541.

541.How we should turn to Stone.—By slowly, very, very slowly, becoming hard like a[pg 368]precious stone, and at last lie still, a joy to all eternity.542.The Philosopher and Old Age.—It is not wise to permit evening to act as a judge of the day; for only too often in this case weariness becomes the judge of success and good will. We should also take the greatest precautions in regard to everything connected with old age and its judgment upon life, more especially since old age, like the evening, is fond of assuming a new and charming morality, and knows well enough how to humiliate the day by the glow of the evening skies, twilight and a peaceful and wistful silence. The reverence which we feel for an old man, especially if he is an old thinker and sage, easily blinds us to the deterioration of his intellect, and it is always necessary to bring to light the hidden symptoms of such a deterioration and lassitude, that is to say, to uncover the physiological phenomenon which is still concealed behind the old man's moral judgments and prejudices, in case we should be deceived by our veneration for him, and do something to the disadvantage of knowledge. For it is not seldom that the illusion of a great moral renovation and regeneration takes possession of the old man. Basing his views upon this, he then proceeds to express his opinions on the work and development of his life as if he had only then for the first time become clearsighted—and nevertheless it is not wisdom, but fatigue, which prompts his present state of well-being and his positive judgments.[pg 369]The most dangerous indication of this weariness is above all the belief in genius, which as a rule only arises in great and semi-great men of intellect at this period of their lives: the belief in an exceptional position, and exceptional rights. The thinker who thus believes himself to be inspired by genius henceforth deems it permissible for him to take things more easily, and takes advantage of his position as a genius to decree rather than to prove. It is probable, however, that the need felt by the weary intellect for alleviation is the main source of this belief—it precedes it in time, though appearances may indicate the contrary.At this time too, as the result of the love which all weary and old people feel for enjoyment, such men as those I am speaking of wish to enjoy the results of their thinking instead of again testing them and scattering the seeds abroad once more. This leads them to make their thoughts palatable and enjoyable, and to take away their dryness, coldness, and want of flavour; and thus it comes about that the old thinker apparently raises himself above his life's work, while in reality he spoils it by infusing into it a certain amount of fantasy, sweetness, flavour, poetic mists, and mystic lights. This is how Plato ended, as did also that great and honest Frenchman, Auguste Comte, who, as a conqueror of the exact sciences, cannot be matched either among the Germans or the Englishmen of this century.There is a third symptom of fatigue: that ambition which actuated the great thinker when he was young, and which could not then find anything[pg 370]to satisfy it, has also grown old, and, like one that has no more time to lose, it begins to snatch at the coarser and more immediate means of its gratification, means which are peculiar to active, dominating, violent, and conquering dispositions. From this time onwards the thinker wishes to found institutions which shall bear his name, instead of erecting mere brain-structures. What are now to him the ethereal victories and honours to be met with in the realm of proofs and refutations, or the perpetuation of his fame in books, or the thrill of exultation in the soul of the reader? But the institution, on the other hand, is a temple, as he well knows—a temple of stone, a durable edifice, which will keep its god alive with more certainty than the sacrifices of rare and tender souls.17Perhaps, too, at this period of his life the old thinker will for the first time meet with that love which is fitted for a god rather than for a human being, and his whole nature becomes softened and sweetened in the rays of such a sun, like fruit in autumn. Yes, he grows more divine and beautiful, this great old man,—and nevertheless it is old age and weariness which permit him to ripen in this way, to grow more silent, and to repose in the luminous adulation of a woman. Now it is all up with his former desire—a desire which was superior even to his own ego—for real disciples, followers who would carry on his thought, that is, true opponents. This desire arose from his hitherto undiminished energy, the conscious pride he felt in[pg 371]being able at any time to become an opponent himself,—nay, even the deadly enemy of his own doctrine,—but now his desire is for resolute partisans, unwavering comrades, auxiliary forces, heralds, a pompous train of followers. He is now no longer able to bear that dreadful isolation in which every intellect that advances beyond the others is compelled to live. From this time forward he surrounds himself with objects of veneration, companionship, tenderness, and love; but he also wishes to enjoy the privileges of all religious people, and to worship what he venerates most highly in his little community—he will even go as far as to invent a religion for the purpose of having a community.Thus lives the wise old man, and in living thus he falls almost imperceptibly into such a deplorable proximity to priestly and poetic extravagances that it is difficult to recollect all his wise and severe period of youth, the former rigid morality of his mind, and his truly virile dread of fancies and misplaced enthusiasm. When he was formerly in the habit of comparing himself with the older thinkers, he did so merely that he might measure his weakness against their strength, and that he might become colder and more audacious towards himself; but now he only makes this comparison to intoxicate himself with his own delusions. Formerly he looked forward with confidence to future thinkers, and he even took a delight in imagining himself to be cast into the shade by their brighter light. Now, however, he is mortified to think that he cannot be the last: he endeavours to discover some way of[pg 372]imposing upon mankind, together with the inheritance which he is leaving to them, a restriction of sovereign thinking. He fears and reviles the pride and the love of freedom of individual minds: after him no one must allow his intellect to govern with absolute unrestriction: he himself wishes to remain for ever the bulwark on which the waves of ideas may break—these are his secret wishes, and perhaps, indeed, they are not always secret.The hard fact upon which such wishes are based, however, is that he himself has come to a halt before his teaching, and has set up his boundary stone, his“thus far and no farther.”In canonising himself he has drawn up his own death warrant: from now on his mind cannot develop further. His race is run; the hour-hand stops. Whenever a great thinker tries to make himself a lasting institution for posterity, we may readily suppose that he has passed the climax of his powers, and is very tired, very near the setting of his sun.543.We must not make Passion an Argument for Truth.—Oh, you kind-hearted and even noble enthusiasts, I know you! You wish to seem right in our eyes as well as in your own, but especially in your own!—and an irritable and subtle evil conscience so often spurs you on against your very enthusiasm! How ingenious you then become in deceiving your conscience, and lulling it to sleep! How you hate honest, simple, and clean souls; how you avoid their innocent glances! That better knowledge whose representatives they are, and[pg 373]whose voice you hear only too distinctly within yourselves when it questions your belief,—how you try to cast suspicion upon it as a bad habit, as a disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of your own intellectual health! It drives you on to hate even criticism, science, reason! You must falsify history to make it testify in your favour; you must deny virtues in case they should obscure those of your own idols and ideals.Coloured images where arguments are needed! Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists! Ambrosian nights! well do you know how to enlighten and to darken—to darken by means of light! and indeed when your passion can no longer be kept within bounds the moment comes when you say to yourselves,“Now I have won for myself a good conscience, now I am exalted, courageous, self-denying, magnanimous; now I am honest!”How you long for these moments when your passion will confer upon you full and absolute rights, and also, as it were, innocence. How happy you are when engaged in battle and inspired with ecstasy or courage, when you are elated beyond yourself, when gnawing doubt has left you, and when you can even decree:“Any man who is not in ecstasy as we are cannot by any chance know what or where truth is.”How you long to meet with those who share your belief in this state—which is a state of intellectual depravity—and to set your own fire alight with their flames! Oh, for your martyrdom, your victory of the sanctified lie! Must you really inflict so much pain upon yourselves?—Mustyou?[pg 374]544.How Philosophy is now Practised.—I can see quite well that our philosophising youths, women, and artists require from philosophy exactly the opposite of what the Greeks derived from it. What does he who does not hear the continual exultation that resounds through every speech and counter-argument in a Platonic dialogue, this exultation over the new invention of rational thinking, know about Plato or about ancient philosophy? At that time souls were filled with enthusiasm when they gave themselves up to the severe and sober sport of ideas, generalisations, refutations,—that enthusiasm which perhaps those old, great, severe, and prudent contrapuntists in music have also known. At that time the Greek palate still possessed that older and formerly omnipotent taste: and by the side of this taste their new taste appeared to be enveloped in so much charm that the divine art of dialectic was sung by hesitating voices as if its followers were intoxicated with the frenzy of love. That old form of thinking, however, was thought within the bounds of morality, and for it nothing existed but fixed judgments and established facts, and it had no reasons but those of authority. Thinking, therefore, was simply a matter of repetition, and all the enjoyment of speech and dialogue could only lie in their form.Wherever the substance of a thing is looked upon as eternal and universally approved, there is only one great charm, the charm of variable forms, that is, of fashion. Even in the poets ever since the[pg 375]time of Homer, and later on in the case of the sculptors, the Greeks did not enjoy originality, but its contrary. It was Socrates who discovered another charm, that of cause and effect, of reason and sequence, and we moderns have become so used to it, and have been brought up to the necessity of logic that we look upon it as the normal taste, and as such it cannot but be repugnant to ardent and presumptuous people. Such people are pleased by whatever stands out boldly from the normal: their more subtle ambition leads them to believe only too readily that they are exceptional souls, not dialectic and rational beings, but, let us say,“intuitive”beings gifted with an“inner sense,”or with a certain“intellectual perception.”Above all, however, they wish to be“artistic natures”with a genius in their heads, and a demon in their bodies, and consequently with special rights in this world and in the world to come—especially the divine privilege of being incomprehensible.And people like these are“going in for”philosophy nowadays! I fear they will discover one day that they have made a mistake—what they are looking for is religion!545.But we do not Believe you.—You would fain pass for psychologists, but we shall not allow it! Are we not to notice that you pretend to be more experienced, profound, passionate, and perfect than you actually are?—just as we notice in yonder painter that there is a trifling presumptuousness in[pg 376]his manner of wielding the brush, and in yonder musician that he brings forward his theme with the desire to make it appear superior to what it really is. Have you experienced history within yourselves, commotions, earthquakes, long and profound sadness, and sudden flashes of happiness? Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools? Have you really undergone the delusions and woe of the good people? and also the woe and the peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you may speak to me of morality, but not otherwise!546.Slave and Idealist.—The followers of Epictetus would doubtless not be to the taste of those who are now striving after the ideal. The constant tension of his being, the indefatigable inward glance, the prudent and reserved incommunicativeness of his eye whenever it happens to gaze upon the outer world, and above all, his silence or laconic speech: all these are characteristics of the strictest fortitude,—and what would our idealists, who above all else are desirous of expansion, care for this? But in spite of all this the Stoic is not fanatical. He detests the display and boasting of our idealists: his pride, however great it may be, is not eager to disturb others. It permits of a certain gentle approach, and has no desire to spoil anybody's good humour—nay, it can even smile. A great deal of ancient humanity is to be seen exemplified in this ideal. The most excellent feature about it, however, is that the thinker is completely free from the[pg 377]fear of God, strictly believes in reason, and is no preacher of penitence.Epictetus was a slave: his ideal man is without any particular rank, and may exist in any grade of society, but above all he is to be sought in the deepest and lowest social classes, as the silent and self-sufficient man in the midst of a general state of servitude, a man who defends himself alone against the outer world, and is constantly living in a state of the highest fortitude. He is distinguished from the Christian especially, because the latter lives in hope in the promise of“unspeakable glory,”permits presents to be made to him, and expects and accepts the best things from divine love and grace, and not from himself. Epictetus, on the other hand, neither hopes nor allows his best treasure to be given him—he possesses it already, holds it bravely in his hand, and defies the world to take it away from him. Christianity was devised for another class of ancient slaves, for those who had a weak will and weak reason—that is to say, for the majority of slaves.547.The Tyrants of the Intellect.—The progress of science is at the present time no longer hindered by the purely accidental fact that man attains to about seventy years, which was the case far too long. In former times people wished to master the entire extent of knowledge within this period, and all the methods of knowledge were valued according to this general desire. Minor[pg 378]questions and individual experiments were looked upon as unworthy of notice: people wanted to take the shortest path under the impression that, since everything in this world seemed to be arranged with a view to man's needs, even the acquirement of knowledge was regulated in view of the limits of human life.To solve everything at a single stroke, with one word—this was the secret desire; and the task was represented in the symbol of the Gordian knot or the egg of Columbus. No one doubted that it was possible to reach the goal of knowledge after the manner of Alexander or Columbus, and to settle all questions with one answer.“There is a mystery to be solved,”seemed to be the aim of life in the eyes of the philosopher: it was necessary in the first place to find out what this enigma was, and to condense the problem of the world into the simplest enigmatical formula possible. The boundless ambition and delight of being the“unraveller of the world”charmed the dreams of many a thinker: nothing seemed to him worth troubling about in this world but the means of bringing everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Philosophy thus became a kind of supreme struggle for the tyrannical sway over the intellect, and no one doubted that such a tyrannical domination was reserved for some very happy, subtle, ingenious, bold, and powerful person—a single individual!