Part 23

_The danger of modesty._ To adapt ourselves too early to duties, societies, and daily schemes of work in which accident may have placed us, at a time when neither our powers nor our aim in life has stepped peremptorily into our consciousness; the premature certainty of conscience and feeling of relief and of sociability which is acquired by this precocious, modest attitude, and which appears to our minds as a deliverance from those inner and outer disturbances of our feelings--all this pampers and keeps a man down in the most dangerous fashion imaginable. To learn to respect things which people about us respect, as if we had no standard or right of our own to determine values; the strain of appraising things as others appraise them, _counter_ to the whisperings of our inner taste, which also has a conscience of its own, becomes a terribly subtle kind of constraint: and if in the end no explosion takes place which bursts all the bonds of love and morality at once, then such a spirit becomes withered, dwarfed, feminine, and objective. The reverse of this is bad enough, but still it is better than the foregoing: to suffer from one's environment, from its praise just as much as from its blame; to be wounded by it and to fester inwardly without betraying the fact; to defend one's self involuntarily and suspiciously against its love; to learn to be silent, and perchance to conceal this by talking; to create nooks and safe, lonely hiding-places where one can go and take breath for a moment, or shed tears of sublime comfort--until at last one has grown strong enough to say: "What on earth have I to do with you?" and to go _one's_ way alone.

971.

Those men who are in themselves destinies, and whose advent is the advent of fate, the whole race of _heroic_ bearers of burdens: oh! how heartily and gladly would they have respite from themselves for once in a while!--how they crave after stout hearts and shoulders, that they might free themselves, were it but for an hour or two, from that which oppresses them! And how fruitlessly they crave! ... They wait; they observe all that passes before their eyes: no man even cometh nigh to them with a thousandth part of their suffering and passion, no man guesseth to what end they have waited.... At last, at last, they learn the first lesson of their life: to wait no longer; and forthwith they learn their second lesson: to be affable, to be modest; and from that time onwards to endure everybody and every kind of thing--in short, to endure still a little more than they had endured theretofore.

6. The Highest Man as Lawgiver of the Future.

972.

_The lawgivers of the future._--After having tried for a long time in vain to attach a particular meaning to the word "philosopher,"--for I found many antagonistic traits, I recognised that we can distinguish between two kinds of philosophers:--

(1) Those who desire to establish any large system of values (logical or moral);

(2) Those who are the _lawgivers_ of such valuations.

The former try to seize upon the world of the present or the past, by embodying or abbreviating the multifarious phenomena by means of signs: their object is to make it possible for us to survey, to reflect upon, to comprehend, and to utilise everything that has happened hitherto--they serve the purpose of man by using all past things to the benefit of his future.

The second class, however, are _commanders;_ they say: "Thus shall it be!" They alone determine the "whither" and the "wherefore," and that which will be useful and beneficial to man; they have command over the previous work of scientific men, and all knowledge is to them only a means to their creations. This second kind of philosopher seldom appears; and as a matter of fact their situation and their danger is appalling. How often have they not intentionally blindfolded their eyes in order to shut out the sight of the small strip of ground which separates them from the abyss and from utter destruction. Plato, for instance, when he persuaded himself that "the good," as he wanted it, was not Plato's good, but "the good in itself," the eternal treasure which a certain man of the name of Plato had chanced to find on his way! This same will to blindness prevails in a much coarser form in the case of the founders of religion; their "Thou shalt" must on no account sound to their ears like "I will,"--they only dare to pursue their task as if under the command of God; their legislation of values can only be a burden they can bear if they regard it as "revelation," in this way their conscience is not crushed by the responsibility.

As soon as those two comforting expedients--that of Plato and that of Muhammed--have been overthrown, and no thinker can any longer relieve his conscience with the hypothesis "God" or "eternal values," the claim of the lawgiver to determine new values rises to an awfulness which has not yet been experienced. Now those elect, on whom the faint light of such a duty is beginning to dawn, try and see whether they cannot escape it--as their greatest danger--by means of a timely side-spring: for instance, they try to persuade themselves that their task is already accomplished, or that it defies accomplishment, or that their shoulders are not broad enough for such burdens, or that they are already taken up with burdens closer to hand, or even that this new and remote duty is a temptation and a seduction, drawing them away from all other duties; a disease, a kind of madness. Many, as a matter of fact, do succeed in evading the path appointed to them: throughout the whole of history we can see the traces of such deserters and their guilty consciences. In most cases,, however, there comes to such men of destiny that hour of delivery, that autumnal season of maturity, in which they are forced to do that which they did not even "wish to do": and that deed before which in the past they have trembled most, falls easily and unsought from the tree, as an involuntary deed, almost as a present.

