[4] zerdachtere.
32.
Criticism of the Pessimism which has prevailed hitherto. The want of the eudæmonological standpoint, as a last abbreviation of the question: what is the purpose of it all? The reduction of gloom.
Our Pessimism: the world has not the value which we believed it to have,—our faith itself has so increased our instinct for research that we are compelled to say this to-day. In the first place, it seems of less value: at first it is felt to be of less value,—only in this sense are we pessimists,—that is to say, with the will to acknowledge this transvaluation without reserve, and no longer, as heretofore, to deceive ourselves and chant the old old story.
It is precisely in this way that we find the pathos which urges us to seek for new values. In short: the world might have far more value than we thought—we must get behind the naïveté of our ideals, for it is possible that, in our conscious effort to give it the highest interpretation, we have not bestowed even a moderately just value upon it.
What has been deified? The valuing instinct inside the community (that which enabled it to survive).
What has been calumniated? That which has tended to separate higher men from their inferiors, the instincts which cleave gulfs and build barriers.
33.
Causes effecting the rise of Pessimism:—
(1) The most powerful instincts and those which promised most for the future have hitherto been calumniated, so that life has a curse upon it.
(2) The growing bravery and the more daring mistrust on the part of man have led him to discover the fact that these instincts cannot be cut adrift from life, and thus he turns to embrace life.
(3) Only the most mediocre, who are not conscious of this conflict, prosper; the higher species fail, and as an example of degeneration tend to dispose all hearts against them—on the other hand, there is some indignation caused by the mediocre positing themselves as the end and meaning of all things. No one can any longer reply to the question: "Why?"
(4) Belittlement, susceptibility to pain, unrest, haste, and confusion are steadily increasing—the materialisation of all these tendencies, which is called "civilisation," becomes every day more simple, with the result that, in the face of the monstrous machine, the individual despairs and surrenders.
34.
Modern Pessimism is an expression of the uselessness only of the modern world, not of the world and existence as such.
35.
The "preponderance of pain over pleasure" or the reverse (Hedonism); both of these doctrines are already signposts to Nihilism....
For here, in both cases, no other final purpose is sought than the phenomenon pleasure or pain.
But only a man who no longer dares to posit a will, a purpose, and a final goal can speak in this way—according to every healthy type of man, the worth of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these secondary things. And a preponderance of pain would be possible and, in spite of it, a mighty will, a saying of yea to life, and a holding of this preponderance for necessary.
"Life is not worth living"; "Resignation"; "what is the good of tears?"—this is a feeble and sentimental attitude of mind. "Un monstre gai vaut mieux qu'un sentimental ennuyeux."
36.
The philosophie Nihilist is convinced that all phenomena are without sense and are in vain, and that there ought to be no such thing as Being without sense and in vain. But whence comes this "There ought not to be?"—whence this "sense" and this standard? At bottom the Nihilist supposes that the sight of such a desolate, useless Being is unsatisfying to the philosopher, and fills him with desolation and despair. This aspect of the case is opposed to our subtle sensibilities as a philosopher. It leads to the absurd conclusion that the character of existence must perforce afford pleasure to the philosopher if it is to have any right to subsist.
Now it is easy to understand that happiness and unhappiness, within the phenomena of this world, can only serve the purpose of means: the question yet remaining to be answered is, whether it will ever be possible for us to perceive the "object" and "purpose" of life—whether the problem of purposelessness or the reverse is not quite beyond our ken.
37.
The development of Nihilism out of Pessimism. The denaturalisation of Values. Scholasticism of values. The values isolated, idealistic, instead of ruling and leading action, turn against it and condemn it.
Opposites introduced in the place of natural gradations and ranks. Hatred of the order of rank. Opposites are compatible with a plebeian age, because they are more easy to grasp.
The rejected world is opposed to an artificially constructed "true and valuable" one. At last we discover out of what material the "true" world was built; all that remains, now, is the rejected world, and to the account of our reasons for rejecting it we place our greatest disillusionment.
At this point Nihilism is reached; the directing values have been retained—nothing more!
This gives rise to the problem of strength and weakness:—
(1) The weak fall to pieces upon it;
(2) The strong destroy what does not fall to pieces of its own accord;
(3) The strongest overcome the directing values.
The whole condition of affairs produces the tragic age.
3. The Nihilistic Movement As an Expression of Decadence.
38.
Just lately an accidental and in every way inappropriate term has been very much misused: everywhere people are speaking of "Pessimism," and there is a fight around the question (to which some replies must be forthcoming): which is right—Pessimism or Optimism?
People have not yet seen what is so terribly-obvious—namely, that Pessimism is not a problem but a symptom,—that the term ought to be replaced by "Nihilism,"—that the question, "to be or not to be," is itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy.
The Nihilistic movement is only an expression of physiological decadence.
39.
To be understood:—That every kind of decline and tendency to sickness has incessantly been at work in helping to create general evaluations: that in those valuations which now dominate, decadence has even begun to preponderate, that we have not only to combat the conditions which present misery and degeneration have brought into being; but that all decadence, previous to that of our own times, has been transmitted and has therefore remained an active force amongst us. A universal departure of this kind, on the part of man, from his fundamental instincts, such universal decadence of the valuing judgment, is the note of interrogation par excellence, the real riddle, which the animal "man" sets to all philosophers.
40.
The notion "decadence":—Decay, decline, and waste, are, per se, in no way open to objection;they are the natural consequences of life and vital growth. The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to life as advance or progress is: we are not in a position which enables us to suppress it. On the contrary, reason would have it retain its rights.
It is disgraceful on the part of socialist-theorists to argue that circumstances and social combinations could be devised which would put an end to all vice, illness, crime, prostitution, and poverty.... But that is tantamount to condemning Life ... a society is not at liberty to remain young. And even in its prime it must bring forth ordure and decaying matter. The more energetically and daringly it advances, the richer will it be in failures and in deformities, and the nearer it will be to its fall. Age is not deferred by means of institutions. Nor is illness. Nor is vice.