—and many (the last was Schopenhauer) fancied themselves to be this privileged person.From this it follows that, on the whole, science has up to the present remained in a rather backward[pg 379]state owing to the moral narrow-mindedness of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to be pursued from a higher and more generous motive.“What do I matter?”is written over the door of the thinker of the future.548.Victory Over Power.—If we consider all that has been venerated up to the present as“superhuman intellect”or“genius,”we must come to the sad conclusion that, considered as a whole, the intellectuality of mankind must have been extremely low and poor: so little mind has hitherto been necessary in order to feel at once considerably superior to all this! Alas for the cheap glory of“genius”! How quickly has it been raised to the throne, and its worship grown into a custom! We still fall on our knees before power—according to the old custom of slaves—and nevertheless, when the degree of venerability comes to be determined, only the degree of reason in the power will be the deciding factor. We must find out, indeed, to how great an extent power has been overcome by something higher, which it now obeys as a tool and instrument.As yet, however, there have been too few eyes for such investigations: even in the majority of cases the mere valuation of genius has almost been looked upon as blasphemy. And thus perhaps everything that is most beautiful still takes place in the midst of darkness and vanishes in endless night almost as soon as it has made its appearance,—I[pg 380]refer to the spectacle of that power which a genius does not lay out upon works, but upon himself as a work, that is, his own self-control, the purifying of his own imagination, the order and selection in his inspirations and tasks. The great man ever remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims worship, like some distant star: his victory over power remains without witnesses, and hence also without songs and singers. The hierarchy of the great men in all the past history of the human race has not yet been determined.549.Flight from One's Self.—Those sufferers from intellectual spasms who are impatient towards themselves and look upon themselves with a gloomy eye—such as Byron or Alfred de Musset—and who, in everything that they do, resemble runaway horses, and from their own works derive only a transient joy and an ardent passion which almost bursts their veins, followed by sterility and disenchantment—how are they able to bear up! They would fain attain to something“beyond themselves.”If we happen to be Christians, and are seized by such a desire as this, we strive to reach God and to become one with Him; if we are a Shakespeare we shall be glad to perish in images of a passionate life; if we are like Byron we long for actions, because these detach us from ourselves to an even greater extent than thoughts, feelings, and works.And should the desire for performing great deeds really be at bottom nothing but a flight from our own selves?—as Pascal would ask us. And indeed[pg 381]this assertion might be proved by considering the most noble representations of this desire for action: in this respect let us remember, bringing the knowledge of an alienist to our aid, that four of the greatest men of all ages who were possessed of this lust for action were epileptics—Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; and Byron likewise was subject to the same complaint.550.Knowledge and Beauty.—If men, as they are still in the habit of doing, reserve their veneration and feelings of happiness for works of fancy and imagination, we should not be surprised if they feel chilled and displeased by the contrary of fancy and imagination. The rapture which arises from even the smallest, sure, and definite step in advance into insight, and which our present state of science yields to so many in such abundance—this rapture is in the meantime not believed in by all those who are in the habit of feeling enraptured only when they leave reality altogether and plunge into the depths of vague appearance—romanticism. These people look upon reality as ugly, but they entirely overlook the fact that the knowledge of even the ugliest reality is beautiful, and that the man who can discern much and often is in the end very far from considering as ugly the main items of that reality, the discovery of which has always inspired him with the feeling of happiness.Is there anything“beautiful in itself”? The happiness of those who can recognise augments the beauty of the world, bathing everything that exists[pg 382]in a sunnier light: discernment not only envelops all things in its own beauty, but in the long run permeates the things themselves with its beauty—may ages to come bear witness to the truth of this statement! In the meantime let us recall an old experience: two men so thoroughly different in every respect as Plato and Aristotle were agreed in regard to what constituted superior happiness—not merely their own and that of men in general, but happiness in itself, even the happiness of the gods. They found this happiness to lie in knowledge, in the activity of a well practised and inventive understanding (not in“intuition”like the German theologians and semi-theologians; not in visions, like the mystics; and not in work, like the merely practical men). Similar opinions were expressed by Descartes and Spinoza. What great delight must all these men have felt in knowledge! and how great was the danger that their honesty might give way, and that they themselves might become panegyrists of things!551.Future Virtues.—How has it come about that, the more intelligible the world has become, the more all kinds of ceremonies have diminished? Was fear so frequently the fundamental basis of that awe which overcame us at the sight of anything hitherto unknown and mysterious, and which taught us to fall upon our knees before the unintelligible, and to beg for mercy? And has the world, perhaps, through the very fact that we have[pg 383]grown less timid, lost some of the charms it formerly had for us? Is it not possible that our own dignity and stateliness, our formidable character, has decreased together with our spirit of dread? Perhaps we value the world and ourselves less highly since we have begun to think more boldly about it and ourselves? Perhaps there will come a moment in the future when this courageous spirit of thinking will have reached such a point that it will feel itself soaring in supreme pride, far above men and things—when the wise man, being also the boldest, will see himself and even more particularly existence, the lowest of all beneath himself?This type of courage, which is not far removed from excessive generosity, has been lacking in humanity up to the present.—Oh, that our poets might once again become what they once were: seers, telling us something about what might possibly happen! now that what is real and what is past are being ever more and more taken from them, and must continue to be taken from them—for the time of innocent counterfeiting is at an end! Let them try to enable us to anticipate future virtues, or virtues that will never be found on earth, although they may exist somewhere in the world!—purple-glowing constellations and whole Milky Ways of the beautiful! Where are ye, ye astronomers of the ideal?552.Ideal Selfishness.—Is there a more sacred state than that of pregnancy? To perform every[pg 384]one of our actions in the silent conviction that in one way or another it will be to the benefit of that which is being generated within us—that it must augment its mysterious value, the very thought of which fills us with rapture? At such a time we refrain from many things without having to force ourselves to do so: we suppress the angry word, we grasp the hand forgivingly; our child must be born from all that is best and gentlest. We shun our own harshness and brusqueness in case it should instil a drop of unhappiness into the cup of the beloved unknown. Everything is veiled, ominous; we know nothing about what is going on, but simply wait and try to be prepared. During this time, too, we experience a pure and purifying feeling of profound irresponsibility, similar to that felt by a spectator before a drawn curtain;itis growing,itis coming to light; we have nothing to do with determining its value, or the hour of its arrival. We are thrown back altogether upon indirect, beneficent and defensive influences.“Something greater than we are is growing here”—such is our most secret hope: we prepare everything with a view to his birth and prosperity—not merely everything that is useful, but also the noblest gifts of our souls.We should, and can, live under the influence of such a blessed inspiration! Whether what we are looking forward to is a thought or a deed, our relationship to every essential achievement is none other than that of pregnancy, and all our vainglorious boasting about“willing”and“creating”should be cast to the winds! True and ideal[pg 385]selfishness consists in always watching over and restraining the soul, so that our productiveness may come to a beautiful termination. Thus in this indirect manner we must provide for and watch over the good of all; and the frame of mind, the mood in which we live, is a kind of soothing oil which spreads far around us on the restless souls.—Still, these pregnant ones are funny people! let us therefore dare to be funny also, and not reproach others if they must be the same. And even when this phenomenon becomes dangerous and evil we must not show less respect to that which is generating within us or others than ordinary worldly justice, which does not allow the judge or the hangman to interfere with a pregnant woman.553.Circuitous Routes.—Where does all this philosophy mean to end with its circuitous routes? Does it do more than transpose into reason, so to speak, a continuous and strong impulse—a craving for a mild sun, a bright and bracing atmosphere, southern plants, sea breezes, short meals of meat, eggs, and fruit, hot water to drink, quiet walks for days at a time, little talking, rare and cautious reading, living alone, pure, simple, and almost soldier-like habits—a craving, in short, for all things which are suited to my own personal taste? a philosophy which is in the main the instinct for a personal regimen—an instinct that longs for my air, my height, my temperature, and my kind of health, and takes the circuitous route of my head to persuade me to it![pg 386]There are many other and certainly more lofty philosophies, and not only such as are more gloomy and pretentious than mine—and are they perhaps, taking them as a whole, nothing but intellectual circuitous routes of the same kind of personal impulses?—In the meantime I look with a new eye upon the mysterious and solitary flight of a butterfly high on the rocky banks of the lake where so many plants are growing: there it flies hither and thither, heedless of the fact that its life will last only one more day, and that the night will be too cold for its winged fragility. For it, too, a philosophy might be found, though it might not be my own.554.Leading.18—When we praise progress we only praise the movement and those who do not let us remain on the same spot, and in the circumstances this is certainly something, especially if we live among Egyptians. In changeable Europe, however, where movement is“understood,”to use their own expression,“as a matter of course”—alas, ifweonly understood something about it too!—I praise leaders and forerunners: that is to say, those who always leave themselves behind, and do not care in the least whether any one is following them or not.“Wherever I halt I find myself alone: why should I halt! the desert is still so wide!”—such is the sentiment of the true leader.[pg 387]555.The Least Important Are Sufficient.—We ought to avoid events when we know that even the least important of them frequently enough leave a strong impression upon us—and these we cannot avoid.—The thinker must possess an approximate canon of all the things he still wishes to experience.556.The Four Virtues.—Honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything friendly to us; brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards the vanquished; polite at all times: such do the four cardinal virtues wish us to be.557.Marching Against an Enemy.—How pleasant is the sound of even bad music and bad motives when we are setting out to march against an enemy!558.Not Concealing One's Virtues.—I love those men who are as transparent as water, and who, to use Pope's expression, hide not from view the turbid bottom of their stream. Even they, however, possess a certain vanity, though of a rare and more sublimated kind: some of them would wish us to see nothing but the mud, and to take no notice of the clearness of the water which enables us to look right to the bottom. No less a man than[pg 388]Gautama Buddha has imagined the vanity of these few in the formula,“Let your sins appear before men, and conceal your virtues.”But this would exhibit a disagreeable spectacle to the world—it would be a sin against good taste.559."Nothing in Excess!"—How often is the individual recommended to set up a goal which it is beyond his power to reach, in order that he may at least attain that which lies within the scope of his abilities and most strenuous efforts! Is it really so desirable, however, that he should do so? Do not the best men who try to act according to this doctrine, together with their best deeds, necessarily assume a somewhat exaggerated and distorted appearance on account of their excessive tension? and in the future will not a grey mist of failure envelop the world, owing to the fact that we may see everywhere struggling athletes and tremendous gestures, but nowhere a conqueror crowned with the laurel, and rejoicing in his victory?560.What we are Free to do.—We can act as the gardeners of our impulses, and—which few people know—we may cultivate the seeds of anger, pity, vanity, or excessive brooding, and make these things fecund and productive, just as we can train a beautiful plant to grow along trellis-work. We may do this with the good or bad taste of a[pg 389]gardener, and as it were, in the French, English, Dutch, or Chinese style. We may let nature take its own course, only trimming and embellishing a little here and there; and finally, without any knowledge or consideration, we may even allow the plants to spring up in accordance with their own natural growth and limitations, and fight out their battle among themselves,—nay, we can even take delight in such chaos, though we may possibly have a hard time with it! All this is at our option: but how many know that it is? Do not the majority of people believe in themselves as complete and perfect facts? and have not the great philosophers set their seal on this prejudice through their doctrine of the unchangeability of character?561.Letting our Happiness also Shine.—In the same way as painters are unable to reproduce the deep brilliant hue of the natural sky, and are compelled to use all the colours they require for their landscapes a few shades deeper than nature has made them—just as they, by means of this trick, succeed in approaching the brilliancy and harmony of nature's own hues, so also must poets and philosophers, for whom the luminous rays of happiness are inaccessible, endeavour to find an expedient. By picturing all things a shade or two darker than they really are, their light, in which they excel, will produce almost exactly the same effect as the sunlight, and will resemble the light of true happiness.—The pessimist, on the other hand, who paints[pg 390]all things in the blackest and most sombre hues, only makes use of bright flames, lightning, celestial glories, and everything that possesses a glaring, dazzling power, and bewilders our eyes: to him light only serves the purpose of increasing the horror, and of making us look upon things as being more dreadful than they really are.

