den Kranken noch vollkommen unabhängig davon ist, ob der Kranke wissenschaftlich oder wie ein altes Weib über Medizin denkt. Eine Moral könnte selbst aus einem Irrthum gewachsen sein: auch mit dieser Einsicht wäre das Problem ihres Werthes noch nicht einmal berührt. - Niemand also hat bisher den Werth jener berühmtesten aller Medizinen, genannt Moral, geprüft: wozu zuallererst gehört, dass man ihn einmal - in Frage stellt. Wohlan! Dies eben ist unser Werk. -

346

Unser Fragezeichen. - Aber ihr versteht das nicht? In der That, man wird Mühe haben, uns zu verstehn. Wir suchen nach Worten, wir suchen vielleicht auch nach Ohren. Wer sind wir doch? Wollten wir uns einfach mit einem älteren Ausdruck Gottlose oder Ungläubige oder auch Immoralisten nennen, wir würden uns damit noch lange nicht bezeichnet glauben: wir sind alles Dreies in einem zu späten Stadium, als dass man begriffe, als dass ihr begreifen könntet, meine Herren Neugierigen, wie es Einem dabei zu Muthe ist. Nein! nicht mehr mit der Bitterkeit und Leidenschaft des Losgerissenen, der sich aus seinem Unglauben noch einen Glauben, einen Zweck, ein Martyrium selbst zurecht machen muss! Wir sind abgesotten in der Einsicht und in ihr kalt und hart geworden, dass es in der Welt durchaus nicht göttlich zugeht, ja noch nicht einmal nach menschlichem Maasse vernünftig, barmherzig oder gerecht: wir wissen es, die Welt, in der wir leben, ist ungöttlich, unmoralisch, "unmenschlich", - wir haben sie uns allzulange falsch und lügnerisch, aber nach Wunsch und Willen unsrer Verehrung, das heisst nach einem Bedürfnisse ausgelegt. Denn der Mensch ist ein verehrendes Thier! Aber er ist auch ein misstrauisches: und dass die Welt nicht das werth ist, was wir geglaubt haben, das ist ungefähr das Sicherste, dessen unser Misstrauen endlich habhaft geworden ist. So viel Misstrauen, so viel Philosophie. Wir hüten uns wohl zu sagen, dass sie weniger werth ist: es erscheint uns heute selbst zum Lachen, wenn der Mensch in Anspruch nehmen wollte, Werthe zu erfinden, welche den Werth der wirklichen Welt überragen sollten, - gerade davon sind wir zurückgekommen als von einer ausschweifenden Verirrung der menschlichen Eitelkeit und Unvernunft, die lange nicht als solche erkannt worden ist. Sie hat ihren letzten Ausdruck im modernen Pessimismus gehabt, einen älteren, stärkeren in der Lehre des Buddha; aber auch das Christenthum enthält sie, zweifelhafter freilich und zweideutiger, aber darum nicht weniger verführerisch. Die ganze Attitüde "Mensch gegen Welt", der Mensch als "Welt-verneinendes" Princip, der Mensch als Werthmaass der Dinge, als Welten-Richter, der zuletzt das Dasein selbst auf seine Wagschalen legt und zu leicht befindet - die ungeheuerliche Abgeschmacktheit dieser Attitüde ist uns als solche zum Bewusstsein gekommen und verleidet, - wir lachen schon, wenn wir "Mensch und Welt" nebeneinander gestellt finden, getrennt durch die sublime Anmaassung des Wörtchens "und"! Wie aber? Haben wir nicht eben damit, als Lachende, nur einen Schritt weiter in der Verachtung des Menschen gemacht? Und also auch im Pessimismus, in der Verachtung des uns erkennbaren Daseins? Sind wir nicht eben damit dem Argwohne eines Gegensatzes verfallen, eines Gegensatzes der Welt, in der wir bisher mit unsren Verehrungen zu Hause waren um deren willen wir vielleicht zu leben aushielten und einer andren Welt, die wir selber sind: einem unerbittlichen, gründlichen, untersten Argwohn über uns selbst, der uns Europäer immer mehr, immer schlimmer in Gewalt bekommt und leicht die kommenden Geschlechter vor das furchtbare Entweder-Oder stellen könnte: "entweder schafft eure Verehrungen ab oder - euch selbst!" Das Letztere wäre der Nihilismus; aber wäre nicht auch das Erstere - der Nihilismus? - Dies ist unser Fragezeichen.

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Die Gläubigen und ihr Bedürfniss nach Glauben. - Wie viel einer Glauben nöthig hat, um zu gedeihen, wie viel "Festes", an dem er nicht gerüttelt haben will, weil er sich daran hält, - ist ein Gradmesser seiner Kraft (oder, deutlicher geredet, seiner Schwäche). Christenthum haben, wie mir scheint, im alten Europa auch heute noch die Meisten nöthig: desshalb findet es auch immer noch Glauben. Denn so ist der Mensch: ein Glaubenssatz könnte ihm tausendfach widerlegt sein, - gesetzt, er hätte ihn nöthig, so würde er ihn auch immer wieder für "wahr" halten, - gemäss jenem berühmten "Beweise der Kraft", von dem die Bibel redet. Metaphysik haben Einige noch nöthig; aber auch jenes ungestüme Verlangen nach Gewissheit, welches sich heute in breiten Massen wissenschaftlich-positivistisch entladet, das Verlangen, durchaus etwas fest haben zu wollen (während man es wegen der Hitze dieses Verlangens mit der Begründung der Sicherheit leichter und lässlicher nimmt): auch das ist noch das Verlangen nach Halt, Stütze, kurz, jener Instinkt der Schwäche, welcher Religionen, Metaphysiken, Ueberzeugungen aller Art zwar nicht schafft, aber - conservirt. In der That dampft um alle diese positivistischen Systeme der Qualm einer gewissen pessimistischen Verdüsterung, Etwas von Müdigkeit, Fatalismus, Enttäuschung, Furcht vor neuer Enttäuschung - oder aber zur Schau getragener Ingrimm, schlechte Laune, Entrüstungs-Anarchismus und was es alles für Symptome oder Maskeraden des Schwächegefühls giebt. Selbst die Heftigkeit, mit der sich unsre gescheidtesten Zeitgenossen in ärmliche Ecken und Engen verlieren, zum Beispiel in die Vaterländerei (so heisse ich das, was man in Frankreich chauvinisme, in Deutschland "deutsch" nennt) oder in ästhetische Winkel-Bekenntnisse nach Art des Pariser naturalisme (der von der Natur nur den Theil hervorzieht und entblösst, welcher Ekel zugleich und Erstaunen macht - man heisst diesen Theil heute gern la verité vraie -) oder in Nihilismus nach Petersburger Muster (das heisst in den Glauben an den Unglauben, bis zum Martyrium dafür) zeigt immer vorerst das Bedürfniss nach Glauben, Halt, Rückgrat, Rückhalt... Der Glaube ist immer dort am meisten begehrt, am dringlichsten nöthig, wo es an Willen fehlt: denn der Wille ist, als Affekt des Befehls, das entscheidende Abzeichen der Selbstherrlichkeit und Kraft. Das heisst, je weniger Einer zu befehlen weiss, um so dringlicher begehrt er nach Einem, der befiehlt, streng befiehlt, nach einem Gott, Fürsten, Stand, Arzt, Beichtvater, Dogma, Partei-Gewissen. Woraus vielleicht abzunehmen wäre, dass die beiden Weltreligionen, der Buddhismus und das Christenthum ihren Entstehungsgrund, ihr plötzliches Um-sich-greifen zumal, in einer ungeheuren Erkrankung des Willens gehabt haben möchten. Und so ist es in Wahrheit gewesen: beide Religionen fanden ein durch Willens-Erkrankung in's Unsinnige aufgethürmtes, bis zur Verzweiflung gehendes Verlangen nach einem "du sollst" vor, beide Religionen waren Lehrerinnen des Fanatismus in Zeiten der Willens-Erschlaffung und boten damit Unzähligen einen Halt, eine neue Möglichkeit zu wollen, einen Genuss am Wollen. Der Fanatismus ist nämlich die einzige Willensstärken, zu der auch die Schwachen und Unsicheren gebracht werden können, als eine Art Hypnotisirung des ganzen sinnlich-intellektuellen Systems zu Gunsten der überreichlichen Ernährung (Hypertrophie) eines einzelnen Gesichts- und Gefühlspunktes, der nunmehr dominirt - der Christ heisst ihn seinen Glauben. Wo ein Mensch zu der Grundüberzeugung kommt, dass ihm befohlen werden muss, wird er "gläubig"; umgekehrt wäre eine Lust und Kraft der Selbstbestimmung, eine Freiheit des Willens denkbar, bei der ein Geist jedem Glauben, jedem Wunsch nach Gewissheit den Abschied giebt, geübt, wie er ist, auf leichten Seilen und Möglichkeiten sich halten zu können und selbst an Abgründen noch zu tanzen. Ein solcher Geist wäre der freie Geist par excellence.

348

Von der Herkunft der Gelehrten. - Der Gelehrte wächst in Europa aus aller Art Stand und gesellschaftlicher Bedingung heraus, als eine Pflanze, die keines spezifischen Erdreichs bedarf: darum gehört er, wesentlich und unfreiwillig, zu den Trägem des demokratischen Gedankens. Aber diese Herkunft verräth sich. Hat man seinen Blick etwas dafür eingeschult, an einem gelehrten Buche, einer wissenschaftlichen Abhandlung die intellektuelle Idiosynkrasie des Gelehrten - jeder Gelehrte hat eine solche - herauszuerkennen und auf der That zu ertappen, so wird man fast immer hinter ihr die "Vorgeschichte" des Gelehrten, seine Familie, in Sonderheit deren Berufsarten und Handwerke zu Gesicht bekommen. Wo das Gefühl zum Ausdruck kommt "das ist nunmehr bewiesen, hiermit bin ich fertig", da ist es gemeinhin der Vorfahr im Blute und Instinkte des Gelehrten, welcher von seinem Gesichtswinkel aus die "gemachte Arbeit" gutheisst, - der Glaube an den Beweis ist nur ein Symptom davon, was in einem arbeitsamen Geschlechte von Alters her als "gute Arbeit" angesehn worden ist. Ein Beispiel: die Söhne von Registratoren und Büreauschreibern jeder Art, deren Hauptaufgabe immer war, ein vielfältiges Material zu ordnen, in Schubfächer zu vertheilen, überhaupt zu schematisiren, zeigen, falls sie Gelehrte werden, eine Vorneigung dafür, ein Problem beinahe damit für gelöst zu halten, dass sie es schematisirt haben. Es giebt Philosophen, welche im Grunde nur schematische Köpfe sind - ihnen ist das Formale des väterlichen Handwerks zum Inhalte geworden. Das Talent zu Classificationen, zu Kategorientafeln verräth Etwas; man ist nicht ungestraft das Kind seiner Eltern. Der Sohn eines Advokaten wird auch als Forscher ein Advokat sein müssen: er will mit seiner Sache in erster Rücksicht Recht behalten, in zweiter, vielleicht, Recht haben. Die Söhne von protestantischen Geistlichen und Schullehrern erkennt man an der naiven Sicherheit, mit der sie als Gelehrte ihre Sache schon als bewiesen nehmen, wenn sie von ihnen eben erst nur herzhaft und mit Wärme vorgebracht worden ist: sie sind eben gründlich daran gewöhnt, dass man ihnen glaubt, - das gehörte bei ihren Vätern zum, "Handwerk"! Ein Jude umgekehrt ist, gemäss dem Geschäftskreis und der Vergangenheit seines Volks, gerade daran - dass man ihm glaubt - am wenigsten gewöhnt: man sehe sich darauf die jüdischen Gelehrten an, - sie Alle halten grosse Stücke auf die Logik, das heisst auf das Erzwingen der Zustimmung durch Gründe; sie wissen, dass sie mit ihr siegen müssen, selbst wo Rassen- und Classen-Widerwille gegen sie vorhanden ist, wo man ihnen ungern glaubt. Nichts nämlich ist demokratischer als die Logik: sie kennt kein Ansehn der Person und nimmt auch die krummen Nasen für gerade. (Nebenbei bemerkt: Europa ist gerade in Hinsicht auf Logisirung, auf reinlichere Kopf- Gewohnheiten den Juden nicht wenig Dank schuldig; voran die Deutschen, als eine beklagenswerth deraisonnable Rasse, der man auch heute immer noch zuerst "den Kopf zu waschen" hat. Ueberall, wo Juden zu Einfluss gekommen sind, haben sie ferner zu scheiden, schärfer zu folgern, heller und sauberer zu schreiben gelehrt: ihre Aufgabe war es immer, ein Volk "zur Raison" zu bringen.)

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Noch einmal die Herkunft der Gelehrten. - Sich selbst erhalten wollen ist der Ausdruck einer Nothlage, einer Einschränkung des eigentlichen Lebens-Grundtriebes, der auf Machterweiterung hinausgeht und in diesem Willen oft genug die Selbsterhaltung in Frage stellt und opfert. Man nehme es als symptomatisch, wenn einzelne Philosophen, wie zum Beispiel der schwindsüchtige Spinoza, gerade im sogenannten Selbsterhaltungs-Trieb das Entscheidende sahen, sehen mussten: - es waren eben Menschen in Nothlagen. Dass unsre modernen Naturwissenschaften sich dermaassen mit dem Spinozistischen Dogma verwickelt haben (zuletzt noch und am gröbsten im Darwinismus mit seiner unbegreiflich einseitigen Lehre vom "Kampf um's Dasein" -), das liegt wahrscheinlich an der Herkunft der meisten Naturforscher: sie gehören in dieser Hinsicht zum "Volk", ihre Vorfahren waren arme und geringe Leute, welche die Schwierigkeit, sich durchzubringen, allzusehr aus der Nähe kannten. Um den ganzen englischen Darwinismus herum haucht Etwas wie englische Uebervölkerungs-Stickluft, wie Kleiner-Leute-Geruch von Noth und Enge. Aber man sollte, als Naturforscher, aus seinem menschlichen Winkel herauskommen: und in der Natur herrscht nicht die Nothlage, sondern der Ueberfluss, die Verschwendung, sogar bis in's Unsinnige. Der Kampf um's Dasein ist nur eine Ausnahme, eine zeitweilige Restriktion des Lebenswillens; der grosse und kleine Kampf dreht sich allenthalben um's Uebergewicht, um Wachsthum und Ausbreitung, um Macht, gemäss dem Willen zur Macht, der eben der Wille des Lebens ist.

350

Zu Ehren der homines religiosi. - Der Kampf gegen die Kirche ist ganz gewiss unter Anderem - denn er bedeutet Vielerlei - auch der Kampf der gemeineren vergnügteren vertraulicheren oberflächlicheren Naturen gegen die Herrschaft der schwereren tieferen beschaulicheren, das heisst böseren und argwöhnischeren Menschen, welche mit einem langen Verdachte über den Werth des Daseins, auch über den eignen Werth brüteten: - der gemeine Instinkt des Volkes, seine Sinnen-Lustigkeit, sein "gutes Herz" empörte sich gegen sie. Die ganze römische Kirche ruht auf einem südländischen Argwohne über die Natur des Menschen, der vom Norden aus immer falsch verstanden wird: in welchem Argwohne der europäische Süden die Erbschaft des tiefen Orients, des uralten geheimnissreichen Asien und seiner Contemplation gemacht hat. Schon der Protestantismus ist ein Volksaufstand zu Gunsten der Biederen, Treuherzigen, Oberflächlichen (der Norden war immer gutmüthiger und flacher als der Süden); aber erst die französische Revolution hat dem "guten Menschen" das Scepter vollends und feierlich in die Hand gegeben (dem Schaf, dem Esel, der Gans und Allem, was unheilbar flach und Schreihals und reif für das Narrenhaus der "modernen Ideen" ist).