41.
Fundamental aspect of the nature of decadence: what has heretofore been regarded as its causes are its effects.
In this way, the whole perspective of the problems of morality is altered.
All the struggle of morals against vice, luxury, crime, and even against illness, seems a naïveté, a superfluous effort: there is no such thing as "improvement" (a word against repentance).
Decadence itself is not a thing that can be withstood: it is absolutely necessary and is proper to all ages and all peoples. That which must be withstood, and by all means in our power, is the spreading of the contagion among the sound parts of the organism.
Is that done? The very reverse is done. It is precisely on this account that one makes a stand on behalf of humanity.
How do the highest values created hitherto stand in relation to this fundamental question in biology? Philosophy, religion, morality, art, etc.
(The remedy: militarism, for instance, from Napoleon onwards, who regarded civilisation as his natural enemy.)
42.
All those things which heretofore have been regarded as the causes of degeneration, are really its effects.
But those things also which have been regarded as the remedies of degeneration are only palliatives of certain effects thereof: the "cured" are types of the degenerate.
The results of decadence: vice—viciousness; illness—sickliness; crime—criminality; celibacy—sterility; hysteria—the weakness of the will; alcoholism; pessimism, anarchy; debauchery (also of the spirit). The calumniators, underminers, sceptics, and destroyers.
43.
Concerning the notion "decadence." (1) Scepticism is a result of decadence: just as spiritual debauchery is.
(2) Moral corruption is a result of decadence (the weakness of the will and the need of strong stimulants).
(3) Remedies, whether psychological or moral, do not alter the march of decadence, they do not arrest anything; physiologically they do not count.
A peep into the enormous futility of these pretentious "reactions"; they are forms of anæsthetising oneself against certain fatal symptoms resulting from the prevailing condition of things; they do not eradicate the morbid element; they are often heroic attempts to cancel the decadent man, to allow only a minimum of his deleterious influence to survive.
(4) Nihilism is not a cause, but only the rationale of decadence.
(5) The "good" and the "bad" are no more than two types of decadence: they come together in all its fundamental phenomena.
(6) The social problem is a result of decadence.
(7) Illnesses, more particularly those attacking the nerves and the head, are signs that the defensive strength of strong nature is lacking; a proof of this is that irritability which causes pleasure and pain to be regarded as problems of the first order.
44.
The most common types of decadence: (1) In the belief that they are remedies, cures are chosen which only precipitate exhaustion;—this is the case with Christianity (to point to the most egregious example of mistaken instinct);—this is also the case with "progress."
(2) The power of resisting stimuli is on the wane—chance rules supreme: events are inflated and drawn out until they appear monstrous ... a suppression of the "personality," a disintegration of the will; in this regard we may mention a whole class of morality, the altruistic, that which is incessantly preaching pity, and whose most essential feature is the weakness of the personality, so that it rings in unison, and, like an over-sensitive string, does not cease from vibrating ... extreme irritability....
(3) Cause and effect are confounded: decadence is not understood as physiological, and its results are taken to be the causes of the general indisposition:—this applies to all religious morality.
(4) A state of affairs is desired in which suffering shall cease; life is actually considered the cause of all ills—unconscious and insensitive states (sleep and syncope) are held in incomparably higher esteem than the conscious states; hence a method of life.
45.
Concerning the hygiene of the "weak." All that is done in weakness ends in failure. Moral: do nothing. The worst of it is, that precisely the strength required in order to stop action, and to cease from reacting, is most seriously diseased under the influence of weakness: that one never reacts more promptly or more blindly than when one should not react at all.
The strength of a character is shown by the ability to delay and postpone reaction: a certain ἀδιαφορία is just as proper to it, as involuntariness in recoiling, suddenness and lack of restraint in "action," are proper to weakness. The will is weak: and the recipe for preventing foolish acts would be: to have a strong will and to do nothing—contradiction. A sort of self-destruction, the instinct of self-preservation is compromised.... The weak man injures himself.... That is the decadent type.
As a matter of fact, we meet with a vast amount of thought concerning the means wherewith impassibility may be induced. To this extent, the instincts are on the right scent; for to do nothing is more useful than to do something....
All the practices of private orders, of solitary philosophers, and of fakirs, are suggested by a correct consideration of the fact, that a certain kind of man is most useful to himself when he hinders his own action as much as possible.
Relieving measures: absolute obedience, mechanical activity, total isolation from men and things that might exact immediate decisions and actions.
46.
Weakness of Will: this is a fable that can lead astray. For there is no will, consequently neither a strong nor a weak one. The multiplicity and disintegration of the instincts, the want of system in their relationship, constitute what is known as a "weak will"; their co-ordination, under the government of one individual among them, results in a "strong will"—in the first case vacillation and a lack of equilibrium is noticeable: in the second, precision and definite direction.
47.
That which is inherited is not illness, but a predisposition to illness: a lack of the powers of resistance against injurious external influences, etc. etc, broken powers of resistance; expressed morally: resignation and humility in the presence of the enemy.
I have often wondered whether it would not be possible to class all the highest values of the philosophies, moralities, and religions which have been devised hitherto, with the values of the feeble, the insane and the neurasthenic in a milder form, they present the same evils.
The value of all morbid conditions consists in the fact that they magnify certain normal phenomena which are difficult to discern in normal conditions....
Health and illness are not essentially different, as the ancient doctors believed and as a few practitioners still believe to-day. They cannot be imagined as two distinct principles or entities which fight for the living organism and make it their battlefield. That is nonsense and mere idle gossip, which no longer holds water. As a matter of fact, there is only a difference of degree between these two living conditions: exaggeration, want of proportion, want of harmony among the normal phenomena, constitute the morbid state (Claude Bernard).
Just as "evil" may be regarded as exaggeration, discord, and want of proportion, so can "good" be regarded as a sort of protective diet against the danger of exaggeration, discord, and want of proportion.