541.How we should turn to Stone.—By slowly, very, very slowly, becoming hard like a[pg 368]precious stone, and at last lie still, a joy to all eternity.542.The Philosopher and Old Age.—It is not wise to permit evening to act as a judge of the day; for only too often in this case weariness becomes the judge of success and good will. We should also take the greatest precautions in regard to everything connected with old age and its judgment upon life, more especially since old age, like the evening, is fond of assuming a new and charming morality, and knows well enough how to humiliate the day by the glow of the evening skies, twilight and a peaceful and wistful silence. The reverence which we feel for an old man, especially if he is an old thinker and sage, easily blinds us to the deterioration of his intellect, and it is always necessary to bring to light the hidden symptoms of such a deterioration and lassitude, that is to say, to uncover the physiological phenomenon which is still concealed behind the old man's moral judgments and prejudices, in case we should be deceived by our veneration for him, and do something to the disadvantage of knowledge. For it is not seldom that the illusion of a great moral renovation and regeneration takes possession of the old man. Basing his views upon this, he then proceeds to express his opinions on the work and development of his life as if he had only then for the first time become clearsighted—and nevertheless it is not wisdom, but fatigue, which prompts his present state of well-being and his positive judgments.[pg 369]The most dangerous indication of this weariness is above all the belief in genius, which as a rule only arises in great and semi-great men of intellect at this period of their lives: the belief in an exceptional position, and exceptional rights. The thinker who thus believes himself to be inspired by genius henceforth deems it permissible for him to take things more easily, and takes advantage of his position as a genius to decree rather than to prove. It is probable, however, that the need felt by the weary intellect for alleviation is the main source of this belief—it precedes it in time, though appearances may indicate the contrary.At this time too, as the result of the love which all weary and old people feel for enjoyment, such men as those I am speaking of wish to enjoy the results of their thinking instead of again testing them and scattering the seeds abroad once more. This leads them to make their thoughts palatable and enjoyable, and to take away their dryness, coldness, and want of flavour; and thus it comes about that the old thinker apparently raises himself above his life's work, while in reality he spoils it by infusing into it a certain amount of fantasy, sweetness, flavour, poetic mists, and mystic lights. This is how Plato ended, as did also that great and honest Frenchman, Auguste Comte, who, as a conqueror of the exact sciences, cannot be matched either among the Germans or the Englishmen of this century.There is a third symptom of fatigue: that ambition which actuated the great thinker when he was young, and which could not then find anything[pg 370]to satisfy it, has also grown old, and, like one that has no more time to lose, it begins to snatch at the coarser and more immediate means of its gratification, means which are peculiar to active, dominating, violent, and conquering dispositions. From this time onwards the thinker wishes to found institutions which shall bear his name, instead of erecting mere brain-structures. What are now to him the ethereal victories and honours to be met with in the realm of proofs and refutations, or the perpetuation of his fame in books, or the thrill of exultation in the soul of the reader? But the institution, on the other hand, is a temple, as he well knows—a temple of stone, a durable edifice, which will keep its god alive with more certainty than the sacrifices of rare and tender souls.17Perhaps, too, at this period of his life the old thinker will for the first time meet with that love which is fitted for a god rather than for a human being, and his whole nature becomes softened and sweetened in the rays of such a sun, like fruit in autumn. Yes, he grows more divine and beautiful, this great old man,—and nevertheless it is old age and weariness which permit him to ripen in this way, to grow more silent, and to repose in the luminous adulation of a woman. Now it is all up with his former desire—a desire which was superior even to his own ego—for real disciples, followers who would carry on his thought, that is, true opponents. This desire arose from his hitherto undiminished energy, the conscious pride he felt in[pg 371]being able at any time to become an opponent himself,—nay, even the deadly enemy of his own doctrine,—but now his desire is for resolute partisans, unwavering comrades, auxiliary forces, heralds, a pompous train of followers. He is now no longer able to bear that dreadful isolation in which every intellect that advances beyond the others is compelled to live. From this time forward he surrounds himself with objects of veneration, companionship, tenderness, and love; but he also wishes to enjoy the privileges of all religious people, and to worship what he venerates most highly in his little community—he will even go as far as to invent a religion for the purpose of having a community.Thus lives the wise old man, and in living thus he falls almost imperceptibly into such a deplorable proximity to priestly and poetic extravagances that it is difficult to recollect all his wise and severe period of youth, the former rigid morality of his mind, and his truly virile dread of fancies and misplaced enthusiasm. When he was formerly in the habit of comparing himself with the older thinkers, he did so merely that he might measure his weakness against their strength, and that he might become colder and more audacious towards himself; but now he only makes this comparison to intoxicate himself with his own delusions. Formerly he looked forward with confidence to future thinkers, and he even took a delight in imagining himself to be cast into the shade by their brighter light. Now, however, he is mortified to think that he cannot be the last: he endeavours to discover some way of[pg 372]imposing upon mankind, together with the inheritance which he is leaving to them, a restriction of sovereign thinking. He fears and reviles the pride and the love of freedom of individual minds: after him no one must allow his intellect to govern with absolute unrestriction: he himself wishes to remain for ever the bulwark on which the waves of ideas may break—these are his secret wishes, and perhaps, indeed, they are not always secret.The hard fact upon which such wishes are based, however, is that he himself has come to a halt before his teaching, and has set up his boundary stone, his“thus far and no farther.”In canonising himself he has drawn up his own death warrant: from now on his mind cannot develop further. His race is run; the hour-hand stops. Whenever a great thinker tries to make himself a lasting institution for posterity, we may readily suppose that he has passed the climax of his powers, and is very tired, very near the setting of his sun.543.We must not make Passion an Argument for Truth.—Oh, you kind-hearted and even noble enthusiasts, I know you! You wish to seem right in our eyes as well as in your own, but especially in your own!—and an irritable and subtle evil conscience so often spurs you on against your very enthusiasm! How ingenious you then become in deceiving your conscience, and lulling it to sleep! How you hate honest, simple, and clean souls; how you avoid their innocent glances! That better knowledge whose representatives they are, and[pg 373]whose voice you hear only too distinctly within yourselves when it questions your belief,—how you try to cast suspicion upon it as a bad habit, as a disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of your own intellectual health! It drives you on to hate even criticism, science, reason! You must falsify history to make it testify in your favour; you must deny virtues in case they should obscure those of your own idols and ideals.Coloured images where arguments are needed! Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists! Ambrosian nights! well do you know how to enlighten and to darken—to darken by means of light! and indeed when your passion can no longer be kept within bounds the moment comes when you say to yourselves,“Now I have won for myself a good conscience, now I am exalted, courageous, self-denying, magnanimous; now I am honest!”How you long for these moments when your passion will confer upon you full and absolute rights, and also, as it were, innocence. How happy you are when engaged in battle and inspired with ecstasy or courage, when you are elated beyond yourself, when gnawing doubt has left you, and when you can even decree:“Any man who is not in ecstasy as we are cannot by any chance know what or where truth is.”How you long to meet with those who share your belief in this state—which is a state of intellectual depravity—and to set your own fire alight with their flames! Oh, for your martyrdom, your victory of the sanctified lie! Must you really inflict so much pain upon yourselves?—Mustyou?[pg 374]544.How Philosophy is now Practised.—I can see quite well that our philosophising youths, women, and artists require from philosophy exactly the opposite of what the Greeks derived from it. What does he who does not hear the continual exultation that resounds through every speech and counter-argument in a Platonic dialogue, this exultation over the new invention of rational thinking, know about Plato or about ancient philosophy? At that time souls were filled with enthusiasm when they gave themselves up to the severe and sober sport of ideas, generalisations, refutations,—that enthusiasm which perhaps those old, great, severe, and prudent contrapuntists in music have also known. At that time the Greek palate still possessed that older and formerly omnipotent taste: and by the side of this taste their new taste appeared to be enveloped in so much charm that the divine art of dialectic was sung by hesitating voices as if its followers were intoxicated with the frenzy of love. That old form of thinking, however, was thought within the bounds of morality, and for it nothing existed but fixed judgments and established facts, and it had no reasons but those of authority. Thinking, therefore, was simply a matter of repetition, and all the enjoyment of speech and dialogue could only lie in their form.Wherever the substance of a thing is looked upon as eternal and universally approved, there is only one great charm, the charm of variable forms, that is, of fashion. Even in the poets ever since the[pg 375]time of Homer, and later on in the case of the sculptors, the Greeks did not enjoy originality, but its contrary. It was Socrates who discovered another charm, that of cause and effect, of reason and sequence, and we moderns have become so used to it, and have been brought up to the necessity of logic that we look upon it as the normal taste, and as such it cannot but be repugnant to ardent and presumptuous people. Such people are pleased by whatever stands out boldly from the normal: their more subtle ambition leads them to believe only too readily that they are exceptional souls, not dialectic and rational beings, but, let us say,“intuitive”beings gifted with an“inner sense,”or with a certain“intellectual perception.”Above all, however, they wish to be“artistic natures”with a genius in their heads, and a demon in their bodies, and consequently with special rights in this world and in the world to come—especially the divine privilege of being incomprehensible.And people like these are“going in for”philosophy nowadays! I fear they will discover one day that they have made a mistake—what they are looking for is religion!545.But we do not Believe you.—You would fain pass for psychologists, but we shall not allow it! Are we not to notice that you pretend to be more experienced, profound, passionate, and perfect than you actually are?—just as we notice in yonder painter that there is a trifling presumptuousness in[pg 376]his manner of wielding the brush, and in yonder musician that he brings forward his theme with the desire to make it appear superior to what it really is. Have you experienced history within yourselves, commotions, earthquakes, long and profound sadness, and sudden flashes of happiness? Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools? Have you really undergone the delusions and woe of the good people? and also the woe and the peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you may speak to me of morality, but not otherwise!546.Slave and Idealist.—The followers of Epictetus would doubtless not be to the taste of those who are now striving after the ideal. The constant tension of his being, the indefatigable inward glance, the prudent and reserved incommunicativeness of his eye whenever it happens to gaze upon the outer world, and above all, his silence or laconic speech: all these are characteristics of the strictest fortitude,—and what would our idealists, who above all else are desirous of expansion, care for this? But in spite of all this the Stoic is not fanatical. He detests the display and boasting of our idealists: his pride, however great it may be, is not eager to disturb others. It permits of a certain gentle approach, and has no desire to spoil anybody's good humour—nay, it can even smile. A great deal of ancient humanity is to be seen exemplified in this ideal. The most excellent feature about it, however, is that the thinker is completely free from the[pg 377]fear of God, strictly believes in reason, and is no preacher of penitence.Epictetus was a slave: his ideal man is without any particular rank, and may exist in any grade of society, but above all he is to be sought in the deepest and lowest social classes, as the silent and self-sufficient man in the midst of a general state of servitude, a man who defends himself alone against the outer world, and is constantly living in a state of the highest fortitude. He is distinguished from the Christian especially, because the latter lives in hope in the promise of“unspeakable glory,”permits presents to be made to him, and expects and accepts the best things from divine love and grace, and not from himself. Epictetus, on the other hand, neither hopes nor allows his best treasure to be given him—he possesses it already, holds it bravely in his hand, and defies the world to take it away from him. Christianity was devised for another class of ancient slaves, for those who had a weak will and weak reason—that is to say, for the majority of slaves.547.The Tyrants of the Intellect.—The progress of science is at the present time no longer hindered by the purely accidental fact that man attains to about seventy years, which was the case far too long. In former times people wished to master the entire extent of knowledge within this period, and all the methods of knowledge were valued according to this general desire. Minor[pg 378]questions and individual experiments were looked upon as unworthy of notice: people wanted to take the shortest path under the impression that, since everything in this world seemed to be arranged with a view to man's needs, even the acquirement of knowledge was regulated in view of the limits of human life.To solve everything at a single stroke, with one word—this was the secret desire; and the task was represented in the symbol of the Gordian knot or the egg of Columbus. No one doubted that it was possible to reach the goal of knowledge after the manner of Alexander or Columbus, and to settle all questions with one answer.“There is a mystery to be solved,”seemed to be the aim of life in the eyes of the philosopher: it was necessary in the first place to find out what this enigma was, and to condense the problem of the world into the simplest enigmatical formula possible. The boundless ambition and delight of being the“unraveller of the world”charmed the dreams of many a thinker: nothing seemed to him worth troubling about in this world but the means of bringing everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Philosophy thus became a kind of supreme struggle for the tyrannical sway over the intellect, and no one doubted that such a tyrannical domination was reserved for some very happy, subtle, ingenious, bold, and powerful person—a single individual!—and many (the last was Schopenhauer) fancied themselves to be this privileged person.From this it follows that, on the whole, science has up to the present remained in a rather backward[pg 379]state owing to the moral narrow-mindedness of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to be pursued from a higher and more generous motive.“What do I matter?”is written over the door of the thinker of the future.548.Victory Over Power.—If we consider all that has been venerated up to the present as“superhuman intellect”or“genius,”we must come to the sad conclusion that, considered as a whole, the intellectuality of mankind must have been extremely low and poor: so little mind has hitherto been necessary in order to feel at once considerably superior to all this! Alas for the cheap glory of“genius”! How quickly has it been raised to the throne, and its worship grown into a custom! We still fall on our knees before power—according to the old custom of slaves—and nevertheless, when the degree of venerability comes to be determined, only the degree of reason in the power will be the deciding factor. We must find out, indeed, to how great an extent power has been overcome by something higher, which it now obeys as a tool and instrument.As yet, however, there have been too few eyes for such investigations: even in the majority of cases the mere valuation of genius has almost been looked upon as blasphemy. And thus perhaps everything that is most beautiful still takes place in the midst of darkness and vanishes in endless night almost as soon as it has made its appearance,—I[pg 380]refer to the spectacle of that power which a genius does not lay out upon works, but upon himself as a work, that is, his own self-control, the purifying of his own imagination, the order and selection in his inspirations and tasks. The great man ever remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims worship, like some distant star: his victory over power remains without witnesses, and hence also without songs and singers. The hierarchy of the great men in all the past history of the human race has not yet been determined.549.Flight from One's Self.—Those sufferers from intellectual spasms who are impatient towards themselves and look upon themselves with a gloomy eye—such as Byron or Alfred de Musset—and who, in everything that they do, resemble runaway horses, and from their own works derive only a transient joy and an ardent passion which almost bursts their veins, followed by sterility and disenchantment—how are they able to bear up! They would fain attain to something“beyond themselves.”If we happen to be Christians, and are seized by such a desire as this, we strive to reach God and to become one with Him; if we are a Shakespeare we shall be glad to perish in images of a passionate life; if we are like Byron we long for actions, because these detach us from ourselves to an even greater extent than thoughts, feelings, and works.And should the desire for performing great deeds really be at bottom nothing but a flight from our own selves?—as Pascal would ask us. And indeed[pg 381]this assertion might be proved by considering the most noble representations of this desire for action: in this respect let us remember, bringing the knowledge of an alienist to our aid, that four of the greatest men of all ages who were possessed of this lust for action were epileptics—Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; and Byron likewise was subject to the same complaint.550.Knowledge and Beauty.—If men, as they are still in the habit of doing, reserve their veneration and feelings of happiness for works of fancy and imagination, we should not be surprised if they feel chilled and displeased by the contrary of fancy and imagination. The rapture which arises from even the smallest, sure, and definite step in advance into insight, and which our present state of science yields to so many in such abundance—this rapture is in the meantime not believed in by all those who are in the habit of feeling enraptured only when they leave reality altogether and plunge into the depths of vague appearance—romanticism. These people look upon reality as ugly, but they entirely overlook the fact that the knowledge of even the ugliest reality is beautiful, and that the man who can discern much and often is in the end very far from considering as ugly the main items of that reality, the discovery of which has always inspired him with the feeling of happiness.Is there anything“beautiful in itself”? The happiness of those who can recognise augments the beauty of the world, bathing everything that exists[pg 382]in a sunnier light: discernment not only envelops all things in its own beauty, but in the long run permeates the things themselves with its beauty—may ages to come bear witness to the truth of this statement! In the meantime let us recall an old experience: two men so thoroughly different in every respect as Plato and Aristotle were agreed in regard to what constituted superior happiness—not merely their own and that of men in general, but happiness in itself, even the happiness of the gods. They found this happiness to lie in knowledge, in the activity of a well practised and inventive understanding (not in“intuition”like the German theologians and semi-theologians; not in visions, like the mystics; and not in work, like the merely practical men). Similar opinions were expressed by Descartes and Spinoza. What great delight must all these men have felt in knowledge! and how great was the danger that their honesty might give way, and that they themselves might become panegyrists of things!551.Future Virtues.—How has it come about that, the more intelligible the world has become, the more all kinds of ceremonies have diminished? Was fear so frequently the fundamental basis of that awe which overcame us at the sight of anything hitherto unknown and mysterious, and which taught us to fall upon our knees before the unintelligible, and to beg for mercy? And has the world, perhaps, through the very fact that we have[pg 383]grown less timid, lost some of the charms it formerly had for us? Is it not possible that our own dignity and stateliness, our formidable character, has decreased together with our spirit of dread? Perhaps we value the world and ourselves less highly since we have begun to think more boldly about it and ourselves? Perhaps there will come a moment in the future when this courageous spirit of thinking will have reached such a point that it will feel itself soaring in supreme pride, far above men and things—when the wise man, being also the boldest, will see himself and even more particularly existence, the lowest of all beneath himself?This type of courage, which is not far removed from excessive generosity, has been lacking in humanity up to the present.—Oh, that our poets might once again become what they once were: seers, telling us something about what might possibly happen! now that what is real and what is past are being ever more and more taken from them, and must continue to be taken from them—for the time of innocent counterfeiting is at an end! Let them try to enable us to anticipate future virtues, or virtues that will never be found on earth, although they may exist somewhere in the world!—purple-glowing constellations and whole Milky Ways of the beautiful! Where are ye, ye astronomers of the ideal?552.Ideal Selfishness.—Is there a more sacred state than that of pregnancy? To perform every[pg 384]one of our actions in the silent conviction that in one way or another it will be to the benefit of that which is being generated within us—that it must augment its mysterious value, the very thought of which fills us with rapture? At such a time we refrain from many things without having to force ourselves to do so: we suppress the angry word, we grasp the hand forgivingly; our child must be born from all that is best and gentlest. We shun our own harshness and brusqueness in case it should instil a drop of unhappiness into the cup of the beloved unknown. Everything is veiled, ominous; we know nothing about what is going on, but simply wait and try to be prepared. During this time, too, we experience a pure and purifying feeling of profound irresponsibility, similar to that felt by a spectator before a drawn curtain;itis growing,itis coming to light; we have nothing to do with determining its value, or the hour of its arrival. We are thrown back altogether upon indirect, beneficent and defensive influences.“Something greater than we are is growing here”—such is our most secret hope: we prepare everything with a view to his birth and prosperity—not merely everything that is useful, but also the noblest gifts of our souls.We should, and can, live under the influence of such a blessed inspiration! Whether what we are looking forward to is a thought or a deed, our relationship to every essential achievement is none other than that of pregnancy, and all our vainglorious boasting about“willing”and“creating”should be cast to the winds! True and ideal[pg 385]selfishness consists in always watching over and restraining the soul, so that our productiveness may come to a beautiful termination. Thus in this indirect manner we must provide for and watch over the good of all; and the frame of mind, the mood in which we live, is a kind of soothing oil which spreads far around us on the restless souls.—Still, these pregnant ones are funny people! let us therefore dare to be funny also, and not reproach others if they must be the same. And even when this phenomenon becomes dangerous and evil we must not show less respect to that which is generating within us or others than ordinary worldly justice, which does not allow the judge or the hangman to interfere with a pregnant woman.553.Circuitous Routes.—Where does all this philosophy mean to end with its circuitous routes? Does it do more than transpose into reason, so to speak, a continuous and strong impulse—a craving for a mild sun, a bright and bracing atmosphere, southern plants, sea breezes, short meals of meat, eggs, and fruit, hot water to drink, quiet walks for days at a time, little talking, rare and cautious reading, living alone, pure, simple, and almost soldier-like habits—a craving, in short, for all things which are suited to my own personal taste? a philosophy which is in the main the instinct for a personal regimen—an instinct that longs for my air, my height, my temperature, and my kind of health, and takes the circuitous route of my head to persuade me to it![pg 386]There are many other and certainly more lofty philosophies, and not only such as are more gloomy and pretentious than mine—and are they perhaps, taking them as a whole, nothing but intellectual circuitous routes of the same kind of personal impulses?—In the meantime I look with a new eye upon the mysterious and solitary flight of a butterfly high on the rocky banks of the lake where so many plants are growing: there it flies hither and thither, heedless of the fact that its life will last only one more day, and that the night will be too cold for its winged fragility. For it, too, a philosophy might be found, though it might not be my own.554.Leading.18—When we praise progress we only praise the movement and those who do not let us remain on the same spot, and in the circumstances this is certainly something, especially if we live among Egyptians. In changeable Europe, however, where movement is“understood,”to use their own expression,“as a matter of course”—alas, ifweonly understood something about it too!—I praise leaders and forerunners: that is to say, those who always leave themselves behind, and do not care in the least whether any one is following them or not.“Wherever I halt I find myself alone: why should I halt! the desert is still so wide!”—such is the sentiment of the true leader.[pg 387]555.The Least Important Are Sufficient.—We ought to avoid events when we know that even the least important of them frequently enough leave a strong impression upon us—and these we cannot avoid.—The thinker must possess an approximate canon of all the things he still wishes to experience.556.The Four Virtues.—Honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything friendly to us; brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards the vanquished; polite at all times: such do the four cardinal virtues wish us to be.557.Marching Against an Enemy.—How pleasant is the sound of even bad music and bad motives when we are setting out to march against an enemy!558.Not Concealing One's Virtues.—I love those men who are as transparent as water, and who, to use Pope's expression, hide not from view the turbid bottom of their stream. Even they, however, possess a certain vanity, though of a rare and more sublimated kind: some of them would wish us to see nothing but the mud, and to take no notice of the clearness of the water which enables us to look right to the bottom. No less a man than[pg 388]Gautama Buddha has imagined the vanity of these few in the formula,“Let your sins appear before men, and conceal your virtues.”But this would exhibit a disagreeable spectacle to the world—it would be a sin against good taste.559."Nothing in Excess!"—How often is the individual recommended to set up a goal which it is beyond his power to reach, in order that he may at least attain that which lies within the scope of his abilities and most strenuous efforts! Is it really so desirable, however, that he should do so? Do not the best men who try to act according to this doctrine, together with their best deeds, necessarily assume a somewhat exaggerated and distorted appearance on account of their excessive tension? and in the future will not a grey mist of failure envelop the world, owing to the fact that we may see everywhere struggling athletes and tremendous gestures, but nowhere a conqueror crowned with the laurel, and rejoicing in his victory?560.What we are Free to do.—We can act as the gardeners of our impulses, and—which few people know—we may cultivate the seeds of anger, pity, vanity, or excessive brooding, and make these things fecund and productive, just as we can train a beautiful plant to grow along trellis-work. We may do this with the good or bad taste of a[pg 389]gardener, and as it were, in the French, English, Dutch, or Chinese style. We may let nature take its own course, only trimming and embellishing a little here and there; and finally, without any knowledge or consideration, we may even allow the plants to spring up in accordance with their own natural growth and limitations, and fight out their battle among themselves,—nay, we can even take delight in such chaos, though we may possibly have a hard time with it! All this is at our option: but how many know that it is? Do not the majority of people believe in themselves as complete and perfect facts? and have not the great philosophers set their seal on this prejudice through their doctrine of the unchangeability of character?561.Letting our Happiness also Shine.—In the same way as painters are unable to reproduce the deep brilliant hue of the natural sky, and are compelled to use all the colours they require for their landscapes a few shades deeper than nature has made them—just as they, by means of this trick, succeed in approaching the brilliancy and harmony of nature's own hues, so also must poets and philosophers, for whom the luminous rays of happiness are inaccessible, endeavour to find an expedient. By picturing all things a shade or two darker than they really are, their light, in which they excel, will produce almost exactly the same effect as the sunlight, and will resemble the light of true happiness.—The pessimist, on the other hand, who paints[pg 390]all things in the blackest and most sombre hues, only makes use of bright flames, lightning, celestial glories, and everything that possesses a glaring, dazzling power, and bewilders our eyes: to him light only serves the purpose of increasing the horror, and of making us look upon things as being more dreadful than they really are.