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Zu Ehren der priesterlichen Naturen. - Ich denke, von dem, was das Volk unter Weisheit versteht (und wer ist heute nicht "Volk"? -), von jener klugen kuhmässigen Gemüthsstille, Frömmigkeit und Landpfarrer-Sanftmuth, welche auf der Wiese liegt und dem Leben ernst und wiederkäuend zuschaut, - davon haben gerade die Philosophen sich immer am fernsten gefühlt, wahrscheinlich weil sie dazu nicht "Volk" genug, nicht Landpfarrer genug waren. Auch werden wohl sie gerade am spätesten daran glauben lernen, dass das Volk Etwas von dem verstehn dürfte, was ihm am fernsten liegt, von der grossen Leidenschaft des Erkennenden, der beständig in der Gewitterwolke der höchsten Probleme und der schwersten Verantwortlichkeiten lebt, leben muss (also ganz und gar nicht zuschauend, ausserhalb, gleichgültig, sicher, objektiv... ). Das Volk verehrt eine ganz andere Art Mensch, wenn es seinerseits sich ein Ideal des "Weisen" macht, und hat tausendfach Recht dazu, gerade dieser Art Mensch mit den besten Worten und Ehren zu huldigen: das sind die milden, ernst-einfältigen und keuschen Priester-Naturen und was ihnen verwandt ist, - denen gilt das Lob in jener Volks-Ehrfurcht vor der Weisheit. Und wem hätte das Volk auch Grund, dankbarer sich zu erweisen als diesen Männern, die zu ihm gehören und aus ihm kommen, aber wie Geweihte, Ausgelesene, seinem Wohl Geopferte - sie selber glauben sich Gott geopfert -, vor denen es ungestraft sein Herz ausschütten, an die es seine Heimlichkeiten, seine Sorgen und Schlimmeres loswerden kann (- denn der Mensch, der "sich mittheilt", wird sich selber los; und wer "bekannt" hat, vergisst). Hier gebietet eine grosse Nothdurft: es bedarf nämlich auch für den seelischen Unrath der Abzugsgräben und der reinlichen reinigenden Gewässer drin, es bedarf rascher Ströme der Liebe und starker demüthiger reiner Herzen, die zu einem solchen Dienste der nicht-öffentlichen Gesundheitspflege sich bereit machen und opfern - denn es ist eine Opferung, ein Priester ist und bleibt ein Menschenopfer... Das Volk empfindet solche geopferte stillgewordne ernste Menschen des "Glaubens" als weise, das heisst als Wissend-Gewordene, als "Sichere" im Verhältniss zur eigenen Unsicherheit: wer würde ihm das Wort und diese Ehrfurcht nehmen mögen? - Aber, wie es umgekehrt billig ist, unter Philosophen gilt auch ein Priester immer noch als "Volk" und nicht als Wissender, vor Allem, weil sie selbst nicht an "Wissende" glauben und eben in diesem Glauben und Aberglauben schon "Volk" riechen. Die Bescheidenheit war es, welche in Griechenland das Wort "Philosoph" erfunden hat und den prachtvollen Uebermuth, sich weise zu nennen, den Schauspielern des Geistes überliess, - die Bescheidenheit solcher Ungethüme von Stolz und Selbstherrlichkeit, wie Pythagoras, wie Plato

352

Inwiefern Moral kaum entbehrlich ist. - Der nackte Mensch ist im Allgemeinen ein schändlicher Anblick - ich rede von uns Europäern (und nicht einmal von den Europäerinnen!) Angenommen, die froheste Tischgesellschaft sähe sich plötzlich durch die Tücke eines Zauberers enthüllt und ausgekleidet, ich glaube, dass nicht nur der Frohsinn dahin und der stärkste Appetit entmuthigt wäre, - es scheint, wir Europäer können jener Maskerade durchaus nicht entbehren, die Kleidung heisst. Sollte aber die Verkleidung der "moralischen Menschen", ihre Verhüllung unter moralische Formeln und Anstandsbegriffe, das ganze wohlwollende Verstecken unserer Handlungen unter die Begriffe Pflicht, Tugend, Gemeinsinn, Ehrenhaftigkeit, Selbstverleugnung nicht seine ebenso guten Gründe haben? Nicht dass ich vermeinte, hierbei sollte etwa die menschliche Bosheit und Niederträchtigkeit, kurz das schlimme wilde Thier in uns vermummt werden; mein Gedanke ist umgekehrt, dass wir gerade als zahme Thiere ein schändlicher Anblick sind und die Moral-Verkleidung brauchen, - dass der "inwendige Mensch" in Europa eben lange nicht schlimm genug ist, um sich damit "sehen lassen" zu können (um damit schön zu sein -). Der Europäer verkleidet sich in die Moral, weil er ein krankes, kränkliches, krüppelhaftes Thier geworden ist, das gute Gründe hat, "zahm" zu sein, weil er beinahe eine Missgeburt, etwas Halbes, Schwaches, Linkisches ist.... Nicht die Furchtbarkeit des Raubthiers findet eine moralische Verkleidung nöthig, sondern das Heerdenthier mit seiner tiefen Mittelmässigkeit, Angst und Langenweile an sich selbst. Moral putzt den Europäer auf - gestehen wir es ein! - in's Vornehmere, Bedeutendere, Ansehnlichere, in's "Göttliche" -

353

Vom Ursprung der Religionen. - Die eigentliche Erfindung der Religionsstifter ist einmal: eine bestimmte Art Leben und Alltag der Sitte anzusetzen, welche als disciplina voluntatis wirkt und zugleich die Langeweile wegschafft; sodann: gerade diesem Leben eine Interpretation zu geben, vermöge deren es vom höchsten Werthe umleuchtet scheint, so dass es nunmehr zu einem Gute wird, für das man kämpft und, unter Umständen, sein Leben lässt. In Wahrheit ist von diesen zwei Erfindungen die zweite die wesentlichere: die erste, die Lebensart, war gewöhnlich schon da, aber neben andren Lebensarten und ohne Bewusstsein davon, was für ein Werth ihr innewohne. Die Bedeutung, die Originalität des Religionsstifters kommt gewöhnlich darin zu Tage, dass er sie sieht, dass er sie auswählt, dass er zum ersten Male erräth, wozu sie gebraucht, wie sie interpretirt werden kann. Jesus (oder Paulus) zum Beispiel fand das Leben der kleinen Leute in der römischen Provinz vor, ein bescheidenes tugendhaftes gedrücktes Leben: er legte es aus, er legte den höchsten Sinn und Werth hinein - und damit den Muth, jede andre Art Leben zu verachten, den stillen Herrenhuter-Fanatismus, das heimliche unterirdische Selbstvertrauen, welches wächst und wächst und endlich bereit ist, "die Welt zu überwinden" (das heisst Rom und die höheren Stände im ganzen Reiche). Buddha insgleichen fand jene Art Menschen vor, und zwar zerstreut unter alle Stände und gesellschaftliche Stufen seines Volks, welche aus Trägheit gut und gütig (vor Allem inoffensiv) sind, die, ebenfalls aus Trägheit, abstinent, beinahe bedürfnisslos leben: er verstand, wie eine solche Art Menschen mit Unvermeidlichkeit, mit der ganzen vis inertiae, in einen Glauben hineinrollen müsse, der die Wiederkehr der irdischen Mühsal (das heisst der Arbeit, des Handelns überhaupt) zu verhüten verspricht, - dies "Verstehen" war sein Genie. Zum Religionsstifter gehört psychologische Unfehlbarkeit im Wissen um eine bestimmte Durchschnitts-Art von Seelen, die sich noch nicht als zusammengehörig erkannt haben. Er ist es, der sie zusammenbringt; die Gründung einer Religion wird insofern immer zu einem langen Erkennungs-Feste. -

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Vom "Genius der Gattung". - Das Problem des Bewusstseins (richtiger: des Sich-Bewusst-Werdens) tritt erst dann vor uns hin, wenn wir zu begreifen anfangen, inwiefern wir seiner entrathen könnten: und an diesen Anfang des Begreifens stellt uns jetzt Physiologie und Tiergeschichte (welche also zwei Jahrhunderte nöthig gehabt haben, um den vorausfliegenden Argwohn Leibnitzens einzuholen). Wir könnten nämlich denken, fühlen, wollen, uns erinnern, wir könnten ebenfalls "handeln" in jedem Sinne des Wortes: und trotzdem brauchte das Alles nicht uns "in's Bewusstsein zu treten" (wie man im Bilde sagt). Das ganze Leben wäre möglich, ohne dass es sich gleichsam im Spiegel sähe: wie ja thatsächlich auch jetzt noch bei uns der bei weitem überwiegende Theil dieses Lebens sich ohne diese Spiegelung abspielt -, und zwar auch unsres denkenden, fühlenden, wollenden Lebens, so beleidigend dies einem älteren Philosophen klingen mag. Wozu überhaupt Bewusstsein, wenn es in der Hauptsache überflüssig ist? - Nun scheint mir, wenn man meiner Antwort auf diese Frage und ihrer vielleicht ausschweifenden Vermuthung Gehör geben will, die Feinheit und Stärke des Bewusstseins immer im Verhältniss zur Mittheilungs-Fähigkeit eines Menschen (oder Thiers) zu stehn, die Mittheilungs-Fähigkeit wiederum im Verhältniss zur Mittheilungs-Bedürftigkeit: letzteres nicht so verstanden, als ob gerade der einzelne Mensch selbst, welcher gerade Meister in der Mittheilung und Verständlichmachung seiner Bedürfnisse ist, zugleich auch mit seinen Bedürfnissen am meisten auf die Andern angewiesen sein müsste. Wohl aber scheint es mir so in Bezug auf ganze Rassen und Geschlechter-Ketten zu stehn: wo das Bedürfniss, die Noth die Menschen lange gezwungen hat, sich mitzutheilen, sich gegenseitig rasch und fein zu verstehen, da ist endlich ein Ueberschuss dieser Kraft und Kunst der Mittheilung da, gleichsam ein Vermögen, das sich allmählich aufgehäuft hat und nun eines Erben wartet, der es verschwenderisch ausgiebt (- die sogenannten Künstler sind diese Erben, insgleichen die Redner, Prediger, Schriftsteller, Alles Menschen, welche immer am Ende einer langen Kette kommen, "Spätgeborne" jedes Mal, im besten Verstande des Wortes, und, wie gesagt, ihrem Wesen nach Verschwender). Gesetzt, diese Beobachtung ist richtig, so darf ich zu der Vermuthung weitergehn, dass Bewusstsein überhaupt sich nur unter dem Druck des Mittheilungs-Bedürfnisses entwickelt hat, - dass es von vornherein nur zwischen Mensch und Mensch (zwischen Befehlenden und Gehorchenden in Sonderheit) nöthig war, nützlich war, und auch nur im Verhältniss zum Grade dieser Nützlichkeit sich entwickelt hat. Bewusstsein ist eigentlich nur ein Verbindungsnetz zwischen Mensch und Mensch, - nur als solches hat es sich entwickeln müssen: der einsiedlerische und raubthierhafte Mensch hätte seiner nicht bedurft. Dass uns unsre Handlungen, Gedanken, Gefühle, Bewegungen selbst in's Bewusstsein kommen - wenigstens ein Theil derselben -, das ist die Folge eines furchtbaren langen über dem Menschen waltenden "Muss": er brauchte, als das gefährdetste Thier, Hülfe, Schutz, er brauchte Seines-Gleichen, er musste seine Noth auszudrücken, sich verständlich zu machen wissen - und zu dem Allen hatte er zuerst "Bewusstsein" nöthig, also selbst zu "wissen" was ihm fehlt, zu "wissen", wie es ihm zu Muthe ist, zu "wissen", was er denkt. Denn nochmals gesagt: der Mensch, wie jedes lebende Geschöpf, denkt immerfort, aber weiss es nicht; das bewusst werdende Denken ist nur der kleinste Theil davon, sagen wir: der oberflächlichste, der schlechteste Theil: - denn allein dieses bewusste Denken geschieht in Worten, das heisst in Mittheilungszeichen, womit sich die Herkunft des Bewusstseins selber aufdeckt. Kurz gesagt, die Entwicklung der Sprache und die Entwicklung des Bewusstseins (nicht der Vernunft, sondern allein des Sichbewusst-werdens der Vernunft) gehen Hand in Hand. Man nehme hinzu, dass nicht nur die Sprache zur Brücke zwischen Mensch und Mensch dient, sondern auch der Blick, der Druck, die Gebärde; das Bewusstwerden unserer Sinneseindrücke bei uns selbst, die Kraft, sie fixiren zu können und gleichsam ausser uns zu stellen, hat in dem Maasse zugenommen, als die Nöthigung wuchs, sie Andern durch Zeichen zu übermitteln. Der Zeichen-erfindende Mensch ist zugleich der immer schärfer seiner selbst bewusste Mensch; erst als sociales Thier lernte der Mensch seiner selbst bewusst werden, - er thut es noch, er thut es immer mehr. - Mein Gedanke ist, wie man sieht: dass das Bewusstsein nicht eigentlich zur Individual-Existenz des Menschen gehört, vielmehr zu dem, was an ihm Gemeinschafts- und Heerden-Natur ist; dass es, wie daraus folgt, auch nur in Bezug auf Gemeinschafts- und Heerden-Nützlichkeit fein entwickelt ist, und dass folglich Jeder von uns, beim besten Willen, sich selbst so individuell wie möglich zu verstehen, "sich selbst zu kennen", doch immer nur gerade das Nicht-Individuelle an sich zum Bewusstsein bringen wird, sein "Durchschnittliches", - dass unser Gedanke selbst fortwährend durch den Charakter des Bewusstseins - durch den in ihm gebietenden "Genius der Gattung" - gleichsam majorisirt und in die Heerden-Perspektive zurück-übersetzt wird. Unsre Handlungen sind im Grunde allesammt auf eine unvergleichliche Weise persönlich, einzig, unbegrenzt-individuell, es ist kein Zweifel; aber sobald wir sie in's Bewusstsein übersetzen, scheinen sie es nicht mehr... Diess ist der eigentliche Phänomenalismus und Perspektivismus, wie ich ihn verstehe: die Natur des thierischen Bewusstseins bringt es mit sich, dass die Welt, deren wir bewusst werden können, nur eine Oberflächen- und Zeichenwelt ist, eine verallgemeinerte, eine vergemeinerte Welt, - dass Alles, was bewusst wird, ebendamit flach, dünn, relativ-dumm, generell, Zeichen, Heerden-Merkzeichen wird, dass mit allem Bewusstwerden eine grosse gründliche Verderbniss, Fälschung, Veroberflächlichung und Generalisation verbunden ist. Zuletzt ist das wachsende Bewusstsein eine Gefahr; und wer unter den bewusstesten Europäern lebt, weiss sogar, dass es eine Krankheit ist. Es ist, wie man erräth, nicht der Gegensatz von Subjekt und Objekt, der mich hier angeht: diese Unterscheidung überlasse ich den Erkenntnisstheoretikern, welche in den Schlingen der Grammatik (der Volks-Metaphysik) hängen geblieben sind. Es ist erst recht nicht der Gegensatz von "Ding an sich" und Erscheinung: denn wir "erkennen" bei weitem nicht genug, um auch nur so scheiden zu dürfen. Wir haben eben gar kein Organ für das Erkennen, für die "Wahrheit": wir "wissen" (oder glauben oder bilden uns ein) gerade so viel als es im Interesse der Menschen-Heerde, der Gattung, nützlich sein mag: und selbst, was hier "Nützlichkeit" genannt wird, ist zuletzt auch nur ein Glaube, eine Einbildung und vielleicht gerade jene verhängnissvollste Dummheit, an der wir einst zu Grunde gehn.

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Der Ursprung unsres Begriffs "Erkenntniss". - Ich nehme diese Erklärung von der Gasse; ich hörte jemanden aus dem Volke sagen "er hat mich erkannt" -: dabei fragte ich mich: was versteht eigentlich das Volk unter Erkenntniss? was will es, wenn es "Erkenntniss" will? Nichts weiter als dies: etwas Fremdes soll auf etwas Bekanntes zurückgeführt werden. Und wir Philosophen - haben wir unter Erkenntniss eigentlich mehr verstanden? Das Bekannte, das heisst: das woran wir gewöhnt sind, so dass wir uns nicht mehr darüber wundern, unser Alltag, irgend eine Regel, in der wir stecken, Alles und jedes, in dem wir uns zu Hause wissen: - wie? ist unser Bedürfniss nach Erkennen nicht eben dies Bedürfniss nach Bekanntem, der Wille, unter allem Fremden, Ungewöhnlichen, Fragwürdigen Etwas aufzudecken, das uns nicht mehr beunruhigt? Sollte es nicht der Instinkt der Furcht sein, der uns erkennen heisst? Sollte das Frohlocken des Erkennenden nicht eben das Frohlocken des wieder erlangten Sicherheitsgefühls sein?... Dieser Philosoph wähnte die Welt "erkannt", als er sie auf die "Idee" zurückgeführt hatte: ach, war es nicht deshalb, weil ihm die "Idee" so bekannt, so gewohnt war? weil er sich so wenig mehr vor der "Idee" fürchtete? - Oh über diese Genügsamkeit der Erkennenden! man sehe sich doch ihre Principien und Welträthsel-Lösungen darauf an! Wenn sie Etwas an den Dingen, unter den Dingen, hinter den Dingen wiederfinden, das uns leider sehr bekannt ist, zum Beispiel unser Einmaleins oder unsre Logik oder unser Wollen und Begehren, wie glücklich sind sie sofort! Denn was bekannt ist, ist "erkannt": darin stimmen sie überein. Auch die Vorsichtigsten unter ihnen meinen, zum Mindesten sei das Bekannte leicht ererkennbar als das Fremde; es sei zum Beispiel methodisch geboten, von der "inneren Welt", von den "Thatsachen des Bewusstseins" auszugehen, weil sie die uns bekanntere Welt sei! Irrthum der Irrthümer! Das Bekannte ist das Gewohnte; und das Gewohnte ist am schwersten zu "erkennen", das heisst als Problem zu sehen, das heisst als fremd, als fern, als "ausser uns" zu sehn... Die grosse Sicherheit der natürlichen Wissenschaften im Verhältniss zur Psychologie und Kritik der Bewusstseins-Elemente - unnatürlichen Wissenschaften, wie man beinahe sagen dürfte - ruht gerade darauf, dass sie das Fremde als Objekt nehmen: während es fast etwas Widerspruchsvolles und Widersinniges ist, das Nicht-Fremde überhaupt als Objekt nehmen zu wollen...