Hereditary weakness as a dominant feeling: the cause of the prevailing values.
N.B.—Weakness is in demand—why?... mostly because people cannot be anything else than weak.
Weakening considered a duty: The weakening of the desires, of the feelings of pleasure and of pain, of the will to power, of the will to pride, to property and to more property; weakening in the form of humility; weakening in the form of a belief; weakening in the form of repugnance and shame in the presence of all that is natural—in the form of a denial of life, in the form of illness and chronic feebleness; weakening in the form of a refusal to take revenge, to offer resistance, to become an enemy, and to show anger.
Blunders in the treatment: there is no attempt at combating weakness by means of any fortifying system; but by a sort of justification consisting of moralising; i.e., by means of interpretation.
Two totally different conditions are confused: for instance, the repose of strength, which is essentially abstinence from reaction (the prototype of the gods whom nothing moves), and the peace of exhaustion, rigidity to the point of anæsthesia. All these philosophic and ascetic modes of procedure aspire to the second state, but actually pretend to attain to the first ... for they ascribe to the condition they have reached the attributes that would be in keeping only with a divine state.
48.
The most dangerous misunderstanding.—There is one concept which apparently allows of no confusion or ambiguity, and that is the concept exhaustion. Exhaustion may be acquired or inherited—in any case it alters the aspect and value of things.
Unlike him who involuntarily gives of the superabundance which he both feels and represents, to the things about him, and who sees them fuller, mightier, and more pregnant with promises,—who, in fact, can bestow,—the exhausted one belittles and disfigures everything he sees—he impoverishes its worth: he is detrimental....
No mistake seems possible in this matter: and yet history discloses the terrible fact, that the exhausted have always been confounded with those with the most abundant resources, and the latter with the most detrimental.
The pauper in vitality, the feeble one, impoverishes even life: the wealthy man, in vital powers, enriches it. The first is the parasite of the second: the second is a bestower of his abundance. How is confusion possible?
When he who was exhausted came forth with the bearing of a very active and energetic man (when degeneration implied a certain excess of spiritual and nervous discharge), he was mistaken for the wealthy man. He inspired terror. The cult of the madman is also always the cult of him who is rich in vitality, and who is a powerful man. The fanatic, the one possessed, the religious epileptic, all eccentric creatures have been regarded as the highest types of power: as divine.
This kind of strength which inspires terror seemed to be, above all, divine: this was the starting-point of authority; here wisdom was interpreted, hearkened to, and sought. Out of this there was developed, everywhere almost, a will to "deify," i.e., to a typical degeneration of spirit, body, and nerves: an attempt to discover the road to this higher form of being. To make oneself ill or mad, to provoke the symptoms of serious disorder—was called getting stronger, becoming more superhuman, more terrible and more wise. People thought they would thus attain to such wealth of power, that they would be able to dispense it. Wheresoever there have been prayers, some one has been sought who had something to give away.
What led astray, here, was the experience of intoxication. This increases the feeling of power to the highest degree, therefore, to the mind of the ingenuous, it is power. On the highest altar of power the most intoxicated man must stand, the ecstatic. (There are two causes of intoxication: superabundant life, and a condition of morbid nutrition of the brain.)
49.
Acquired, not inherited exhaustion: (1) inadequate nourishment, often the result of ignorance concerning diet, as, for instance, in the case of scholars; (2) erotic precocity: the damnation more especially of the youth of France—Parisian youths, above all, who are already dirtied and ruined when they step out of their lycées into the world, and who cannot break the chains of despicable tendencies; ironical and scornful towards themselves—galley-slaves despite all their refinement (moreover, in the majority of cases, already a symptom of racial and family decadence, as all hypersensitiveness is; and examples of the infection of environment: to be influenced by one's environment is also a sign of decadence); (3) alcoholism, not the instinct but the habit, foolish imitation, the cowardly or vain adaptation to a ruling fashion. What a blessing a Jew is among Germans! See the obtuseness, the flaxen head, the blue eye, and the lack of intellect in the face, the language, and the bearing; the lazy habit of stretching the limbs, and the need of repose among Germans—a need which is not the result of overwork, but of the disgusting excitation and over-excitation caused by alcohol.
50.
A theory of exhaustion.—Vice, the insane (also artists), the criminals, the anarchists—these are not the oppressed classes, but the outcasts of the community of all classes hitherto.
Seeing that all our classes are permeated by these elements, we have grasped the fact that modern society is not a "society" or a "body," but a diseased agglomeration of Chandala,—a society which no longer has the strength even to excrete.
To what extent living together for centuries has very much deepened sickliness:
modern virtuee }
modern intellect } as forms of disease.
modern science }
51.
The state of corruption.—The interrelation of all forms of corruption should be understood, and the Christian form (Pascal as the type), as also the socialistic and communistic (a result of the Christian), should not be overlooked (from the standpoint of natural science, the highest conception of society according to socialists, is the lowest in the order of rank among societies); the "Beyond" —corruption: as though outside the real world of Becoming there were a world of Being.
Here there must be no compromise, but selection, annihilation, and war—the Christian Nihilistic standard of value must be withdrawn from all things and attacked beneath every disguise ... for instance, from modern sociology, music, and Pessimism (all forms of the Christian ideal of values).
Either one thing or the other is true—that is to say, tending to elevate the type man....
The priest, the shepherd of souls, should be looked upon as a form of life which must be suppressed. All education, hitherto, has been helpless, adrift, without ballast, and afflicted with the contradiction of values.
Either one thing or the other is true—that is to say, tending to elevate the type man....
The priest, the shepherd of souls, should be looked upon as a form of life which must be suppressed. All education, hitherto, has been helpless, adrift, without ballast, and afflicted with the contradiction of values.
52.