541.How we should turn to Stone.—By slowly, very, very slowly, becoming hard like a[pg 368]precious stone, and at last lie still, a joy to all eternity.542.The Philosopher and Old Age.—It is not wise to permit evening to act as a judge of the day; for only too often in this case weariness becomes the judge of success and good will. We should also take the greatest precautions in regard to everything connected with old age and its judgment upon life, more especially since old age, like the evening, is fond of assuming a new and charming morality, and knows well enough how to humiliate the day by the glow of the evening skies, twilight and a peaceful and wistful silence. The reverence which we feel for an old man, especially if he is an old thinker and sage, easily blinds us to the deterioration of his intellect, and it is always necessary to bring to light the hidden symptoms of such a deterioration and lassitude, that is to say, to uncover the physiological phenomenon which is still concealed behind the old man's moral judgments and prejudices, in case we should be deceived by our veneration for him, and do something to the disadvantage of knowledge. For it is not seldom that the illusion of a great moral renovation and regeneration takes possession of the old man. Basing his views upon this, he then proceeds to express his opinions on the work and development of his life as if he had only then for the first time become clearsighted—and nevertheless it is not wisdom, but fatigue, which prompts his present state of well-being and his positive judgments.[pg 369]The most dangerous indication of this weariness is above all the belief in genius, which as a rule only arises in great and semi-great men of intellect at this period of their lives: the belief in an exceptional position, and exceptional rights. The thinker who thus believes himself to be inspired by genius henceforth deems it permissible for him to take things more easily, and takes advantage of his position as a genius to decree rather than to prove. It is probable, however, that the need felt by the weary intellect for alleviation is the main source of this belief—it precedes it in time, though appearances may indicate the contrary.At this time too, as the result of the love which all weary and old people feel for enjoyment, such men as those I am speaking of wish to enjoy the results of their thinking instead of again testing them and scattering the seeds abroad once more. This leads them to make their thoughts palatable and enjoyable, and to take away their dryness, coldness, and want of flavour; and thus it comes about that the old thinker apparently raises himself above his life's work, while in reality he spoils it by infusing into it a certain amount of fantasy, sweetness, flavour, poetic mists, and mystic lights. This is how Plato ended, as did also that great and honest Frenchman, Auguste Comte, who, as a conqueror of the exact sciences, cannot be matched either among the Germans or the Englishmen of this century.There is a third symptom of fatigue: that ambition which actuated the great thinker when he was young, and which could not then find anything[pg 370]to satisfy it, has also grown old, and, like one that has no more time to lose, it begins to snatch at the coarser and more immediate means of its gratification, means which are peculiar to active, dominating, violent, and conquering dispositions. From this time onwards the thinker wishes to found institutions which shall bear his name, instead of erecting mere brain-structures. What are now to him the ethereal victories and honours to be met with in the realm of proofs and refutations, or the perpetuation of his fame in books, or the thrill of exultation in the soul of the reader? But the institution, on the other hand, is a temple, as he well knows—a temple of stone, a durable edifice, which will keep its god alive with more certainty than the sacrifices of rare and tender souls.17Perhaps, too, at this period of his life the old thinker will for the first time meet with that love which is fitted for a god rather than for a human being, and his whole nature becomes softened and sweetened in the rays of such a sun, like fruit in autumn. Yes, he grows more divine and beautiful, this great old man,—and nevertheless it is old age and weariness which permit him to ripen in this way, to grow more silent, and to repose in the luminous adulation of a woman. Now it is all up with his former desire—a desire which was superior even to his own ego—for real disciples, followers who would carry on his thought, that is, true opponents. This desire arose from his hitherto undiminished energy, the conscious pride he felt in[pg 371]being able at any time to become an opponent himself,—nay, even the deadly enemy of his own doctrine,—but now his desire is for resolute partisans, unwavering comrades, auxiliary forces, heralds, a pompous train of followers. He is now no longer able to bear that dreadful isolation in which every intellect that advances beyond the others is compelled to live. From this time forward he surrounds himself with objects of veneration, companionship, tenderness, and love; but he also wishes to enjoy the privileges of all religious people, and to worship what he venerates most highly in his little community—he will even go as far as to invent a religion for the purpose of having a community.Thus lives the wise old man, and in living thus he falls almost imperceptibly into such a deplorable proximity to priestly and poetic extravagances that it is difficult to recollect all his wise and severe period of youth, the former rigid morality of his mind, and his truly virile dread of fancies and misplaced enthusiasm. When he was formerly in the habit of comparing himself with the older thinkers, he did so merely that he might measure his weakness against their strength, and that he might become colder and more audacious towards himself; but now he only makes this comparison to intoxicate himself with his own delusions. Formerly he looked forward with confidence to future thinkers, and he even took a delight in imagining himself to be cast into the shade by their brighter light. Now, however, he is mortified to think that he cannot be the last: he endeavours to discover some way of[pg 372]imposing upon mankind, together with the inheritance which he is leaving to them, a restriction of sovereign thinking. He fears and reviles the pride and the love of freedom of individual minds: after him no one must allow his intellect to govern with absolute unrestriction: he himself wishes to remain for ever the bulwark on which the waves of ideas may break—these are his secret wishes, and perhaps, indeed, they are not always secret.The hard fact upon which such wishes are based, however, is that he himself has come to a halt before his teaching, and has set up his boundary stone, his“thus far and no farther.”In canonising himself he has drawn up his own death warrant: from now on his mind cannot develop further. His race is run; the hour-hand stops. Whenever a great thinker tries to make himself a lasting institution for posterity, we may readily suppose that he has passed the climax of his powers, and is very tired, very near the setting of his sun.543.We must not make Passion an Argument for Truth.—Oh, you kind-hearted and even noble enthusiasts, I know you! You wish to seem right in our eyes as well as in your own, but especially in your own!—and an irritable and subtle evil conscience so often spurs you on against your very enthusiasm! How ingenious you then become in deceiving your conscience, and lulling it to sleep! How you hate honest, simple, and clean souls; how you avoid their innocent glances! That better knowledge whose representatives they are, and[pg 373]whose voice you hear only too distinctly within yourselves when it questions your belief,—how you try to cast suspicion upon it as a bad habit, as a disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of your own intellectual health! It drives you on to hate even criticism, science, reason! You must falsify history to make it testify in your favour; you must deny virtues in case they should obscure those of your own idols and ideals.Coloured images where arguments are needed! Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists! Ambrosian nights! well do you know how to enlighten and to darken—to darken by means of light! and indeed when your passion can no longer be kept within bounds the moment comes when you say to yourselves,“Now I have won for myself a good conscience, now I am exalted, courageous, self-denying, magnanimous; now I am honest!”How you long for these moments when your passion will confer upon you full and absolute rights, and also, as it were, innocence. How happy you are when engaged in battle and inspired with ecstasy or courage, when you are elated beyond yourself, when gnawing doubt has left you, and when you can even decree:“Any man who is not in ecstasy as we are cannot by any chance know what or where truth is.”How you long to meet with those who share your belief in this state—which is a state of intellectual depravity—and to set your own fire alight with their flames! Oh, for your martyrdom, your victory of the sanctified lie! Must you really inflict so much pain upon yourselves?—Mustyou?[pg 374]544.How Philosophy is now Practised.—I can see quite well that our philosophising youths, women, and artists require from philosophy exactly the opposite of what the Greeks derived from it. What does he who does not hear the continual exultation that resounds through every speech and counter-argument in a Platonic dialogue, this exultation over the new invention of rational thinking, know about Plato or about ancient philosophy? At that time souls were filled with enthusiasm when they gave themselves up to the severe and sober sport of ideas, generalisations, refutations,—that enthusiasm which perhaps those old, great, severe, and prudent contrapuntists in music have also known. At that time the Greek palate still possessed that older and formerly omnipotent taste: and by the side of this taste their new taste appeared to be enveloped in so much charm that the divine art of dialectic was sung by hesitating voices as if its followers were intoxicated with the frenzy of love. That old form of thinking, however, was thought within the bounds of morality, and for it nothing existed but fixed judgments and established facts, and it had no reasons but those of authority. Thinking, therefore, was simply a matter of repetition, and all the enjoyment of speech and dialogue could only lie in their form.Wherever the substance of a thing is looked upon as eternal and universally approved, there is only one great charm, the charm of variable forms, that is, of fashion. Even in the poets ever since the[pg 375]time of Homer, and later on in the case of the sculptors, the Greeks did not enjoy originality, but its contrary. It was Socrates who discovered another charm, that of cause and effect, of reason and sequence, and we moderns have become so used to it, and have been brought up to the necessity of logic that we look upon it as the normal taste, and as such it cannot but be repugnant to ardent and presumptuous people. Such people are pleased by whatever stands out boldly from the normal: their more subtle ambition leads them to believe only too readily that they are exceptional souls, not dialectic and rational beings, but, let us say,“intuitive”beings gifted with an“inner sense,”or with a certain“intellectual perception.”Above all, however, they wish to be“artistic natures”with a genius in their heads, and a demon in their bodies, and consequently with special rights in this world and in the world to come—especially the divine privilege of being incomprehensible.And people like these are“going in for”philosophy nowadays! I fear they will discover one day that they have made a mistake—what they are looking for is religion!545.But we do not Believe you.—You would fain pass for psychologists, but we shall not allow it! Are we not to notice that you pretend to be more experienced, profound, passionate, and perfect than you actually are?—just as we notice in yonder painter that there is a trifling presumptuousness in[pg 376]his manner of wielding the brush, and in yonder musician that he brings forward his theme with the desire to make it appear superior to what it really is. Have you experienced history within yourselves, commotions, earthquakes, long and profound sadness, and sudden flashes of happiness? Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools? Have you really undergone the delusions and woe of the good people? and also the woe and the peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you may speak to me of morality, but not otherwise!546.Slave and Idealist.—The followers of Epictetus would doubtless not be to the taste of those who are now striving after the ideal. The constant tension of his being, the indefatigable inward glance, the prudent and reserved incommunicativeness of his eye whenever it happens to gaze upon the outer world, and above all, his silence or laconic speech: all these are characteristics of the strictest fortitude,—and what would our idealists, who above all else are desirous of expansion, care for this? But in spite of all this the Stoic is not fanatical. He detests the display and boasting of our idealists: his pride, however great it may be, is not eager to disturb others. It permits of a certain gentle approach, and has no desire to spoil anybody's good humour—nay, it can even smile. A great deal of ancient humanity is to be seen exemplified in this ideal. The most excellent feature about it, however, is that the thinker is completely free from the[pg 377]fear of God, strictly believes in reason, and is no preacher of penitence.Epictetus was a slave: his ideal man is without any particular rank, and may exist in any grade of society, but above all he is to be sought in the deepest and lowest social classes, as the silent and self-sufficient man in the midst of a general state of servitude, a man who defends himself alone against the outer world, and is constantly living in a state of the highest fortitude. He is distinguished from the Christian especially, because the latter lives in hope in the promise of“unspeakable glory,”permits presents to be made to him, and expects and accepts the best things from divine love and grace, and not from himself. Epictetus, on the other hand, neither hopes nor allows his best treasure to be given him—he possesses it already, holds it bravely in his hand, and defies the world to take it away from him. Christianity was devised for another class of ancient slaves, for those who had a weak will and weak reason—that is to say, for the majority of slaves.547.The Tyrants of the Intellect.—The progress of science is at the present time no longer hindered by the purely accidental fact that man attains to about seventy years, which was the case far too long. In former times people wished to master the entire extent of knowledge within this period, and all the methods of knowledge were valued according to this general desire. Minor[pg 378]questions and individual experiments were looked upon as unworthy of notice: people wanted to take the shortest path under the impression that, since everything in this world seemed to be arranged with a view to man's needs, even the acquirement of knowledge was regulated in view of the limits of human life.To solve everything at a single stroke, with one word—this was the secret desire; and the task was represented in the symbol of the Gordian knot or the egg of Columbus. No one doubted that it was possible to reach the goal of knowledge after the manner of Alexander or Columbus, and to settle all questions with one answer.“There is a mystery to be solved,”seemed to be the aim of life in the eyes of the philosopher: it was necessary in the first place to find out what this enigma was, and to condense the problem of the world into the simplest enigmatical formula possible. The boundless ambition and delight of being the“unraveller of the world”charmed the dreams of many a thinker: nothing seemed to him worth troubling about in this world but the means of bringing everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Philosophy thus became a kind of supreme struggle for the tyrannical sway over the intellect, and no one doubted that such a tyrannical domination was reserved for some very happy, subtle, ingenious, bold, and powerful person—a single individual!—and many (the last was Schopenhauer) fancied themselves to be this privileged person.From this it follows that, on the whole, science has up to the present remained in a rather backward[pg 379]state owing to the moral narrow-mindedness of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to be pursued from a higher and more generous motive.“What do I matter?”is written over the door of the thinker of the future.548.Victory Over Power.—If we consider all that has been venerated up to the present as“superhuman intellect”or“genius,”we must come to the sad conclusion that, considered as a whole, the intellectuality of mankind must have been extremely low and poor: so little mind has hitherto been necessary in order to feel at once considerably superior to all this! Alas for the cheap glory of“genius”! How quickly has it been raised to the throne, and its worship grown into a custom! We still fall on our knees before power—according to the old custom of slaves—and nevertheless, when the degree of venerability comes to be determined, only the degree of reason in the power will be the deciding factor. We must find out, indeed, to how great an extent power has been overcome by something higher, which it now obeys as a tool and instrument.As yet, however, there have been too few eyes for such investigations: even in the majority of cases the mere valuation of genius has almost been looked upon as blasphemy. And thus perhaps everything that is most beautiful still takes place in the midst of darkness and vanishes in endless night almost as soon as it has made its appearance,—I[pg 380]refer to the spectacle of that power which a genius does not lay out upon works, but upon himself as a work, that is, his own self-control, the purifying of his own imagination, the order and selection in his inspirations and tasks. The great man ever remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims worship, like some distant star: his victory over power remains without witnesses, and hence also without songs and singers. The hierarchy of the great men in all the past history of the human race has not yet been determined.549.Flight from One's Self.—Those sufferers from intellectual spasms who are impatient towards themselves and look upon themselves with a gloomy eye—such as Byron or Alfred de Musset—and who, in everything that they do, resemble runaway horses, and from their own works derive only a transient joy and an ardent passion which almost bursts their veins, followed by sterility and disenchantment—how are they able to bear up! They would fain attain to something“beyond themselves.”If we happen to be Christians, and are seized by such a desire as this, we strive to reach God and to become one with Him; if we are a Shakespeare we shall be glad to perish in images of a passionate life; if we are like Byron we long for actions, because these detach us from ourselves to an even greater extent than thoughts, feelings, and works.And should the desire for performing great deeds really be at bottom nothing but a flight from our own selves?—as Pascal would ask us. And indeed[pg 381]this assertion might be proved by considering the most noble representations of this desire for action: in this respect let us remember, bringing the knowledge of an alienist to our aid, that four of the greatest men of all ages who were possessed of this lust for action were epileptics—Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; and Byron likewise was subject to the same complaint.550.Knowledge and Beauty.—If men, as they are still in the habit of doing, reserve their veneration and feelings of happiness for works of fancy and imagination, we should not be surprised if they feel chilled and displeased by the contrary of fancy and imagination. The rapture which arises from even the smallest, sure, and definite step in advance into insight, and which our present state of science yields to so many in such abundance—this rapture is in the meantime not believed in by all those who are in the habit of feeling enraptured only when they leave reality altogether and plunge into the depths of vague appearance—romanticism. These people look upon reality as ugly, but they entirely overlook the fact that the knowledge of even the ugliest reality is beautiful, and that the man who can discern much and often is in the end very far from considering as ugly the main items of that reality, the discovery of which has always inspired him with the feeling of happiness.Is there anything“beautiful in itself”? The happiness of those who can recognise augments the beauty of the world, bathing everything that exists[pg 382]in a sunnier light: discernment not only envelops all things in its own beauty, but in the long run permeates the things themselves with its beauty—may ages to come bear witness to the truth of this statement! In the meantime let us recall an old experience: two men so thoroughly different in every respect as Plato and Aristotle were agreed in regard to what constituted superior happiness—not merely their own and that of men in general, but happiness in itself, even the happiness of the gods. They found this happiness to lie in knowledge, in the activity of a well practised and inventive understanding (not in“intuition”like the German theologians and semi-theologians; not in visions, like the mystics; and not in work, like the merely practical men). Similar opinions were expressed by Descartes and Spinoza. What great delight must all these men have felt in knowledge! and how great was the danger that their honesty might give way, and that they themselves might become panegyrists of things!551.Future Virtues.—How has it come about that, the more intelligible the world has become, the more all kinds of ceremonies have diminished? Was fear so frequently the fundamental basis of that awe which overcame us at the sight of anything hitherto unknown and mysterious, and which taught us to fall upon our knees before the unintelligible, and to beg for mercy? And has the world, perhaps, through the very fact that we have[pg 383]grown less timid, lost some of the charms it formerly had for us? Is it not possible that our own dignity and stateliness, our formidable character, has decreased together with our spirit of dread? Perhaps we value the world and ourselves less highly since we have begun to think more boldly about it and ourselves? Perhaps there will come a moment in the future when this courageous spirit of thinking will have reached such a point that it will feel itself soaring in supreme pride, far above men and things—when the wise man, being also the boldest, will see himself and even more particularly existence, the lowest of all beneath himself?This type of courage, which is not far removed from excessive generosity, has been lacking in humanity up to the present.—Oh, that our poets might once again become what they once were: seers, telling us something about what might possibly happen! now that what is real and what is past are being ever more and more taken from them, and must continue to be taken from them—for the time of innocent counterfeiting is at an end! Let them try to enable us to anticipate future virtues, or virtues that will never be found on earth, although they may exist somewhere in the world!—purple-glowing constellations and whole Milky Ways of the beautiful! Where are ye, ye astronomers of the ideal?552.Ideal Selfishness.—Is there a more sacred state than that of pregnancy? To perform every[pg 384]one of our actions in the silent conviction that in one way or another it will be to the benefit of that which is being generated within us—that it must augment its mysterious value, the very thought of which fills us with rapture? At such a time we refrain from many things without having to force ourselves to do so: we suppress the angry word, we grasp the hand forgivingly; our child must be born from all that is best and gentlest. We shun our own harshness and brusqueness in case it should instil a drop of unhappiness into the cup of the beloved unknown. Everything is veiled, ominous; we know nothing about what is going on, but simply wait and try to be prepared. During this time, too, we experience a pure and purifying feeling of profound irresponsibility, similar to that felt by a spectator before a drawn curtain;itis growing,itis coming to light; we have nothing to do with determining its value, or the hour of its arrival. We are thrown back altogether upon indirect, beneficent and defensive influences.“Something greater than we are is growing here”—such is our most secret hope: we prepare everything with a view to his birth and prosperity—not merely everything that is useful, but also the noblest gifts of our souls.We should, and can, live under the influence of such a blessed inspiration! Whether what we are looking forward to is a thought or a deed, our relationship to every essential achievement is none other than that of pregnancy, and all our vainglorious boasting about“willing”and“creating”should be cast to the winds! True and ideal[pg 385]selfishness consists in always watching over and restraining the soul, so that our productiveness may come to a beautiful termination. Thus in this indirect manner we must provide for and watch over the good of all; and the frame of mind, the mood in which we live, is a kind of soothing oil which spreads far around us on the restless souls.—Still, these pregnant ones are funny people! let us therefore dare to be funny also, and not reproach others if they must be the same. And even when this phenomenon becomes dangerous and evil we must not show less respect to that which is generating within us or others than ordinary worldly justice, which does not allow the judge or the hangman to interfere with a pregnant woman.553.Circuitous Routes.—Where does all this philosophy mean to end with its circuitous routes? Does it do more than transpose into reason, so to speak, a continuous and strong impulse—a craving for a mild sun, a bright and bracing atmosphere, southern plants, sea breezes, short meals of meat, eggs, and fruit, hot water to drink, quiet walks for days at a time, little talking, rare and cautious reading, living alone, pure, simple, and almost soldier-like habits—a craving, in short, for all things which are suited to my own personal taste? a philosophy which is in the main the instinct for a personal regimen—an instinct that longs for my air, my height, my temperature, and my kind of health, and takes the circuitous route of my head to persuade me to it![pg 386]There are many other and certainly more lofty philosophies, and not only such as are more gloomy and pretentious than mine—and are they perhaps, taking them as a whole, nothing but intellectual circuitous routes of the same kind of personal impulses?—In the meantime I look with a new eye upon the mysterious and solitary flight of a butterfly high on the rocky banks of the lake where so many plants are growing: there it flies hither and thither, heedless of the fact that its life will last only one more day, and that the night will be too cold for its winged fragility. For it, too, a philosophy might be found, though it might not be my own.554.Leading.18—When we praise progress we only praise the movement and those who do not let us remain on the same spot, and in the circumstances this is certainly something, especially if we live among Egyptians. In changeable Europe, however, where movement is“understood,”to use their own expression,“as a matter of course”—alas, ifweonly understood something about it too!—I praise leaders and forerunners: that is to say, those who always leave themselves behind, and do not care in the least whether any one is following them or not.“Wherever I halt I find myself alone: why should I halt! the desert is still so wide!”—such is the sentiment of the true leader.[pg 387]555.The Least Important Are Sufficient.—We ought to avoid events when we know that even the least important of them frequently enough leave a strong impression upon us—and these we cannot avoid.—The thinker must possess an approximate canon of all the things he still wishes to experience.556.The Four Virtues.—Honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything friendly to us; brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards the vanquished; polite at all times: such do the four cardinal virtues wish us to be.557.Marching Against an Enemy.—How pleasant is the sound of even bad music and bad motives when we are setting out to march against an enemy!558.Not Concealing One's Virtues.—I love those men who are as transparent as water, and who, to use Pope's expression, hide not from view the turbid bottom of their stream. Even they, however, possess a certain vanity, though of a rare and more sublimated kind: some of them would wish us to see nothing but the mud, and to take no notice of the clearness of the water which enables us to look right to the bottom. No less a man than[pg 388]Gautama Buddha has imagined the vanity of these few in the formula,“Let your sins appear before men, and conceal your virtues.”But this would exhibit a disagreeable spectacle to the world—it would be a sin against good taste.559."Nothing in Excess!"—How often is the individual recommended to set up a goal which it is beyond his power to reach, in order that he may at least attain that which lies within the scope of his abilities and most strenuous efforts! Is it really so desirable, however, that he should do so? Do not the best men who try to act according to this doctrine, together with their best deeds, necessarily assume a somewhat exaggerated and distorted appearance on account of their excessive tension? and in the future will not a grey mist of failure envelop the world, owing to the fact that we may see everywhere struggling athletes and tremendous gestures, but nowhere a conqueror crowned with the laurel, and rejoicing in his victory?560.What we are Free to do.—We can act as the gardeners of our impulses, and—which few people know—we may cultivate the seeds of anger, pity, vanity, or excessive brooding, and make these things fecund and productive, just as we can train a beautiful plant to grow along trellis-work. We may do this with the good or bad taste of a[pg 389]gardener, and as it were, in the French, English, Dutch, or Chinese style. We may let nature take its own course, only trimming and embellishing a little here and there; and finally, without any knowledge or consideration, we may even allow the plants to spring up in accordance with their own natural growth and limitations, and fight out their battle among themselves,—nay, we can even take delight in such chaos, though we may possibly have a hard time with it! All this is at our option: but how many know that it is? Do not the majority of people believe in themselves as complete and perfect facts? and have not the great philosophers set their seal on this prejudice through their doctrine of the unchangeability of character?561.Letting our Happiness also Shine.—In the same way as painters are unable to reproduce the deep brilliant hue of the natural sky, and are compelled to use all the colours they require for their landscapes a few shades deeper than nature has made them—just as they, by means of this trick, succeed in approaching the brilliancy and harmony of nature's own hues, so also must poets and philosophers, for whom the luminous rays of happiness are inaccessible, endeavour to find an expedient. By picturing all things a shade or two darker than they really are, their light, in which they excel, will produce almost exactly the same effect as the sunlight, and will resemble the light of true happiness.—The pessimist, on the other hand, who paints[pg 390]all things in the blackest and most sombre hues, only makes use of bright flames, lightning, celestial glories, and everything that possesses a glaring, dazzling power, and bewilders our eyes: to him light only serves the purpose of increasing the horror, and of making us look upon things as being more dreadful than they really are.

