Part 20

_Vengeance on Intellect and other Backgrounds of Morality._—Morality—where do you think it has its most dangerous and rancorous advocates?—There, for example, is an ill-constituted man, who does not possess enough of intellect to be able to take pleasure in it, and just enough of culture to be aware of the fact; bored, satiated, and a self-despiser; besides being cheated unfortunately by some hereditary property out of the last consolation, the "blessing of labour," the self-forgetfulness in the "day's work"; one who is thoroughly ashamed of his existence—perhaps also harbouring some vices,—and who on the other hand (by means of books to which he has no right, or more intellectual society than he can digest), cannot help vitiating himself more and more, and making himself vain and irritable: such a thoroughly poisoned man—for intellect becomes poison, culture becomes poison, possession becomes poison, solitude becomes poison, to such ill-constituted beings—gets at last into a habitual state of vengeance and inclination to vengeance.... What do you think he finds necessary, absolutely necessary in order to give himself the appearance in his own eyes of superiority over more intellectual men, so as to give himself the delight of _perfect revenge_, at least in imagination? It is always _morality_ that he requires, one may wager on it; always the big moral words, always the high-sounding words: justice, wisdom, holiness, virtue; always the stoicism of gestures (how well stoicism hides what one does _not_ possess!); always the mantle of wise silence, of affability, of gentleness, and whatever else the idealist-mantle is called in which the incurable self-despisers and also the incurably conceited walk about. Let me not be misunderstood: out of such born _enemies of the spirit_ there arises now and then that rare specimen of humanity who is honoured by the people under the name of saint or sage: it is out of such men that there arise those prodigies of morality that make a noise, that make history,—St Augustine was one of these men. Fear of the intellect, vengeance on the intellect—Oh! how often have these powerfully impelling vices become the root of virtues! Yea, virtue _itself_!—And asking the question among ourselves, even the philosopher's pretension to wisdom, which has occasionally been made here and there on the earth, the maddest and most immodest of all pretensions,—has it not always been, in India as well as in Greece, _above all a means of concealment_? Sometimes, perhaps, from the point of view of education which hallows so many lies, it has been a tender regard for growing and evolving persons, for disciples who have often to be guarded against themselves by means of the belief in a person (by means of an error). In most cases, however, it is a means of concealment for a philosopher, behind which he seeks protection, owing to exhaustion, age, chilliness, or hardening; as a feeling of the approaching end, as the sagacity of the instinct which animals have before their death,—they go apart, remain at rest, choose solitude, creep into caves, become _wise_.... What? Wisdom a means of concealment of the philosopher from—intellect?—

360.

_Two Kinds of Causes which are Confounded._—It seems to me one of my most essential steps and advances that I have learned to distinguish the cause of the action generally from the cause of action in a particular manner, say, in this direction, with this aim. The first kind of cause is a quantum of stored-up force, which waits to be used in some manner, for some purpose; the second kind of cause, on the contrary, is something quite unimportant in comparison with the first, an insignificant hazard for the most part, in conformity with which the quantum of force in question "discharges" itself in some unique and definite manner: the lucifer-match in relation to the barrel of gunpowder. Among those insignificant hazards and lucifer-matches I count all the so-called "aims," and similarly the still more so-called "occupations" of people: they are relatively optional, arbitrary, and almost indifferent in relation to the immense quantum of force which presses on, as we have said, to be used up in any way whatever. One generally looks at the matter in a different manner: one is accustomed to see the _impelling_ force precisely in the aim (object, calling, &c.), according to a primeval error,—but it is only the _directing_ force; the steersman and the steam have thereby been confounded. And yet it is not even always the steersman, the directing force.... Is the "aim," the "purpose," not often enough only an extenuating pretext, an additional self-blinding of conceit, which does not wish it to be said that the ship _follows_ the stream into which it has accidentally run? That it "wishes" to go that way, _because_ it _must_ go that way? That it has a direction, sure enough, but—not a steersman? We still require a criticism of the conception of "purpose."

361.