If Nature have no pity on the degenerate, it is not therefore immoral: the growth of physiological and moral evils in the human race, is rather the result of morbid and unnatural morality. The sensitiveness of the majority of men is both morbid and unnatural.
Why is it that mankind is corrupt in a moral and physiological respect? The body degenerates if one organ is unsound. The right of altruism cannot be traced to physiology, neither can the right to help and to the equality of fate: these are all premiums for degenerates and failures.
There can be no solidarity in a society containing unfruitful, unproductive, and destructive members, who, by the bye, are bound to have offspring even more degenerate than they are themselves.
53.
Decadence exercises a profound and perfectly unconscious influence, even over the ideals of science: all our sociology is a proof of this proposition, and it has yet to be reproached with the fact that it has only the experience of society in the process of decay, and inevitably takes its own decaying instincts as the basis of sociological judgment.
The declining vitality of modern Europe formulates its social ideals in its decaying instincts: and these ideals are all so like those of old and effete races, that they might be mistaken for one another.
The gregarious instinct, then,—now a sovereign power,—is something totally different from the instinct of an aristocratic society: and the value of the sum depends upon the value of the units constituting it.... The whole of our sociology knows no other instinct than that of the herd, i.e., of a multitude of mere ciphers—of which every cipher has "equal rights," and where it is a virtue to be——naught....
The valuation with which the various forms of society are judged to-day is absolutely the same with that which assigns a higher place to peace than to war: but this principle is contrary to the teaching of biology, and is itself a mere outcome of decadent life. Life is a result of war, society is a means to war.... Mr. Herbert Spencer was a decadent in biology, as also in morality (he regarded the triumph of altruism as a desideratum!!!).
54.
After thousands of years of error and confusion, it is my good fortune to have rediscovered the road which leads to a Yea and to a Nay.
I teach people to say Nay in the face of all that makes for weakness and exhaustion.
I teach people to say Yea in the face of all that makes for strength, that preserves strength, and justifies the feeling of strength.
Up to the present, neither the one nor the other has been taught; but rather virtue, disinterestedness, pity, and even the negation of life. All these are values proceeding from exhausted people.
After having pondered over the physiology of exhaustion for some time, I was led to the question: to what extent the judgments of exhausted people had percolated into the world of values.
The result at which I arrived was as startling as it could possibly be—even for one like myself who was already at home in many a strange world: I found that all prevailing values—that is to say, all those which had gained ascendancy over humanity, or at least over its tamer portions, could be traced back to the judgment of exhausted people.
Under the cover of the holiest names, I found the most destructive tendencies; people had actually given the name "God" to all that renders weak, teaches weakness, and infects with weakness.... I found that the "good man" was a form of self-affirmation on the part of decadence.
That virtue which Schopenhauer still proclaimed as superior to all, and as the most fundamental of all virtues; even that same pity I recognised as more dangerous than any vice. Deliberately to thwart the law of selection among species, and their natural means of purging their stock of degenerate members—this, up to my time, had been the greatest of all virtues....
One should do honour to the fatality which says to the feeble: "perish!"
The opposing of this fatality, the botching of mankind and the allowing of it to putrefy, was given the name "God" One shall not take the name of the Lord one's God in vain....
The race is corrupted—not by its vices, but by its ignorance: it is corrupted because it has not recognised exhaustion as exhaustion: physiological misunderstandings are the cause of all evil.
Virtue is our greatest misunderstanding.
Problem: how were the exhausted able to make the laws of values? In other words, how did they who are the last, come to power?... How did the instincts of the animal man ever get to stand on their heads?...
4. The Crisis: Nihilism and the Idea of Recurrence.
55.
Extreme positions are not relieved by more moderate ones, but by extreme opposite positions. And thus the belief in the utter immorality of nature, and in the absence of all purpose and sense, are psychologically necessary attitudes when the belief in God and in an essentially moral order of things is no longer tenable.
Nihilism now appears, not because the sorrows of existence are greater than they were formerly, but because, in a general way, people have grown suspicious of the "meaning" which might be given to evil and even to existence. One interpretation has been overthrown: but since it was held to be the interpretation, it seems as though there were no meaning in existence at all, as though everything were in vain.
***
It yet remains to be shown that this "in vain!" is the character of present Nihilism. The mistrust of our former valuations has increased to such an extent that it has led to the question: "are not all 'values' merely allurements prolonging the duration of the comedy, without, however, bringing the unravelling any closer?" The "long period of time" which has culminated in an "in vain," without either goal or purpose, is the most paralysing of thoughts, more particularly when one sees that one is duped without, however, being able to resist being duped.
***
Let us imagine this thought in its worst form: existence, as it is, without either a purpose or a goal, but inevitably recurring, without an end in nonentity: "Eternal Recurrence."
This is the extremest form of Nihilism: nothing (purposelessness) eternal!
European form of Buddhism: the energy of knowledge and of strength drives us to such a belief. It is the most scientific of all hypotheses. We deny final purposes. If existence had a final purpose it would have reached it.
***
It should be understood that what is being aimed at, here, is a contradiction of Pantheism: for "everything perfect, divine, eternal," also leads to the belief in Eternal Recurrence. Question: has this pantheistic and affirmative attitude to all things also been made possible by morality? At bottom only the moral God has been overcome. Is there any sense in imagining a God "beyond good and evil"? Would Pantheism in this sense be possible? Do we withdraw the idea of purpose from the process, and affirm the process notwithstanding? This were so if, within that process, something were attained every moment—and always the same thing. Spinoza won an affirmative position of this sort, in the sense that every moment, according to him, has a logical necessity: and he triumphed by means of his fundamentally logical instinct over a like conformation of the world.
***
But his case is exceptional. If every fundamental trait of character, which lies beneath every act, and which finds expression in every act, were recognised by the individual as his fundamental trait of character, this individual would be driven to regard every moment of his existence in general, triumphantly as good. It would simply be necessary for that fundamental trait of character to be felt in oneself as something good, valuable, and pleasurable.