541.How we should turn to Stone.—By slowly, very, very slowly, becoming hard like a[pg 368]precious stone, and at last lie still, a joy to all eternity.

How we should turn to Stone.—By slowly, very, very slowly, becoming hard like a[pg 368]precious stone, and at last lie still, a joy to all eternity.

542.The Philosopher and Old Age.—It is not wise to permit evening to act as a judge of the day; for only too often in this case weariness becomes the judge of success and good will. We should also take the greatest precautions in regard to everything connected with old age and its judgment upon life, more especially since old age, like the evening, is fond of assuming a new and charming morality, and knows well enough how to humiliate the day by the glow of the evening skies, twilight and a peaceful and wistful silence. The reverence which we feel for an old man, especially if he is an old thinker and sage, easily blinds us to the deterioration of his intellect, and it is always necessary to bring to light the hidden symptoms of such a deterioration and lassitude, that is to say, to uncover the physiological phenomenon which is still concealed behind the old man's moral judgments and prejudices, in case we should be deceived by our veneration for him, and do something to the disadvantage of knowledge. For it is not seldom that the illusion of a great moral renovation and regeneration takes possession of the old man. Basing his views upon this, he then proceeds to express his opinions on the work and development of his life as if he had only then for the first time become clearsighted—and nevertheless it is not wisdom, but fatigue, which prompts his present state of well-being and his positive judgments.[pg 369]The most dangerous indication of this weariness is above all the belief in genius, which as a rule only arises in great and semi-great men of intellect at this period of their lives: the belief in an exceptional position, and exceptional rights. The thinker who thus believes himself to be inspired by genius henceforth deems it permissible for him to take things more easily, and takes advantage of his position as a genius to decree rather than to prove. It is probable, however, that the need felt by the weary intellect for alleviation is the main source of this belief—it precedes it in time, though appearances may indicate the contrary.At this time too, as the result of the love which all weary and old people feel for enjoyment, such men as those I am speaking of wish to enjoy the results of their thinking instead of again testing them and scattering the seeds abroad once more. This leads them to make their thoughts palatable and enjoyable, and to take away their dryness, coldness, and want of flavour; and thus it comes about that the old thinker apparently raises himself above his life's work, while in reality he spoils it by infusing into it a certain amount of fantasy, sweetness, flavour, poetic mists, and mystic lights. This is how Plato ended, as did also that great and honest Frenchman, Auguste Comte, who, as a conqueror of the exact sciences, cannot be matched either among the Germans or the Englishmen of this century.There is a third symptom of fatigue: that ambition which actuated the great thinker when he was young, and which could not then find anything[pg 370]to satisfy it, has also grown old, and, like one that has no more time to lose, it begins to snatch at the coarser and more immediate means of its gratification, means which are peculiar to active, dominating, violent, and conquering dispositions. From this time onwards the thinker wishes to found institutions which shall bear his name, instead of erecting mere brain-structures. What are now to him the ethereal victories and honours to be met with in the realm of proofs and refutations, or the perpetuation of his fame in books, or the thrill of exultation in the soul of the reader? But the institution, on the other hand, is a temple, as he well knows—a temple of stone, a durable edifice, which will keep its god alive with more certainty than the sacrifices of rare and tender souls.17Perhaps, too, at this period of his life the old thinker will for the first time meet with that love which is fitted for a god rather than for a human being, and his whole nature becomes softened and sweetened in the rays of such a sun, like fruit in autumn. Yes, he grows more divine and beautiful, this great old man,—and nevertheless it is old age and weariness which permit him to ripen in this way, to grow more silent, and to repose in the luminous adulation of a woman. Now it is all up with his former desire—a desire which was superior even to his own ego—for real disciples, followers who would carry on his thought, that is, true opponents. This desire arose from his hitherto undiminished energy, the conscious pride he felt in[pg 371]being able at any time to become an opponent himself,—nay, even the deadly enemy of his own doctrine,—but now his desire is for resolute partisans, unwavering comrades, auxiliary forces, heralds, a pompous train of followers. He is now no longer able to bear that dreadful isolation in which every intellect that advances beyond the others is compelled to live. From this time forward he surrounds himself with objects of veneration, companionship, tenderness, and love; but he also wishes to enjoy the privileges of all religious people, and to worship what he venerates most highly in his little community—he will even go as far as to invent a religion for the purpose of having a community.Thus lives the wise old man, and in living thus he falls almost imperceptibly into such a deplorable proximity to priestly and poetic extravagances that it is difficult to recollect all his wise and severe period of youth, the former rigid morality of his mind, and his truly virile dread of fancies and misplaced enthusiasm. When he was formerly in the habit of comparing himself with the older thinkers, he did so merely that he might measure his weakness against their strength, and that he might become colder and more audacious towards himself; but now he only makes this comparison to intoxicate himself with his own delusions. Formerly he looked forward with confidence to future thinkers, and he even took a delight in imagining himself to be cast into the shade by their brighter light. Now, however, he is mortified to think that he cannot be the last: he endeavours to discover some way of[pg 372]imposing upon mankind, together with the inheritance which he is leaving to them, a restriction of sovereign thinking. He fears and reviles the pride and the love of freedom of individual minds: after him no one must allow his intellect to govern with absolute unrestriction: he himself wishes to remain for ever the bulwark on which the waves of ideas may break—these are his secret wishes, and perhaps, indeed, they are not always secret.The hard fact upon which such wishes are based, however, is that he himself has come to a halt before his teaching, and has set up his boundary stone, his“thus far and no farther.”In canonising himself he has drawn up his own death warrant: from now on his mind cannot develop further. His race is run; the hour-hand stops. Whenever a great thinker tries to make himself a lasting institution for posterity, we may readily suppose that he has passed the climax of his powers, and is very tired, very near the setting of his sun.

