The Joyful Wisdom E-Book

Friedrich Nietzsche

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Experience the life-changing power of Friedrich Nietzsche with this unforgettable book.

Leseprobe

The Joyful Wisdom

by Friedrich Nietzsche

TRANSLATED BY

THOMAS COMMON

WITH POETRY RENDERED BY

PAUL V. COHN

AND

MAUDE D. PETRE

I stay to mine house confined,

Nor graft my wits on alien stock;

And mock at every master mind

That never at itself could mock.

CONTENTS

Editorial Note        vii

Preface to the Second Edition        1

Jest, Ruse and Revenge: A Prelude in Rhyme        11

Book First        29

Book Second        93

Book Third        149

Book Fourth: Sanctus Januarius        211

Book Fifth: We Fearless Ones        273

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

Vii

EDITORIAL NOTE

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

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

1

PREFACE TO THE SECOND

EDITION.

1.

Perhaps more than one preface would be necessary for this book; and after all it might still be doubtful whether any one could be brought nearer to the experiences in it by means of prefaces, without having himself experienced something similar. It seems to be written in the language of the thawing-wind: there is wantonness, restlessness, contradiction and April-weather in it; so that one is as constantly reminded of the proximity of winter as of the victory over it: the victory which is coming, which must come, which has perhaps already come.... Gratitude continually flows forth, as if the most unexpected thing had happened, the gratitude of a convalescent—for convalescence was this most unexpected thing. "Joyful Wisdom": that implies the Saturnalia of a spirit which has patiently withstood a long, frightful pressure—patiently, strenuously, impassionately, without submitting, but without hope—and which is now suddenly o'erpowered with hope, the hope of health, the intoxication of convalescence. What wonder that much that is unreasonable and foolish thereby comes to light: much wanton tenderness expended even on problems which 2have a prickly hide, and are not therefore fit to be fondled and allured. The whole book is really nothing but a revel after long privation and impotence: the frolicking of returning energy, of newly awakened belief in a to-morrow and after-to-morrow; of sudden sentience and prescience of a future, of near adventures, of seas open once more, and aims once more permitted and believed in. And what was now all behind me! This track of desert, exhaustion, unbelief, and frigidity in the midst of youth, this advent of grey hairs at the wrong time, this tyranny of pain, surpassed, however, by the tyranny of pride which repudiated the consequences of pain—and consequences are comforts,—this radical isolation, as defence against the contempt of mankind become morbidly clairvoyant, this restriction upon principle to all that is bitter, sharp, and painful in knowledge, as prescribed by the disgust which had gradually resulted from imprudent spiritual diet and pampering—it is called Romanticism,—oh, who could realise all those feelings of mine! He, however, who could do so would certainly forgive me everything, and more than a little folly, boisterousness and "Joyful Wisdom"—for example, the handful of songs which are given along with the book on this occasion,—songs in which a poet makes merry over all poets in a way not easily pardoned.—Alas, it is not only on the poets and their fine "lyrical sentiments" that this reconvalescent must vent his malignity: who knows what kind of victim he seeks, what kind of monster of material for parody will allure him ere long? 3Incipit tragœdia, it is said at the conclusion of this seriously frivolous book; let people be on their guard! Something or other extraordinarily bad and wicked announces itself: incipit parodia, there is no doubt...

2.