***
Now, in the case of those men and classes of men who were treated with violence and oppressed by their fellows, morality saved life from despair and from the leap into nonentity:. for impotence in relation to mankind and not in relation to Nature is what generates the most desperate bitterness towards existence. Morality treated the powerful, the violent, and the "masters" in general, as enemies against whom the common man must be protected—that is to say, emboldened, strengthened. Morality has therefore always taught the most profound hatred and contempt of the fundamental trait of character of all rulers—i.e., their Will to Power. To suppress, to deny, and to decompose this morality, would mean to regard this most thoroughly detested instinct with the reverse of the old feeling and valuation. If the sufferer and the oppressed man were to lose his belief in his right to contemn the Will to Power, his position would be desperate. This would be so if the trait above-mentioned were essential to life, in which case it would follow that even that will to morality was only a cloak to this "Will to Power," as are also even that hatred and contempt. The oppressed man would then perceive that he stands on the same platform with the oppressor, and that he has no individual privilege, nor any higher rank than the latter.
***
On the contrary! There is nothing on earth which can have any value, if it have not a modicum of power—granted, of course, that life itself is the Will to Power. Morality protected the botched and bungled against Nihilism, in that it gave every one of them infinite worth, metaphysical worth, and classed them altogether in one order which did not correspond with that of worldly power and order of rank: it taught submission, humility, etc. Admitting that the belief in this morality be destroyed, the botched and the bungled would no longer have any comfort, and would perish.
This perishing seems like self-annihilation, like an instinctive selection of that which must be destroyed. The symptoms of this self-destruction of the botched and the bungled: self-vivisection, poisoning, intoxication, romanticism, and, above all, the instinctive constraint to acts whereby the powerful are made into mortal enemies (training, so to speak, one's own hangmen), the will to destruction as the will of a still deeper instinct—of the instinct of self-destruction, of the Will to Nonentity.
***
Nihilism is a sign that the botched and bungled in order to be destroyed, that, having been deprived of morality, they no longer have any reason to "resign themselves," that they take up their stand on the territory of the opposite principle, and will also exercise power themselves, by compelling the powerful to become their hangmen. This is the European form of Buddhism, that active negation, after all existence has lost its meaning.
***
It must not be supposed that "poverty" has grown more acute, on the contrary! "God, morality, resignation" were remedies in the very deepest stages of misery: active Nihilism made its appearance in circumstances which were relatively much more favourable. The fact, alone, that morality is regarded as overcome, presupposes a certain degree of intellectual culture; while this very culture, for its part, bears evidence to a certain relative well-being. A certain intellectual fatigue, brought on by the long struggle concerning philosophical opinions, and carried to hopeless scepticism against philosophy, shows moreover that the level of these Nihilists is by no means a low one. Only think of the conditions in which Buddha appeared! The teaching of the eternal recurrence would have learned principles to go upon (just as Buddha's teaching, for instance, had the notion of causality, etc.).
***
What do we mean to-day by the words "botched and bungled"? In the first place, they are used physiologically and not politically. The unhealthiest kind of man all over Europe (in all classes) is the soil out of which Nihilism grows: this species of man will regard eternal recurrence as damnation—once he is bitten by the thought, he can no longer recoil before any action. He would not extirpate passively, but would cause everything to be extirpated which is meaningless and without a goal to this extent; although it is only a spasm, or sort of blind rage in the presence of the fact that everything has existed again and again for an eternity—even this period of Nihilism and destruction. The value of such a crisis is that it purifies, that it unites similar elements, and makes them mutually destructive, that it assigns common duties to men of opposite persuasions, and brings the weaker and more uncertain among them to the light, thus taking the first step towards a new order of rank among forces from the standpoint of health: recognising commanders as commanders, subordinates as subordinates. Naturally irrespective of all the present forms of society.
***
What class of men will prove they are strongest in this new order of things? The most moderate—they who do not require any extreme forms of belief, they who not only admit of, but actually like, a certain modicum of chance and nonsense; they who can think of man with a very moderate view of his value, without becoming weak and small on that account; the most rich in health, who are able to withstand a maximum amount of sorrow, and who are therefore not so very much afraid of sorrow—men who are certain of their power, and who represent with conscious pride the state of strength to which man has attained.
***
How could such a man think of Eternal Recurrence?
56.
The Periods of European Nihilism.
The Period of Obscurity: all kinds of groping measures devised to preserve old institutions and not to arrest the progress of new ones.
The Period of Light: men see that old and new are fundamental contraries; that the old values are born of descending life, and that the new ones are born of ascending life—that all old ideals are unfriendly to life (born of decadence and determining it, however much they may be decked out in the Sunday finery of morality). We understand the old, but are far from being sufficiently strong for the new.
The Periods of the Three Great Passions: contempt, pity, destruction.
The Periods of Catastrophes: the rise of a teaching which will sift mankind ... which drives the weak to some decision and the strong also.
CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN NIHILISM.
(a) Modern Gloominess.
57.
My friends, we had a hard time as youths; we even suffered from youth itself as though it were a serious disease. This is owing to the age in which we were born—an age of enormous internal decay and disintegration which, with all its weakness and even with the best of its strength, is opposed to the spirit of youth. Disintegration—that is to say, uncertainty—is peculiar to this age: nothing stands on solid ground or on a sound faith. People live for the morrow, because the day-after-to-morrow is doubtful. All our road is slippery and dangerous, while the ice which still bears us has grown unconscionably thin: we all feel the mild and gruesome breath of the thaw-wind—soon, where we are walking, no one will any longer be able to stand!
58.
If this is not an age of decay and of diminishing vitality, it is at least one of indiscriminate and arbitrary experimentalising—and it is probable that out of an excess of abortive experiments there has grown this general impression, as of decay: and perhaps decay itself.
59.
Concerning the history of modern gloominess.
The state-nomads (officials, etc.): "homeless"—.