The Philosopher and Old Age.—It is not wise to permit evening to act as a judge of the day; for only too often in this case weariness becomes the judge of success and good will. We should also take the greatest precautions in regard to everything connected with old age and its judgment upon life, more especially since old age, like the evening, is fond of assuming a new and charming morality, and knows well enough how to humiliate the day by the glow of the evening skies, twilight and a peaceful and wistful silence. The reverence which we feel for an old man, especially if he is an old thinker and sage, easily blinds us to the deterioration of his intellect, and it is always necessary to bring to light the hidden symptoms of such a deterioration and lassitude, that is to say, to uncover the physiological phenomenon which is still concealed behind the old man's moral judgments and prejudices, in case we should be deceived by our veneration for him, and do something to the disadvantage of knowledge. For it is not seldom that the illusion of a great moral renovation and regeneration takes possession of the old man. Basing his views upon this, he then proceeds to express his opinions on the work and development of his life as if he had only then for the first time become clearsighted—and nevertheless it is not wisdom, but fatigue, which prompts his present state of well-being and his positive judgments.

The most dangerous indication of this weariness is above all the belief in genius, which as a rule only arises in great and semi-great men of intellect at this period of their lives: the belief in an exceptional position, and exceptional rights. The thinker who thus believes himself to be inspired by genius henceforth deems it permissible for him to take things more easily, and takes advantage of his position as a genius to decree rather than to prove. It is probable, however, that the need felt by the weary intellect for alleviation is the main source of this belief—it precedes it in time, though appearances may indicate the contrary.

At this time too, as the result of the love which all weary and old people feel for enjoyment, such men as those I am speaking of wish to enjoy the results of their thinking instead of again testing them and scattering the seeds abroad once more. This leads them to make their thoughts palatable and enjoyable, and to take away their dryness, coldness, and want of flavour; and thus it comes about that the old thinker apparently raises himself above his life's work, while in reality he spoils it by infusing into it a certain amount of fantasy, sweetness, flavour, poetic mists, and mystic lights. This is how Plato ended, as did also that great and honest Frenchman, Auguste Comte, who, as a conqueror of the exact sciences, cannot be matched either among the Germans or the Englishmen of this century.

There is a third symptom of fatigue: that ambition which actuated the great thinker when he was young, and which could not then find anything[pg 370]to satisfy it, has also grown old, and, like one that has no more time to lose, it begins to snatch at the coarser and more immediate means of its gratification, means which are peculiar to active, dominating, violent, and conquering dispositions. From this time onwards the thinker wishes to found institutions which shall bear his name, instead of erecting mere brain-structures. What are now to him the ethereal victories and honours to be met with in the realm of proofs and refutations, or the perpetuation of his fame in books, or the thrill of exultation in the soul of the reader? But the institution, on the other hand, is a temple, as he well knows—a temple of stone, a durable edifice, which will keep its god alive with more certainty than the sacrifices of rare and tender souls.17

Perhaps, too, at this period of his life the old thinker will for the first time meet with that love which is fitted for a god rather than for a human being, and his whole nature becomes softened and sweetened in the rays of such a sun, like fruit in autumn. Yes, he grows more divine and beautiful, this great old man,—and nevertheless it is old age and weariness which permit him to ripen in this way, to grow more silent, and to repose in the luminous adulation of a woman. Now it is all up with his former desire—a desire which was superior even to his own ego—for real disciples, followers who would carry on his thought, that is, true opponents. This desire arose from his hitherto undiminished energy, the conscious pride he felt in[pg 371]being able at any time to become an opponent himself,—nay, even the deadly enemy of his own doctrine,—but now his desire is for resolute partisans, unwavering comrades, auxiliary forces, heralds, a pompous train of followers. He is now no longer able to bear that dreadful isolation in which every intellect that advances beyond the others is compelled to live. From this time forward he surrounds himself with objects of veneration, companionship, tenderness, and love; but he also wishes to enjoy the privileges of all religious people, and to worship what he venerates most highly in his little community—he will even go as far as to invent a religion for the purpose of having a community.

Thus lives the wise old man, and in living thus he falls almost imperceptibly into such a deplorable proximity to priestly and poetic extravagances that it is difficult to recollect all his wise and severe period of youth, the former rigid morality of his mind, and his truly virile dread of fancies and misplaced enthusiasm. When he was formerly in the habit of comparing himself with the older thinkers, he did so merely that he might measure his weakness against their strength, and that he might become colder and more audacious towards himself; but now he only makes this comparison to intoxicate himself with his own delusions. Formerly he looked forward with confidence to future thinkers, and he even took a delight in imagining himself to be cast into the shade by their brighter light. Now, however, he is mortified to think that he cannot be the last: he endeavours to discover some way of[pg 372]imposing upon mankind, together with the inheritance which he is leaving to them, a restriction of sovereign thinking. He fears and reviles the pride and the love of freedom of individual minds: after him no one must allow his intellect to govern with absolute unrestriction: he himself wishes to remain for ever the bulwark on which the waves of ideas may break—these are his secret wishes, and perhaps, indeed, they are not always secret.

The hard fact upon which such wishes are based, however, is that he himself has come to a halt before his teaching, and has set up his boundary stone, his“thus far and no farther.”In canonising himself he has drawn up his own death warrant: from now on his mind cannot develop further. His race is run; the hour-hand stops. Whenever a great thinker tries to make himself a lasting institution for posterity, we may readily suppose that he has passed the climax of his powers, and is very tired, very near the setting of his sun.

543.We must not make Passion an Argument for Truth.—Oh, you kind-hearted and even noble enthusiasts, I know you! You wish to seem right in our eyes as well as in your own, but especially in your own!—and an irritable and subtle evil conscience so often spurs you on against your very enthusiasm! How ingenious you then become in deceiving your conscience, and lulling it to sleep! How you hate honest, simple, and clean souls; how you avoid their innocent glances! That better knowledge whose representatives they are, and[pg 373]whose voice you hear only too distinctly within yourselves when it questions your belief,—how you try to cast suspicion upon it as a bad habit, as a disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of your own intellectual health! It drives you on to hate even criticism, science, reason! You must falsify history to make it testify in your favour; you must deny virtues in case they should obscure those of your own idols and ideals.Coloured images where arguments are needed! Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists! Ambrosian nights! well do you know how to enlighten and to darken—to darken by means of light! and indeed when your passion can no longer be kept within bounds the moment comes when you say to yourselves,“Now I have won for myself a good conscience, now I am exalted, courageous, self-denying, magnanimous; now I am honest!”How you long for these moments when your passion will confer upon you full and absolute rights, and also, as it were, innocence. How happy you are when engaged in battle and inspired with ecstasy or courage, when you are elated beyond yourself, when gnawing doubt has left you, and when you can even decree:“Any man who is not in ecstasy as we are cannot by any chance know what or where truth is.”How you long to meet with those who share your belief in this state—which is a state of intellectual depravity—and to set your own fire alight with their flames! Oh, for your martyrdom, your victory of the sanctified lie! Must you really inflict so much pain upon yourselves?—Mustyou?

We must not make Passion an Argument for Truth.—Oh, you kind-hearted and even noble enthusiasts, I know you! You wish to seem right in our eyes as well as in your own, but especially in your own!—and an irritable and subtle evil conscience so often spurs you on against your very enthusiasm! How ingenious you then become in deceiving your conscience, and lulling it to sleep! How you hate honest, simple, and clean souls; how you avoid their innocent glances! That better knowledge whose representatives they are, and[pg 373]whose voice you hear only too distinctly within yourselves when it questions your belief,—how you try to cast suspicion upon it as a bad habit, as a disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of your own intellectual health! It drives you on to hate even criticism, science, reason! You must falsify history to make it testify in your favour; you must deny virtues in case they should obscure those of your own idols and ideals.

Coloured images where arguments are needed! Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists! Ambrosian nights! well do you know how to enlighten and to darken—to darken by means of light! and indeed when your passion can no longer be kept within bounds the moment comes when you say to yourselves,“Now I have won for myself a good conscience, now I am exalted, courageous, self-denying, magnanimous; now I am honest!”How you long for these moments when your passion will confer upon you full and absolute rights, and also, as it were, innocence. How happy you are when engaged in battle and inspired with ecstasy or courage, when you are elated beyond yourself, when gnawing doubt has left you, and when you can even decree:“Any man who is not in ecstasy as we are cannot by any chance know what or where truth is.”How you long to meet with those who share your belief in this state—which is a state of intellectual depravity—and to set your own fire alight with their flames! Oh, for your martyrdom, your victory of the sanctified lie! Must you really inflict so much pain upon yourselves?—Mustyou?

544.How Philosophy is now Practised.—I can see quite well that our philosophising youths, women, and artists require from philosophy exactly the opposite of what the Greeks derived from it. What does he who does not hear the continual exultation that resounds through every speech and counter-argument in a Platonic dialogue, this exultation over the new invention of rational thinking, know about Plato or about ancient philosophy? At that time souls were filled with enthusiasm when they gave themselves up to the severe and sober sport of ideas, generalisations, refutations,—that enthusiasm which perhaps those old, great, severe, and prudent contrapuntists in music have also known. At that time the Greek palate still possessed that older and formerly omnipotent taste: and by the side of this taste their new taste appeared to be enveloped in so much charm that the divine art of dialectic was sung by hesitating voices as if its followers were intoxicated with the frenzy of love. That old form of thinking, however, was thought within the bounds of morality, and for it nothing existed but fixed judgments and established facts, and it had no reasons but those of authority. Thinking, therefore, was simply a matter of repetition, and all the enjoyment of speech and dialogue could only lie in their form.Wherever the substance of a thing is looked upon as eternal and universally approved, there is only one great charm, the charm of variable forms, that is, of fashion. Even in the poets ever since the[pg 375]time of Homer, and later on in the case of the sculptors, the Greeks did not enjoy originality, but its contrary. It was Socrates who discovered another charm, that of cause and effect, of reason and sequence, and we moderns have become so used to it, and have been brought up to the necessity of logic that we look upon it as the normal taste, and as such it cannot but be repugnant to ardent and presumptuous people. Such people are pleased by whatever stands out boldly from the normal: their more subtle ambition leads them to believe only too readily that they are exceptional souls, not dialectic and rational beings, but, let us say,“intuitive”beings gifted with an“inner sense,”or with a certain“intellectual perception.”Above all, however, they wish to be“artistic natures”with a genius in their heads, and a demon in their bodies, and consequently with special rights in this world and in the world to come—especially the divine privilege of being incomprehensible.And people like these are“going in for”philosophy nowadays! I fear they will discover one day that they have made a mistake—what they are looking for is religion!

How Philosophy is now Practised.—I can see quite well that our philosophising youths, women, and artists require from philosophy exactly the opposite of what the Greeks derived from it. What does he who does not hear the continual exultation that resounds through every speech and counter-argument in a Platonic dialogue, this exultation over the new invention of rational thinking, know about Plato or about ancient philosophy? At that time souls were filled with enthusiasm when they gave themselves up to the severe and sober sport of ideas, generalisations, refutations,—that enthusiasm which perhaps those old, great, severe, and prudent contrapuntists in music have also known. At that time the Greek palate still possessed that older and formerly omnipotent taste: and by the side of this taste their new taste appeared to be enveloped in so much charm that the divine art of dialectic was sung by hesitating voices as if its followers were intoxicated with the frenzy of love. That old form of thinking, however, was thought within the bounds of morality, and for it nothing existed but fixed judgments and established facts, and it had no reasons but those of authority. Thinking, therefore, was simply a matter of repetition, and all the enjoyment of speech and dialogue could only lie in their form.

Wherever the substance of a thing is looked upon as eternal and universally approved, there is only one great charm, the charm of variable forms, that is, of fashion. Even in the poets ever since the[pg 375]time of Homer, and later on in the case of the sculptors, the Greeks did not enjoy originality, but its contrary. It was Socrates who discovered another charm, that of cause and effect, of reason and sequence, and we moderns have become so used to it, and have been brought up to the necessity of logic that we look upon it as the normal taste, and as such it cannot but be repugnant to ardent and presumptuous people. Such people are pleased by whatever stands out boldly from the normal: their more subtle ambition leads them to believe only too readily that they are exceptional souls, not dialectic and rational beings, but, let us say,“intuitive”beings gifted with an“inner sense,”or with a certain“intellectual perception.”Above all, however, they wish to be“artistic natures”with a genius in their heads, and a demon in their bodies, and consequently with special rights in this world and in the world to come—especially the divine privilege of being incomprehensible.

And people like these are“going in for”philosophy nowadays! I fear they will discover one day that they have made a mistake—what they are looking for is religion!

545.But we do not Believe you.—You would fain pass for psychologists, but we shall not allow it! Are we not to notice that you pretend to be more experienced, profound, passionate, and perfect than you actually are?—just as we notice in yonder painter that there is a trifling presumptuousness in[pg 376]his manner of wielding the brush, and in yonder musician that he brings forward his theme with the desire to make it appear superior to what it really is. Have you experienced history within yourselves, commotions, earthquakes, long and profound sadness, and sudden flashes of happiness? Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools? Have you really undergone the delusions and woe of the good people? and also the woe and the peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you may speak to me of morality, but not otherwise!

But we do not Believe you.—You would fain pass for psychologists, but we shall not allow it! Are we not to notice that you pretend to be more experienced, profound, passionate, and perfect than you actually are?—just as we notice in yonder painter that there is a trifling presumptuousness in[pg 376]his manner of wielding the brush, and in yonder musician that he brings forward his theme with the desire to make it appear superior to what it really is. Have you experienced history within yourselves, commotions, earthquakes, long and profound sadness, and sudden flashes of happiness? Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools? Have you really undergone the delusions and woe of the good people? and also the woe and the peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you may speak to me of morality, but not otherwise!

546.Slave and Idealist.—The followers of Epictetus would doubtless not be to the taste of those who are now striving after the ideal. The constant tension of his being, the indefatigable inward glance, the prudent and reserved incommunicativeness of his eye whenever it happens to gaze upon the outer world, and above all, his silence or laconic speech: all these are characteristics of the strictest fortitude,—and what would our idealists, who above all else are desirous of expansion, care for this? But in spite of all this the Stoic is not fanatical. He detests the display and boasting of our idealists: his pride, however great it may be, is not eager to disturb others. It permits of a certain gentle approach, and has no desire to spoil anybody's good humour—nay, it can even smile. A great deal of ancient humanity is to be seen exemplified in this ideal. The most excellent feature about it, however, is that the thinker is completely free from the[pg 377]fear of God, strictly believes in reason, and is no preacher of penitence.Epictetus was a slave: his ideal man is without any particular rank, and may exist in any grade of society, but above all he is to be sought in the deepest and lowest social classes, as the silent and self-sufficient man in the midst of a general state of servitude, a man who defends himself alone against the outer world, and is constantly living in a state of the highest fortitude. He is distinguished from the Christian especially, because the latter lives in hope in the promise of“unspeakable glory,”permits presents to be made to him, and expects and accepts the best things from divine love and grace, and not from himself. Epictetus, on the other hand, neither hopes nor allows his best treasure to be given him—he possesses it already, holds it bravely in his hand, and defies the world to take it away from him. Christianity was devised for another class of ancient slaves, for those who had a weak will and weak reason—that is to say, for the majority of slaves.

Slave and Idealist.—The followers of Epictetus would doubtless not be to the taste of those who are now striving after the ideal. The constant tension of his being, the indefatigable inward glance, the prudent and reserved incommunicativeness of his eye whenever it happens to gaze upon the outer world, and above all, his silence or laconic speech: all these are characteristics of the strictest fortitude,—and what would our idealists, who above all else are desirous of expansion, care for this? But in spite of all this the Stoic is not fanatical. He detests the display and boasting of our idealists: his pride, however great it may be, is not eager to disturb others. It permits of a certain gentle approach, and has no desire to spoil anybody's good humour—nay, it can even smile. A great deal of ancient humanity is to be seen exemplified in this ideal. The most excellent feature about it, however, is that the thinker is completely free from the[pg 377]fear of God, strictly believes in reason, and is no preacher of penitence.

Epictetus was a slave: his ideal man is without any particular rank, and may exist in any grade of society, but above all he is to be sought in the deepest and lowest social classes, as the silent and self-sufficient man in the midst of a general state of servitude, a man who defends himself alone against the outer world, and is constantly living in a state of the highest fortitude. He is distinguished from the Christian especially, because the latter lives in hope in the promise of“unspeakable glory,”permits presents to be made to him, and expects and accepts the best things from divine love and grace, and not from himself. Epictetus, on the other hand, neither hopes nor allows his best treasure to be given him—he possesses it already, holds it bravely in his hand, and defies the world to take it away from him. Christianity was devised for another class of ancient slaves, for those who had a weak will and weak reason—that is to say, for the majority of slaves.

547.The Tyrants of the Intellect.—The progress of science is at the present time no longer hindered by the purely accidental fact that man attains to about seventy years, which was the case far too long. In former times people wished to master the entire extent of knowledge within this period, and all the methods of knowledge were valued according to this general desire. Minor[pg 378]questions and individual experiments were looked upon as unworthy of notice: people wanted to take the shortest path under the impression that, since everything in this world seemed to be arranged with a view to man's needs, even the acquirement of knowledge was regulated in view of the limits of human life.To solve everything at a single stroke, with one word—this was the secret desire; and the task was represented in the symbol of the Gordian knot or the egg of Columbus. No one doubted that it was possible to reach the goal of knowledge after the manner of Alexander or Columbus, and to settle all questions with one answer.“There is a mystery to be solved,”seemed to be the aim of life in the eyes of the philosopher: it was necessary in the first place to find out what this enigma was, and to condense the problem of the world into the simplest enigmatical formula possible. The boundless ambition and delight of being the“unraveller of the world”charmed the dreams of many a thinker: nothing seemed to him worth troubling about in this world but the means of bringing everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Philosophy thus became a kind of supreme struggle for the tyrannical sway over the intellect, and no one doubted that such a tyrannical domination was reserved for some very happy, subtle, ingenious, bold, and powerful person—a single individual!—and many (the last was Schopenhauer) fancied themselves to be this privileged person.From this it follows that, on the whole, science has up to the present remained in a rather backward[pg 379]state owing to the moral narrow-mindedness of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to be pursued from a higher and more generous motive.“What do I matter?”is written over the door of the thinker of the future.

The Tyrants of the Intellect.—The progress of science is at the present time no longer hindered by the purely accidental fact that man attains to about seventy years, which was the case far too long. In former times people wished to master the entire extent of knowledge within this period, and all the methods of knowledge were valued according to this general desire. Minor[pg 378]questions and individual experiments were looked upon as unworthy of notice: people wanted to take the shortest path under the impression that, since everything in this world seemed to be arranged with a view to man's needs, even the acquirement of knowledge was regulated in view of the limits of human life.

To solve everything at a single stroke, with one word—this was the secret desire; and the task was represented in the symbol of the Gordian knot or the egg of Columbus. No one doubted that it was possible to reach the goal of knowledge after the manner of Alexander or Columbus, and to settle all questions with one answer.“There is a mystery to be solved,”seemed to be the aim of life in the eyes of the philosopher: it was necessary in the first place to find out what this enigma was, and to condense the problem of the world into the simplest enigmatical formula possible. The boundless ambition and delight of being the“unraveller of the world”charmed the dreams of many a thinker: nothing seemed to him worth troubling about in this world but the means of bringing everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Philosophy thus became a kind of supreme struggle for the tyrannical sway over the intellect, and no one doubted that such a tyrannical domination was reserved for some very happy, subtle, ingenious, bold, and powerful person—a single individual!—and many (the last was Schopenhauer) fancied themselves to be this privileged person.

From this it follows that, on the whole, science has up to the present remained in a rather backward[pg 379]state owing to the moral narrow-mindedness of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to be pursued from a higher and more generous motive.“What do I matter?”is written over the door of the thinker of the future.

548.Victory Over Power.—If we consider all that has been venerated up to the present as“superhuman intellect”or“genius,”we must come to the sad conclusion that, considered as a whole, the intellectuality of mankind must have been extremely low and poor: so little mind has hitherto been necessary in order to feel at once considerably superior to all this! Alas for the cheap glory of“genius”! How quickly has it been raised to the throne, and its worship grown into a custom! We still fall on our knees before power—according to the old custom of slaves—and nevertheless, when the degree of venerability comes to be determined, only the degree of reason in the power will be the deciding factor. We must find out, indeed, to how great an extent power has been overcome by something higher, which it now obeys as a tool and instrument.As yet, however, there have been too few eyes for such investigations: even in the majority of cases the mere valuation of genius has almost been looked upon as blasphemy. And thus perhaps everything that is most beautiful still takes place in the midst of darkness and vanishes in endless night almost as soon as it has made its appearance,—I[pg 380]refer to the spectacle of that power which a genius does not lay out upon works, but upon himself as a work, that is, his own self-control, the purifying of his own imagination, the order and selection in his inspirations and tasks. The great man ever remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims worship, like some distant star: his victory over power remains without witnesses, and hence also without songs and singers. The hierarchy of the great men in all the past history of the human race has not yet been determined.

Victory Over Power.—If we consider all that has been venerated up to the present as“superhuman intellect”or“genius,”we must come to the sad conclusion that, considered as a whole, the intellectuality of mankind must have been extremely low and poor: so little mind has hitherto been necessary in order to feel at once considerably superior to all this! Alas for the cheap glory of“genius”! How quickly has it been raised to the throne, and its worship grown into a custom! We still fall on our knees before power—according to the old custom of slaves—and nevertheless, when the degree of venerability comes to be determined, only the degree of reason in the power will be the deciding factor. We must find out, indeed, to how great an extent power has been overcome by something higher, which it now obeys as a tool and instrument.

As yet, however, there have been too few eyes for such investigations: even in the majority of cases the mere valuation of genius has almost been looked upon as blasphemy. And thus perhaps everything that is most beautiful still takes place in the midst of darkness and vanishes in endless night almost as soon as it has made its appearance,—I[pg 380]refer to the spectacle of that power which a genius does not lay out upon works, but upon himself as a work, that is, his own self-control, the purifying of his own imagination, the order and selection in his inspirations and tasks. The great man ever remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims worship, like some distant star: his victory over power remains without witnesses, and hence also without songs and singers. The hierarchy of the great men in all the past history of the human race has not yet been determined.

549.Flight from One's Self.—Those sufferers from intellectual spasms who are impatient towards themselves and look upon themselves with a gloomy eye—such as Byron or Alfred de Musset—and who, in everything that they do, resemble runaway horses, and from their own works derive only a transient joy and an ardent passion which almost bursts their veins, followed by sterility and disenchantment—how are they able to bear up! They would fain attain to something“beyond themselves.”If we happen to be Christians, and are seized by such a desire as this, we strive to reach God and to become one with Him; if we are a Shakespeare we shall be glad to perish in images of a passionate life; if we are like Byron we long for actions, because these detach us from ourselves to an even greater extent than thoughts, feelings, and works.And should the desire for performing great deeds really be at bottom nothing but a flight from our own selves?—as Pascal would ask us. And indeed[pg 381]this assertion might be proved by considering the most noble representations of this desire for action: in this respect let us remember, bringing the knowledge of an alienist to our aid, that four of the greatest men of all ages who were possessed of this lust for action were epileptics—Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; and Byron likewise was subject to the same complaint.

Flight from One's Self.—Those sufferers from intellectual spasms who are impatient towards themselves and look upon themselves with a gloomy eye—such as Byron or Alfred de Musset—and who, in everything that they do, resemble runaway horses, and from their own works derive only a transient joy and an ardent passion which almost bursts their veins, followed by sterility and disenchantment—how are they able to bear up! They would fain attain to something“beyond themselves.”If we happen to be Christians, and are seized by such a desire as this, we strive to reach God and to become one with Him; if we are a Shakespeare we shall be glad to perish in images of a passionate life; if we are like Byron we long for actions, because these detach us from ourselves to an even greater extent than thoughts, feelings, and works.

And should the desire for performing great deeds really be at bottom nothing but a flight from our own selves?—as Pascal would ask us. And indeed[pg 381]this assertion might be proved by considering the most noble representations of this desire for action: in this respect let us remember, bringing the knowledge of an alienist to our aid, that four of the greatest men of all ages who were possessed of this lust for action were epileptics—Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; and Byron likewise was subject to the same complaint.

550.Knowledge and Beauty.—If men, as they are still in the habit of doing, reserve their veneration and feelings of happiness for works of fancy and imagination, we should not be surprised if they feel chilled and displeased by the contrary of fancy and imagination. The rapture which arises from even the smallest, sure, and definite step in advance into insight, and which our present state of science yields to so many in such abundance—this rapture is in the meantime not believed in by all those who are in the habit of feeling enraptured only when they leave reality altogether and plunge into the depths of vague appearance—romanticism. These people look upon reality as ugly, but they entirely overlook the fact that the knowledge of even the ugliest reality is beautiful, and that the man who can discern much and often is in the end very far from considering as ugly the main items of that reality, the discovery of which has always inspired him with the feeling of happiness.Is there anything“beautiful in itself”? The happiness of those who can recognise augments the beauty of the world, bathing everything that exists[pg 382]in a sunnier light: discernment not only envelops all things in its own beauty, but in the long run permeates the things themselves with its beauty—may ages to come bear witness to the truth of this statement! In the meantime let us recall an old experience: two men so thoroughly different in every respect as Plato and Aristotle were agreed in regard to what constituted superior happiness—not merely their own and that of men in general, but happiness in itself, even the happiness of the gods. They found this happiness to lie in knowledge, in the activity of a well practised and inventive understanding (not in“intuition”like the German theologians and semi-theologians; not in visions, like the mystics; and not in work, like the merely practical men). Similar opinions were expressed by Descartes and Spinoza. What great delight must all these men have felt in knowledge! and how great was the danger that their honesty might give way, and that they themselves might become panegyrists of things!

Knowledge and Beauty.—If men, as they are still in the habit of doing, reserve their veneration and feelings of happiness for works of fancy and imagination, we should not be surprised if they feel chilled and displeased by the contrary of fancy and imagination. The rapture which arises from even the smallest, sure, and definite step in advance into insight, and which our present state of science yields to so many in such abundance—this rapture is in the meantime not believed in by all those who are in the habit of feeling enraptured only when they leave reality altogether and plunge into the depths of vague appearance—romanticism. These people look upon reality as ugly, but they entirely overlook the fact that the knowledge of even the ugliest reality is beautiful, and that the man who can discern much and often is in the end very far from considering as ugly the main items of that reality, the discovery of which has always inspired him with the feeling of happiness.

Is there anything“beautiful in itself”? The happiness of those who can recognise augments the beauty of the world, bathing everything that exists[pg 382]in a sunnier light: discernment not only envelops all things in its own beauty, but in the long run permeates the things themselves with its beauty—may ages to come bear witness to the truth of this statement! In the meantime let us recall an old experience: two men so thoroughly different in every respect as Plato and Aristotle were agreed in regard to what constituted superior happiness—not merely their own and that of men in general, but happiness in itself, even the happiness of the gods. They found this happiness to lie in knowledge, in the activity of a well practised and inventive understanding (not in“intuition”like the German theologians and semi-theologians; not in visions, like the mystics; and not in work, like the merely practical men). Similar opinions were expressed by Descartes and Spinoza. What great delight must all these men have felt in knowledge! and how great was the danger that their honesty might give way, and that they themselves might become panegyrists of things!