_The Problem of the Actor._—The problem of the actor has disquieted me the longest; I was uncertain (and am sometimes so still) whether one could not get at the dangerous conception of "artist"—a conception hitherto treated with unpardonable leniency—from this point of view. Falsity with a good conscience; delight in dissimulation breaking forth as power, pushing aside, overflowing, and sometimes extinguishing the so-called "character"; the inner longing to play a rôle, to assume a mask, to put on an _appearance_; a surplus of capacity for adaptations of every kind, which can no longer gratify themselves in the service of the nearest and narrowest utility: all that perhaps does not pertain _solely_ to the actor in himself?... Such an instinct would develop most readily in families of the lower class of the people, who have had to pass their lives in absolute dependence, under shifting pressure and constraint, who (to accommodate themselves to their conditions, to adapt themselves always to new circumstances) had again and again to pass themselves off and represent themselves as different persons,—thus having gradually qualified themselves to adjust the mantle to _every_ wind, thereby almost becoming the mantle itself, as masters of the embodied and incarnated art of eternally playing the game of hide and seek, which one calls _mimicry_ among the animals:—until at last this ability, stored up from generation to generation, has become domineering, irrational and intractable, till as instinct it begins to command the other instincts, and begets the actor, the "artist" (the buffoon, the pantaloon, the Jack-Pudding, the fool, and the clown in the first place, also the classical type of servant, Gil Blas: for in such types one has the precursors of the artist, and often enough even of the "genius"). Also under higher social conditions there grows under similar pressure a similar species of men. Only the histrionic instinct is there for the most part held strictly in check by another instinct, for example, among "diplomatists";—for the rest, I should think that it would always be open to a good diplomatist to become a good actor on the stage, provided his dignity "allowed" it. As regards the _Jews_, however, the adaptable people _par excellence_, we should, in conformity to this line of thought, expect to see among them a world-historical institution from the very beginning, for the rearing of actors, a genuine breeding-place for actors; and in fact the question is very pertinent just now: what good actor at present is _not_—a Jew? The Jew also, as a born literary man, as the actual ruler of the European press, exercises this power on the basis of his histrionic capacity: for the literary man is essentially an actor,—he plays the part of "expert," of "specialist."—Finally _women_. If we consider the whole history of women, are they not _obliged_ first of all, and above all to be actresses? If we listen to doctors who have hypnotised women, or, finally, if we love them—and let ourselves be "hypnotised" by them,—what is always divulged thereby? That they "give themselves airs," even when they—"give themselves."... Woman is so artistic....

362.

_My Belief in the Virilising of Europe._—We owe it to Napoleon (and not at all to the French Revolution, which had in view the "fraternity" of the nations, and the florid interchange of good graces among people generally) that several warlike centuries, which have not had their like in past history, may now follow one another—in short, that we have entered upon _the classical age of war_, war at the same time scientific and popular, on the grandest scale (as regards means, talents and discipline), to which all coming millenniums will look back with envy and awe as a work of perfection:—for the national movement out of which this martial glory springs, is only the counter-_choc_ against Napoleon, and would not have existed without him. To him, consequently, one will one day be able to attribute the fact that _man_ in Europe has again got the upper hand of the merchant and the Philistine; perhaps even of "woman" also, who has become pampered owing to Christianity and the extravagant spirit of the eighteenth century, and still more owing to "modern ideas." Napoleon, who saw in modern ideas, and accordingly in civilisation, something like a personal enemy, has by this hostility proved himself one of the greatest continuators of the Renaissance: he has brought to the surface a whole block of the ancient character, the decisive block perhaps, the block of granite. And who knows but that this block of ancient character will in the end get the upper hand of the national movement, and will have to make itself in a _positive_ sense the heir and continuator of Napoleon:—who, as one knows, wanted _one_ Europe, which was to be _mistress of the world_.—

363.

_How each Sex has its Prejudice about Love._—Notwithstanding all the concessions which I am inclined to make to the monogamic prejudice, I will never admit that we should speak of _equal_ rights in the love of man and woman: there are no such equal rights. The reason is that man and woman understand something different by the term love,—and it belongs to the conditions of love in both sexes that the one sex does _not_ presuppose the same feeling, the same conception of "love," in the other sex. What woman understands by love is clear enough: complete surrender (not merely devotion) of soul and body, without any motive, without any reservation, rather with shame and terror at the thought of a devotion restricted by clauses or associated with conditions. In this absence of conditions her love is precisely a _faith_: woman has no other.—Man, when he loves a woman, _wants_ precisely this love from her; he is consequently, as regards himself, furthest removed from the prerequisites of feminine love; granted, however, that there should also be men to whom on their side the demand for complete devotion is not unfamiliar,—well, they are really—not men. A man who loves like a woman becomes thereby a slave; a woman, however, who loves like a woman becomes thereby a _more perfect_ woman.... The passion of woman in its unconditional renunciation of its own rights presupposes in fact that there does _not_ exist on the other side an equal _pathos_, an equal desire for renunciation: for if both renounced themselves out of love, there would result—well, I don't know what, perhaps a _horror vacui_? Woman wants to be taken and accepted as a possession, she wishes to be merged in the conceptions of "possession" and "possessed"; consequently she wants one who _takes_, who does not offer and give himself away, but who reversely is rather to be made richer in "himself"—by the increase of power, happiness and faith which the woman herself gives to him. Woman gives herself, man takes her.—I do not think one will get over this natural contrast by any social contract, or with the very best will to do justice, however desirable it may be to avoid bringing the severe, frightful, enigmatical, and unmoral elements of this antagonism constantly before our eyes. For love, regarded as complete, great, and full, is nature, and as nature, is to all eternity something "unmoral."—_Fidelity_ is accordingly included in woman's love, it follows from the definition thereof; with man fidelity _may_ readily result in consequence of his love, perhaps as gratitude or idiosyncrasy of taste, and so-called elective affinity, but it does not belong to the _essence_ of his love—and indeed so little, that one might almost be entitled to speak of a natural opposition between love and fidelity in man, whose love is just a desire to possess, and _not_ a renunciation and giving away; the desire to possess, however, comes to an end every time with the possession.... As a matter of fact it is the more subtle and jealous thirst for possession in the man (who is rarely and tardily convinced of having this "possession"), which makes his love continue; in that case it is even possible that the love may increase after the surrender,—he does not readily own that a woman has nothing more to "surrender" to him.—

364.

_The Anchorite Speaks._—The art of associating with men rests essentially on one's skilfulness (which presupposes long exercise) in accepting a repast, in taking a repast in the cuisine of which one has no confidence. Provided one comes to the table with the hunger of a wolf everything is easy ("the worst society gives thee _experience_"—as Mephistopheles says); but one has not got this wolf's-hunger when one needs it! Alas! how difficult are our fellow-men to digest! First principle: to stake one's courage as in a misfortune, to seize boldly, to admire oneself at the same time, to take one's repugnance between one's teeth, to cram down one's disgust. Second principle: to "improve" one's fellow-man, by praise for example, so that he may begin to sweat out his self-complacency; or to seize a tuft of his good or "interesting" qualities, and pull at it till one gets his whole virtue out, and can put him under the folds of it. Third principle: self-hypnotism. To fix one's eye on the object of one's intercourse, as on a glass knob, until, ceasing to feel pleasure or pain thereat, one falls asleep unobserved, becomes rigid, and acquires a fixed pose: a household recipe used in married life and in friendship, well tested and prized as indispensable, but not yet scientifically formulated. Its proper name is—patience.—

365.