——But let us leave Herr Nietzsche; what does it matter to people that Herr Nietzsche has got well again?... A psychologist knows few questions so attractive as those concerning the relations of health to philosophy, and in the case when he himself falls sick, he carries with him all his scientific curiosity into his sickness. For, granting that one is a person, one has necessarily also the philosophy of one's personality, there is, however, an important distinction here. With the one it is his defects which philosophise, with the other it is his riches and powers. The former requires his philosophy, whether it be as support, sedative, or medicine, as salvation, elevation, or self-alienation; with the latter it is merely a fine luxury, at best the voluptuousness of a triumphant gratitude, which must inscribe itself ultimately in cosmic capitals on the heaven of ideas. In the other more usual case, however, when states of distress occupy themselves with philosophy (as is the case with all sickly thinkers—and perhaps the sickly thinkers preponderate in the history of philosophy), what will happen to the thought itself which is brought under the pressure of sickness? This is the important question for psychologists: and here experiment is possible. We philosophers do just 4like a traveller who resolves to awake at a given hour, and then quietly yields himself to sleep: we surrender ourselves temporarily, body and soul, to the sickness, supposing we become ill—we shut, as it were, our eyes on ourselves. And as the traveller knows that something does not sleep, that something counts the hours and will awake him, we also know that the critical moment will find us awake—that then something will spring forward and surprise the spirit in the very act, I mean in weakness, or reversion, or submission, or obduracy, or obscurity, or whatever the morbid conditions are called, which in times of good health have the pride of the spirit opposed to them (for it is as in the old rhyme: "The spirit proud, peacock and horse are the three proudest things of earthly source"). After such self-questioning and self-testing, one learns to look with a sharper eye at all that has hitherto been philosophised; one divines better than before the arbitrary by-ways, side-streets, resting-places, and sunny places of thought, to which suffering thinkers, precisely as sufferers, are led and misled: one knows now in what direction the sickly body and its requirements unconsciously press, push, and allure the spirit—towards the sun, stillness, gentleness, patience, medicine, refreshment in any sense whatever. Every philosophy which puts peace higher than war, every ethic with a negative grasp of the idea of happiness, every metaphysic and physic that knows a finale, an ultimate condition of any kind whatever, every predominating, æsthetic or religious longing for an aside, a beyond, an outside, an above—all these permit one to ask whether 5sickness has not been the motive which inspired the philosopher. The unconscious disguising of physiological requirements under the cloak of the objective, the ideal, the purely spiritual, is carried on to an alarming extent,—and I have often enough asked myself, whether, on the whole, philosophy hitherto has not generally been merely an interpretation of the body, and a misunderstanding of the body. Behind the loftiest estimates of value by which the history of thought has hitherto been governed, misunderstandings of the bodily constitution, either of individuals, classes, or entire races are concealed. One may always primarily consider these audacious freaks of metaphysic, and especially its answers to the question of the worth of existence, as symptoms of certain bodily constitutions; and if, on the whole, when scientifically determined, not a particle of significance attaches to such affirmations and denials of the world, they nevertheless furnish the historian and psychologist with hints so much the more valuable (as we have said) as symptoms of the bodily constitution, its good or bad condition, its fullness, powerfulness, and sovereignty in history; or else of its obstructions, exhaustions, and impoverishments, its premonition of the end, its will to the end. I still expect that a philosophical physician, in the exceptional sense of the word—one who applies himself to the problem of the collective health of peoples, periods, races, and mankind generally—will some day have the courage to follow out my suspicion to its ultimate conclusions, and to venture on the judgment that in all philosophising it has not hitherto been a question 6of "truth" at all, but of something else,—namely, of health, futurity, growth, power, life....

3.

It will be surmised that I should not like to take leave ungratefully of that period of severe sickness, the advantage of which is not even yet exhausted in me: for I am sufficiently conscious of what I have in advance of the spiritually robust generally, in my changeful state of health. A philosopher who has made the tour of many states of health, and always makes it anew, has also gone through just as many philosophies: he really cannot do otherwise than transform his condition on every occasion into the most ingenious posture and position,—this art of transfiguration is just philosophy. We philosophers are not at liberty to separate soul and body, as the people separate them; and we are still less at liberty to separate soul and spirit. We are not thinking frogs, we are not objectifying and registering apparatuses with cold entrails,—our thoughts must be continually born to us out of our pain, and we must, motherlike, share with them all that we have in us of blood, heart, ardour, joy, passion, pang, conscience, fate and fatality. Life—that means for us to transform constantly into light and flame all that we are, and also all that we meet with; we cannot possibly do otherwise. And as regards sickness, should we not be almost tempted to ask whether we could in general dispense with it? It is great pain only which is the ultimate emancipator of the spirit; for it is the teacher of the 7strong suspicion which makes an X out of every U[1], a true, correct X, i.e., the ante-penultimate letter.... It is great pain only, the long slow pain which takes time, by which we are burned as it were with green wood, that compels us philosophers to descend into our ultimate depths, and divest ourselves of all trust, all good-nature, veiling, gentleness, and averageness, wherein we have perhaps formerly installed our humanity. I doubt whether such pain "improves" us; but I know that it deepens us. Be it that we learn to confront it with our pride, our scorn, our strength of will, doing like the Indian who, however sorely tortured, revenges himself on his tormentor with his bitter tongue; be it that we withdraw from the pain into the oriental nothingness—it is called Nirvana,—into mute, benumbed, deaf self-surrender, self-forgetfulness, and self-effacement: one emerges from such long, dangerous exercises in self-mastery as another being, with several additional notes of interrogation, and above all, with the will to question more than ever, more profoundly, more strictly, more sternly, more wickedly, more quietly than has ever been questioned hitherto. Confidence in life is gone: life itself has become a problem.—Let it not be imagined that one has necessarily become a hypochondriac thereby! Even love of life is still possible—only one loves differently. It is the love of a woman of whom one is doubtful.... The charm, however, of all that is problematic, the delight in the X, is too great in those more spiritual and more spiritualised men, not to spread itself again and again like a clear glow over all the trouble of the problematic, over all the danger of uncertainty, and even over the jealousy of the lover. We know a new happiness....

8

4.

Finally, (that the most essential may not remain unsaid), one comes back out of such abysses, out of such severe sickness, and out of the sickness of strong suspicion—new-born, with the skin cast; more sensitive, more wicked, with a finer taste for joy, with a more delicate tongue for all good things, with a merrier disposition, with a second and more dangerous innocence in joy; more childish at the same time, and a hundred times more refined than ever before. Oh, how repugnant to us now is pleasure, coarse, dull, drab pleasure, as the pleasure-seekers, our "cultured" classes, our rich and ruling classes, usually understand it! How malignantly we now listen to the great holiday-hubbub with which "cultured people" and city-men at present allow themselves to be forced to "spiritual enjoyment" by art, books, and music, with the help of spirituous liquors! How the theatrical cry of passion now pains our ear, how strange to our taste has all the romantic riot and sensuous bustle which the cultured populace love become (together with their aspirations after the exalted, the elevated, and the intricate)! No, if we convalescents need an art at all, it is another art—a mocking, light, volatile, divinely serene, 9divinely ingenious art, which blazes up like a clear flame, into a cloudless heaven! Above all, an art for artists, only for artists! We at last know better what is first of all necessary for it—namely, cheerfulness, every kind of cheerfulness, my friends! also as artists:—I should like to prove it. We now know something too well, we men of knowledge: oh, how well we are now learning to forget and not know, as artists! And as to our future, we are not likely to be found again in the tracks of those Egyptian youths who at night make the temples unsafe, embrace statues, and would fain unveil, uncover, and put in clear light, everything which for good reasons is kept concealed.[2] No, we have got disgusted with this bad taste, this will to truth, to "truth at all costs," this youthful madness in the love of truth: we are now too experienced, too serious, too joyful, too singed, too profound for that.... We no longer believe that truth remains truth when the veil is withdrawn from it: we have lived long enough to believe this. At present we regard it as a matter of propriety not to be anxious either to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and "know" everything. "Is it true that the good God is everywhere present?" asked a little girl of her mother: "I think that is indecent":—a hint to philosophers! One should have more reverence for the shamefacedness with which nature has concealed herself behind enigmas and motley uncertainties. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not showing her reasons? Perhaps her name is Baubo, to speak in Greek?... Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live: for that purpose it is necessary to keep bravely to the surface, the fold and the skin; to worship appearance, to believe in forms, tones, and words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! Those Greeks were superficial—from profundity! And are we not coming back precisely to this point, we dare-devils of the spirit, who have scaled the highest and most dangerous peak of contemporary thought, and have looked around us from it, have looked down from it? Are we not precisely in this respect—Greeks? Worshippers of forms, of tones, and of words? And precisely on that account—artists?

Ruta, near Genoa

Autumn, 1886.

11

JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE.

A PRELUDE IN RHYME.

13

1.

Invitation.

Venture, comrades, I implore you,

On the fare I set before you,

You will like it more to-morrow,

Better still the following day:

If yet more you're then requiring,

Old success I'll find inspiring,

And fresh courage thence will borrow

Novel dainties to display.

2.

My Good Luck.

Weary of Seeking had I grown,

So taught myself the way to Find:

Back by the storm I once was blown,

But follow now, where drives the wind.

3.

Undismayed.

Where you're standing, dig, dig out:

Down below's the Well:

Let them that walk in darkness shout:

"Down below—there's Hell!"

14

4.

Dialogue.

A. Was I ill? and is it ended?

Pray, by what physician tended?

I recall no pain endured!

B. Now I know your trouble's ended:

He that can forget, is cured.

5.

To the Virtuous.

Let our virtues be easy and nimble-footed in motion,

Like unto Homer's verse ought they to come and to go.

6.

Worldly Wisdom.

Stay not on level plain,

Climb not the mount too high,

But half-way up remain—

The world you'll best descry!

7.

Vademecum—Vadetecum.

Attracted by my style and talk

You'd follow, in my footsteps walk?

Follow yourself unswervingly,

So—careful!—shall you follow me.

15

8.

The Third Sloughing.

My skin bursts, breaks for fresh rebirth,

And new desires come thronging:

Much I've devoured, yet for more earth

The serpent in me's longing.

'Twixt stone and grass I crawl once more,

Hungry, by crooked ways,

To eat the food I ate before,

Earth-fare all serpents praise!

9.

My Roses.

My luck's good—I'd make yours fairer,

(Good luck ever needs a sharer),

Will you stop and pluck my roses?

Oft mid rocks and thorns you'll linger,

Hide and stoop, suck bleeding finger—

Will you stop and pluck my roses?

For my good luck's a trifle vicious,

Fond of teasing, tricks malicious—

Will you stop and pluck my roses?

10.

The Scorner.

Many drops I waste and spill,

So my scornful mood you curse:

Who to brim his cup doth fill,

Many drops must waste and spill—

Yet he thinks the wine no worse.

16

11.

The Proverb Speaks.

Harsh and gentle, fine and mean,

Quite rare and common, dirty and clean,

The fools' and the sages' go-between:

All this I will be, this have been,

Dove and serpent and swine, I ween!

12.

To a Lover of Light.

That eye and sense be not fordone

E'en in the shade pursue the sun!

13.

For Dancers.

Smoothest ice,

A paradise

To him who is a dancer nice.

14.

The Brave Man.

A feud that knows not flaw nor break,

Rather then patched-up friendship, take.

15.

Rust.

Rust's needed: keenness will not satisfy!

"He is too young!" the rabble loves to cry.

16.

Excelsior.

"How shall I reach the top?" No time

For thus reflecting! Start to climb!

17

17.

The Man of Power Speaks.

Ask never! Cease that whining, pray!

Take without asking, take alway!

18.

Narrow Souls.

Narrow souls hate I like the devil,

Souls wherein grows nor good nor evil.

19.

Accidentally a Seducer.[3]

He shot an empty word

Into the empty blue;

But on the way it met

A woman whom it slew.

20.

For Consideration.

A twofold pain is easier far to bear

Than one: so now to suffer wilt thou dare?

21.

Against Pride.

Brother, to puff thyself up ne'er be quick:

For burst thou shalt be by a tiny prick!

22.

Man and Woman.

"The woman seize, who to thy heart appeals!"

Man's motto: woman seizes not, but steals.

18

23.

Interpretation.

If I explain my wisdom, surely

'Tis but entangled more securely,

I can't expound myself aright:

But he that's boldly up and doing,

His own unaided course pursuing,

Upon my image casts more light!

24.

A Cure for Pessimism.

Those old capricious fancies, friend!

You say your palate naught can please,

I hear you bluster, spit and wheeze,

My love, my patience soon will end!

Pluck up your courage, follow me—

Here's a fat toad! Now then, don't blink,

Swallow it whole, nor pause to think!

From your dyspepsia you'll be free!

25.

A Request.

Many men's minds I know full well,

Yet what mine own is, cannot tell.

I cannot see—my eye's too near—

And falsely to myself appear.

'Twould be to me a benefit

Far from myself if I could sit,

Less distant than my enemy,

19And yet my nearest friend's too nigh—

'Twixt him and me, just in the middle!

What do I ask for? Guess my riddle!

26.

My Cruelty.

I must ascend an hundred stairs,

I must ascend: the herd declares

I'm cruel: "Are we made of stone?"

I must ascend an hundred stairs:

All men the part of stair disown.

27.

The Wanderer.

"No longer path! Abyss and silence chilling!"

Thy fault! To leave the path thou wast too willing!

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

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

28.

Encouragement for Beginners.

See the infant, helpless creeping—

Swine around it grunt swine-talk—

Weeping always, naught but weeping,

Will it ever learn to walk?

Never fear! Just wait, I swear it

Soon to dance will be inclined,

And this babe, when two legs bear it,

Standing on its head you'll find.

20

29.

Planet Egoism.

Did I not turn, a rolling cask,

Ever about myself, I ask,

How could I without burning run

Close on the track of the hot sun?

30.

The Neighbour.

Too nigh, my friend my joy doth mar,

I'd have him high above and far,

Or how can he become my star?

31.

The Disguised Saint.

Lest we for thy bliss should slay thee,

In devil's wiles thou dost array thee,

Devil's wit and devil's dress.

But in vain! Thy looks betray thee

And proclaim thy holiness.

32.

The Slave.

A. He stands and listens: whence his pain?

What smote his ears? Some far refrain?

Why is his heart with anguish torn?

B. Like all that fetters once have worn,

He always hears the clinking—chain!

21

33.

The Lone One.

I hate to follow and I hate to lead.

Obedience? no! and ruling? no, indeed!

Wouldst fearful be in others' sight?

Then e'en thyself thou must affright:

The people but the Terror's guidance heed.

I hate to guide myself, I hate the fray.

Like the wild beasts I'll wander far afield.

In Error's pleasing toils I'll roam

Awhile, then lure myself back home,

Back home, and—to my self-seduction yield.

34.

Seneca et hoc Genus omne.

They write and write (quite maddening me)

Their "sapient" twaddle airy,

As if 'twere primum scribere,

Deinde philosophari.

35.

Ice.

Yes! I manufacture ice:

Ice may help you to digest:

If you had much to digest,

How you would enjoy my ice!

36.

Youthful Writings.

My wisdom's A and final O

Was then the sound that smote mine ear.

22Yet now it rings no longer so,

My youth's eternal Ah! and Oh!

Is now the only sound I hear.[4]

37.

Foresight.

In yonder region travelling, take good care!

An hast thou wit, then be thou doubly ware!

They'll smile and lure thee; then thy limbs they'll tear:

Fanatics' country this where wits are rare!

38.

The Pious One Speaks.

God loves us, for he made us, sent us here!—

"Man hath made God!" ye subtle ones reply.

His handiwork he must hold dear,

And what he made shall he deny?

There sounds the devil's halting hoof, I fear.

39.

In Summer.

In sweat of face, so runs the screed,

We e'er must eat our bread,

Yet wise physicians if we heed

"Eat naught in sweat," 'tis said.

The dog-star's blinking: what's his need?

What tells his blazing sign?

In sweat of face (so runs his screed)

We're meant to drink our wine!

23

40.

Without Envy.

His look bewrays no envy: and ye laud him?

He cares not, asks not if your throng applaud him!

He has the eagle's eye for distance far,

He sees you not, he sees but star on star!

41.

Heraclitism.

Brethren, war's the origin

Of happiness on earth:

Powder-smoke and battle-din

Witness friendship's birth!

Friendship means three things, you know,—

Kinship in luckless plight,

Equality before the foe

Freedom—in death's sight!

42.

Maxim of the Over-refined.

"Rather on your toes stand high

Than crawl upon all fours,

Rather through the keyhole spy

Than through open doors!"

43.

Exhortation.

Renown you're quite resolved to earn?

My thought about it

Is this: you need not fame, must learn

To do without it!

24

44.

Thorough.

I an Inquirer? No, that's not my calling

Only I weigh a lot—I'm such a lump!—

And through the waters I keep falling, falling,

Till on the ocean's deepest bed I bump.

45.

The Immortals.

"To-day is meet for me, I come to-day,"

Such is the speech of men foredoomed to stay.

"Thou art too soon," they cry, "thou art too late,"

What care the Immortals what the rabble say?

46.

Verdicts of the Weary.

The weary shun the glaring sun, afraid,

And only care for trees to gain the shade.

47.

Descent.

"He sinks, he falls," your scornful looks portend:

The truth is, to your level he'll descend.

His Too Much Joy is turned to weariness,

His Too Much Light will in your darkness end.

48.

Nature Silenced.[5]

Around my neck, on chain of hair,

The timepiece hangs—a sign of care.

For me the starry course is o'er,

No sun and shadow as before,

No cockcrow summons at the door,

For nature tells the time no more!

Too many clocks her voice have drowned,

And droning law has dulled her sound.

25

49.

The Sage Speaks.

Strange to the crowd, yet useful to the crowd,

I still pursue my path, now sun, now cloud,

But always pass above the crowd!

50.

He lost his Head....

She now has wit—how did it come her way?

A man through her his reason lost, they say.

His head, though wise ere to this pastime lent,

Straight to the devil—no, to woman went!

51.

A Pious Wish.

"Oh, might all keys be lost! 'Twere better so

And in all keyholes might the pick-lock go!"

Who thus reflects ye may as—picklock know.

52.

Foot Writing.

I write not with the hand alone,

My foot would write, my foot that capers,

Firm, free and bold, it's marching on

Now through the fields, now through the papers.

26

53.

"Human, All-too-Human."...

Shy, gloomy, when your looks are backward thrust,

Trusting the future where yourself you trust,

Are you an eagle, mid the nobler fowl,

Or are you like Minerva's darling owl?

54.

To my Reader.

Good teeth and a digestion good

I wish you—these you need, be sure!

And, certes, if my book you've stood,

Me with good humour you'll endure.

55.

The Realistic Painter.

"To nature true, complete!" so he begins.

Who complete Nature to his canvas wins?

Her tiniest fragment's endless, no constraint

Can know: he paints just what his fancy pins:

What does his fancy pin? What he can paint!

56.

Poets' Vanity.

Glue, only glue to me dispense,

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

To give four senseless verses sense—

That's an achievement I revere!

27

57.

Taste in Choosing.

If to choose my niche precise

Freedom I could win from fate,

I'd be in midst of Paradise—

Or, sooner still—before the gate!

58.

The Crooked Nose.

Wide blow your nostrils, and across

The land your nose holds haughty sway:

So you, unhorned rhinoceros,

Proud mannikin, fall forward aye!

The one trait with the other goes:

A straight pride and a crooked nose.

59.

The Pen is Scratching....

The pen is scratching: hang the pen!

To scratching I'm condemned to sink!

I grasp the inkstand fiercely then

And write in floods of flowing ink.

How broad, how full the stream's career!

What luck my labours doth requite!

'Tis true, the writing's none too clear—

What then? Who reads the stuff I write?

60.

Loftier Spirits.

This man's climbing up—let us praise him—

But that other we love

From aloft doth eternally move,

So above even praise let us raise him,

He comes from above!

28

61.

The Sceptic Speaks.

Your life is half-way o'er;

The clock-hand moves; your soul is thrilled with fear,

It roamed to distant shore

And sought and found not, yet you—linger here!

Your life is half-way o'er;

That hour by hour was pain and error sheer:

Why stay? What seek you more?

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

62.

Ecce Homo.

Yes, I know where I'm related,

Like the flame, unquenched, unsated,

I consume myself and glow:

All's turned to light I lay my hand on,

All to coal that I abandon,

Yes, I am a flame, I know!

63.

Star Morality.[6]

Foredoomed to spaces vast and far,

What matters darkness to the star?

Roll calmly on, let time go by,

Let sorrows pass thee—nations die!

Compassion would but dim the light

That distant worlds will gladly sight.

To thee one law—be pure and bright!

29

BOOK FIRST

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1.

The Teachers of the Object of Existence.—Whether I look with a good or an evil eye upon men, I find them always at one problem, each and all of them: to do that which conduces to the conservation of the human species. And certainly not out of any sentiment of love for this species, but simply because nothing in them is older, stronger, more inexorable, and more unconquerable than that instinct,—because it is precisely the essence of our race and herd. Although we are accustomed readily enough, with our usual short-sightedness, to separate our neighbours precisely into useful and hurtful, into good and evil men, yet when we make a general calculation, and on longer reflection on the whole question, we become distrustful of this defining and separating, and finally leave it alone. Even the most hurtful man is still perhaps, in respect to the conservation of the race, the most useful of all; for he conserves in himself or by his effect on others, impulses without which mankind might long ago have languished or decayed. Hatred, delight in mischief, rapacity and ambition, and whatever else is called evil—belong to the marvellous economy of the conservation of the race; to be sure a costly, lavish, 32and on the whole very foolish economy:—which has, however, hitherto preserved our race, as is demonstrated to us. I no longer know, my dear fellow-man and neighbour, if thou canst at all live to the disadvantage of the race, and therefore, "unreasonably" and "badly"; that which could have injured the race has perhaps died out many millenniums ago, and now belongs to the things which are no longer possible even to God. Indulge thy best or thy worst desires, and above all, go to wreck!—in either case thou art still probably the furtherer and benefactor of mankind in some way or other, and in that respect thou mayest have thy panegyrists—and similarly thy mockers! But thou wilt never find him who would be quite qualified to mock at thee, the individual, at thy best, who could bring home to thy conscience its limitless, buzzing and croaking wretchedness so as to be in accord with truth! To laugh at oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh out of the veriest truth,—to do this the best have not hitherto had enough of the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too little genius! There is perhaps still a future even for laughter! When the maxim, "The race is all, the individual is nothing,"—has incorporated itself in humanity, and when access stands open to every one at all times to this ultimate emancipation and irresponsibility.—Perhaps then laughter will have united with wisdom, perhaps then there will be only "joyful wisdom." Meanwhile, however, it is quite otherwise, meanwhile the comedy of existence has not yet "become conscious" of itself, 33meanwhile it is still the period of tragedy, the period of morals and religions. What does the ever new appearing of founders of morals and religions, of instigators of struggles for moral valuations, of teachers of remorse of conscience and religious war, imply? What do these heroes on this stage imply? For they have hitherto been the heroes of it, and all else, though solely visible for the time being, and too close to one, has served only as preparation for these heroes, whether as machinery and coulisse, or in the rôle of confidants and valets. (The poets, for example, have always been the valets of some morality or other.)—It is obvious of itself that these tragedians also work in the interest of the race, though they may believe that they work in the interest of God, and as emissaries of God. They also further the life of the species, in that they further the belief in life. "It is worth while to live"—each of them calls out,—"there is something of importance in this life; life has something behind it and under it; take care!" That impulse, which rules equally in the noblest and the ignoblest, the impulse towards the conservation of the species, breaks forth from time to time as reason and passion of spirit; it has then a brilliant train of motives about it, and tries with all its power to make us forget that fundamentally it is just impulse, instinct, folly and baselessness. Life should be loved, for ...! Man should benefit himself and his neighbour, for ...! And whatever all these shoulds and fors imply, and may imply in future! In order that that which necessarily and always happens of itself and 34without design, may henceforth appear to be done by design, and may appeal to men as reason and ultimate command,—for that purpose the ethiculturist comes forward as the teacher of design in existence; for that purpose he devises a second and different existence, and by means of this new mechanism he lifts the old common existence off its old common hinges. No! he does not at all want us to laugh at existence, nor even at ourselves—nor at himself; to him an individual is always an individual, something first and last and immense, to him there are no species, no sums, no noughts. However foolish and fanatical his inventions and valuations may be, however much he may misunderstand the course of nature and deny its conditions—and all systems of ethics hitherto have been foolish and anti-natural to such a degree that mankind would have been ruined by any one of them had it got the upper hand,—at any rate, every time that "the hero" came upon the stage something new was attained: the frightful counterpart of laughter, the profound convulsion of many individuals at the thought, "Yes, it is worth while to live! yes, I am worthy to live!"—life, and thou, and I, and all of us together became for a while interesting to ourselves once more.—It is not to be denied that hitherto laughter and reason and nature have in the long run got the upper hand of all the great teachers of design: in the end the short tragedy always passed over once more into the eternal comedy of existence; and the "waves of innumerable laughters"—to use the expression of Æschylus—must also in the end beat over the greatest 35of these tragedies. But with all this corrective laughter, human nature has on the whole been changed by the ever new appearance of those teachers of the design of existence,—human nature has now an additional requirement, the very requirement of the ever new appearance of such teachers and doctrines of "design." Man has gradually become a visionary animal, who has to fulfil one more condition of existence than the other animals: man must from time to time believe that he knows why he exists; his species cannot flourish without periodically confiding in life! Without the belief in reason in life! And always from time to time will the human race decree anew that "there is something which really may not be laughed at." And the most clairvoyant philanthropist will add that "not only laughing and joyful wisdom, but also the tragic, with all its sublime irrationality, counts among the means and necessities for the conservation of the race!"—And consequently! Consequently! Consequently! Do you understand me, oh my brothers? Do you understand this new law of ebb and flow? We also shall have our time!

2.

The Intellectual Conscience.—I have always the same experience over again, and always make a new effort against it; for although it is evident to me I do not want to believe it: in the greater number of men the intellectual conscience is lacking; indeed, it would often seem to me that in demanding such a thing, one is as solitary in the largest cities as in the desert. Everyone looks at you with strange 36eyes, and continues to make use of his scales, calling this good and that bad; and no one blushes for shame when you remark that these weights are not the full amount,—there is also no indignation against you; perhaps they laugh at your doubt. I mean to say that the greater number of people do not find it contemptible to believe this or that, and live according to it, without having been previously aware of the ultimate and surest reasons for and against it, and without even giving themselves any trouble about such reasons afterwards,—the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "greater number." But what is kind-heartedness, refinement and genius to me, if the man with these virtues harbours indolent sentiments in belief and judgment, if the longing for certainty does not rule in him, as his innermost desire and profoundest need—as that which separates higher from lower men! In certain pious people I have found a hatred of reason, and have been favourably disposed to them for it: their bad, intellectual conscience still betrayed itself, at least in this manner! But to stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and all the marvellous uncertainty and ambiguity of existence, and not to question, not to tremble with desire and delight in questioning, not even to hate the questioner—perhaps even to make merry over him to the extent of weariness—that is what I regard as contemptible, and it is this sentiment which I first of all search for in every one:—some folly or other always persuades me anew that every man has this sentiment, as man. This is my special kind of unrighteousness.

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3.