551.Future Virtues.—How has it come about that, the more intelligible the world has become, the more all kinds of ceremonies have diminished? Was fear so frequently the fundamental basis of that awe which overcame us at the sight of anything hitherto unknown and mysterious, and which taught us to fall upon our knees before the unintelligible, and to beg for mercy? And has the world, perhaps, through the very fact that we have[pg 383]grown less timid, lost some of the charms it formerly had for us? Is it not possible that our own dignity and stateliness, our formidable character, has decreased together with our spirit of dread? Perhaps we value the world and ourselves less highly since we have begun to think more boldly about it and ourselves? Perhaps there will come a moment in the future when this courageous spirit of thinking will have reached such a point that it will feel itself soaring in supreme pride, far above men and things—when the wise man, being also the boldest, will see himself and even more particularly existence, the lowest of all beneath himself?This type of courage, which is not far removed from excessive generosity, has been lacking in humanity up to the present.—Oh, that our poets might once again become what they once were: seers, telling us something about what might possibly happen! now that what is real and what is past are being ever more and more taken from them, and must continue to be taken from them—for the time of innocent counterfeiting is at an end! Let them try to enable us to anticipate future virtues, or virtues that will never be found on earth, although they may exist somewhere in the world!—purple-glowing constellations and whole Milky Ways of the beautiful! Where are ye, ye astronomers of the ideal?

Future Virtues.—How has it come about that, the more intelligible the world has become, the more all kinds of ceremonies have diminished? Was fear so frequently the fundamental basis of that awe which overcame us at the sight of anything hitherto unknown and mysterious, and which taught us to fall upon our knees before the unintelligible, and to beg for mercy? And has the world, perhaps, through the very fact that we have[pg 383]grown less timid, lost some of the charms it formerly had for us? Is it not possible that our own dignity and stateliness, our formidable character, has decreased together with our spirit of dread? Perhaps we value the world and ourselves less highly since we have begun to think more boldly about it and ourselves? Perhaps there will come a moment in the future when this courageous spirit of thinking will have reached such a point that it will feel itself soaring in supreme pride, far above men and things—when the wise man, being also the boldest, will see himself and even more particularly existence, the lowest of all beneath himself?

This type of courage, which is not far removed from excessive generosity, has been lacking in humanity up to the present.—Oh, that our poets might once again become what they once were: seers, telling us something about what might possibly happen! now that what is real and what is past are being ever more and more taken from them, and must continue to be taken from them—for the time of innocent counterfeiting is at an end! Let them try to enable us to anticipate future virtues, or virtues that will never be found on earth, although they may exist somewhere in the world!—purple-glowing constellations and whole Milky Ways of the beautiful! Where are ye, ye astronomers of the ideal?

552.Ideal Selfishness.—Is there a more sacred state than that of pregnancy? To perform every[pg 384]one of our actions in the silent conviction that in one way or another it will be to the benefit of that which is being generated within us—that it must augment its mysterious value, the very thought of which fills us with rapture? At such a time we refrain from many things without having to force ourselves to do so: we suppress the angry word, we grasp the hand forgivingly; our child must be born from all that is best and gentlest. We shun our own harshness and brusqueness in case it should instil a drop of unhappiness into the cup of the beloved unknown. Everything is veiled, ominous; we know nothing about what is going on, but simply wait and try to be prepared. During this time, too, we experience a pure and purifying feeling of profound irresponsibility, similar to that felt by a spectator before a drawn curtain;itis growing,itis coming to light; we have nothing to do with determining its value, or the hour of its arrival. We are thrown back altogether upon indirect, beneficent and defensive influences.“Something greater than we are is growing here”—such is our most secret hope: we prepare everything with a view to his birth and prosperity—not merely everything that is useful, but also the noblest gifts of our souls.We should, and can, live under the influence of such a blessed inspiration! Whether what we are looking forward to is a thought or a deed, our relationship to every essential achievement is none other than that of pregnancy, and all our vainglorious boasting about“willing”and“creating”should be cast to the winds! True and ideal[pg 385]selfishness consists in always watching over and restraining the soul, so that our productiveness may come to a beautiful termination. Thus in this indirect manner we must provide for and watch over the good of all; and the frame of mind, the mood in which we live, is a kind of soothing oil which spreads far around us on the restless souls.—Still, these pregnant ones are funny people! let us therefore dare to be funny also, and not reproach others if they must be the same. And even when this phenomenon becomes dangerous and evil we must not show less respect to that which is generating within us or others than ordinary worldly justice, which does not allow the judge or the hangman to interfere with a pregnant woman.

Ideal Selfishness.—Is there a more sacred state than that of pregnancy? To perform every[pg 384]one of our actions in the silent conviction that in one way or another it will be to the benefit of that which is being generated within us—that it must augment its mysterious value, the very thought of which fills us with rapture? At such a time we refrain from many things without having to force ourselves to do so: we suppress the angry word, we grasp the hand forgivingly; our child must be born from all that is best and gentlest. We shun our own harshness and brusqueness in case it should instil a drop of unhappiness into the cup of the beloved unknown. Everything is veiled, ominous; we know nothing about what is going on, but simply wait and try to be prepared. During this time, too, we experience a pure and purifying feeling of profound irresponsibility, similar to that felt by a spectator before a drawn curtain;itis growing,itis coming to light; we have nothing to do with determining its value, or the hour of its arrival. We are thrown back altogether upon indirect, beneficent and defensive influences.“Something greater than we are is growing here”—such is our most secret hope: we prepare everything with a view to his birth and prosperity—not merely everything that is useful, but also the noblest gifts of our souls.

We should, and can, live under the influence of such a blessed inspiration! Whether what we are looking forward to is a thought or a deed, our relationship to every essential achievement is none other than that of pregnancy, and all our vainglorious boasting about“willing”and“creating”should be cast to the winds! True and ideal[pg 385]selfishness consists in always watching over and restraining the soul, so that our productiveness may come to a beautiful termination. Thus in this indirect manner we must provide for and watch over the good of all; and the frame of mind, the mood in which we live, is a kind of soothing oil which spreads far around us on the restless souls.—Still, these pregnant ones are funny people! let us therefore dare to be funny also, and not reproach others if they must be the same. And even when this phenomenon becomes dangerous and evil we must not show less respect to that which is generating within us or others than ordinary worldly justice, which does not allow the judge or the hangman to interfere with a pregnant woman.

553.Circuitous Routes.—Where does all this philosophy mean to end with its circuitous routes? Does it do more than transpose into reason, so to speak, a continuous and strong impulse—a craving for a mild sun, a bright and bracing atmosphere, southern plants, sea breezes, short meals of meat, eggs, and fruit, hot water to drink, quiet walks for days at a time, little talking, rare and cautious reading, living alone, pure, simple, and almost soldier-like habits—a craving, in short, for all things which are suited to my own personal taste? a philosophy which is in the main the instinct for a personal regimen—an instinct that longs for my air, my height, my temperature, and my kind of health, and takes the circuitous route of my head to persuade me to it![pg 386]There are many other and certainly more lofty philosophies, and not only such as are more gloomy and pretentious than mine—and are they perhaps, taking them as a whole, nothing but intellectual circuitous routes of the same kind of personal impulses?—In the meantime I look with a new eye upon the mysterious and solitary flight of a butterfly high on the rocky banks of the lake where so many plants are growing: there it flies hither and thither, heedless of the fact that its life will last only one more day, and that the night will be too cold for its winged fragility. For it, too, a philosophy might be found, though it might not be my own.

Circuitous Routes.—Where does all this philosophy mean to end with its circuitous routes? Does it do more than transpose into reason, so to speak, a continuous and strong impulse—a craving for a mild sun, a bright and bracing atmosphere, southern plants, sea breezes, short meals of meat, eggs, and fruit, hot water to drink, quiet walks for days at a time, little talking, rare and cautious reading, living alone, pure, simple, and almost soldier-like habits—a craving, in short, for all things which are suited to my own personal taste? a philosophy which is in the main the instinct for a personal regimen—an instinct that longs for my air, my height, my temperature, and my kind of health, and takes the circuitous route of my head to persuade me to it!

There are many other and certainly more lofty philosophies, and not only such as are more gloomy and pretentious than mine—and are they perhaps, taking them as a whole, nothing but intellectual circuitous routes of the same kind of personal impulses?—In the meantime I look with a new eye upon the mysterious and solitary flight of a butterfly high on the rocky banks of the lake where so many plants are growing: there it flies hither and thither, heedless of the fact that its life will last only one more day, and that the night will be too cold for its winged fragility. For it, too, a philosophy might be found, though it might not be my own.

554.Leading.18—When we praise progress we only praise the movement and those who do not let us remain on the same spot, and in the circumstances this is certainly something, especially if we live among Egyptians. In changeable Europe, however, where movement is“understood,”to use their own expression,“as a matter of course”—alas, ifweonly understood something about it too!—I praise leaders and forerunners: that is to say, those who always leave themselves behind, and do not care in the least whether any one is following them or not.“Wherever I halt I find myself alone: why should I halt! the desert is still so wide!”—such is the sentiment of the true leader.

Leading.18—When we praise progress we only praise the movement and those who do not let us remain on the same spot, and in the circumstances this is certainly something, especially if we live among Egyptians. In changeable Europe, however, where movement is“understood,”to use their own expression,“as a matter of course”—alas, ifweonly understood something about it too!—I praise leaders and forerunners: that is to say, those who always leave themselves behind, and do not care in the least whether any one is following them or not.“Wherever I halt I find myself alone: why should I halt! the desert is still so wide!”—such is the sentiment of the true leader.

555.The Least Important Are Sufficient.—We ought to avoid events when we know that even the least important of them frequently enough leave a strong impression upon us—and these we cannot avoid.—The thinker must possess an approximate canon of all the things he still wishes to experience.

The Least Important Are Sufficient.—We ought to avoid events when we know that even the least important of them frequently enough leave a strong impression upon us—and these we cannot avoid.—The thinker must possess an approximate canon of all the things he still wishes to experience.

556.The Four Virtues.—Honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything friendly to us; brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards the vanquished; polite at all times: such do the four cardinal virtues wish us to be.

The Four Virtues.—Honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything friendly to us; brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards the vanquished; polite at all times: such do the four cardinal virtues wish us to be.

557.Marching Against an Enemy.—How pleasant is the sound of even bad music and bad motives when we are setting out to march against an enemy!

Marching Against an Enemy.—How pleasant is the sound of even bad music and bad motives when we are setting out to march against an enemy!

558.Not Concealing One's Virtues.—I love those men who are as transparent as water, and who, to use Pope's expression, hide not from view the turbid bottom of their stream. Even they, however, possess a certain vanity, though of a rare and more sublimated kind: some of them would wish us to see nothing but the mud, and to take no notice of the clearness of the water which enables us to look right to the bottom. No less a man than[pg 388]Gautama Buddha has imagined the vanity of these few in the formula,“Let your sins appear before men, and conceal your virtues.”But this would exhibit a disagreeable spectacle to the world—it would be a sin against good taste.

Not Concealing One's Virtues.—I love those men who are as transparent as water, and who, to use Pope's expression, hide not from view the turbid bottom of their stream. Even they, however, possess a certain vanity, though of a rare and more sublimated kind: some of them would wish us to see nothing but the mud, and to take no notice of the clearness of the water which enables us to look right to the bottom. No less a man than[pg 388]Gautama Buddha has imagined the vanity of these few in the formula,“Let your sins appear before men, and conceal your virtues.”But this would exhibit a disagreeable spectacle to the world—it would be a sin against good taste.

559."Nothing in Excess!"—How often is the individual recommended to set up a goal which it is beyond his power to reach, in order that he may at least attain that which lies within the scope of his abilities and most strenuous efforts! Is it really so desirable, however, that he should do so? Do not the best men who try to act according to this doctrine, together with their best deeds, necessarily assume a somewhat exaggerated and distorted appearance on account of their excessive tension? and in the future will not a grey mist of failure envelop the world, owing to the fact that we may see everywhere struggling athletes and tremendous gestures, but nowhere a conqueror crowned with the laurel, and rejoicing in his victory?

"Nothing in Excess!"—How often is the individual recommended to set up a goal which it is beyond his power to reach, in order that he may at least attain that which lies within the scope of his abilities and most strenuous efforts! Is it really so desirable, however, that he should do so? Do not the best men who try to act according to this doctrine, together with their best deeds, necessarily assume a somewhat exaggerated and distorted appearance on account of their excessive tension? and in the future will not a grey mist of failure envelop the world, owing to the fact that we may see everywhere struggling athletes and tremendous gestures, but nowhere a conqueror crowned with the laurel, and rejoicing in his victory?

560.What we are Free to do.—We can act as the gardeners of our impulses, and—which few people know—we may cultivate the seeds of anger, pity, vanity, or excessive brooding, and make these things fecund and productive, just as we can train a beautiful plant to grow along trellis-work. We may do this with the good or bad taste of a[pg 389]gardener, and as it were, in the French, English, Dutch, or Chinese style. We may let nature take its own course, only trimming and embellishing a little here and there; and finally, without any knowledge or consideration, we may even allow the plants to spring up in accordance with their own natural growth and limitations, and fight out their battle among themselves,—nay, we can even take delight in such chaos, though we may possibly have a hard time with it! All this is at our option: but how many know that it is? Do not the majority of people believe in themselves as complete and perfect facts? and have not the great philosophers set their seal on this prejudice through their doctrine of the unchangeability of character?

What we are Free to do.—We can act as the gardeners of our impulses, and—which few people know—we may cultivate the seeds of anger, pity, vanity, or excessive brooding, and make these things fecund and productive, just as we can train a beautiful plant to grow along trellis-work. We may do this with the good or bad taste of a[pg 389]gardener, and as it were, in the French, English, Dutch, or Chinese style. We may let nature take its own course, only trimming and embellishing a little here and there; and finally, without any knowledge or consideration, we may even allow the plants to spring up in accordance with their own natural growth and limitations, and fight out their battle among themselves,—nay, we can even take delight in such chaos, though we may possibly have a hard time with it! All this is at our option: but how many know that it is? Do not the majority of people believe in themselves as complete and perfect facts? and have not the great philosophers set their seal on this prejudice through their doctrine of the unchangeability of character?

561.Letting our Happiness also Shine.—In the same way as painters are unable to reproduce the deep brilliant hue of the natural sky, and are compelled to use all the colours they require for their landscapes a few shades deeper than nature has made them—just as they, by means of this trick, succeed in approaching the brilliancy and harmony of nature's own hues, so also must poets and philosophers, for whom the luminous rays of happiness are inaccessible, endeavour to find an expedient. By picturing all things a shade or two darker than they really are, their light, in which they excel, will produce almost exactly the same effect as the sunlight, and will resemble the light of true happiness.—The pessimist, on the other hand, who paints[pg 390]all things in the blackest and most sombre hues, only makes use of bright flames, lightning, celestial glories, and everything that possesses a glaring, dazzling power, and bewilders our eyes: to him light only serves the purpose of increasing the horror, and of making us look upon things as being more dreadful than they really are.

Letting our Happiness also Shine.—In the same way as painters are unable to reproduce the deep brilliant hue of the natural sky, and are compelled to use all the colours they require for their landscapes a few shades deeper than nature has made them—just as they, by means of this trick, succeed in approaching the brilliancy and harmony of nature's own hues, so also must poets and philosophers, for whom the luminous rays of happiness are inaccessible, endeavour to find an expedient. By picturing all things a shade or two darker than they really are, their light, in which they excel, will produce almost exactly the same effect as the sunlight, and will resemble the light of true happiness.—The pessimist, on the other hand, who paints[pg 390]all things in the blackest and most sombre hues, only makes use of bright flames, lightning, celestial glories, and everything that possesses a glaring, dazzling power, and bewilders our eyes: to him light only serves the purpose of increasing the horror, and of making us look upon things as being more dreadful than they really are.

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