The break-up of the family.
The "good man" as a symptom of exhaustion.
Justice as Will to Power (Rearing).
Lewdness and neurosis.
Black music: whither has real music gone?
The anarchist.
Contempt of man, loathing.
Most profound distinction: whether hunger or satiety is creative? The first creates the Ideals of Romanticism.
Northern unnaturalness.
The need of Alcohol: the "need" of the working classes.
Philosophical Nihilism.
60.
The slow advance and rise of the middle and lower classes (including the lower kind of spirit and body), which was already well under way before the French Revolution, and would have made the same progress forward without the latter,—in short, then, the preponderance of the herd over all herdsmen and bell-wethers,—brings in its train:—
(1) Gloominess of spirit (the juxtaposition of a stoical and a frivolous appearance of happiness, peculiar to noble cultures, is on the decline; much suffering is allowed to be seen and heard which formerly was borne in concealment);
(2) Moral hypocrisy (a way of distinguishing oneself through morality, but by means of the values of the herd: pity, solicitude, moderation; and not by means of those virtues which are recognised and honoured outside the herd's sphere of power);
(3) A really large amount of sympathy with both pain and joy (a feeling of pleasure resulting from being herded together, which is peculiar to all gregarious animals—"public spirit," "patriotism," everything, in fact, which is apart from the individual).
61.
Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours to mitigate distress, to honour it, and to wage war in advance with unpleasant possibilities, is an age of the poor. Our "rich people"—they are the poorest! The real purpose of all wealth has been forgotten.
62.
Criticism of modern man:—"the good man," but corrupted and misled by bad institutions (tyrants and priests);—reason elevated to a position of authority;—history is regarded as the surmounting of errors;—the future is regarded as progress;—the Christian state ("God of the armies");—Christian sexual intercourse (as marriage);—the realm of "justice" (the cult of "mankind");—"freedom."
The romantic attitudes of the modern man;—the noble man (Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand);—taking the part of the oppressed and the bungled and the botched: motto for historians and romancers;—the Stoics of duty;—disinterestedness regarded as art and as knowledge;—altruism as the most mendacious form of egoism (utilitarianism), the most sentimental form of egoism.
All this savours of the eighteenth century. But it had other qualities which were not inherited, namely, a certain insouciance, cheerfulness, elegance, spiritual clearness. The spiritual tempo has altered; the pleasure which was begotten by spiritual refinement and clearness has given room to the pleasure of colour, harmony, mass, reality, etc. etc. Sensuality in spiritual things. In short, it is the eighteenth century of Rousseau.
63.
Taken all in all, a considerable amount of humanity has been attained by our men of to-day. That we feel this is in itself a proof of the fact that we have become so sensitive in regard to small cases of distress, that we somewhat unjustly overlook what has been achieved.
Here we must make allowances for the fact that a great deal of decadence is rife, and that, through such eyes, our world must appear bad and wretched. But these eyes have always seen in the same way, in all ages.
(1) A certain hypersensitiveness, even in morality.
(2) The quantum of bitterness and gloominess, which pessimism bears with it in its judgments—both together have helped to bring about the preponderance of the other and opposite point of view, that things are not well with our morality.
The fact of credit, of the commerce of the world, and the means of traffic—are expressions of an extraordinarily mild trustfulness in men.... To that may also be added—
(3) The deliverance of science from moral and religious prejudices: a very good sign, though for the most part misunderstood.
In my own way, I am attempting a justification of history.
64.
The second appearance of Buddhism.—Its precursory signs: the increase of pity. Spiritual exhaustion. The reduction of all problems to the question of pleasure and pain. The glory of war which calls forth a counter-stroke. Just as the sharp demarcation of nations generates a counter-movement in the form of the most hearty "Fraternity." The fact that it is impossible for religion to carry on its work any longer with dogma and fables.
The catastrophe of Nihilism will put an end to all this Buddhistic culture.
65.
That which is most sorely afflicted to-day is the instinct and will of tradition: all institutions which owe their origin to this instinct, are opposed to the tastes of the age.... At bottom, nothing is thought or done which is not calculated to tear up this spirit of tradition by the roots. Tradition is looked upon as a fatality; it is studied and acknowledged (in the form of "heredity"), but people will not have anything to do with it. The extension of one will over long periods of time, the selection of conditions and valuations which make it possible to dispose of centuries in advance—this, precisely, is what is most utterly anti-modern. From which it follows, that disorganising principles give our age its specific character.
66.
"Be simple"—a demand which, when made to us complicated and incomprehensible triers of the heart and reins, is a simple absurdity.... Be natural: but even if we are unnatural—what then?
67.
The means employed in former times in order to arrive at similarly constituted and lasting types, throughout long generations: entailed property and the respect of parents (the origin of the faith in gods and heroes as ancestors).
Now, the subdivision of property belongs to the opposite tendency. The centralisation of an enormous number of, different interests in one soul: which, to that end, must be very strong and mutable.
68.
Why does everything become mummery.—The modern man is lacking in unfailing instinct (instinct being understood here to mean that which is the outcome of a long period of activity in the same occupation on the part of one family of men); the incapability of producing anything perfect, is simply the result of this lack of instinct: one individual alone cannot make up for the schooling his ancestors should have transmitted to him.
What a morality or book of law creates: that deep instinct which renders automatism and perfection possible in life and in work.
But now we have reached the opposite point; yes, we wanted to reach it—the most extreme consciousness, through introspection on the part of man and of history: and thus we are practically most distant from perfection in Being, doing, and willing: our desires—even our will to knowledge—shows how prodigiously decadent we are. We are striving after the very reverse of what strong races and strong natures will have—understanding is an end....
That Science is possible in the way in which it is practised to-day, proves that all elementary instincts, the instincts which ward off danger and protect life, are no longer active. We no longer save, we are merely spending the capital of our forefathers, even in the way in which we pursue knowledge.
69.
Nihilistic trait.