973.

_The human horizon._--Philosophers may be conceived as men who make the greatest efforts to _discover_ to what extent man can _elevate_ himself--this holds good more particularly of Plato: how far man's _power_ can extend. But they do this as individuals; perhaps the instinct of Cæsars and of all founders of states, etc., was greater, for it preoccupied itself with the question how far man could be urged forward in _development_ under "favourable circumstances." What they did not sufficiently understand, however, was the nature of favourable circumstances. The great question: "Where has the plant 'man' grown most magnificently heretofore? In order to answer this, a comparative study of history is necessary.

974.

Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.

975.

To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard while making a thought prevail is perhaps the best forte of artists; but if for this purpose any one have to work upon human material (as teachers, statesmen, have to do, etc.), then the repose, the coldness, and the hardness soon vanish. In natures like Cæsar and Napoleon we are able to divine something of the nature of "disinterestedness" in their work on their marble, whatever be the number of men that are sacrificed in the process. In this direction the future of higher men lies: to bear the greatest responsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin through them.--Hitherto the deceptions of inspiration have almost always been necessary for a man not to lose faith in his own hand, and in his right to his task.

976.

The reason why philosophers are mostly failures. Because among the conditions which determine them there are qualities which generally ruin other men:--

(1) A philosopher must have an enormous multiplicity of qualities; he must be a sort of abbreviation of man and have all man's high and base desires: the danger of the contrast within him, and of the possibility of his loathing himself;

(2) He must be inquisitive in an extraordinary number of ways: the danger of versatility;

(3) He must be just and honest in the highest sense, but profound both in love and hate (and in injustice);

(4) He must not only be a spectator but a lawgiver: a judge and defendant (in so far as he is an abbreviation of the world);

(5) He must be extremely multiform and yet firm and hard. He must be supple.

977.

The really _regal_ calling of the philosopher (according to the expression of Alcuin the Anglo-Saxon): "_Prava corrigere, et recta corroborare, et sancta sublimare._"

978.

The new philosopher can only arise in conjunction with a ruling class, as the highest spiritualisation of the latter. Great politics, the rule of the earth, as a proximate contingency, the total _lack of principles_ necessary thereto.

979.

Fundamental concept: the new values must first be created--this remains _our duty_! The philosopher must be our lawgiver. New species. (How the greatest species hitherto [for instance, the Greeks] were reared: this kind of accident must now be _consciously_ striven for.)

980.

Supposing one thinks of the philosopher as an educator who, looking down from his lonely elevation, is powerful enough to draw long chains of generations up to him: then he must be granted the most terrible privileges of a great educator. An educator never says what he himself thinks; but only that which he thinks it is good for those whom he is educating to hear upon any subject. This dissimulation on his part must not be found out; it is part of his masterliness that people should believe in his honesty, he must be capable of all the means of discipline and education: there are some natures which he will only be able to raise by means of lashing them with his scorn; others who are lazy, irresolute, cowardly, and vain, he will be able to affect only with exaggerated praise. Such a teacher stands beyond good and evil, but nobody must know that he does.

981.

We must _not_ make men "better," we must _not_ talk to them about morality in any form as if "morality in itself," or an ideal kind of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must _create circumstances_ in which _stronger men are necessary,_ such as for their part will require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will consequently insist! As they will need one so badly, they will have it.

We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue eyes and heaving breasts: _greatness of soul has absolutely nothing romantic about it. And unfortunately nothing whatever amiable either._

982.

From warriors we must learn: (1) to associate death with those interests for which we are fighting--that makes us venerable; (2) we must learn to _sacrifice_ numbers, and to take our cause sufficiently seriously not to spare men; (3) we must practise inexorable discipline, and allow ourselves violence and cunning in war.

983.

The _education_ which rears those _ruling_ virtues that allow a man to become master of his benevolence and his pity: the great disciplinary virtues ("Forgive thine enemies" is mere child's play beside them), _and the passions of the creator, must be elevated_ to the heights--we must cease from carving marble! The exceptional and powerful position of those creatures (compared with that of all princes hitherto): the Roman Cæsar with Christ's soul.

984.

We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. For the former involves _independence_; but without intellectual greatness independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create disasters even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." Inferior spirits _must_ obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of greatness.

985.

The more lofty philosophical man who is surrounded by loneliness, not because he wishes to be alone, but because he is what he is, and cannot find his equal: what a number of dangers and torments are reserved for him, precisely at the present time, when we have lost our belief in the order of rank, and consequently no longer know how to understand or honour this isolation! Formerly the sage almost sanctified himself in the consciences of the mob by going aside in this way; to-day the anchorite sees himself as though enveloped in a cloud of gloomy doubt and suspicions. And not alone by the envious and the wretched: in every well-meant act that he experiences he is bound to discover misunderstanding, neglect, and superficiality. He knows the crafty tricks of foolish pity which makes these people feel so good and holy when they attempt to save him from his own destiny, by giving him more comfortable situations and more decent and reliable society. Yes, he will even get to admire the unconscious lust of destruction with which all mediocre spirits stand up and oppose him, believing all the while that they have a holy right to do so! For men of such incomprehensible loneliness it is necessary to put a good stretch of country between them and the officiousness of their fellows: this is part of their prudence. For such a man to maintain himself uppermost to-day amid the dangerous maelstroms of the age which threaten to draw him under, even cunning and disguise will be necessary. Every attempt he makes to order his life in the present and with the present, every time he draws near to these men and their modern desires, he will have to expiate as if it were an actual sin: and withal he may look with wonder at the concealed wisdom of his nature, which after every one of these attempts immediately leads him back to himself by means of illnesses and painful accidents.

986.

_"Maledetto colui_ _che contrista, un spirto immortal!"_ MANZONI (_Conte di Carmagnola,_ Act II.)

987.

The most difficult and the highest form which man can attain is the most seldom successful: thus the history of philosophy reveals a superabundance of bungled and unhappy cases of manhood, and its march is an extremely slow one; whole centuries intervene and suppress what has been achieved: and in this way the connecting-link is always made to fail. It is an appalling history, this history of the highest men, of the sages.--What is most often damaged is precisely the recollection of great men, for the semi-successful and botched cases of mankind misunderstand them and overcome them by their "successes." Whenever an "effect" is noticeable, the masses gather in a crowd round it; to hear the inferior and the poor in spirit having their say is a terrible ear-splitting torment for him who knows and trembles at the thought, that the fate of man depends upon the success of its highest types. From the days of my childhood I have reflected upon the sage's conditions of existence, and I will not conceal my happy conviction that in Europe he has once more become possible--perhaps only for a short time.

988.

These new philosophers begin with a description of a systematic order of rank and difference of value among men,--what they desire is, alas precisely the reverse of an assimilation and equalisation of man: they teach estrangement in every sense, they cleave gulfs such as have never yet existed, and they would fain have man become more evil than he ever was. For the present they live concealed and estranged even from each other. For many reasons they will find it necessary to be anchorites and to wear masks--they will therefore be of little use in the matter of seeking for their equals. They will live alone, and probably know the torments of all the loneliest forms of loneliness. Should they, however, thanks to any accident, meet each other on the road, I wager that they would not know each other, or that they would deceive each other in a number of ways.

989.

"Les philosophes ne sont pas faits pour s'aimer. Les aigles ne volent point en compagnie. Il faut laisser cela aux perdrix, aux étourneaux ... Planer au-dessus et avoir des griffes, voila le lot des grands génies."--GALIANI.

990.

I forgot to say that such philosophers are cheerful, and that they like to sit in the abyss of a perfectly clear sky: they are in need of different means for enduring life than other men; for they suffer in a different way (that is to say, just as much from the depth of their contempt of man as from their love of man).--The animal which suffered most on earth discovered for itself _--laughter._

991.

_Concerning the misunderstanding of "cheerfulness."_ --It is a temporary relief from long tension; it is the wantonness, the Saturnalia of a spirit, which is consecrating and preparing itself for long and terrible resolutions. The "fool" in the form of "science."

992.

The new order of rank among spirits; tragic natures no longer in the van.

993.

It is a comfort to me to know that over the smoke and filth of human baseness there is a _higher and brighter_ mankind, which, judging from their number, must be a small race (for everything that is in any way distinguished is _ipso facto_ rare). A man does not belong to this race because he happens to be more gifted, more virtuous, more heroic, or more loving than the men below, but because he is _colder, brighter, more far-sighted, and more lonely;_ because he endures, prefers, and even insists upon, loneliness as the joy, the privilege, yea, even the condition of existence; because he lives amid clouds and lightnings as among his equals, and likewise among sunrays, dewdrops, snowflakes, and all that which must needs come from the heights, and which in its course moves ever from heaven to earth. The desire to look aloft is not our desire.--Heroes, martyrs, geniuses, and enthusiasts of all kinds, are not quiet, patient, subtle, cold, or slow enough for us.

994.

The absolute conviction that valuations above and below are different; that innumerable experiences are wanting to the latter: that when looking upwards from below misunderstandings are necessary.

995.

How do men attain to great power and to great tasks? All the virtues and proficiences of the body and the soul are little by little laboriously acquired, through great industry, self-control, and keeping one's self within narrow bounds, through a frequent, energetic, and genuine repetition of the same work and of the same hardships; but there are men who are the heirs and masters of this slowly acquired and manifold treasure of virtues and proficiences because, owing to happy and reasonable marriages and also to lucky accidents, the acquired and accumulated forces of many generations, instead of being squandered and subdivided, have been assembled together by means of steadfast struggling and willing. And thus, in the end, a man appears who is such a monster of strength, that he craves for a monstrous task. For it is our power which has command of us: and the wretched intellectual play of aims and intentions and motivations lies only in the foreground--however much weak eyes may recognise the principal factors in these things.

990.

The sublime man has the highest value, even when he is most delicate and fragile, because an abundance of very difficult and rare things have been reared through many generations and united in him.

997.

I teach that there are higher and lower men, and that a single individual may under certain circumstances justify whole millenniums of existence --that is to say, a wealthier, more gifted, greater, and more complete man, as compared with innumerable imperfect and fragmentary men.

998.

Away from rulers and rid of all bonds, live the highest men: and in the rulers they have their instruments.

999.

_The order of rank:_ he who _determines_ values and leads the will of millenniums, and does this by leading the highest natures--he _is the highest man._

1000.

I fancy I have divined some of the things that lie hidden in the soul of the highest man; perhaps every man who has divined so much must go to ruin: but he who has seen the highest man must do all he can to make him _possible._ Fundamental thought: we must make the future the standard of all our valuations--and not seek the laws for our conduct behind us.

1001.

Not "mankind," but _Superman_ is the goal!

1002.

"Come l'uom s'eterna...."--_Inf._ xv. 85.

II.

DIONYSUS.

1003.

To _him who is one of Nature's lucky strokes,_ to, him unto whom my heart goes out, to him who is carved from one integral block, which is hard, sweet, and fragrant--to him from whom even my nose can derive some pleasure--let this book be dedicated.

He enjoys that which is beneficial to him.

His pleasure in anything ceases when the limits of what is beneficial to him are overstepped.

He divines the remedies for partial injuries; his illnesses are the great stimulants of his existence.

He understands how to exploit his serious accidents.

He grows stronger under the misfortunes which threaten to annihilate him.

He instinctively gathers from all he sees, hears, and experiences, the materials for what concerns him most,--he pursues a selective principle,--he rejects a good deal.

He reacts with that tardiness which long caution and deliberate _pride_ have bred in him,--he tests the stimulus: whence does it come? whither does it lead? He does not submit.

He is always in his own company, whether his intercourse be with books, with men, or with Nature.

He honours anything by choosing it, by conceding to it, by trusting it.

1004.

We should attain to such a height, to such a lofty eagle's ledge, in our observation, as to be able to understand that everything happens, _just as it ought to happen_: and that all "imperfection," and the pain it brings, belong to all that which is most eminently desirable.

1005.

Towards 1876 I experienced a fright; for I saw that everything I had most wished for up to that time was being compromised. I realised this when I perceived what Wagner was actually driving at: and I was bound very fast to him--by all the bonds of a profound similarity of needs, by gratitude, by the thought that he could not be replaced, and by the absolute void which I saw facing me.

Just about this time I believed myself to be inextricably entangled in my philology and my professorship--in the accident and last shift of my life: I did not know how to get out of it, and was tired, used up, and on my last legs.

At about the same time I realised that what my instincts most desired to attain was precisely the reverse of what Schopenhauer's instincts wanted--that is to say, a _justification of life,_ even where it was most terrible, most equivocal, and most false: to this end, I had the formula "_Dionysian_" in my hand.

Schopenhauer's interpretation of the "absolute" as _will_ was certainly a step towards that concept of the "absolute" which supposed it to be necessarily good, blessed, true, and integral, but Schopenhauer did not understand how to deify this will: he remained suspended in the moral-Christian ideal. Indeed, he was still so very much under the dominion of Christian values, that, once he could no longer regard the absolute as God, he had to conceive it as evil, foolish, utterly reprehensible. He did not realise that there is an infinite number of ways of being different, and even of being God.

1006.

Hitherto, moral values have been the highest values: does anybody doubt this? If we bring down the values from their pedestal, we thereby alter _all_ values; the principle of their _order of rank_ which has prevailed hitherto is thus overthrown.

1007.

Transvalue values--what does this mean? It implies that all spontaneous motives, all new, future, and stronger motives, are still extant; but that they now appear under false names and false valuations, and have not yet become conscious of themselves.