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Inwiefern es in Europa immer "künstlerischer" zugehn wird. - Die Lebens-Fürsorge zwingt auch heute noch - in unsrer Uebergangszeit, wo so Vieles aufhört zu zwingen - fast allen männlichen Europäern eine bestimmte Rolle auf, ihren sogenannten Beruf; Einigen bleibt dabei die Freiheit, eine anscheinende Freiheit, diese Rolle selbst zu wählen, den Meisten wird sie gewählt. Das Ergebniss ist seltsam genug: fast alle Europäer verwechseln sich in einem vorgerückteren Alter mit ihrer Rolle, sie selbst sind die Opfer ihres, "guten Spiels", sie selbst haben vergessen, wie sehr Zufall, Laune, Willkür damals über sie verfügt haben, als sich ihr "Beruf" entschied - und wie viele andre Rollen sie vielleicht hätten spielen können: denn es ist nunmehr zu spät! Tiefer angesehn, ist aus der Rolle wirklich Charakter geworden, aus der Kunst Natur. Es gab Zeitalter, in denen man mit steifer Zuversichtlichkeit, ja mit Frömmigkeit an seine Vorherbestimmung für gerade dies Geschäft, gerade diesen Broderwerb glaubte und den Zufall darin, die Rolle, das Willkürliche schlechterdings nicht anerkennen wollte: Stände, Zünfte, erbliche Gewerbs-Vorrechte haben mit Hülfe dieses Glaubens es zu Stände gebracht, jene Ungeheuer von breiten Gesellschafts-Thürmen aufzurichten, welche das Mittelalter auszeichnen und denen jedenfalls Eins nachzurühmen bleibt: Dauerfähigkeit (- und Dauer ist auf Erden ein Werth ersten Ranges!). Aber es giebt umgekehrte Zeitalter, die eigentlich demokratischen, wo man diesen Glauben mehr und mehr verlernt und ein gewisser kecker Glaube und Gesichtspunkt des Gegentheils in den Vordergrund tritt, jener Athener-Glaube, der in der Epoche des Perikles zuerst bemerkt wird, jener Amerikaner-Glaube von heute, der immer mehr auch Europäer-Glaube werden will: wo der Einzelne überzeugt ist, ungefähr Alles zu können, ungefähr jeder Rolle gewachsen zu sein, wo jeder mit sich versucht, improvisirt, neu versucht, mit Lust versucht, wo alle Natur aufhört und Kunst wird... Die Griechen, erst in diesen Rollen-Glauben - einen Artisten-Glauben, wenn man will - eingetreten, machten, wie bekannt, Schritt für Schritt eine wunderliche und nicht in jedem Betracht nachahmenswerthe Verwandlung durch: sie wurden wirklich Schauspieler; als solche bezauberten sie, überwanden sie alle Welt und zuletzt selbst die "Weltüberwinderin" (denn der Graeculus histrio hat Rom besiegt, und nicht, wie die Unschuldigen zu sagen pflegen, die griechische Cultur... ). Aber was ich fürchte, was man heute schon mit Händen greift, falls man Lust hätte, darnach zu greifen, wir modernen Menschen sind ganz schon auf dem gleichen Wege; und jedes Mal, wenn der Mensch anfängt zu entdecken, inwiefern er eine Rolle spielt und inwieweit er Schauspieler sein kann, wird er Schauspieler... Damit kommt dann eine neue Flora und Fauna von Menschen herauf, die in festeren, beschränkteren Zeitaltern nicht wachsen können - oder "unten" gelassen werden, unter dem Banne und Verdachte der Ehrlosigkeit -, es kommen damit jedes Mal die interessantesten und tollsten Zeitalter der Geschichte herauf, in denen die "Schauspieler", alle Arten Schauspieler, die eigentlichen Herren sind. Eben dadurch wird eine andre Gattung Mensch immer tiefer benachtheiligt, endlich unmöglich gemacht, vor Allem die grossen "Baumeister"; jetzt erlahmt die bauende Kraft; der Muth, auf lange Fernen hin Pläne zu machen, wird entmuthigt; die organisatorischen Genies fangen an zu fehlen: - wer wagt es nunmehr noch, Werke zu unternehmen, zu deren Vollendung man auf Jahrtausende rechnen müsste? Es stirbt eben jener Grundglaube aus, auf welchen hin Einer dergestalt rechnen, versprechen, die Zukunft im Plane vorwegnehmen, seinem Plane zum Opfer bringen kann, dass nämlich der Mensch nur insofern Werth hat, Sinn hat, als er ein Stein in einem grossen Baue ist: wozu er zuallererst fest sein muss, "Stein" sein muss... Vor Allem nicht - Schauspieler! Kurz gesagt - ach, es wird lang genug noch verschwiegen werden! - was von nun an nicht mehr gebaut wird, nicht mehr gebaut werden kann, das ist - eine Gesellschaft im alten Verstande des Wortes; um diesen Bau zu bauen, fehlt Alles, voran das Material. Wir Alle sind kein Material mehr für eine Gesellschaft: das ist eine Wahrheit, die an der Zeit ist! Es dünkt mich gleichgültig, dass einstweilen noch die kurzsichtigste, vielleicht ehrlichste, jedenfalls lärmendste Art Mensch, die es heute giebt, unsre Herrn Socialisten, ungefähr das Gegentheil glaubt, hofft, träumt, vor Allem schreit und schreibt; man liest ja ihr Zukunftswort "freie Gesellschaft" bereits auf allen Tischen und Wänden. Freie Gesellschaft? Ja! Ja! Aber ihr wisst doch, ihr Herren, woraus man die baut? Aus hölzernem Eisen! Aus dem berühmten hölzernen Eisen! Und noch nicht einmal aus hölzernem...

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Zum alten Probleme: "was ist deutsch?" - Man rechne bei sich die eigentlichen Errungenschaften des philosophischen Gedankens nach, welche deutschen Köpfen verdankt werden: sind sie in irgend einem erlaubten Sinne auch noch der ganzen Rasse zu Gute zu rechnen? Dürfen wir sagen: sie sind zugleich das Werk der "deutschen Seele", mindestens deren Symptom, in dem Sinne, in welchem wir etwa Plato's Ideomanie, seinen fast religiösen Formen-Wahnsinn zugleich als ein Ereigniss und Zeugniss der "griechischen Seele" zu nehmen gewohnt sind? Oder wäre das Umgekehrte wahr? wären sie gerade so individuell, so sehr Ausnahme vom Geiste der Rasse, wie es zum Beispiel Goethe's Heidenthum mit gutem Gewissen war? Oder wie es Bismarck's Macchiavellismus mit gutem Gewissen, seine sogenannte Realpolitik unter Deutschen ist? Widersprächen unsre Philosophen vielleicht sogar dem Bedürfnisse der "deutschen Seele"? Kurz, waren die deutschen Philosophen wirklich - philosophische Deutsche? - Ich erinnere an drei Fälle. Zuerst an Leibnitzens unvergleichliche Einsicht, mit der er nicht nur gegen Descartes, sondern gegen Alles, was bis zu ihm philosophirt hatte, Recht bekam, - dass die Bewusstheit nur ein Accidens der Vorstellung ist, nicht deren nothwendiges und wesentliches Attribut, dass also das, was wir Bewusstsein nennen, nur einen Zustand unsrer geistigen und seelischen Welt ausmacht (vielleicht einen krankhaften Zustand) und bei weitem nicht sie selbst: - ist an diesem Gedanken, dessen Tiefe auch heute noch nicht ausgeschöpft ist, etwas Deutsches? Giebt es einen Grund zu muthmaassen, dass nicht leicht ein Lateiner auf diese Umdrehung des Augenscheins verfallen sein würde? - denn es ist eine Umdrehung. Erinnern wir uns zweitens an Kant's ungeheures Fragezeichen, welches er an den Begriff "Causalität" schrieb, - nicht dass er wie Hume dessen Recht überhaupt bezweifelt hätte: er begann vielmehr vorsichtig das Reich abzugrenzen, innerhalb dessen dieser Begriff überhaupt Sinn hat (man ist auch jetzt noch nicht mit dieser Grenzabsteckung fertig geworden). Nehmen wir drittens den erstaunlichen Griff Hegel's, der damit durch alle logischen Gewohnheiten und Verwöhnungen durchgriff, als er zu lehren wagte, dass die Artbegriffe sich auseinander entwickeln: mit welchem Satze die Geister in Europa zur letzten grossen wissenschaftlichen Bewegung präformirt wurden, zum Darwinismus - denn ohne Hegel kein Darwin. Ist an dieser Hegelschen Neuerung, die erst den entscheidenden Begriff "Entwicklung" in die Wissenschaft gebracht hat, etwas Deutsches? - Ja, ohne allen Zweifel: in allen drei Fällen fühlen wir Etwas von uns selbst "aufgedeckt" und errathen und sind dankbar dafür und überrascht zugleich, jeder dieser drei Sätze ist ein nachdenkliches Stück deutscher Selbsterkenntniss, Selbsterfahrung, Selbsterfassung. "Unsre innre Welt ist viel reicher, umfänglicher, verborgener", so empfinden wir mit Leibnitz; als Deutsche zweifeln wir mit Kant an der Letztgültigkeit naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse und überhaupt an Allem, was sich causaliter erkennen lässt: das Erkennbare scheint uns als solches schon geringeren Werthes. Wir Deutsche sind Hegelianer, auch, wenn es nie einen Hegel gegeben hätte, insofern wir (im Gegensatz zu allen Lateinern) dem Werden, der Entwicklung instinktiv einen tieferen Sinn und reicheren Werth zumessen als dem, was "ist" - wir glauben kaum an die Berechtigung des Begriffs "Sein" -; ebenfalls insofern wir unsrer menschlichen Logik nicht geneigt sind einzuräumen, dass sie die Logik an sich, die einzige Art Logik sei (wir möchten vielmehr uns überreden, dass sie nur ein Spezialfall sei, und vielleicht einer der wunderlichsten und dümmsten -). Eine vierte Frage wäre, ob auch Schopenhauer mit seinem Pessimismus, das heisst dem Problem vom Werth des Daseins, gerade ein Deutscher gewesen sein müsste. Ich glaube nicht. Das Ereigniss, nach welchem dies Problem mit Sicherheit zu erwarten stand, so dass ein Astronom der Seele Tag und Stunde dafür hätte ausrechnen können, der Niedergang des Glaubens an den christlichen Gott, der Sieg des wissenschaftlichen Atheismus, ist ein gesammt-europäisches Ereigniss, an dem alle Rassen ihren Antheil von Verdienst und Ehre haben sollen. Umgekehrt wäre gerade den Deutschen zuzurechnen - jenen Deutschen, mit welchen Schopenhauer gleichzeitig lebte -, diesen Sieg des Atheismus am längsten und gefährlichsten verzögert zu haben; Hegel namentlich war sein Verzögerer par excellence, gemäss dem grandiosen Versuche, den er machte, uns zur Göttlichkeit des Daseins zu allerletzt noch mit Hülfe unsres sechsten Sinnes, des "historischen Sinnes" zu überreden. Schopenhauer war als Philosoph der erste eingeständliche und unbeugsame Atheist, den wir Deutschen gehabt haben: seine Feindschaft gegen Hegel hatte hier ihren Hintergrund. Die Ungöttlichkeit des Daseins galt ihm als etwas Gegebenes, Greifliches, Undiskutirbares; er verlor jedes Mal seine Philosophen-Besonnenheit und gerieth in Entrüstung, wenn er Jemanden hier zögern und Umschweife machen sah. An dieser Stelle liegt seine ganze Rechtschaffenheit: der unbedingte redliche Atheismus ist eben die Voraussetzung seiner Problemstellung, als ein endlich und schwer errungener Sieg des europäischen Gewissens, als der folgenreichste Akt einer zweitausendjährigen Zucht zur Wahrheit, welche am Schlusse sich die Lüge im Glauben an Gott verbietet... Man sieht, was eigentlich über den christlichen Gott gesiegt hat: die christliche Moralität selbst, der immer strenger genommene Begriff der Wahrhaftigkeit, die Beichtväter-Feinheit des christlichen Gewissens, übersetzt und sublimirt zum wissenschaftlichen Gewissen, zur intellektuellen Sauberkeit um jeden Preis. Die Natur ansehn, als ob sie ein Beweis für die Güte und Obhut eines Gottes sei; die Geschichte interpretiren zu Ehren einer göttlichen Vernunft, als beständiges Zeugniss einer sittlichen Weltordnung und sittlicher Schlussabsichten; die eigenen Erlebnisse auslegen, wie sie fromme Menschen lange genug ausgelegt haben, wie als ob Alles Fügung, Alles Wink, Alles dem Heil der Seele zu Liebe ausgedacht und geschickt sei: das ist nunmehr vorbei, das hat das Gewissen gegen sich, das gilt allen feineren Gewissen als unanständig, unehrlich, als Lügnerei, Femininismus, Schwachheit, Feigheit, - mit dieser Strenge, wenn irgend womit, sind wir eben gute Europäer und Erben von Europa's längster und tapferster Selbstüberwindung. Indem wir die christliche Interpretation dergestalt von uns stossen und ihren "Sinn" wie eine Falschmünzerei verurtheilen, kommt nun sofort auf eine furchtbare Weise die Schopenhauerische Frage zu uns: hat denn das Dasein überhaupt einen Sinn? - jene Frage, die ein paar Jahrhunderte brauchen wird, um auch nur vollständig und in alle ihre Tiefe hinein gehört zu werden. Was Schopenhauer selbst auf diese Frage geantwortet hat, war - man vergebe es mir - etwas Voreiliges, Jugendliches, nur eine Abfindung, ein Stehen- und Steckenbleiben in eben den christlich-asketischen Moral-Perspektiven, welchen, mit dem Glauben an Gott, der Glaube gekündigt war... Aber er hat die Frage gestellt - als ein guter Europäer, wie gesagt, und nicht als Deutscher. - Oder hätten etwa die Deutschen, wenigstens mit der Art, in welcher sie sich der Schopenhauerischen Frage bemächtigten, ihre innere Zugehörigkeit und Verwandtschaft, ihre Vorbereitung, ihr Bedürfniss nach seinem Problem bewiesen? Dass nach Schopenhauer auch in Deutschland - übrigens spät genug! - über das von ihm aufgestellte Problem gedacht und gedruckt worden ist, reicht gewiss nicht aus, zu Gunsten dieser engeren Zugehörigkeit zu entscheiden; man könnte selbst die eigenthümliche Ungeschicktheit dieses Nach-Schopenhauerischen Pessimismus dagegen geltend machen, - die Deutschen benahmen sich ersichtlich nicht dabei wie in ihrem Elemente. Hiermit spiele ich ganz und gar nicht auf Eduard von Hartmann an; im Gegentheil, mein alter Verdacht ist auch heute noch nicht gehoben, dass er für uns zugeschickt ist, ich will sagen, dass er als arger Schalk von Anbeginn sich vielleicht nicht nur über den deutschen Pessimismus lustig gemacht hat, - dass er am Ende etwa gar es den Deutschen testamentarisch "vermachen" könnte, wie weit man sie selbst, im Zeitalter der Gründungen, hat zum Narren haben können. Aber ich frage: soll man vielleicht den alten Brummkreisel Bahnsen den Deutschen zu Ehren rechnen, der sich mit Wollust sein Leben lang um sein realdialektisches Elend und "persönliches Pech" gedreht hat, - wäre etwa das gerade deutsch? (ich empfehle anbei seine Schriften, wozu ich sie selbst gebraucht habe, als antipessimistische Kost, namentlich um seiner elegantiae psychologicae willen, mit denen, wie mich dünkt, auch dem verstopftesten Leibe und Gemüthe beizukommen ist). Oder dürfte man solche Dilettanten und alte Jungfern, wie den süsslichen Virginitäts-Apostel Mainländer unter die rechten Deutschen zählen? Zuletzt wird es ein Jude gewesen sein (- alle Juden werden süsslich, wenn sie moralisiren). Weder Bahnsen, noch Mainländer, noch gar Eduard von Hartmann geben eine sichere Handhabe für die Frage ab, ob der Pessimismus Schopenhauer's, sein entsetzter Blick in eine entgöttlichte, dumm, blind, verrückt und fragwürdig gewordene Welt, sein ehrliches Entsetzen... nicht nur ein Ausnahme-Fall unter Deutschen, sondern ein deutsches Ereigniss gewesen ist: während Alles, was sonst im Vordergrunde steht, unsre tapfre Politik, unsre fröhliche Vaterländerei, welche entschlossen genug alle Dinge auf ein wenig philosophisches Princip hin ("Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles") betrachtet, also sub specie, nämlich der deutschen species, mit grosser Deutlichkeit das Gegentheil bezeugt. Nein! die Deutschen von heute sind keine Pessimisten! Und Schopenhauer war Pessimist, nochmals gesagt, als guter Europäer und nicht als Deutscher. -