(a) In the natural sciences ("purposelessness"), causality, mechanism, "conformity to law," an interval, a remnant.
(b) Likewise in politics: the individual lacks the belief in his own right, innocence; falsehood rules supreme, as also the worship of the moment.
(d) Likewise in political economy: the abolition of slavery: the lack of a redeeming class, and of one who justifies—the rise of anarchy. "Education"?
(d) Likewise in history: fatalism, Darwinism; the last attempts at reconciling reason and Godliness fail. Sentimentality in regard to the past: biographies can no longer be endured! (Phenomenalism even here: character regarded as a mask; there are no facts.)
(e) Likewise in Art: romanticism and its counter-stroke (repugnance towards romantic ideals and lies). The latter, morally, as a sense of greatest truthfulness, but pessimistic. Pure "artists" (indifference as to the "subject"). (The psychology of the father-confessor and puritanical psychology—two forms of psychological romanticism: but also their counter-stroke, the attempt to maintain a purely artistic attitude towards "men"—but even in this respect no one dares to make the opposite valuation.)
70.
Against the teaching of the influence of environment and external causes: the power coming from inside is infinitely superior; much that appears like influence acting from without is merely the subjection of environment to this inner power.
Precisely the same environment may be used and interpreted in opposite ways: there are no facts. A genius is not explained by such theories concerning origins.
71.
"Modernity" regarded in the light of nutrition and digestion.
Sensitiveness is infinitely more acute (beneath moral vestments: the increase of pity), the abundance of different impressions is greater than ever. The cosmopolitanism of articles of diet, of literature, newspapers, forms, tastes, and even landscapes. The speed of this affluence is prestissimo; impressions are wiped out, and people instinctively guard against assimilating anything or against taking anything seriously and "digesting" it; the result is a weakening of the powers of digestion. There begin a sort of adaptation to this accumulation of impressions. Man unlearns the art of doing, and all he does is to react to stimuli coming from his environment. He spends his strength, partly in the process of assimilation, partly in defending himself, and again partly in responding to stimuli. Profound enfeeblement of spontaneity:—the historian, the critic, the analyst, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader,—all reactive talents,—all science!
Artificial modification of one's own nature in order to make it resemble a "mirror"; one is interested, but only epidermally: this is systematic coolness, equilibrium, a steady low temperature, just beneath the thin surface on which warmth, movement, "storm," and undulations play.
Opposition of external mobility to a certain dead heaviness and fatigue.
72.
Where must our modern world be classed—under exhaustion or under increasing strength? Its multiformity and lack of repose are brought about by the highest form of consciousness.
73.
Overwork, curiosity and sympathy—our modern vices.
74.
A contribution to the characterisation of "Modernity."—Exaggerated development of intermediate forms; the decay of types; the break-up of tradition, schools; the predominance of the instincts (philosophically prepared: the unconscious has the greater value) after the appearance of the enfeeblement of will power and of the will to an end and to the means thereto.
75.
A capable artisan or scholar cuts a good figure if he have his pride in his art, and looks pleasantly and contentedly upon life. On the other hand, there is no sight more wretched than that of a cobbler or a schoolmaster who, with the air of a martyr, gives one to understand that he was really born for something better. There is nothing better than what is good! and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and to use it. This is virtù in the Italian style of the Renaissance.
Nowadays, when the state has a nonsensically oversized belly, in all fields and branches of work there are "representatives" over and above the real workman: for instance, in addition to the scholars, there are the journalists; in addition to the suffering masses, there is a crowd of jabbering and bragging ne'er-do-wells who "represent" that suffering—not to speak of the professional politicians who, though quite satisfied with their lot, stand up in Parliament and, with strong lungs, "represent" grievances. Our modern life is extremely expensive, thanks to the host of middlemen that infest it; whereas in the city of antiquity, and in many a city of Spain and Italy to-day, where there is an echo of the ancient spirit, the man himself comes forward and will have nothing to do with a representative or an intermediary in the modern style—except perhaps to kick him hence!
76.
The pre-eminence of the merchant and the middleman, even in the most intellectual spheres: the journalist, the "representative," the historian (as an intermediary between the past and the present), the exotic and cosmopolitan, the middleman between natural science and philosophy, the semi-theologians.
77.
The men I have regarded with the most loathing, heretofore, are the parasites of intellect: they are to be found everywhere, already, in our modern Europe, and as a matter of fact their conscience is as light as it possibly can be. They may be a little turbid, and savour somewhat of Pessimism, but in the main they are voracious, dirty, dirtying, stealthy, insinuating, light-fingered gentry, scabby—and as innocent as all small sinners and microbes are. They live at the expense of those who have intellect and who distribute it liberally: they know that it is peculiar to the rich mind to live in a disinterested fashion, without taking too much petty thought for the morrow, and to distribute its wealth prodigally. For intellect is a bad domestic economist, and pays no heed whatever to the fact that everything lives on it and devours it.
78.
Modern Mummery
The motleyness of modern men and its charm Essentially a mask and a sign of boredom.
The journalist.
The political man (in the "national swindle").
Mummery in the arts:—
"Scientifically."
Virtuosos (Jews).
The popular ideals are overcome, but not yet in the presence of the people:
The saint, the sage, the prophet.
79.
The want of discipline in the modern spirit concealed beneath all kinds of moral finery.—The show-words are: Toleration (for the "incapacity of saying yes or no"); la largeur de sympathie (= a third of indifference, a third of curiosity, and a third of morbid susceptibility); "objectivity" (the lack of personality and of will, and the inability to "love"); "freedom" in regard to the rule (Romanticism); "truth" as opposed to falsehood and lying (Naturalism); the "scientific spirit" (the "human document": or, in plain English, the serial story which means "addition"—instead of "composition"); "passion" in the place of disorder and intemperance; "depth" in the place of confusion and the pell-mell of symbols.
80.