_The Anchorite Speaks once more._—We also have intercourse with "men," we also modestly put on the clothes in which people know us (_as such_), respect us and seek us; and we thereby mingle in society, that is to say, among the disguised who do not wish to be so called; we also do like all prudent masqueraders, and courteously dismiss all curiosity which has not reference merely to our "clothes." There are however other modes and artifices for "going about" among men and associating with them: for example, as a ghost,—which is very advisable when one wants to scare them, and get rid of them easily. An example: a person grasps at us, and is unable to seize us. That frightens him. Or we enter by a closed door. Or when the lights are extinguished. Or after we are dead. The latter is the artifice of _posthumous_ men _par excellence_. ("What?" said such a one once impatiently, "do you think we should delight in enduring this strangeness, coldness, death-stillness about us, all this subterranean, hidden, dim, undiscovered solitude, which is called life with us, and might just as well be called death, if we were not conscious of what _will arise_ out of us,—and that only after our death shall we attain to _our_ life and become living, ah! very living! we posthumous men!"—)

366.

_At the Sight of a Learned Book._—We do not belong to those who only get their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books,—it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful. Our first question concerning the value of a book, a man, or a piece of music is: Can it walk? or still better: Can it dance?... We seldom read; we do not read the worse for that—oh, how quickly do we divine how a person has arrived at his thoughts:—whether sitting before an ink-bottle with compressed belly and head bent over the paper: oh, how quickly we are then done with his book! The constipated bowels betray themselves, one may wager on it, just as the atmosphere of the room, the ceiling of the room, the smallness of the room, betray themselves.—These were my feelings as I was closing a straightforward, learned book, thankful, very thankful, but also relieved.... In the book of a learned man there is almost always something oppressive and oppressed: the "specialist" comes to light somewhere, his ardour, his seriousness, his wrath, his over-estimation of the nook in which he sits and spins, his hump—every specialist has his hump. A learned book also always mirrors a distorted soul: every trade distorts. Look at our friends again with whom we have spent our youth, after they have taken possession of their science: alas! how the reverse has always taken place! Alas! how they themselves are now for ever occupied and possessed by their science! Grown into their nook, crumpled into unrecognisability, constrained, deprived of their equilibrium, emaciated and angular everywhere, perfectly round only in one place,—we are moved and silent when we find them so. Every handicraft, granting even that it has a golden floor,[13] has also a leaden ceiling above it, which presses and presses on the soul, till it is pressed into a strange and distorted shape. There is nothing to alter here. We need not think that it is at all possible to obviate this disfigurement by any educational artifice whatever. Every kind of _perfection_ is purchased at a high price on earth, where everything is perhaps purchased too dear; one is an expert in one's department at the price of being also a victim of one's department. But you want to have it otherwise—"more reasonable," above all more convenient—is it not so, my dear contemporaries? Very well! But then you will also immediately get something different: that is to say, instead of the craftsman and expert, the literary man, the versatile, "many-sided" littérateur, who to be sure lacks the hump—not taking account of the hump or bow which he makes before you as the shopman of the intellect and the "porter" of culture—, the littérateur, who _is_ really nothing, but "represents" almost everything: he plays and "represents" the expert, he also takes it upon himself in all modesty _to see that he is_ paid, honoured and celebrated in this position.—No, my learned friends! I bless you even on account of your humps! And also because like me you despise the littérateurs and parasites of culture! And because you do not know how to make merchandise of your intellect! And have so many opinions which cannot be expressed in money value! And because you do not represent anything which you _are_ not! Because your sole desire is to become masters of your craft; because you reverence every kind of mastership and ability, and repudiate with the most relentless scorn everything of a make-believe, half-genuine, dressed-up, virtuoso, demagogic, histrionic nature in _litteris et artibus_—all that which does not convince you by its absolute _genuineness_ of discipline and preparatory training, or cannot stand your test! (Even genius does not help a person to get over such a defect, however well it may be able to deceive with regard to it: one understands this if one has once looked closely at our most gifted painters and musicians,—who almost without exception, can artificially and supplementarily appropriate to themselves (by means of artful inventions of style, make-shifts, and even principles), the _appearance_ of that genuineness, that solidity of training and culture; to be sure, without thereby deceiving themselves, without thereby imposing perpetual silence on their bad consciences. For you know well enough that all great modern artists suffer from bad consciences?...)

367.

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

368.