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Der Bauernaufstand des Geistes. - Wir Europäer befinden uns im Anblick einer ungeheuren Trümmerwelt, wo Einiges noch hoch ragt, wo Vieles morsch und unheimlich dasteht, das Meiste aber schon am Boden liegt, malerisch genug - wo gab es je schönere Ruinen? - und überwachsen mit grossein und kleinem Unkraute. Die Kirche ist diese Stadt des Untergangs: wir sehen die religiöse Gesellschaft des Christenthums bis in die untersten Fundamente erschüttert, - der Glaube an Gott ist umgestürzt, der Glaube an das christlich-asketische Ideal kämpft eben noch seinen letzten Kampf. Ein solches lang und gründlich gebautes Werk wie das Christenthum - es war der letzte Römerbau! - konnte freilich nicht mit Einem Male zerstört werden; alle Art Erdbeben hat da rütteln, alle Art Geist, die anbohrt, gräbt, nagt, feuchtet, hat da helfen müssen. Aber was das Wunderlichste ist: Die, welche sich am meisten darum bemüht haben, das Christenthum zu halten, zu erhalten, sind gerade seine besten Zerstörer geworden, - die Deutschen. Es scheint, die Deutschen verstehen das Wesen einer Kirche nicht. Sind sie dazu nicht geistig genug? nicht misstrauisch genug? Der Bau der Kirche ruht jedenfalls auf einer südländischen Freiheit und Freisinnigkeit des Geistes und ebenso auf einem südländischen Verdachte gegen Natur, Mensch und Geist, - er ruht auf einer ganz andren Kenntniss des Menschen, Erfahrung vom Menschen, als der Norden gehabt hat. Die Lutherische Reformation war in ihrer ganzen Breite die Entrüstung der Einfalt gegen etwas "Vielfältiges", um vorsichtig zu reden, ein grobes biederes Missverständniss, an dem Viel zu verzeihen ist, - man begriff den Ausdruck einer siegreichen Kirche nicht und sah nur Corruption, man missverstand die vornehme Skepsis, jenen Luxus von Skepsis und Toleranz, welchen sich jede siegreiche selbstgewisse Macht gestattet... Man übersieht heute gut genug, wie Luther in allen kardinalen Fragen der Macht verhängnissvoll kurz, oberflächlich, unvorsichtig angelegt war, vor Allem als Mann aus dem Volke, dem alle Erbschaft einer herrschenden Kaste, aller Instinkt für Macht abgieng: so dass sein Werk, sein Wille zur Wiederherstellung jenes Römer-Werks, ohne dass er es wollte und wusste, nur der Anfang eines Zerstörungswerks wurde. Er dröselte auf, er riss zusammen, mit ehrlichem Ingrimme, wo die alte Spinne am sorgsamsten und längsten gewoben hatte. Er lieferte die heiligen Bücher an Jedermann aus, - damit geriethen sie endlich in die Hände der Philologen, das heisst der Vernichter jeden Glaubens, der auf Büchern ruht. Er zerstörte den Begriff "Kirche", indem er den Glauben an die Inspiration der Concilien wegwarf: denn nur unter der Voraussetzung, dass der inspirirende Geist, der die Kirche gegründet hat, in ihr noch lebe, noch baue, noch fortfahre, sein Haus zu bauen, behält der Begriff "Kirche" Kraft. Er gab dem Priester den Geschlechtsverkehr mit dem Weibe zurück: aber drei Viertel der Ehrfurcht, deren das Volk, vor Allem das Weib aus dem Volke fähig ist, ruht auf dem Glauben, dass ein Ausnahme-Mensch in diesem Punkte auch in andren Punkten eine Ausnahme sein wird, - hier gerade hat der Volksglaube an etwas Uebermenschliches im Menschen, an das Wunder, an den erlösenden Gott im Menschen, seinen feinsten und verfänglichsten Anwalt. Luther musste dem Priester, nachdem er ihm das Weib gegeben hatte, die Ohrenbeichte nehmen, das war psychologisch richtig: aber damit war im Grunde der christliche Priester selbst abgeschafft, dessen tiefste Nützlichkeit immer die gewesen ist, ein heiliges Ohr, ein verschwiegener Brunnen, ein Grab für Geheimnisse zu sein. "Jedermann sein eigner Priester" - hinter solchen Formeln und ihrer bäurischen Verschlagenheit versteckte sich bei Luther der abgründliche Hass auf den "höheren Menschen" und die Herrschaft des "höheren Menschen", wie ihn die Kirche concipirt hatte: - er zerschlug ein Ideal, das er nicht zu erreichen wusste, während er die Entartung dieses Ideals zu bekämpfen und zu verabscheuen schien. Thatsächlich stiess er, der unmögliche Mönch, die Herrschaft der homines religiosi von sich; er machte also gerade Das selber innerhalb der kirchlichen Gesellschafts-Ordnung, was er in Hinsicht auf die bürgerliche Ordnung so unduldsam bekämpfte, - einen "Bauernaufstand". - Was hinterdrein Alles aus seiner Reformation gewachsen ist, Gutes und Schlimmes, und heute ungefähr überrechnet werden kann, - wer wäre wohl naiv genug, Luthern um dieser Folgen willen einfach zu loben oder zu tadeln? Er ist an Allem unschuldig, er wusste nicht was er that. Die Verflachung des europäischen Geistes, namentlich im Norden, seine Vergutmüthigung, wenn man's lieber mit einem moralischen Worte bezeichnet hört, that mit der Lutherischen Reformation einen tüchtigen Schritt vorwärts, es ist kein Zweifel; und ebenso wuchs durch sie die Beweglichkeit und Unruhe des Geistes, sein Durst nach Unabhängigkeit, sein Glaube an ein Recht auf Freiheit, seine "Natürlichkeit". Will man ihr in letzterer Hinsicht den Werth zugestehn, Das vorbereitet und begünstigt zu haben, was wir heute als "moderne Wissenschaft" verehren, so muss man freilich hinzufügen, dass sie auch an der Entartung des modernen Gelehrten mitschuldig ist, an seinem Mangel an Ehrfurcht, Scham und Tiefe, an der ganzen naiven Treuherzigkeit und Biedermännerei in Dingen der Erkenntniss, kurz an jenem Plebejismus des Geistes, der den letzten beiden Jahrhunderten eigenthümlich ist und von dem uns auch der bisherige Pessimismus noch keineswegs erlöst hat, - auch die, "modernen Ideen" gehören noch zu diesem Bauernaufstand des Nordens gegen den kälteren, zweideutigeren, misstrauischeren Geist des Südens, der sich in der christlichen Kirche sein grösstes Denkmal gebaut hat. Vergessen wir es zuletzt nicht, was eine Kirche ist, und zwar im Gegensatz zu jedem "Staate": eine Kirche ist vor Allem ein Herrschafts-Gebilde, das den geistigeren Menschen den obersten Rang sichert und an die Macht der Geistigkeit soweit glaubt, um sich alle gröberen Gewaltmittel zu verbieten, - damit allein ist die Kirche unter allen Umständen eine vornehmere Institution als der Staat. -

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Die Rache am Geist und andere Hintergründe der Moral. - Die Moral - wo glaubt ihr wohl, dass sie ihre gefährlichsten und tückischsten Anwälte hat?... Da ist ein missrathener Mensch, der nicht genug Geist besitzt, um sich dessen freuen zu können, und gerade Bildung genug, um das zu wissen; gelangweilt, überdrüssig, ein Selbstverächter; durch etwas ererbtes Vermögen leider noch um den letzten Trost betrogen, den "Segen der Arbeit", die Selbstvergessenheit im "Tagewerk"; ein Solcher, der sich seines Daseins im Grunde schämt - vielleicht herbergt er dazu ein paar kleine Laster - und andrerseits nicht umhin kann, durch Bücher, auf die er kein Recht hat, oder geistigere Gesellschaft als er verdauen kann, sich immer schlimmer zu verwöhnen und eitel-reizbar zu machen: ein solcher durch und durch vergifteter Mensch - denn Geist wird Gift, Bildung wird Gift, Besitz wird Gift, Einsamkeit wird Gift bei dergestalt Missrathenen - geräth schliesslich in einen habituellen Zustand der Rache, des Willens zur Rache... was glaubt ihr wohl, dass er nöthig, unbedingt nöthig hat, um sich bei sich selbst den Anschein von Ueberlegenheit über geistigere Menschen, um sich die Lust der vollzogenen Rache, wenigstens für seine Einbildung, zu schaffen? Immer die Moralität, darauf darf man wetten, immer die grossen Moral-Worte, immer das Bumbum von Gerechtigkeit, Weisheit, Heiligkeit, Tugend, immer den Stoicismus der Gebärde (- wie gut versteckt der Stoicismus was Einer nicht hat!..), immer den Mantel des klugen Schweigens, der Leutseligkeit, der Milde, und wie alle die Idealisten-Mäntel heissen, unter denen die unheilbaren Selbstverächter, auch die unheilbar Eiteln, herum gehn. Man verstehe mich nicht falsch: aus solchen geborenen Feinden des Geistes entsteht mitunter jenes seltene Stück Menschthum, das vom Volke unter dem Namen des Heiligen, des Weisen verehrt wird; aus solchen Menschen kommen jene Unthiere der Moral her, welche Lärm machen, Geschichte machen, - der heilige Augustin gehört zu ihnen. Die Furcht vor dem Geist, die Rache am Geist - oh wie oft wurden diese triebkräftigen Laster schon zur Wurzel von Tugenden! ja zur Tugend! - Und, unter uns gefragt, selbst jener Philosophen-Anspruch auf Weisheit, der hier und da einmal auf Erden gemacht worden ist, der tollste und unbescheidenste aller Ansprüche, - war er nicht immer bisher, in Indien, wie in Griechenland, vor Allem ein Versteck? Mitunter vielleicht im Gesichtspunkte der Erziehung, der so viele Lügen heiligt, als zarte Rücksicht auf Werdende, Wachsende, auf Jünger, welche oft durch den Glauben an die Person (durch einen Irrthum) gegen sich selbst vertheidigt werden müssen... In den häufigeren Fällen aber ein Versteck des Philosophen, hinter welches er sich aus Ermüdung, Alter, Erkaltung, Verhärtung rettet, als Gefühl vom nahen Ende, als Klugheit jenes Instinkts, den die Thiere vor dem Tode haben, - sie gehen bei Seite, werden still, wählen die Einsamkeit, verkriechen sich in Höhlen, werden weise... Wie? Weisheit ein Versteck des Philosophen vor - dem Geiste? -

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Zwei Arten Ursache, die man verwechselt. - Das erscheint mir als einer meiner wesentlichsten Schritte und Fortschritte: ich lernte die Ursache des Handelns unterscheiden von der Ursache des So- und So-Handelns, des In-dieser Richtung-, Auf-dieses Ziel hin-Handelns. Die erste Art Ursache ist ein Quantum von aufgestauter Kraft, welches darauf wartet, irgend wie, irgend wozu verbraucht zu werden; die zweite Art ist dagegen etwas an dieser Kraft gemessen ganz Unbedeutendes, ein kleiner Zufall zumeist, gemäss dem jenes Quantum sich nunmehr auf Eine und bestimmte Weise "auslöst": das Streichholz im Verhältniss zur Pulvertonne. Unter diese kleinen Zufälle und Streichhölzer rechne ich alle sogenannten "Zwecke", ebenso die noch viel sogenannteren "Lebensberufe": sie sind relativ beliebig, willkürlich, fast gleichgültig im Verhältniss zu dem ungeheuren Quantum Kraft, welches darnach drängt, wie gesagt, irgendwie aufgebraucht zu werden. Man sieht es gemeinhin anders an: man ist gewohnt, gerade in dem Ziele (Zwecke, Berufe u. s. w.) die treibende Kraft zu sehn, gemäss einem uralten Irrthume, - aber er ist nur die dirigirende Kraft, man hat dabei den Steuermann und den Dampf verwechselt. Und noch nicht einmal immer den Steuermann, die dirigirende Kraft... Ist das "Ziel", der "Zweck" nicht oft genug nur ein beschönigender Vorwand, eine nachträgliche Selbstverblendung der Eitelkeit, die es nicht Wort haben will, dass das Schiff der Strömung folgt, in die es zufällig gerathen ist? Dass es dorthin "will", weil es dorthin - muss? Dass es wohl eine Richtung hat, aber ganz und gar - keinen Steuermann? - Man bedarf noch einer Kritik des Begriffs "Zweck".

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Vom Probleme des Schauspielers. - Das Problem des Schauspielers hat mich am längsten beunruhigt; ich war im Ungewissen darüber (und bin es mitunter jetzt noch), ob man nicht erst von da aus dem gefährlichen Begriff "Künstler" - einem mit unverzeihlicher Gutmüthigkeit bisher behandelten Begriff - beikommen wird. Die Falschheit mit gutem Gewissen; die Lust an der Verstellung als Macht herausbrechend, den sogenannten "Charakter" bei Seite schiebend, überfluthend, mitunter auslöschend; das innere Verlangen in eine Rolle und Maske, in einen Schein hinein; ein Ueberschuss von Anpassungs-Fähigkeiten aller Art, welche sich nicht mehr im Dienste des nächsten engsten Nutzens zu befriedigen wissen: Alles das ist vielleicht nicht nur der Schauspieler an sich?.. Ein solcher Instinkt wird sich am leichtesten bei Familien des niederen Volkes ausgebildet haben, die unter wechselndem Druck und Zwang, in tiefer Abhängigkeit ihr Leben durchsetzen mussten, welche sich geschmeidig nach ihrer Decke zu strecken, auf neue Umstände immer neu einzurichten, immer wieder anders zu geben und zu stellen hatten, befähigt allmählich, den Mantel nach jedem Winde zu hängen und dadurch fast zum Mantel werdend, als Meister jener einverleibten und eingefleischten Kunst des ewigen Verstecken-Spielens, das man bei Thieren mimicry nennt: bis zum Schluss dieses ganze von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht aufgespeicherte Vermögen herrisch, unvernünftig, unbändig wird, als Instinkt andre Instinkte kommandiren lernt und den Schauspieler, den "Künstler" erzeugt (den Possenreisser, Lügenerzähler, Hanswurst, Narren, Clown zunächst, auch den classischen Bedienten, den Gil Blas: denn in solchen Typen hat man die Vorgeschichte des Künstlers und oft genug sogar des "Genies"). Auch in höheren gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen erwächst unter ähnlichem Drucke eine ähnliche Art Mensch: nur wird dann meistens der schauspielerische Instinkt durch einen andren Instinkt gerade noch im Zaume gehalten, zum Beispiel bei dem "Diplomaten", - ich würde übrigens glauben, dass es einem guten Diplomaten jeder Zeit noch freistünde, auch einen guten Bühnen-Schauspieler abzugeben, gesetzt, dass es ihm eben "freistünde". Was aber die Juden betrifft, jenes Volk der Anpassungskunst par excellence, so möchte man in ihnen, diesem Gedankengange nach, von vornherein gleichsam eine welthistorische Veranstaltung zur Züchtung von Schauspielern sehn, eine eigentliche Schauspieler-Brutstätte; und in der That ist die Frage reichlich an der Zeit: welcher gute Schauspieler ist heute nicht - Jude? Auch der Jude als geborener Litterat, als der thatsächliche Beherrscher der europäischen Presse übt diese seine Macht auf Grund seiner schauspielerischen Fähigkeit aus: denn der Litterat ist wesentlich Schauspieler, - er spielt nämlich den "Sachkundigen", den "Fachmann". - Endlich die Frauen: man denke über die ganze Geschichte der Frauen nach, - müssen sie nicht zu allererst und -oberst Schauspielerinnen sein? Man höre die Aerzte, welche Frauenzimmer hypnotisirt haben; zuletzt, man liebe sie, - man lasse sich von ihnen "hypnotisiren"! Was kommt immer dabei heraus? Dass sie "sich geben", selbst noch, wenn sie - sich geben.... Das Weib ist so artistisch...

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Unser Glaube an eine Vermännlichung Europa's. - Napoleon verdankt man's (und ganz und gar nicht der französischen Revolution, welche auf "Brüderlichkeit" von Volk zu Volk und allgemeinen blumichten Herzens-Austausch ausgewesen ist), dass sich jetzt ein paar kriegerische Jahrhunderte auf einander folgen dürfen, die in der Geschichte nicht ihres Gleichen haben, kurz dass wir in's klassische Zeitalter des Kriegs getreten sind, des gelehrten und zugleich volksthümlichen Kriegs im grössten Maassstabe (der Mittel, der Begabungen, der Disciplin), auf den alle kommenden Jahrtausende als auf ein Stück Vollkommenheit mit Neid und Ehrfurcht zurückblicken werden: - denn die nationale Bewegung, aus der diese Kriegs-Glorie herauswächst, ist nur der Gegen-choc gegen Napoleon und wäre ohne Napoleon nicht vorhanden. Ihm also wird man einmal es zurechnen dürfen, dass der Mann in Europa wieder Herr über den Kaufmann und Philister geworden ist; vielleicht sogar über "das Weib", das durch das Christenthum und den schwärmerischen Geist des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, noch mehr durch die "modernen Ideen", verhätschelt worden ist. Napoleon, der in den modernen Ideen und geradewegs in der Civilisation Etwas wie eine persönliche Feindin sah, hat mit dieser Feindschaft sich als einer der grössten Fortsetzer der Renaissance bewährt: er hat ein ganzes Stück antiken Wesens, das entscheidende vielleicht, das Stück Granit, wieder heraufgebracht. Und wer weiss, ob nicht dies Stück antiken Wesens auch endlich wieder über die nationale Bewegung Herr werden wird und sich im bejahenden Sinne zum Erben und Fortsetzer Napoleon's machen muss: - der das Eine Europa wollte, wie man weiss, und dies als Herrin der Erde. -

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Wie jedes Geschlecht über die Liebe sein Vorurtheil hat. - Bei allem Zugeständnisse, welches ich dem monogamischen Vorurtheile zu machen Willens bin, werde ich doch niemals zulassen, dass man bei Mann und Weib von gleichen Rechten in der Liebe rede: diese giebt es nicht. Das macht, Mann und Weib verstehen unter Liebe jeder etwas Anderes, - und es gehört mit unter die Bedingungen der Liebe bei beiden Geschlechtern, dass das eine Geschlecht beim andren Geschlechte nicht das gleiche Gefühl, den gleichen Begriff "Liebe" voraussetzt. Was das Weib unter Liebe versteht, ist klar genug: vollkommene Hingabe (nicht nur Hingebung) mit Seele und Leib, ohne jede Rücksicht, jeden Vorbehalt, mit Scham und Schrecken vielmehr vor dem Gedanken einer verklausulirten, an Bedingungen geknüpften Hingabe. In dieser Abwesenheit von Bedingungen ist eben seine Liebe ein Glaube: das Weib hat keinen anderen. - Der Mann, wenn er ein Weib liebt, will von ihm eben diese Liebe, ist folglich für seine Person selbst am entferntesten von der Voraussetzung der weiblichen Liebe; gesetzt aber, dass es auch Männer geben sollte, denen ihrerseits das Verlangen nach vollkommener Hingebung nicht fremd ist, nun, so sind das eben - keine Männer. Ein Mann, der liebt wie ein Weib, wird damit Sklave; ein Weib aber, das liebt wie ein Weib, wird damit ein vollkommeneres Weib... Die Leidenschaft des Weibes, in ihrem unbedingten Verzichtleisten auf eigne Rechte, hat gerade zur Voraussetzung, dass auf der andren Seite nicht ein gleiches Pathos, ein gleiches Verzichtleisten-Wollen besteht: denn wenn Beide aus Liebe auf sich selbst verzichteten, so entstünde daraus - nun, ich weiss nicht was, vielleicht ein leerer Raum? - Das Weib will genommen, angenommen werden als Besitz, will aufgehn in den Begriff "Besitz", "besessen"; folglich will es Einen, der nimmt, der sich nicht selbst giebt und weggiebt, der umgekehrt vielmehr gerade reicher an "sich" gemacht werden soll - durch den Zuwachs an Kraft, Glück, Glaube, als welchen ihm das Weib sich selbst giebt. Das Weib giebt sich weg, der Mann nimmt hinzu - ich denke, über diesen Natur-Gegensatz wird man durch keine socialen Verträge, auch nicht durch den allerbesten Willen zur Gerechtigkeit hinwegkommen: so wünschenswerth es sein mag, dass man das Harte, Schreckliche, Räthselhafte, Unmoralische dieses Antagonismus sich nicht beständig vor Augen stellt. Denn die Liebe, ganz, gross, voll gedacht, ist Natur und als Natur in alle Ewigkeit etwas "Unmoralisches". - Die Treue ist demgemäss in die Liebe des Weibes eingeschlossen, sie folgt aus deren Definition; bei dem Manne kann sie leicht im Gefolge seiner Liebe entstehn, etwa als Dankbarkeit oder als Idiosynkrasie des Geschmacks und sogenannte Wahlverwandtschaft, aber sie gehört nicht in's Wesen seiner Liebe, - und zwar so wenig, dass man beinahe mit einigem Recht von einem natürlichen Widerspiel zwischen Liebe und Treue beim Mann reden dürfte: welche Liebe eben ein Haben-Wollen ist und nicht ein Verzichtleisten und Weggeben; das Haben-Wollen geht aber jedes Mal mit dem Haben zu Ende... Thatsächlich ist es der feinere und argwöhnerischere Besitzdurst des Mannes, der dies "Haben" sich selten und spät eingesteht, was seine Liebe fortbestehn macht; insofern ist es selbst möglich, dass sie noch nach der Hingebung wächst, - er giebt nicht leicht zu, dass ein Weib für ihn Nichts mehr "hinzugeben" hätte. -

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Der Einsiedler redet. - Die Kunst, mit Menschen umzugehn, beruht wesentlich auf der Geschicklichkeit (die eine lange Uebung voraussetzt), eine Mahlzeit anzunehmen, einzunehmen, zu deren Küche man kein Vertrauen hat. Gesetzt, dass man mit einem Wolfshunger zu Tisch kommt, geht Alles leicht ("die schlechteste Gesellschaft lässt dich fühlen -", wie Mephistopheles sagt); aber man hat ihn nicht, diesen Wolfshunger, wenn man ihn braucht! Ah, wie schwer sind die Mitmenschen zu verdauen! Erstes Princip: wie bei einem Unglücke seinen Muth einsetzen, tapfer zugreifen, sich selbst dabei bewundern, seinen Widerwillen zwischen die Zähne nehmen, seinen Ekel hinunter stopfen. Zweites Princip: seinen Mitmenschen "verbessern", zum Beispiel durch ein Lob, so dass er sein Glück über sich selbst auszuschwitzen beginnt; oder einen Zipfel von seinen guten oder "interessanten" Eigenschaften fassen und daran ziehn, bis man die ganze Tugend heraus hat und den Mitmenschen in deren Falten unterstecken kann. Drittes Princip: Selbsthypnotisirung. Sein Verkehrs-Objekt wie einen gläsernen Knopf fixiren, bis man aufhört, Lust und Unlust dabei zu empfinden, und unbemerkt einschläft, starr wird, Haltung bekommt: ein Hausmittel aus der Ehe und Freundschaft, reichlich erprobt, als unentbehrlich gepriesen, aber wissenschaftlich noch nicht formulirt. Sein populärer Name ist - Geduld. -

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Der Einsiedler spricht noch einmal. - Auch wir gehn mit "Menschen" um, auch wir ziehn bescheiden das Kleid an, in dem (als das) man uns kennt, achtet, sucht, und begeben uns damit in Gesellschaft, das heisst unter Verkleidete, die es nicht heissen wollen; auch wir machen es wie alle klugen Masken und setzen jeder Neugierde, die nicht unser "Kleid" betrifft, auf eine höfliche Weise den Stuhl vor die Thüre. Es giebt aber auch andre Arten und Kunststücke, um unter Menschen, mit Menschen "umzugehn": zum Beispiel als Gespenst, - was sehr rathsam ist, wenn man sie bald los sein und fürchten machen will. Probe: man greift nach uns und bekommt uns nicht zu fassen. Das erschreckt. Oder: wir kommen durch eine geschlossne Thür. Oder: wenn alle Lichter ausgelöscht sind. Oder: nachdem wir bereits gestorben sind. Letzteres ist das Kunststück der posthumen Menschen par excellence. ("Was denkt ihr auch?" sagte ein Solcher einmal ungeduldig, "würden wir diese Fremde, Kälte, Grabesstille um uns auszuhalten Lust haben, diese ganze unterirdische verborgne stumme unentdeckte Einsamkeit, die bei uns Leben heisst und ebensogut Tod heissen könnte, wenn wir nicht wüssten, was aus uns wird, - und dass wir nach dem Tode erst zu unserm Leben kommen und lebendig werden, ah! sehr lebendig! wir posthumen Menschen!" -)

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Angesichts eines gelehrten Buches. - Wir gehören nicht zu Denen, die erst zwischen Büchern, auf den Anstoss von Büchern zu Gedanken kommen - unsre Gewohnheit ist, im Freien zu denken, gehend, springend, steigend, tanzend, am liebsten auf einsamen Bergen oder dicht am Meere, da wo selbst die Wege nachdenklich werden. Unsre ersten Werthfragen, in Bezug auf Buch, Mensch und Musik, lauten: "kann er gehen? mehr noch, kann er tanzen?"... Wir lesen selten, wir lesen darum nicht schlechter - oh wie rasch errathen wir's, wie Einer auf seine Gedanken gekommen ist, ob sitzend, vor dem Tintenfass, mit zusammengedrücktem Bauche, den Kopf über das Papier gebeugt: oh wie rasch sind wir auch mit seinem Buche fertig! Das geklemmte Eingeweide verräth sich, darauf darf man wetten, ebenso wie sich Stubenluft, Stubendecke, Stubenenge verräth. - Das waren meine Gefühle, als ich eben ein rechtschaffnes gelehrtes Buch zuschlug, dankbar, sehr dankbar, aber auch erleichtert... An dem Buche eines Gelehrten ist fast immer auch etwas Drückendes, Gedrücktes: der "Specialist" kommt irgendwo zum Vorschein, sein Eifer, sein Ernst, sein Ingrimm, seine Ueberschätzung des Winkels, in dem er sitzt und spinnt, sein Buckel, - jeder Specialist hat seinen Buckel. Ein Gelehrten-Buch spiegelt immer auch eine krummgezogene Seele: jedes Handwerk zieht krumm. Man sehe seine Freunde wieder, mit denen man jung war, nachdem sie Besitz von ihrer Wissenschaft ergriffen haben: ach, wie auch immer das Umgekehrte geschehn ist! Ach, wie sie selbst auf immer nunmehr von ihr besetzt und besessen sind! In ihre Ecke eingewachsen, verdrückt bis zur Unkenntlichkeit, unfrei, um ihr Gleichgewicht gebracht, abgemagert und eckig überall, nur an Einer Stelle ausbündig rund, - man ist bewegt und schweigt, wenn man sie so wiederfindet. Jedes Handwerk, gesetzt selbst, dass es einen goldenen Boden hat, hat über sich auch eine bleierne Decke, die auf die Seele drückt und drückt, bis sie wunderlich und krumm gedrückt ist. Daran ist Nichts zu ändern. Man glaube ja nicht, dass es möglich sei, um diese Verunstaltung durch irgend welche Künste der Erziehung herumzukommen. Jede Art Meisterschaft zahlt sich theuer auf Erden, wo vielleicht Alles sich zu theuer zahlt; man ist Mann seines Fachs um den Preis, auch das Opfer seines Fachs zu sein. Aber ihr wollt es anders haben - "billiger", vor Allem bequemer - nicht wahr, meine Herren Zeitgenossen? Nun wohlan! Aber da bekommt ihr sofort auch etwas Anderes, nämlich statt des Handwerkers und Meisters den Litteraten, den gewandten "vielgewendeten" Litteraten, dem freilich der Buckel fehlt - jenen abgerechnet, den er vor euch macht, als der Ladendiener des Geistes und "Träger" der Bildung -, den Litteraten, der eigentlich Nichts ist, aber fast Alles "repräsentirt", der den Sachkenner spielt und "vertritt", der es auch in aller Bescheidenheit auf sich nimmt, sich an dessen Stelle bezahlt, geehrt, gefeiert zu machen. - Nein, meine gelehrten Freunde! Ich segne euch auch noch um eures Buckels willen! Und dafür, dass ihr gleich mir die Litteraten und Bildungs-Schmarotzer verachtet! Und dass ihr nicht mit dem Geiste Handel zu treiben wisst! Und lauter Meinungen habt, die nicht in Geldeswerth auszudrücken sind! Und dass ihr Nichts vertretet, was ihr nicht seid! Dass euer einziger Wille ist, Meister eures Handwerks zu werden, in Ehrfurcht vor jeder Art Meisterschaft und Tüchtigkeit und mit rücksichtslosester Ablehnung alles Scheinbaren, Halbächten, Aufgeputzten, Virtuosenhaften, Demagogischen, Schauspielerischen in litteris et artibus - alles Dessen, was in Hinsicht auf unbedingte Probität von Zucht und Vorschulung sich nicht vor euch ausweisen kann! (Selbst Genie hilft über einen solchen Mangel nicht hinweg, so sehr es auch über ihn hinwegzutäuschen versteht: das begreift man, wenn man einmal unsern begabtesten Malern und Musikern aus der Nähe zugesehn hat, - als welche Alle, fast ausnahmslos, sich durch eine listige Erfindsamkeit von Manieren, von Nothbehelfen, selbst von Principien künstlich und nachträglich den Anschein jener Probität, jener Solidität von Schulung und Cultur anzueignen wissen, freilich ohne damit sich selbst zu betrügen, ohne damit ihr eignes schlechtes Gewissen dauernd mundtodt zu machen. Denn, ihr wisst es doch? alle grossen modernen Künstler leiden am schlechten Gewissen... )

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Wie man zuerst bei Kunstwerken zu unterscheiden hat. - Alles, was gedacht, gedichtet, gemalt, componirt, selbst gebaut und gebildet wird, gehört entweder zur monologischen Kunst oder zur Kunst vor Zeugen. Unter letztere ist auch noch jene scheinbare Monolog-Kunst einzurechnen, welche den Glauben an Gott in sich schliesst, die ganze Lyrik des Gebets: denn für einen Frommen giebt es noch keine Einsamkeit, - diese Erfindung haben erst wir gemacht, wir Gottlosen. Ich kenne keinen tieferen Unterschied der gesammten Optik eines Künstlers als diesen: ob er vom Auge des Zeugen aus nach seinem werdenden Kunstwerke (nach "sich" -) hinblickt oder aber "die Welt vergessen hat": wie es das Wesentliche jeder monologischen Kunst ist, - sie ruht auf dem Vergessen, sie ist die Musik des Vergessens.

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Der Cyniker redet. - Meine Einwände gegen die Musik Wagner's sind physiologische Einwände: wozu dieselben erst noch unter ästhetische Formeln verkleiden? Meine "Thatsache" ist, dass ich nicht mehr leicht athme, wenn diese Musik erst auf mich wirkt; dass alsbald mein Fuss gegen sie böse wird und revoltirt - er hat das Bedürfniss nach Takt, Tanz, Marsch, er verlangt von der Musik vorerst die Entzückungen, welche in gutem Gehen, Schreiten, Springen, Tanzen liegen. - Protestirt aber nicht auch mein Magen? mein Herz? mein Blutlauf? mein Eingeweide? Werde ich nicht unvermerkt heiser dabei? - Und so frage ich mich: was will eigentlich mein ganzer Leib von der Musik überhaupt? Ich glaube, seine Erleichterung: wie als ob alle animalischen Funktionen durch leichte kühne ausgelassne selbstgewisse Rhythmen beschleunigt werden sollten; wie als ob das eherne, das bleierne Leben durch goldene gute zärtliche Harmonien vergoldet werden sollte. Meine Schwermuth will in den Verstecken und Abgründen der Vollkommenheit ausruhn: dazu brauche ich Musik. Was geht mich das Drama an! Was die Krämpfe seiner sittlichen Ekstasen, an denen das "Volk" seine Genugthuung hat! Was der ganze Gebärden-Hokuspokus des Schauspielers!... Man erräth, ich bin wesentlich antitheatralisch geartet, - aber Wagner war umgekehrt wesentlich Theatermensch und Schauspieler, der begeistertste Mimomane, den es gegeben hat, auch noch als Musiker!.. Und, beiläufig gesagt: wenn es Wagner's Theorie gewesen ist "das Drama ist der Zweck, die Musik ist immer nur dessen Mittel", - seine Praxis dagegen war, von Anfang bis zu Ende, "die Attitüde ist der Zweck, das Drama, auch die Musik ist immer nur ihr Mittel". Die Musik als Mittel zur Verdeutlichung, Verstärkung, Verinnerlichung der dramatischen Gebärde und Schauspieler-Sinnenfälligkeit; und das Wagnerische Drama nur eine Gelegenheit zu vielen dramatischen Attitüden! Er hatte, neben allen anderen Instinkten, die commandirenden Instinkte eines grossen Schauspielers, in Allem und Jedem: und, wie gesagt, auch als Musiker. - Dies machte ich einstmals einem rechtschaffenen Wagnerianer klar, mit einiger Mühe; und ich hatte Gründe, noch hinzuzufügen "seien Sie doch ein wenig ehrlicher gegen sich selbst: wir sind ja nicht im Theater! Im Theater ist man nur als Masse ehrlich; als Einzelner lügt man, belügt man sich. Man lässt sich selbst zu Hause, wenn man in's Theater geht, man verzichtet auf das Recht der eignen Zunge und Wahl, auf seinen Geschmack, selbst auf seine Tapferkeit, wie man sie zwischen den eignen vier Wänden gegen Gott und Mensch hat und übt. In das Theater bringt Niemand die feinsten Sinne seiner Kunst mit, auch der Künstler nicht, der für das Theater arbeitet: da ist man Volk, Publikum, Heerde, Weib, Pharisäer, Stimmvieh, Demokrat, Nächster, Mitmensch, da unterliegt noch das persönlichste Gewissen dem nivellirenden Zauber der "grössten Zahl", da wirkt die Dummheit als Lüsternheit und Contagion, da regiert der "Nachbar", da wird man Nachbar... " (Ich vergass zu erzählen, was mir mein aufgeklärter Wagnerianer auf die physiologischen Einwände entgegnete: "Sie sind also eigentlich nur nicht gesund genug für unsere Musik?" -)

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Unser Nebeneinander. - Müssen wir es uns nicht eingestehn, wir Künstler, dass es eine unheimliche Verschiedenheit in uns giebt, dass unser Geschmack und andrerseits unsre schöpferische Kraft auf eine wunderliche Weise für sich stehn, für sich stehn bleiben und ein Wachsthum für sich haben, - ich will sagen ganz verschiedne Grade und tempi von Alt, Jung, Reif, Mürbe, Faul? So dass zum Beispiel ein Musiker zeitlebens Dinge schaffen könnte, die dem, was sein verwöhntes Zuhörer-Ohr, Zuhörer-Herz schätzt, Schmeckt, vorzieht, widersprechen: - er brauchte noch nicht einmal um diesen Widerspruch zu wissen! Man kann, wie eine fast peinlich-regelmässige Erfahrung zeigt, leicht mit seinem Geschmack über den Geschmack seiner Kraft hinauswachsen, selbst ohne dass letztere dadurch gelähmt und am Hervorbringen gehindert würde; es kann aber auch etwas Umgekehrtes geschehn, - und dies gerade ist es, worauf ich die Aufmerksamkeit der Künstler lenken möchte. Ein Beständig-Schaffender, eine "Mutter" von Mensch, im grossen Sinne des Wortes, ein Solcher, der von Nichts als von Schwangerschaften und Kindsbetten seines Geistes mehr weiss und hört, der gar keine Zeit hat, sich und sein Werk zu bedenken, zu vergleichen, der auch nicht mehr Willens ist, seinen Geschmack noch zu üben, und ihn einfach vergisst, nämlich stehn, liegen oder fallen lässt, - vielleicht bringt ein Solcher endlich Werke hervor, denen er mit seinem Urtheile längst nicht mehr gewachsen ist: so dass er über sie und sich Dummheiten sagt, - sagt und denkt. Dies scheint mir bei fruchtbaren Künstlern beinahe das normale Verhältniss, - Niemand kennt ein Kind schlechter als seine Eltern - und es gilt sogar, um ein ungeheueres Beispiel zu nehmen, in Bezug auf die ganze griechische Dichter- und Künstler-Welt: sie hat niemals "gewusst", was sie gethan hat...

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Was ist Romantik? - Man erinnert sich vielleicht, zum Mindesten unter meinen Freunden, dass ich Anfangs mit einigen dicken Irrthümern und Ueberschätzungen und jedenfalls als Hoffender auf diese moderne Weit losgegangen bin. Ich verstand - wer weiss, auf welche persönlichen Erfahrungen hin? - den philosophischen Pessimismus des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, wie als ob er das Symptom von höherer Kraft des Gedankens, von verwegenerer Tapferkeit, von siegreicherer Fülle des Lebens sei, als diese dem achtzehnten Jahrhundert, dem Zeitalter Hume's, Kant's, Condillac's und der Sensualisten, zu eigen gewesen sind: so dass mir die tragische Erkenntniss wie der eigentliche Luxus unsrer Cultur erschien, als deren kostbarste, vornehmste, gefährlichste Art Verschwendung, aber immerhin, auf Grund ihres Ueberreichthums, als ihr erlaubter Luxus. Insgleichen deutete ich mir die deutsche Musik zurecht zum Ausdruck einer dionysischen Mächtigkeit der deutschen Seele: in ihr glaubte ich das Erdbeben zu hören, mit dem eine von Alters her aufgestaute Urkraft sich endlich Luft macht - gleichgültig dagegen, ob Alles, was sonst Cultur heisst, dabei in's Zittern geräth. Man sieht, ich verkannte damals, sowohl am philosophischen Pessimismus, wie an der deutschen Musik, das was ihren eigentlichen Charakter ausmacht - ihre Romantik. Was ist Romantik? Jede Kunst, jede Philosophie darf als Heil- und Hülfsmittel im Dienste des wachsenden, kämpfenden Lebens angesehn werden: sie setzen immer Leiden und Leidende voraus. - Aber es giebt zweierlei Leidende, einmal die an der Ueberfülle des Lebens Leidenden, welche eine dionysische Kunst wollen und ebenso eine tragische Ansicht und Einsicht in das Leben, - und sodann die an der Verarmung des Lebens Leidenden, die Ruhe, Stille, glattes Meer, Erlösung von sich durch die Kunst und Erkenntniss suchen, oder aber den Rausch, den Krampf, die Betäubung, den Wahnsinn. Dem Doppel-Bedürfnisse der Letzteren entspricht alle Romantik in Künsten und Erkenntnissen, ihnen entsprach (und entspricht) ebenso Schopenhauer als Richard Wagner, um jene berühmtesten und ausdrücklichsten Romantiker zu nennen, welche damals von mir missverstanden wurden - übrigens nicht zu ihrem Nachtheile, wie man mir in aller Billigkeit zugestehn darf. Der Reichste an Lebensfülle, der dionysische Gott und Mensch, kann sich nicht nur den Anblick des Fürchterlichen und Fragwürdigen gönnen, sondern selbst die fürchterliche That und jeden Luxus von Zerstörung, Zersetzung, Verneinung; bei ihm erscheint das Böse, Unsinnige und Hässliche gleichsam erlaubt, in Folge eines Ueberschusses von zeugenden, befruchtenden Kräften, welcher aus jeder Wüste noch ein üppiges Fruchtland zu schaffen im Stande ist. Umgekehrt würde der Leidendste, Lebensärmste am meisten die Milde, Friedlichkeit, Güte nöthig haben, im Denken und im Handeln, womöglich einen Gott, der ganz eigentlich ein Gott für Kranke, ein "Heiland" wäre; ebenso auch die Logik, die begriffliche Verständlichkeit des Daseins - denn die Logik beruhigt, giebt Vertrauen -, kurz eine gewisse warme furchtabwehrende Enge und Einschliessung in optimistische Horizonte. Dergestalt lernte ich allmählich Epikur begreifen, den Gegensatz eines dionysischen Pessimisten, ebenfalls den "Christen", der in der That nur eine Art Epikureer und, gleich jenem, wesentlich Romantiker ist, - und mein Blick schärfte sich immer mehr für jene schwierigste und verfänglichste Form des Rückschlusses, in der die meisten Fehler gemacht werden - des Rückschlusses vom Werk auf den Urheber, von der That auf den Thäter, vom Ideal auf Den, der es nöthig hat, von jeder Denk- und Werthungsweise auf das dahinter kommandirende Bedürfniss. - In Hinsicht auf alle ästhetischen Werthe bediene ich mich jetzt dieser Hauptunterscheidung: ich frage, in jedem einzelnen Falle, "ist hier der Hunger oder der Ueberfluss schöpferisch geworden?" Von vornherein möchte sich eine andre Unterscheidung mehr zu empfehlen scheinen - sie ist bei weitem augenscheinlicher - nämlich das Augenmerk darauf, ob das Verlangen nach Starrmachen, Verewigen, nach Sein die Ursache des Schaffens ist, oder aber das Verlangen nach Zerstörung, nach Wechsel, nach Neuem, nach Zukunft, nach Werden. Aber beide Arten des Verlangens erweisen sich, tiefer angesehn, noch als zweideutig, und zwar deutbar eben nach jenem vorangestellten und mit Recht, wie mich dünkt, vorgezogenen Schema. Das Verlangen nach Zerstörung, Wechsel, Werden kann der Ausdruck der übervollen, zukunftsschwangeren Kraft sein (mein terminus ist dafür, wie man weiss, das Wort "dionysisch"), aber es kann auch der Hass des Missrathenen, Entbehrenden, Schlechtweggekommenen sein, der zerstört, zerstören muss, weil ihn das Bestehende, ja alles Bestehn, alles Sein selbst empört und aufreizt - man sehe sich, um diesen Affekt zu verstehn, unsre Anarchisten aus der Nähe an. Der Wille zum Verewigen bedarf gleichfalls einer zwiefachen Interpretation. Er kann einmal aus Dankbarkeit und Liebe kommen: - eine Kunst dieses Ursprungs wird immer eine Apotheosenkunst sein, dithyrambisch vielleicht mit Rubens, selig-spöttisch mit Hafis, hell und gütig mit Goethe, und einen homerischen Licht- und Glorienschein über alle Dinge breitend. Er kann aber auch jener tyrannische Wille eines Schwerleidenden, Kämpfenden, Torturirten sein, welcher das Persönlichste, Einzelnste, Engste, die eigentliche Idiosynkrasie seines Leidens noch zum verbindlichen Gesetz und Zwang stempeln möchte und der an allen Dingen gleichsam Rache nimmt, dadurch, dass er ihnen sein Bild, das Bild seiner Tortur, aufdrückt, einzwängt, einbrennt. Letzteres ist der romantische Pessimismus in seiner ausdrucksvollsten Form, sei es als Schopenhauer'sche Willens-Philosophie, sei es als Wagner'sche Musik: - der romantische Pessimismus, das letzte grosse Ereigniss im Schicksal unsrer Cultur. (Dass es noch einen ganz anderen Pessimismus geben könne, einen klassischen - diese Ahnung und Vision gehört zu mir, als unablöslich von mir, als mein proprium und ipsissimum: nur dass meinen Ohren das Wort "klassisch" widersteht, es ist bei weitem zu abgebraucht, zu rund und unkenntlich geworden. Ich nenne jenen Pessimismus der Zukunft denn er kommt! ich sehe ihn kommen! - den dionysschen Pessimismus.)

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Wir Unverständlichen. - Haben wir uns je darüber beklagt, missverstanden, verkannt, verwechselt, verleumdet, verhört und überhört zu werden? Eben das ist unser Loos - oh für lange noch! sagen wir, um bescheiden zu sein, bis 1901 -, es ist auch unsre Auszeichnung; wir würden uns selbst nicht genug in Ehren halten, wenn wir's anders wünschten. Man verwechselt uns - das macht, wir selbst wachsen, wir wechseln fortwährend, wir stossen alte Rinden ab, wir häuten uns mit jedem Frühjahre noch, wir werden immer Jünger, zukünftiger, höher, stärker, wir treiben unsre Wurzeln immer mächtiger in die Tiefe - in's Böse -, während wir zugleich den Himmel immer liebevoller, immer breiter umarmen und sein Licht immer durstiger mit allen unsren Zweigen und Blättern in uns hineinsaugen. Wir wachsen wie Bäume - das ist schwer zu verstehn, wie alles Leben! - nicht an Einer Stelle, sondern überall, nicht in Einer Richtung, sondern ebenso hinauf, hinaus wie hinein und hinunter, - unsre Kraft treibt zugleich in Stamm, Aesten und Wurzeln, es steht uns gar nicht mehr frei, irgend Etwas einzeln zu thun, irgend etwas Einzelnes noch zu sein... So ist es unser Loos, wie gesagt: wir wachsen in die Höhe; und gesetzt, es wäre selbst unser Verhängniss - denn wir wohnen den Blitzen immer näher! - wohlan, wir halten es darum nicht weniger in Ehren, es bleibt Das, was wir nicht theilen, nicht mittheilen wollen, das Verhängniss der Höhe, unser Verhängniss...

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Warum wir keine Idealisten sind. - Ehemals hatten die Philosophen Furcht vor den Sinnen - haben wir - diese Furcht vielleicht allzusehr verlernt? Wir sind heute allesammt Sensualisten, wir Gegenwärtigen und Zukünftigen in der Philosophie, nicht der Theorie nach, aber der Praxis, der Praktik... Jene hingegen meinten, durch die Sinne aus ihrer Welt, dem kalten Reiche der "Ideen", auf ein gefährliches südlicheres Eiland weggelockt zu werden: woselbst, wie sie fürchteten, ihre Philosophen-Tugenden wie Schnee in der Sonne wegschmelzen würden. "Wachs in den Ohren" war damals beinahe Bedingung des Philosophirens; ein ächter Philosoph hörte das Leben nicht mehr, insofern Leben Musik ist, er leugnete die Musik des Lebens, - es ist ein alter Philosophen-Aberglaube, dass alle Musik Sirenen-Musik ist. - Nun möchten wir heute geneigt sein, gerade umgekehrt zu urtheilen (was an sich noch eben so falsch sein könnte): nämlich dass die Ideen schlimmere Verführerinnen seien als die Sinne, mit allem ihrem kalten anämischen Anscheine und nicht einmal trotz diesem Anscheine, - sie lebten immer vom "Blute" des Philosophen, sie zehrten immer seine Sinne aus, ja, wenn man uns glauben will, auch sein "Herz". Diese alten Philosophen waren herzlos: Philosophiren war immer eine Art Vampyrismus. Fühlt ihr nicht an solchen Gestalten, wie noch der Spinoza's, etwas tief Änigmatisches und Unheimliches? Seht ihr das Schauspiel nicht, das sich hier abspielt, das beständige Blässer-werden -, die immer idealischer ausgelegte Entsinnlichung? Ahnt ihr nicht im Hintergrunde irgend eine lange verborgene Blutaussaugerin, welche mit den Sinnen ihren Anfang macht und zuletzt Knochen und Geklapper übrig behält, übrig lässt? - ich meine Kategorien, Formeln, Worte (denn, man vergebe mir, das was von Spinoza übrigblieb, amor intellectualis dei, ist ein Geklapper, nichts mehr! was ist amor, was deus, wenn ihnen jeder Tropfen Blut fehlt?...) In summa: aller philosophische Idealismus war bisher Etwas wie Krankheit, wo er nicht, wie im Falle Plato's, die Vorsicht einer überreichen und gefährlichen Gesundheit, die Furcht vor übermächtigen Sinnen, die Klugheit eines klugen Sokratikers war. - Vielleicht sind wir Modernen nur nicht gesund genug, um Plato's Idealismus nöthig zu haben? Und wir fürchten die Sinne nicht, weil - -

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"Wissenschaft" als Vorurtheil. - Es folgt aus den Gesetzen der Rangordnung, dass Gelehrte, insofern sie dem geistigen Mittelstande zugehören, die eigentlichen grossen Probleme und Fragezeichen gar nicht in Sicht bekommen dürfen: zudem reicht ihr Muth und ebenso ihr Blick nicht bis dahin, - vor Allem, ihr Bedürfniss, das sie zu Forschern macht, ihr inneres Vorausnehmen und Wünschen, es möchte so und so beschaffen sein, ihr Fürchten und Hoffen kommt zu bald schon zur Ruhe, zur Befriedigung. Was zum Beispiel den pedantischen Engländer Herbert Spencer auf seine Weise schwärmen macht und einen Hoffnungs-Strich, eine Horizont-Linie der Wünschbarkeit ziehen heisst, jene endliche Versöhnung von, "Egoismus und Altruismus", von der er fabelt, das macht Unsereinem beinahe Ekel: - eine Menschheit mit solchen Spencer'schen Perspektiven als letzten Perspektiven schiene uns der Verachtung, der Vernichtung werth! Aber schon dass Etwas als höchste Hoffnung von ihm empfunden werden muss, was Anderen bloss als widerliche Möglichkeit gilt und gelten darf, ist ein Fragezeichen, welches Spencer nicht vorauszusehn vermocht hätte... Ebenso steht es mit jenem Glauben, mit dem sich jetzt so viele materialistische Naturforscher zufrieden geben, dem Glauben an eine Welt, welche im menschlichen Denken, in menschlichen Werthbegriffen ihr Aquivalent und Maass haben soll, an eine "Welt der Wahrheit", der man mit Hülfe unsrer viereckigen kleinen Menschenvernunft letztgültig beizukommen vermöchte - wie? wollen wir uns wirklich dergestalt das Dasein zu einer Rechenknechts-Uebung und Stubenhockerei für Mathematiker herabwürdigen lassen? Man soll es vor Allem nicht seines vieldeutigen Charakters entkleiden wollen: das fordert der gute Geschmack, meine Herren, der Geschmack der Ehrfurcht vor Allem, was über euren Horizont geht! Dass allein eine Welt-Interpretation im Rechte sei, bei der ihr zu Rechte besteht, bei der wissenschaftlich in eurem Sinne (- ihr meint eigentlich mechanistisch?) geforscht und fortgearbeitet werden kann, eine solche, die Zählen, Rechnen, Wägen, Sehn und Greifen und nichts weiter zulässt, das ist eine Plumpheit und Naivetät, gesetzt, dass es keine Geisteskrankheit, kein Idiotismus ist. Wäre es umgekehrt nicht recht wahrscheinlich, dass sich gerade das Oberflächlichste und Aeusserlichste vom Dasein - sein Scheinbarstes, seine Haut und Versinnlichung - am Ersten fassen liesse? vielleicht sogar allein fassen liesse? Eine "wissenschaftliche" Welt-Interpretation, wie ihr sie versteht, könnte folglich immer noch eine der dümmsten, das heisst sinnärmsten aller möglichen Welt-Interpretationen sein: dies den Herrn Mechanikern in's Ohr und Gewissen gesagt, die heute gern unter die Philosophen laufen und durchaus vermeinen, Mechanik sei die Lehre von den ersten und letzten Gesetzen, auf denen wie auf einem Grundstocke alles Dasein aufgebaut sein müsse. Aber eine essentiell mechanische Welt wäre eine essentiell sinnlose Welt! Gesetzt, man schätzte den Werth einer Musik darnach ab, wie viel von ihr gezählt, berechnet, in Formeln gebracht werden könne - wie absurd wäre eine solche "wissenschaftliche" Abschätzung der Musik! Was hätte man von ihr begriffen, verstanden, erkannt! Nichts, geradezu Nichts von dem, was eigentlich an ihr "Musik" ist!...

374

Unser neues "Unendliches". - Wie weit der perspektivische Charakter des Daseins reicht oder gar ob es irgend einen andren Charakter noch hat, ob nicht ein Dasein ohne Auslegung, ohne "Sinn" eben zum "Unsinn" wird, ob, andrerseits, nicht alles Dasein essentiell ein auslegendes Dasein ist - das kann, wie billig, auch durch die fleissigste und peinlich-gewissenhafteste Analysis und Selbstprüfung des Intellekts nicht ausgemacht werden: da der menschliche Intellekt bei dieser Analysis nicht umhin kann, sich selbst unter seinen perspektivischen Formen zu sehn und nur in ihnen zu sehn. Wir können nicht um unsre Ecke sehn: es ist eine hoffnungslose Neugierde, wissen zu wollen, was es noch für andre Arten Intellekt und Perspektive geben könnte: zum Beispiel, ob irgend welche Wesen die Zeit zurück oder abwechselnd vorwärts und rückwärts empfinden können (womit eine andre Richtung des Lebens und ein andrer Begriff von Ursache und Wirkung gegeben wäre). Aber ich denke, wir sind heute zum Mindesten ferne von der lächerlichen Unbescheidenheit, von unsrer Ecke aus zu dekretiren, dass man nur von dieser Ecke aus Perspektiven haben dürfe. Die Welt ist uns vielmehr noch einmal "unendlich" geworden: insofern wir die Möglichkeit nicht abweisen können, dass sie unendliche Interpretationen in sich schliesst. Noch einmal fasst uns der grosse Schauder - aber wer hätte wohl Lust, dieses Ungeheure von unbekannter Welt nach alter Weise sofort wieder zu vergöttlichen? Und etwa das Unbekannte fürderhin als, den "Unbekannten" anzubeten? Ach, es sind zu viele ungöttliche Möglichkeiten der Interpretation mit in dieses Unbekannte eingerechnet, zu viel Teufelei, Dummheit, Narrheit der Interpretation, - unsre eigne menschliche, allzumenschliche selbst, die wir kennen...

375

Warum wir Epikureer scheinen. - Wir sind vorsichtig, wir modernen Menschen, gegen letzte Ueberzeugungen; unser Misstrauen liegt auf der Lauer gegen die Bezauberungen und Gewissens-Ueberlistungen, welche in jedem starken Glauben, jedem unbedingten Ja und Nein liegen: wie erklärt sich das? Vielleicht, dass man darin zu einem guten Theil die Behutsamkeit des "gebrannten Kindes", des enttäuschten Idealisten sehn darf, zu einem andern und bessern Theile aber auch die frohlockende Neugierde eines ehemaligen Eckenstehers, der durch seine Ecke in Verzweiflung gebracht worden ist und nunmehr im Gegensatz der Ecke schwelgt und schwärmt, im Unbegrenzten, im "Freien an sich". Damit bildet sich ein nahezu epikurischer Erkenntniss-Hang aus, welcher den Fragezeichen-Charakter der Dinge nicht leichten Kaufs fahren lassen will; insgleichen ein Widerwille gegen die grossen Moral-Worte und -Gebärden, ein Geschmack, der alle plumpen vierschrötigen Gegensätze ablehnt und sich seiner Uebung in Vorbehalten mit Stolz bewusst ist. Denn Das macht unsern Stolz aus, dieses leichte Zügel-Straffziehn bei unsrem vorwärts stürmenden Drange nach Gewissheit, diese Selbstbeherrschung des Reiters auf seinen wildesten Ritten: nach wie vor nämlich haben wir tolle feurige Tiere unter uns, und wenn wir zögern, so ist es am wenigsten wohl die Gefahr, die uns zögern macht...

376

Unsre langsamen Zeiten. - So empfinden alle Künstler und Menschen der "Werke", die mütterliche Art Mensch: immer glauben sie, bei jedem Abschnitte ihres Lebens - den ein Werk jedes Mal abschneidet -, schon am Ziele selbst zu sein, immer würden sie den Tod geduldig entgegen nehmen, mit dem Gefühl: "dazu sind wir reif". Dies ist nicht der Ausdruck der Ermüdung, - vielmehr der einer gewissen herbstlichen Sonnigkeit und Milde, welche jedes Mal das Werk selbst, das Reifgewordensein eines Werks, bei seinem Urheber hinterlässt. Da verlangsamt sich das tempo des Lebens und wird dick und honigflüssig - bis zu langen Fermaten, bis zum Glauben an die lange Fermate...

377

Wir Heimatlosen. - Es fehlt unter den Europäern von Heute nicht an solchen, die ein Recht haben, sich in einem abhebenden und ehrenden Sinne Heimatlose zu nennen, ihnen gerade sei meine geheime Weisheit und gaya scienza ausdrücklich an's Herz gelegt! Denn ihr Loos ist hart, ihre Hoffnung ungewiss, es ist ein Kunststück, ihnen einen Trost zu erfinden - aber was hilft es! Wir Kinder der Zukunft, wie vermöchten wir in diesem Heute zu Hause zu sein! Wir sind allen Idealen abgünstig, auf welche hin Einer sich sogar in dieser zerbrechlichen zerbrochnen Uebergangszeit noch heimisch fühlen könnte; was aber deren "Realitäten" betrifft, so glauben wir nicht daran, dass sie Dauer haben. Das Eis, das heute noch trägt, ist schon sehr dünn geworden: der Thauwind weht, wir selbst, wir Heimatlosen, sind Etwas, das Eis und andre allzudünne "Realitäten" aufbricht... Wir "conserviren" Nichts, wir wollen auch in keine Vergangenheit zurück, wir sind durchaus nicht "liberal", wir arbeiten nicht für den "Fortschritt", wir brauchen unser Ohr nicht erst gegen die Zukunfts-Sirenen des Marktes zu verstopfen - das, was sie singen, gleiche Rechte", "freie Gesellschaft", "keine Herrn mehr und keine Knechte", das lockt uns nicht! - wir halten es schlechterdings nicht für wünschenswerth, dass das Reich der Gerechtigkeit und Eintracht auf Erden gegründet werde (weil es unter allen Umständen das Reich der tiefsten Vermittelmässigung und Chineserei sein würde), wir freuen uns an Allen, die gleich uns die Gefahr, den Krieg, das Abenteuer lieben, die sich nicht abfinden, einfangen, versöhnen und verschneiden lassen, wir rechnen uns selbst unter die Eroberer, wir denken über die Nothwendigkeit neuer Ordnungen nach, auch einer neuen Sklaverei - denn zu jeder Verstärkung und Erhöhung des Typus "Mensch" gehört auch eine neue Art Versklavung hinzu - nicht wahr? mit Alle dem müssen wir schlecht in einem Zeitalter zu Hause sein, welches die Ehre in Anspruch zu nehmen liebt, das menschlichste, mildeste, rechtlichste Zeitalter zu heissen, das die Sonne bisher gesehen hat? Schlimm genug, dass wir gerade bei diesen schönen Worten um so hässlichere Hintergedanken haben! Dass wir darin nur den Ausdruck - auch die Maskerade - der tiefen Schwächung, der Ermüdung, des Alters, der absinkenden Kraft sehen! Was kann uns daran gelegen sein, mit was für Flittern ein Kranker seine Schwäche aufputzt! Mag er sie als seine Tugend zur Schau tragen - es unterliegt ja keinem Zweifel, dass die Schwäche mild, ach so mild, so rechtlich, so unoffensiv, so "menschlich" macht! - Die "Religion des Mitleidens", zu der man uns überreden möchte - oh wir kennen die hysterischen Männlein und Weiblein genug, welche heute gerade diese Religion zum Schleier und Aufputz nöthig haben! Wir sind keine Humanitarier; wir würden uns nie zu erlauben wagen, von unsrer, "Liebe zur Menschheit" zu reden - dazu ist Unsereins nicht Schauspieler genug! Oder nicht Saint-Simonist genug, nicht Franzose genug. Man muss schon mit einem gallischen Uebermaass erotischer Reizbarkeit und verliebter Ungeduld behaftet sein, um sich in ehrlicher Weise sogar noch der Menschheit mit seiner Brunst zu nähern... Der Menschheit! Gab es je noch ein scheusslicheres altes Weib unter allen alten Weibern? (- es müsste denn etwa die "Wahrheit" sein: eine Frage für Philosophen). Nein, wir lieben die Menschheit nicht; andererseits sind wir aber auch lange nicht "deutsch" genug, wie heute das Wort "deutsch" gang und gäbe ist, um dem Nationalismus und dem Rassenhass das Wort zu reden, um an der nationalen Herzenskrätze und Blutvergiftung Freude haben zu können, derenthalben sich jetzt in Europa Volk gegen Volk wie mit Quarantänen abgrenzt, absperrt. Dazu sind wir zu unbefangen, zu boshaft, zu verwöhnt, auch zu gut unterrichtet, zu "gereist": wir ziehen es bei Weitem vor, auf Bergen zu leben, abseits, "unzeitgemäss", in vergangnen oder kommenden Jahrhunderten, nur damit wir uns die stille Wuth ersparen, zu der wir uns verurtheilt wüssten als Augenzeugen einer Politik, die den deutschen Geist öde macht, indem sie ihn eitel Macht, und kleine Politik ausserdem ist: - hat sie nicht nöthig, damit ihre eigne Schöpfung nicht sofort wieder auseinanderfällt, sie zwischen zwei Todhasse zu pflanzen? muss sie nicht die Verewigung der Kleinstaaterei Europa's wollen?... Wir Heimatlosen, wir sind der Rasse und Abkunft nach zu vielfach und gemischt, als, "moderne Menschen", und folglich wenig versucht, an jener verlognen Rassen-Selbstbewunderung und Unzucht theilzunehmen, welche sich heute in Deutschland als Zeichen deutscher Gesinnung zur Schau trägt und die bei dem Volke des historischen "Sinns" zwiefach falsch und unanständig anmuthet. Wir sind, mit Einem Worte - und es soll unser Ehrenwort sein! - gute Europäer, die Erben Europa's, die reichen, überhäuften, aber auch überreich verpflichteten Erben von Jahrtausenden des europäischen Geistes: als solche auch dem Christenthum entwachsen und abhold, und gerade, weil wir aus ihm gewachsen sind, weil unsre Vorfahren Christen von rücksichtsloser Rechtschaffenheit des Christenthums waren, die ihrem Glauben willig Gut und Blut, Stand und Vaterland zum Opfer gebracht haben. Wir - thun desgleichen. Wofür doch? Für unsern Unglauben? Für jede Art Unglauben? Nein, das wisst ihr besser, meine Freunde! Das verborgne ja in euch ist stärker als alle Neins und Vielleichts, an denen ihr mit eurer Zeit krank seid; und wenn ihr auf's Meer müsst, ihr Auswanderer, so zwingt dazu auch euch - ein Glaube!..

378

"Und werden wieder hell". - Wir Freigebigen und Reichen des Geistes, die wir gleich offnen Brunnen an der Strasse stehn und es Niemandem wehren mögen, dass er aus uns schöpft: wir wissen uns leider nicht zu wehren, wo wir es möchten, wir können durch Nichts verhindern, dass man uns trübt, finster macht, - dass die Zeit, in der wir leben, ihr "Zeitlichstes", dass deren schmutzige Vögel ihren Unrath, die Knaben ihren Krimskrams und erschöpfte, an uns ausruhende Wandrer ihr kleines und grosses Elend in uns werfen. Aber wir werden es machen, wie wir es immer gemacht haben: wir nehmen, was man auch in uns wirft, hinab in unsre Tiefe - denn wir sind tief, wir vergessen nicht - und werden wieder hell...

379

Zwischenrede des Narren. - Das ist kein Misanthrop, der dies Buch geschrieben hat: der Menschenhass bezahlt sich heute zu theuer. Um zu hassen, wie man ehemals den Menschen gehasst hat, timonisch, im Ganzen, ohne Abzug, aus vollem Herzen, aus der ganzen Liebe des Hasses - dazu müsste man auf's Verachten Verzicht leisten: - und wie viel feine Freude, wie viel Geduld, wie viel Gütigkeit selbst verdanken wir gerade unsrem Verachten! Zudem sind wir damit die "Auserwählten Gottes": das feine Verachten ist unser Geschmack und Vorrecht, unsre Kunst, unsre Tugend vielleicht, wir Modernsten unter den Modernen!... Der Hass dagegen stellt gleich, stellt gegenüber, im Hass ist Ehre, endlich: im Hass ist Furcht, ein grosser guter Theil Furcht. Wir Furchtlosen aber, wir geistigeren Menschen dieses Zeitalters, wir kennen unsern Vortheil gut genug, um gerade als die Geistigeren in Hinsicht auf diese Zeit ohne Furcht zu leben. Man wird uns schwerlich köpfen, einsperren, verbannen; man wird nicht einmal unsre Bücher verbieten und verbrennen. Das Zeitalter liebt den Geist, es liebt uns und hat uns nöthig, selbst wenn wir es ihm zu verstehn geben müssten, dass wir in der Verachtung Künstler sind; dass uns jeder Umgang mit Menschen einen leichten Schauder macht; dass wir mit aller unsrer Milde, Geduld, Menschenfreundlichkeit, Höflichkeit unsre Nase nicht überreden können, von ihrem Vorurtheile abzustehn, welches sie gegen die Nähe eines Menschen hat; dass wir die Natur lieben, je weniger menschlich es in ihr zugeht, und die Kunst, wenn sie die Flucht des Künstlers vor dem Menschen oder der Spott des Künstlers über den Menschen oder der Spott des Künstlers über sich selber ist...

380

"Der Wanderer" redet. - Um unsrer europäischen Moralität einmal aus der Ferne ansichtig zu werden, um sie an anderen, früheren oder kommenden, Moralitäten zu messen, dazu muss man es machen, wie es ein Wanderer macht, der wissen will, wie hoch die Thürme einer Stadt sind: dazu verlässt er die Stadt. "Gedanken über moralische Vorurtheile", falls sie nicht Vorurtheile über Vorurtheile sein sollen, setzen eine Stellung ausserhalb der Moral voraus, irgend ein Jenseits von Gut und Böse, zu dem man steigen, klettern, fliegen muss, - und, im gegebenen Falle, jedenfalls ein Jenseits von unsre in Gut und Böse, eine Freiheit von allem "Europa", letzteres als eine Summe von kommandirenden Werthurtheilen verstanden, welche uns in Fleisch und Blut übergegangen sind. Dass man gerade dorthinaus, dorthinauf will, ist vielleicht eine kleine Tollheit, ein absonderliches unvernünftiges "du musst" - denn auch wir Erkennenden haben unsre Idiosynkrasien des "unfreien Willens" -: die Frage ist, ob man wirklich dorthinauf kann. Dies mag an vielfachen Bedingungen hängen, in der Hauptsache ist es die Frage darnach, wie leicht oder wie schwer wir sind, das Problem unsrer "spezifischen Schwere". Man muss sehr leicht sein, um seinen Willen zur Erkenntniss bis in eine solche Ferne und gleichsam über seine Zeit hinaus zu treiben, um sich zum Ueberblick über Jahrtausende Augen zu schaffen und noch dazu reinen Himmel in diesen Augen! Man muss sich von Vielem losgebunden haben, was gerade uns Europäer von Heute drückt, hemmt, niederhält, schwer macht. Der Mensch eines solchen Jenseits, der die obersten Werthmaasse seiner Zeit selbst in Sicht bekommen will, hat dazu vorerst nöthig, diese Zeit in sich selbst zu "überwinden" - es ist die Probe seiner Kraft - und folglich nicht nur seine Zeit, sondern auch seinen bisherigen Widerwillen und Widerspruch gegen diese Zeit, sein Leiden an dieser Zeit, seine Zeit-Ungemässheit, seine Romantik...

381

Zur Frage der Verständlichkeit. - Man will nicht nur verstanden werden, wenn man schreibt, sondern ebenso gewiss auch nicht verstanden werden. Es ist noch ganz und gar kein Einwand gegen ein Buch, wenn irgend jemand es unverständlich findet: vielleicht gehörte eben dies zur Absicht seines Schreibers, - er wollte nicht von "irgend Jemand" verstanden werden. Jeder vornehmere Geist und Geschmack wählt sich, wenn er sich mittheilen will, auch seine Zuhörer; indem er sie wählt, zieht er zugleich gegen "die Anderen" seine Schranken. Alle feineren Gesetze eines Stils haben da ihren Ursprung: sie halten zugleich ferne, sie schaffen Distanz, sie verbieten "den Eingang", das Verständniss, wie gesagt, - während sie Denen die Ohren aufmachen, die uns mit den Ohren verwandt sind. Und dass ich es unter uns sage und in meinem Falle, - ich will mich weder durch meine Unwissenheit, noch durch die Munterkeit meines Temperaments verhindern lassen, euch verständlich zu sein, meine Freunde: durch die Munterkeit nicht, wie sehr sie auch mich zwingt, einer Sache geschwind beizukommen, um ihr überhaupt beizukommen. Denn ich halte es mit tiefen Problemen, wie mit einem kalten Bade - schnell hinein, schnell hinaus. Dass man damit nicht in die Tiefe, nicht tief genug hinunter komme, ist der Aberglaube der Wasserscheuen, der Feinde des kalten Wassers; sie reden ohne Erfahrung. Oh! die grosse Kälte macht geschwind! - Und nebenbei gefragt: bleibt wirklich eine Sache dadurch allein schon unverstanden und unerkannt, dass sie nur im Fluge berührt, angeblickt, angeblitzt wird? Muss man durchaus erst auf ihr fest sitzen? auf ihr wie auf einem Ei gebrütet haben? Diu noctuque incubando, wie Newton von sich selbst sagte? Zum Mindesten giebt es Wahrheiten von einer besonderen Scheu und Kitzlichkeit, deren man nicht anders habhaft wird, als plötzlich, - die man überraschen oder lassen muss... Endlich hat meine Kürze noch einen andern Werth: innerhalb solcher Fragen, wie sie mich beschäftigen, muss ich Vieles kurz sagen, damit es noch kürzer gehört wird. Man hat nämlich als Immoralist zu verhüten, dass man die Unschuld verdirbt, ich meine die Esel und die alten Jungfern beiderlei Geschlechts, die Nichts vom Leben haben als ihre Unschuld; mehr noch, meine Schriften sollen sie begeistern, erheben, zur Tugend ermuthigen. Ich wüsste Nichts auf Erden, was lustiger wäre als begeisterte alte Esel zu sehn und Jungfern, welche durch die süssen Gefühle der Tugend erregt werden: und "das habe ich gesehn" - also sprach Zarathustra. So viel in Absicht der Kürze; schlimmer steht es mit meiner Unwissenheit, deren ich selbst vor mir selber kein Hehl habe. Es giebt Stunden, wo ich mich ihrer schäme; freilich ebenfalls Stunden, wo ich mich dieser Scham schäme. Vielleicht sind wir Philosophen allesammt heute zum Wissen schlimm gestellt: die Wissenschaft wächst, die Gelehrtesten von uns sind nahe daran zu entdecken, dass sie zu wenig wissen. Aber schlimmer wäre es immer noch, wenn es anders stünde, - wenn wir zuviel wüssten; unsre Aufgabe ist und bleibt zuerst, uns nicht selber zu verwechseln. Wir sind etwas Anderes als Gelehrte: obwohl es nicht zu umgehn ist, dass wir auch, unter Anderem, gelehrt sind. Wir haben andre Bedürfnisse, ein andres Wachsthum, eine andre Verdauung: wir brauchen mehr, wir brauchen auch weniger. Wie viel ein Geist zu seiner Ernährung nöthig hat, dafür giebt es keine Formel; ist aber sein Geschmack auf Unabhängigkeit gerichtet, auf schnelles Kommen un Genau Wanderung, auf Abenteuer vielleicht, denen nur die Geschwindesten gewachsen sind, so lebt er lieber frei mit schmaler Kost, als unfrei und gestopft. Nicht Fett, sondern die grösste Geschmeidigkeit und Kraft ist das, was ein guter Tänzer von seiner Nahrung will, - und ich wüsste nicht, was der Geist eines Philosophen mehr zu sein wünschte, als ein guter Tänzer. Der Tanz nämlich ist sein Ideal, auch seine Kunst, zuletzt auch seine einzige Frömmigkeit, sein "Gottesdienst"...

382

Die grosse Gesundheit. - Wir Neuen, Namenlosen, Schlechtverständlichen, wir Frühgeburten einer noch unbewiesenen Zukunft - wir bedürfen zu einem neuen Zwecke auch eines neuen Mittels, nämlich einer neuen Gesundheit, einer stärkeren gewitzteren zäheren verwegneren lustigeren, als alle Gesundheiten bisher waren. Wessen Seele darnach dürstet, den ganzen Umfang der bisherigen Werthe und Wünschbarkeiten erlebt und alle Küsten dieses idealischen "Mittelmeers" umschifft zu haben, wer aus den Abenteuern der eigensten Erfahrung wissen will, wie es einem Eroberer und Entdecker des Ideals zu Muthe ist, insgleichen einem Künstler, einem Heiligen, einem Gesetzgeber, einem Weisen, einem Gelehrten, einem Frommen, einem Wahrsager, einem Göttlich-Abseitigen alten Stils: der hat dazu zuallererst Eins nöthig, die grosse Gesundheit - eine solche, welche man nicht nur hat, sondern auch beständig noch erwirbt und erwerben muss, weil man sie immer wieder preisgiebt, preisgeben muss!... Und nun, nachdem wir lange dergestalt unterwegs waren, wir Argonauten des Ideals, muthiger vielleicht, als klug ist, und oft genug schiffbrüchig und zu Schaden gekommen, aber, wie gesagt, gesünder als man es uns erlauben möchte, gefährlich-gesund, immer wieder gesund, - will es uns scheinen, als ob wir, zum Lohn dafür, ein noch unentdecktes Land vor uns haben, dessen Grenzen noch Niemand abgesehn hat, ein jenseits aller bisherigen Länder und Winkel des Ideals, eine Welt so überreich an Schönem, Fremdem, Fragwürdigem, Furchtbarem und Göttlichem, dass unsre Neugierde ebensowohl wie unser Besitzdurst ausser sich gerathen sind - ach, dass wir nunmehr durch Nichts mehr zu ersättigen sind! Wie könnten wir uns, nach solchen Ausblicken und mit einem solchen Heisshunger in Gewissen und Wissen, noch am gegenwärtigen Menschen genügen lassen? Schlimm genug: aber es ist unvermeidlich, dass wir seinen würdigsten Zielen und Hoffnungen nur mit einem übel aufrecht erhaltenen Ernste zusehn und vielleicht nicht einmal mehr zusehn. Ein andres Ideal läuft vor uns her, ein wunderliches, versucherisches, gefahrenreiches Ideal, zu dem wir Niemanden überreden möchten, weil wir Niemandem so leicht das Recht darauf zugestehn: das Ideal eines Geistes, der naiv, das heisst ungewollt und aus überströmender Fülle und Mächtigkeit mit Allem spielt, was bisher heilig, gut, unberührbar, göttlich hiess; für den das Höchste, woran das Volk billigerweise sein Werthmaass hat, bereits so viel wie Gefahr, Verfall, Erniedrigung oder, mindestens, wie Erholung, Blindheit, zeitweiliges Selbstvergessen bedeuten würde; das Ideal eines menschlich-übermenschlichen Wohlseins und Wohlwollens, das oft genug unmenschlich erscheinen wird, zum Beispiel, wenn es sich neben den ganzen bisherigen Erden-Ernst, neben alle Art Feierlichkeit in Gebärde, Wort, Klang, Blick, Moral und Aufgabe wie deren leibhafteste unfreiwillige Parodie hinstellt - und mit dem, trotzalledem, vielleicht der grosse Ernst erst anhebt, das eigentliche Fragezeichen erst gesetzt wird, das Schicksal der Seele sich wendet, der Zeiger rückt, die Tragödie beginnt...

383

Epilog. - Aber indem ich zum Schluss dieses düstere Fragezeichen langsam, langsam hinmale und eben noch Willens bin, meinen Lesern die Tugenden des rechten Lesens - oh was für vergessene und unbekannte Tugenden! - in's Gedächtniss zu rufen, begegnet mir's, dass um mich das boshafteste, munterste, koboldigste Lachen laut wird: die Geister meines Buches selber fallen über mich her, ziehn mich an den Ohren und rufen mich zur Ordnung. "Wir halten es nicht mehr aus - rufen sie mir zu -; fort, fort mit dieser rabenschwarzen Musik. Ist es nicht rings heller Vormittag um uns? Und grüner weicher Grund und Rasen, das Königreich des Tanzes? Gab es je eine bessere Stunde, um fröhlich zu sein? Wer singt uns ein Lied, ein Vormittagslied, so sonnig, so leicht, so flügge, dass es die Grillen nicht verscheucht, - dass es die Grillen vielmehr einlädt, mit zu singen, mit zu tanzen? Und lieber noch einen einfältigen bäurischen Dudelsack als solche geheimnissvolle Laute, solche Unkenrufe, Grabesstimmen und Murmelthierpfiffe, mit denen Sie uns in Ihrer Wildniss bisher regalirt haben, mein Herr Einsiedler und Zukunftsmusikant! Nein! Nicht solche Töne! Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen und freudenvollere!" - Gefällt es euch so, meine ungeduldigen Freunde? Wohlan! Wer wäre euch nicht gern zu Willen? Mein Dudelsack wartet schon, meine Kehle auch - sie mag ein wenig rauh klingen, nehmt fürlieb! dafür sind wir im Gebirge. Aber was ihr zu hören bekommt, ist wenigstens neu; und wenn ihr's nicht versteht, wenn ihr den Sänger missversteht, was liegt daran! Das ist nun einmal "des Sängers Fluch". Um so deutlicher könnt ihr seine Musik und Weise hören, um so besser auch nach seiner Pfeife - tanzen. Wollt ihr das?...

Anhang

Lieder des Prinzen Vogelfrei

An Goethe

Das Unvergängliche Ist nur dein Gleichniss! Gott der Verfängliche Ist Dichter-Erschleichniss...

Welt-Rad, das rollende, Streift Ziel auf Ziel: Noth - nennt's der Grollende, Der Narr nennt's - Spiel...

Welt-Spiel, das herrische, Mischt Sein und Schein: - Das Ewig-Närrische Mischt uns - hinein!...

Dichters Berufung

Als ich jüngst, mich zu erquicken, Unter dunklen Bäumen sass, Hört' ich ticken, leise ticken, Zierlich, wie nach Takt und Maass.

Böse wurd' ich, zog Gesichter, Endlich aber gab ich nach, Bis ich gar, gleich einem Dichter, Selber mit im Tiktak sprach.

Wie mir so im Verse-Machen Silb' um Silb' ihr Hopsa sprang, Musst' ich plötzlich lachen, lachen Eine Viertelstunde lang.

Du ein Dichter? Du ein Dichter? Steht's mit deinem Kopf so schlecht? "Ja, mein Herr, Sie sind ein Dichter" Achselzuckt der Vogel Specht.

Wessen harr' ich hier im Busche? Wem doch laur' ich Räuber auf? Ist's ein Spruch? Ein Bild? Im Husche Sitzt mein Reim ihm hintendrauf.

Was nur schlüpft und hüpft, gleich sticht der Dichter sich's zum Vers zurecht. -"Ja, mein Herr, Sie sind ein Dichter" Achselzuckt der Vogel Specht.

Reime, mein' ich, sind wie Pfeile? Wie das zappelt, zittert, springt, Wenn der Pfeil in edle Theile Des Lacerten-Leibchens dringt!

Ach, ihr sterbt dran, arme Wichter, Oder taumelt wie bezecht! -"Ja, mein Herr, Sie sind ein Dichter" Achselzuckt der Vogel Specht.

Schiefe Sprüchlein voller Eile, Trunkne Wörtlein, wie sich's drängt! Bis ihr Alle, Zeil' an Zeile, An der Tiktak-Kette hängt.

Und es giebt grausam Gelichter, Das dies - freut? Sind Dichter - schlecht? -"Ja, mein Herr, Sie sind ein Dichter" Achselzuckt der Vogel Specht.

Höhnst du, Vogel? Willst du scherzen? Steht's mit meinem Kopf schon schlimm, Schlimmer stünd's mit meinem Herzen? Fürchte, fürchte meinen Grimm! -

Doch der Dichter - Reime flicht er Selbst im Grimm noch schlecht und recht. -"Ja, mein Herr, Sie sind ein Dichter" Achselzuckt der Vogel Specht.

Im Süden

So häng' ich denn auf krummem Aste Und schaukle meine Müdigkeit. Ein Vogel lud mich her zu Gaste, Ein Vogelnest ist's, drin ich raste. Wo bin ich doch? Ach, weit! Ach, weit!

Das weisse Meer liegt eingeschlafen, Und purpurn steht ein Segel drauf. Fels, Feigenbäume, Thurm und Hafen, Idylle rings, Geblök von Schafen, - Unschuld des Südens, nimm mich auf!

Nur Schritt für Schritt - das ist ein Leben, Stets Bein vor Bein macht deutsch und schwer. Ich hiess den Wind mich aufwärts heben, Ich lernte mit den Vögeln schweben, - Nach Süden flog ich über's Meer.

Vernunft! Verdriessliches Geschäfte! Das bringt uns allzubald an's Ziel! Im Fliegen lernt' ich, was mich äffte, - Schon fühl' ich Muth und Blut und Säfte Zu neuem Leben, neuem Spiel...

Einsam zu denken nenn' ich weise, Doch einsam singen - wäre dumm! So hört ein Lied zu eurem Preise Und setzt euch still um mich im Kreise, Ihr schlimmen Vögelchen, herum!

So jung, so falsch, so umgetrieben Scheint ganz ihr mir gemacht zum Lieben Und jedem schönen Zeitvertreib? Im Norden - ich gesteh's mit Zaudern - Liebt' ich ein Weibchen, alt zum Schaudern: "Die Wahrheit" hiess dies alte Weib...

Die fromme Beppa

So lang noch hübsch mein Leibchen, Lohnt's sich schon, fromm zu sein. Man weiss, Gott liebt die Weibchen, Die hübschen obendrein.

Er wird's dem armen Mönchlein Gewisslich gern verzeih'n, Dass er, gleich manchem Mönchlein, So gern will bei mir sein.

Kein grauer Kirchenvater! Nein, jung noch und oft roth, oft trotz dem grausten Kater Voll Eifersucht und Noth.

Ich liebe nicht die Greise, Er liebt die Alten nicht: Wie wunderlich und weise Hat Gott dies eingericht!

Die Kirche weiss zu leben, Sie prüft Herz und Gesicht. Stets will sie mir vergeben, - Ja, wer vergiebt mir nicht!

Man lispelt mit dem Mündchen, Man knixt und geht hinaus, Und mit dem neuen Sündchen Löscht man das alte aus.

Gelobt sei Gott auf Erden, Der hübsche Mädchen liebt Und derlei Herzbeschwerden Sich selber gern vergiebt.

So lang noch hübsch mein Leibchen, Lohnt sich's schon, fromm zu sein: Als altes Wackelweibchen Mag mich der Teufel frein!

Der geheimnissvolle Nachen

Gestern Nachts, als Alles schlief, Kaum der Wind mit ungewissen Seufzern durch die Gassen lief, Gab mir Ruhe nicht das Kissen, Noch der Mohn, noch, was sonst tief Schlafen macht, - ein gut Gewissen.

Endlich schlug ich mir den Schlaf Aus dem Sinn und lief zum Strande. Mondhell war's und mild, - ich traf Mann und Kahn auf warmem Sande, Schläfrig beide, Hirt und Schaf: - Schläfrig stiess der Kahn vom Lande.

Eine Stunde, leicht auch zwei, Oder war's ein Jahr? - da sanken Plötzlich mir Sinn und Gedanken In ein ew'ges Einerlei, Und ein Abgrund ohne Schranken That sich auf: - da war's vorbei!

Morgen kam: auf schwarzen Tiefen Steht ein Kahn und ruht und ruht... Was geschah? so rief's, so riefen Hundert bald: was gab es? Blut? - - Nichts geschah! Wir schliefen, schliefen Alle - ach, so gut! so gut!

Liebeserklärung

(bei der aber der Dichter in eine Grube fiel)

Oh Wunder! Fliegt er noch? Er steigt empor, und seine Flügel ruhn? Was hebt und trägt ihn doch? Was ist ihm Ziel und Zug und Zügel nun?

Gleich Stern und Ewigkeit Lebt er in Höhn jetzt, die das Leben flieht, Mitleidig selbst dem Neid -: Und hoch flog, wer ihn auch nur schweben sieht!

Oh Vogel Albatross! Zur Höhe treibt's mit ew'gem Triebe mich. Ich dachte dein: da floss Mir Thrän' um Thräne, - ja, ich liebe dich!

Lied eines theokritischen Ziegenhirten

Da lieg' ich, krank im Gedärm, - Mich fressen die Wanzen. Und drüben noch Licht und Lärm! Ich hör's, sie tanzen...

Sie wollte um diese Stund' Zu mir sich schleichen. Ich warte wie ein Hund, - Es kommt kein Zeichen.

Das Kreuz, als sie's versprach? Wie konnte sie lügen? Oder läuft sie Jedem nach, Wie meine Ziegen?

Woher ihr seid'ner Rock? - Ah, meine Stolze? Es wohnt noch mancher Bock An diesem Holze?

Wie kraus und giftig macht Verliebtes Warten! So wächst bei schwüler Nacht Giftpilz im Garten.

Die Liebe zehrt an mir Gleich sieben Uebeln, - Nichts mag ich essen schier. Lebt wohl, ihr Zwiebeln!

Der Mond gieng schon in's Meer, Müd sind alle Sterne, Grau kommt der Tag daher, - Ich stürbe gerne.

"Diesen ungewissen Seelen"

Diesen ungewissen Seelen Bin ich grimmig gram. All ihr Ehren ist ein Quälen, All ihr Lob ist Selbstverdruss und Scham.

Dass ich nicht an ihrem Stricke Ziehe durch die Zeit, Dafür grüsst mich ihrer Blicke Giftig-süsser hoffnungsloser Neid.

Möchten sie mir herzhaft fluchen Und die Nase drehn! Dieser Augen hülflos Suchen Soll bei mir auf ewig irre gehn.

Narr in Verzweiflung

Ach! Was ich schrieb auf Tisch und Wand Mit Narrenherz und Narrenhand, Das sollte Tisch und Wand mir zieren?... Doch ihr sagt: "Narrenhände schmieren, - Und Tisch und Wand soll man purgieren, Bis auch die letzte Spur verschwand!"

Erlaubt! Ich lege Hand mit an -, Ich lernte Schwamm und Besen führen, Als Kritiker, als Wassermann. Doch, wenn die Arbeit abgethan, Säh' gern ich euch, ihr Ueberweisen, Mit Weisheit Tisch und Wand besch......

Rimus remedium

Oder: Wie kranke Dichter sich trösten

Aus deinem Munde, Du speichelflüssige Hexe Zeit, Tropft langsam Stund' auf Stunde. Umsonst, dass all mein Ekel schreit: "Fluch, Fluch dem Schlunde Der Ewigkeit!" Welt - ist von Erz: Ein glühender Stier, - der hört kein Schrein. Mit fliegenden Dolchen schreibt der Schmerz Mir in's Gebein: "Welt hat kein Herz, Und Dummheit wär's, ihr gram drum sein!" Giess alle Mohne, Giess, Fieber! Gift mir in's Gehirn! Zu lang schon prüfst du mir Hand und Stirn. Was frägst du? Was? "Zu welchem - Lohne?" - - Ha! Fluch der Dirn' Und ihrem Hohne! Nein! Komm zurück! Draussen ist's kalt, ich höre regnen - Ich sollte dir zärtlicher begegnen? - Nimm! Hier ist Gold: wie glänzt das Stück! - Dich heissen "Glück"? Dich, Fieber, segnen? - Die Thür springt auf! Der Regen sprüht nach meinem Bette! Wind löscht das Licht, - Unheil in Hauf'! Wer jetzt nicht hundert Reime hätte, Ich wette, wette, Der gienge drauf!

"Mein Glück!"

Die Tauben von San Marco seh ich wieder: Still ist der Platz, Vormittag ruht darauf. In sanfter Kühle schick' ich müssig Lieder Gleich Taubenschwärmen in das Blau hinauf - Und locke sie zurück, Noch einen Reim zu hängen in's Gefieder - mein Glück! Mein Glück!

Du stilles Himmels-Dach, blau-licht, von Seide, Wie schwebst du schirmend ob des bunten Bau's, Den ich - was sag ich? - liebe, fürchte, neide... Die Seele wahrlich tränk' ich gern ihm aus! Gäb' ich sie je zurück? - Nein, still davon, du Augen-Wunderweide! - mein Glück! Mein Glück!

Du strenger Thurm, mit welchem Löwendrange Stiegst du empor hier, siegreich, sonder Müh! Du überklingst den Platz mit tiefem Klange Französisch, wärst du sein accent aigu? Blieb ich gleich dir zurück, Ich wüsste, aus welch seidenweichem Zwange... - mein Glück! Mein Glück!

Fort, fort, Musik! Lass erst die Schatten dunkeln Und wachsen bis zur braunen lauen Nacht! Zum Tone ist's zu früh am Tag, noch funkeln Die Gold-Zieraten nicht in Rosen-Pracht, Noch blieb viel Tag zurück, Viel Tag für Dichten, Schleichen, Einsam-Munkeln - mein Glück! Mein Glück!

Nach neuen Meeren

Dorthin- will ich; und ich traue Mir fortan und meinem Griff. Offen liegt das Meer, in's Blaue Treibt mein Genueser Schiff.

Alles glänzt mir neu und neuer, Mittag schläft auf Raum und Zeit Nur dein Auge - ungeheuer Blickt mich's an, Unendlichkeit!

Sils-Maria

Hier sass ich, wartend, wartend, - doch auf Nichts, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, bald des Lichts Geniessend, bald des Schattens, ganz nur Spiel, Ganz See, ganz Mittag, ganz Zeit ohne Ziel. Da, plötzlich, Freundin! wurde Eins zu Zwei -- Und Zarathustra gieng an mir vorbei...

An den Mistral

Ein Tanzlied

Mistral-Wind, du Wolken-Jäger, Trübsal-Mörder, Himmels-Feger, Brausender, wie lieb' ich dich! Sind wir Zwei nicht Eines Schoosses Erstlingsgabe, Eines Looses Vorbestimmte ewiglich?

Hier auf glatten Felsenwegen Lauf' ich tanzend dir entgegen, Tanzend, wie du pfeifst und singst: Der du ohne Schiff und Ruder Als der Freiheit freister Bruder Ueber wilde Meere springst.

Kaum erwacht, hört' ich dein Rufen, Stürmte zu den Felsenstufen, Hin zur gelben Wand am Meer. Heil! da kamst du schon gleich hellen Diamantnen Stromesschnellen Sieghaft von den Bergen her.

Auf den ebnen Himmels-Tennen Sah ich deine Rosse rennen, Sah den Wagen, der dich trägt, Sah die Hand dir selber zücken, Wenn sie auf der Rosse Rücken Blitzesgleich die Geissel schlägt, -

Sah dich aus dem Wagen springen, Schneller dich hinabzuschwingen, Sah dich wie zum Pfeil verkürzt Senkrecht in die Tiefe stossen, - Wie ein Goldstrahl durch die Rosen Erster Morgenröthen stürzt.

Tanze nun auf tausend Rücken, Wellen-Rücken, Wellen-Tücken - Heil, wer neue Tänze schafft! Tanzen wir in tausend Weisen, Frei - sei unsre Kunst geheissen, Fröhlich - unsre Wissenschaft!

Raffen wir von jeder Blume Eine Blüthe uns zum Ruhme Und zwei Blätter noch zum Kranz! Tanzen wir gleich Troubadouren Zwischen Heiligen und Huren, Zwischen Gott und Welt den Tanz!

Wer nicht tanzen kann mit Winden, Wer sich wickeln muss mit Binden, Angebunden, Krüppel-Greis, Wer da gleicht den Heuchel-Hänsen, Ehren-Tölpeln, Tugend-Gänsen, Fort aus unsrem Paradeis!

Wirbeln wir den Staub der Strassen Allen Kranken in die Nasen, Scheuchen wir die Kranken-Brut! Lösen wir die ganze Küste Von dem Odem dürrer Brüste, Von den Augen ohne Muth!

Jagen wir die Himmels-Trüber, Welten-Schwärzer, Wolken-Schieber, Hellen wir das Himmelreich! Brausen wir... oh aller freien Geister Geist, mit dir zu Zweien Braust mein Glück dem Sturme gleich. -

Und dass ewig das Gedächtniss Solchen Glücks, nimm sein Vermächtniss, Nimm den Kranz hier mit hinauf! Wirf ihn höher, ferner, weiter, Stürm' empor die Himmelsleiter, Häng ihn - an den Sternen auf!




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