Concerning the criticism of big words.—I am full of mistrust and malice towards what is called "ideal": this is my Pessimism, that I have recognised to what extent "sublime sentiments" are a source of evil—that is to say, a belittling and depreciating of man.
Every time "progress" is expected to result from an ideal, disappointment invariably follows; the triumph of an ideal has always been a retrograde movement.
Christianity, revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth: all these big words are only valuable in a struggle, as banners: not as realities, but as show-words, for something quite different (yea, even quite opposed to what they mean!).
81.
The kind of man is known who has fallen in love with the sentence "tout comprendre à est tout pardonner" It is the weak and, above all, the disillusioned: if there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to contemn! It is the philosophy of disappointment, which here swathes itself so humanly in pity, and gazes out so sweetly.
They are Romanticists, whose faith has gone to pot: now they at least wish to look on and see how everything vanishes and fades. They call it l'art pour l'art, "objectivity," etc.
82.
The main symptoms of Pessimism:—Dinners at Magny's; Russian Pessimism (Tolstoy, Dostoiewsky); æsthetic Pessimism, l'art pour l'art, "description" (the romantic and the anti-romantic Pessimism); Pessimism in the theory of knowledge (Schopenhauer: phenomenalism); anarchical Pessimism; the "religion of pity," Buddhistic preparation; the Pessimism of culture (exoticness, cosmopolitanism); moral Pessimism, myself.
83.
"Without the Christian Faith" said Pascal, "you would yourselves be like nature and history, un monstre et un chaos." We fulfilled this prophecy: once the weak and optimistic eighteenth century had embellished and rationalised man.
Schopenhauer and Pascal.—I none essential point, Schopenhauer is the first who takes up Pascal's movement again: un monstre et un chaos, consequently something that must be negatived ... history, nature, and man himself!
"Our inability to know the truth is the result of our corruption, of our moral decay" says Pascal. And Schopenhauer says essentially the same. "The more profound the corruption of reason is, the more necessary is the doctrine of salvation"—or, putting it into Schopenhauerian phraseology, negation.
84.
Schopenhauer as an epigone (state of affairs before the Revolution):—Pity, sensuality, art, weakness of will, Catholicism of the most intellectual desires—that is, at bottom, the good old eighteenth century.
Schopenhauer's fundamental misunderstanding of the will (just as though passion, instinct, and desire were the essential factors of will) is typical: the depreciation of the will to the extent of mistaking it altogether. Likewise the hatred of willing: the attempt at seeing something superior—yea, even superiority itself, and that which really matters, in non-willing, in the "subject-being without aim or intention." Great symptom of fatigue or of the weakness of will: for this, in reality, is what treats the passions as master, and directs them as to the way and to the measure....
85.
The undignified attempt has been made to regard Wagner and Schopenhauer as types of the mentally unsound: an infinitely more essential understanding of the matter would have been gained if the exact decadent type which each of them represents had been scientifically and accurately defined.
86.
In my opinion, Henrik Ibsen has become very German. With all his robust idealism and "Will to Truth," he never dared to ring himself free from moral-illusionism which says "freedom," and will not admit, even to itself, what freedom is: the second stage in the metamorphosis of the "Will to Power" in him who lacks it. In the first stage, one demands justice at the hands of those who have power. In the second, one speaks of "freedom," that is to say, one wishes to "shake oneself free" from those who have power. In the third stage, one speaks of "equal rights"—that is to say, so long as one is not a predominant personality one wishes to prevent one's competitors from growing in power.
87.
The Decline of Protestantism: theoretically and historically understood as a half-measure. Undeniable predominance of Catholicism to-day: Protestant feeling is so dead that the strongest anti-Protestant movements (Wagner's Parsifal, for instance) are no longer regarded as such. The whole of the more elevated intellectuality in France is Catholic in instinct; Bismarck recognised that there was no longer any such thing as Protestantism.
88.
Protestantism, that spiritually unclean and tiresome form of decadence, in which Christianity has known how to survive in the mediocre North, is something incomplete and complexly valuable for knowledge, in so far as it was able to bring experiences of different kinds and origins into the same heads.
89.
What has the German spirit not made out of Christianity! And, to refer to Protestantism again, how much beer is there not still in Protestant Christianity! Can a crasser, more indolent, and more lounging form of Christian belief be imagined, than that of the average German Protestant?... It is indeed a very humble Christianity. I call it the Homœopathy of Christianity! I am reminded that, to-day, there also exists a less humble sort of Protestantism; it is taught by royal chaplains and anti-Semitic speculators: but nobody has ever maintained that any "spirit" "hovers" over these waters. It is merely a less respectable form of Christian faith, not by any means a more comprehensible one.
90.
Progress.—Let us be on our guard lest we deceive ourselves! Time flies forward apace,—we would fain believe that everything flies forward with it,—that evolution is an advancing development.... That is the appearance of things which deceives the most circumspect. But the nineteenth century shows no advance whatever on the sixteenth: and the German spirit of 1888 is an example of a backward movement when compared with that of 1788.... Mankind does not advance, it does not even exist. The aspect of the whole is much more like that of a huge experimenting workshop where some things in all ages succeed, while an incalculable number of things fail; where all order, logic, co-ordination, and responsibility is lacking. How dare we blink the fact that the rise of Christianity is a decadent movement?—that the German Reformation was a recrudescence of Christian barbarism?—that the Revolution destroyed the instinct for an organisation of society on a large scale?... Man is not an example of progress as compared with animals: the tender son of culture is an abortion compared with the Arab or the Corsican; the Chinaman is a more successful type—that is to say, richer in sustaining power than the European.
(b) The Last Centuries.
91.
Gloominess and pessimistic influence necessarily follow in the wake of enlightenment. Towards 1770 a falling-off in cheerfulness was already noticeable; women, with that very feminine instinct which always defends virtue, believed that immorality was the cause of it. Galiani hit the bull's eye: he quotes Voltaire's verse: