Part 24

We ought to have the courage to become, conscious, and to affirm all that which has been _attained_--to get rid of the humdrum character of old valuations, which makes us unworthy of the best and strongest things that we have achieved.

1008.

Any doctrine would be superfluous for which everything is not already prepared in the way of accumulated forces and explosive material. A transvaluation of values can only be accomplished when there is a tension of new needs, and a new set of needy people who feel all old values as painful,--although they are not conscious of what is wrong.

1009.

The standpoint from which my values are determined: is abundance or desire active? ... Is one a mere spectator, or is one's own shoulder at the wheel--is one looking away or is one turning aside? ... Is one acting spontaneously, as the result of accumulated strength, or is one merely reacting to a goad or to a stimulus? ... Is one simply acting as the result of a paucity of elements, or of such an overwhelming dominion over a host of elements that this power enlists the latter into its service if it requires them? ... Is one a _problem_ one's self or is one a _solution_ already? ... Is _one perfect_ through the smallness of the task, or _imperfect_ owing to the extraordinary character of the aim? ... Is one genuine or only an _actor;_ is one genuine as an actor, or only the bad copy of an actor? is one a representative or the creature represented? Is one a personality or merely a rendezvous of personalities? ... Is one ill from a disease or from surplus health? Does one lead as a shepherd, or as an "exception" (third alternative: as a fugitive)? Is one in need of dignity, or can one play the clown? Is one in search of resistance, or is one evading it? Is one imperfect owing to one's precocity or to one's tardiness? Is it one's nature to say yea, or no, or is one a peacock's tail of garish parts? Is one proud enough not to feel ashamed even of one's vanity? Is one still able to feel a bite of conscience (this species is becoming rare; formerly conscience had to bite too often: it is as if it now no longer had enough teeth to do so)? Is one still capable of a "duty"? (there are some people who would lose the whole joy of their lives if they were _deprived_ of their duty--this holds good especially of feminine creatures, who are born subjects).

1010.

Supposing our common comprehension of the universe were a _misunderstanding,_ would it be possible to conceive of a form of _perfection,_ within the limits of which even such a _misunderstanding as this_ could be sanctioned?

The concept of a _new_ form of perfection: that which does _not_ correspond to our logic, to our "beauty," to our "good," to our "truth," might be perfect in a _higher_ sense even than our ideal is.

1011.

Our most important limitation: we must not deify the unknown; we are just beginning to know so little. The false and wasted endeavours.

Our "new world": we must ascertain to what extent we are the _creators_ of our valuations--we will thus be able to put "sense" into history.

This belief in truth is reaching its final logical conclusion in us--ye know how it reads: that if there is anything at all that must be worshipped it is _appearance;_ that _falsehood_ and _not_ truth is--divine.

1012.

He who urges rational thought forward, thereby also drives its antagonistic power--mysticism and foolery of every kind--to new feats of strength.

We should recognise that every movement is (1) _partly_ the manifestation of fatigue resulting from a previous movement (satiety after it, the malice of weakness towards it, and disease); and (2) _partly_ a newly awakened accumulation of long slumbering forces, and therefore wanton, violent, healthy.

1013.

Health and morbidness: let us be careful! The standard is the bloom of the body, the agility, courage, and cheerfulness of the mind--but also, of course, how much _morbidness a man can bear and overcome,_--and convert into health. That which would send more delicate natures to the dogs, belongs to the stimulating means of _great_ health.

1014.

It is only a question of power: to have all the morbid traits of the century, but to balance them I by means of overflowing, plastic, and rejuvenating power. The _strong_ man.

1015.

_Concerning the strength of the nineteenth century.--_We are more mediæval than the eighteenth century; not only more inquisitive or more susceptible to the strange and to the rare. We have revolted against the _Revolution,_ ... We have freed ourselves from the fear of reason, which was the spectre of the eighteenth century: we once more dare to be childish, lyrical, absurd, in a word, we are musicians. And we are just as little frightened of the _ridiculous_ as of the _absurd._ The _devil_ finds that he is tolerated even by God:[6] better still, he has become interesting as one who has been misunderstood and slandered for ages,--we are the saviours of the devil's honour.

We no longer separate the great from the terrible. We reconcile good things, in all their complexity, with the very _worst_ things; we have overcome the _desideratum_ of the past (which wanted goodness to grow without the increase of evil). The _cowardice_ towards the ideal, peculiar to the Renaissance, has diminished--we even dare to aspire to the latter's morality. _Intolerance_ towards priests and the Church has at the same time come to an end; "It is immoral to believe in God"--but this is precisely what we regard as the best possible justification of this belief.

On all these things we have conferred the civic rights of our minds. We do not tremble before the back side of "good things" (we even look for it, we are brave and inquisitive enough for that), of Greek antiquity, of morality, of reason, of good taste, for instance (we reckon up the losses which we incur with all this treasure: we almost reduce ourselves to poverty with such a treasure). Neither do we conceal the back side of "evil things" from ourselves.

[Footnote 6: This is reminiscent of Goethe's _Faust,_ See "Prologue in Heaven."--Tr.]

1016.

_That which does us honour._--If anything does us honour, it is this: we have transferred our seriousness to other things; all those things which have been despised and laid aside as base by all ages, we regard as important--on the other hand, we surrender "fine feelings" at a cheap rate.

Could any aberration be more dangerous than the contempt of the body? As if all intellectuality were not thereby condemned to become morbid, and to take refuge in the _vapeurs_ of "idealism"!

Nothing that has been thought out by Christians and idealists holds water: we are more radical. We have discovered the "smallest world" everywhere as the most decisive.

The paving-stones in the streets, good air in our rooms, food understood according to its worth: we value all the _necessaries_ of life seriously, and _despise_ all "beautiful soulfulness" as a form of "levity and frivolity." That which has been most despised hitherto, is now pressed into the front rank.

1017

In the place of Rousseau's "man of Nature," the nineteenth century has discovered a much _more genuine_ image of "Man,"--it had the courage to do this.... On the whole, the Christian concept of man has in a way been reinstalled. What we have not had the courage to do, was to call precisely this "man _par excellence_," good, and to see the future of mankind guaranteed in him. In the same way, we did not dare to regard the _growth in the terrible side_ of man's character as an accompanying feature of every advance in culture; in this sense we are still under the influence of the Christian ideal, and side with it against paganism, and likewise against the Renaissance concept of _virtù._ But the key of culture is not to be found in this way: and _in praxi_ we still have the forgeries of history in favour of the "good man" (as if he alone constituted the progress of humanity) and the _socialistic ideal (i.e._ the _residue_ of Christianity and of Rousseau in the de-Christianised world).

_The fight against the eighteenth century:_ it meets with its _greatest conquerors_ in _Goethe_ and _Napoleon._ Schopenhauer, too, fights against the eighteenth century; but he returns involuntarily to the seventeenth--he is a modern Pascal, with Pascalian valuations, _without_ Christianity. Schopenhauer was not strong enough to invent a _new yea._

_Napoleon:_ we see the necessary relationship between the higher and the terrible man. "Man" reinstalled, and her due of contempt and fear restored to woman. Highest activity and health are the signs of the great man; the straight line and grand style rediscovered in action; the mightiest of all instincts, that of life itself,--the lust of dominion,--heartily welcomed.

1018.

(_Revue des deux mondes,_ 15th February 1887. Taine concerning Napoleon) "Suddenly the master faculty reveals itself: the _artist,_ which was latent in the politician, comes forth from his scabbard; he creates _dans l'idéal et l'impossible._ He is once more recognised as that which he is: the posthumous brother of Dante and of Michelangelo; and verily, in view of the definite contours of his vision, the intensity, the coherence, and inner consistency of his dream, the depth of his meditations, the superhuman greatness of his conception, he is their equal: _son génie a la même taille et la même structure; il est un des trois esprits souverains de la renaissance italienne._"

_Nota bene._ Dante, Michelangelo, Napoleon.

1019.

_Concerning the pessimism of strength._ In the internal economy of _the primitive_ man's soul, the _fear_ of evil preponderates. What is _evil!_ Three kinds of things: accident, uncertainty, the unexpected. How does primitive man combat evil?--He conceives it as a thing of reason, of power, even as a person. By this means he is enabled to make treaties with it, and generally to operate upon it in advance--to forestall it.

--Another expedient is to declare its evil and harmful character to be but apparent: the consequences of accidental occurrences, and of uncertainty and the unexpected, are interpreted as _well-meant,_ as reasonable.

--A third means is to interpret evil, above all, as merited: evil is thus justified as a punishment.

--In short, _man submits to in_ all religious and moral interpretations are but forms of submission to evil.--The belief that a good purpose lies behind all evil, implies the renunciation of any desire to combat it.

Now, the history of every culture shows a diminution of this _fear of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected._ Culture means precisely, to learn to reckon, to discover causes, to acquire the power of forestalling events, to acquire a belief in necessity. With the growth of culture, man is able to dispense with that primitive form of submission to evil (called religion or morality), and that "justification of evil." Now he wages war against "evil,"--he gets rid of it. Yes, a state of security, of belief in law and the possibility of calculation, is possible, in which consciousness regards these things with tedium,--in which the joy of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected, actually becomes a spur.

Let us halt a moment before this symptom of _highest_ culture, I call it the _pessimism of strength._ Man now no longer requires a "justification of evil"; justification is precisely what he abhors: he enjoys evil, _pur, cru_; he regards purposeless evil as the most interesting kind of evil. If he had required a God in the past, he now delights in cosmic disorder without a God, a world of accident, to the essence of which terror, ambiguity, and seductiveness belong.

In a state of this sort, it is precisely _goodness_ which requires to be justified--that is to say, it must either have an evil and a dangerous basis, or else it must contain a vast amount of stupidity: _in which case it still pleases._ Animality no longer awakens terror now; a very intellectual and happy wanton spirit in favour of the animal in man, is, in such periods, the most triumphant form of spirituality. Man is now strong enough to be able to feel ashamed of _a belief in God:_ he may now play the part of the devil's advocate afresh. If in practice he pretends to uphold virtue, it will be for those reasons which lead virtue to be associated with subtlety, cunning, lust of gain, and a form of the lust of power.

_This pessimism of strength_ also ends in a _theodicy, i.e._ in an absolute saying of yea to the world--but the same arguments will be raised in favour of life which formerly were raised against it: and in this way, in a conception of this world _as the highest ideal possible,_ which has been effectively attained.

1020.

_The principal kinds of pessimism:--_

The pessimism of _sensitiveness_ (excessive irritability with a preponderance of the feelings of pain).

The pessimism of the _will that is not free_ (otherwise expressed: the lack of resisting power against stimuli).

The pessimism of _doubt_ (shyness in regard to everything fixed, in regard to all grasping and touching).

The psychological conditions which belong to these different kinds of pessimism, may all be observed in a lunatic asylum, even though they are there found in a slightly exaggerated form. The same applies to "Nihilism" (the penetrating feeling of nonentity).

What, however, is the nature of Pascal's moral pessimism, and the _metaphysical pessimism_ of the Vedânta-Philosophy? What is the nature of the _social pessimism_ of anarchists (as of Shelley), and of the pessimism of compassion (like that of Leo Tolstoy and of Alfred de Vigny)?

Are all these things not also the phenomena of decay and sickness?... And is not excessive seriousness in regard to moral values, or in regard to "other-world" fictions, or social calamities, or _suffering_ in general, of the same order? All such _exaggeration_ of a single and narrow standpoint is in itself a sign of sickness. The same applies to the preponderance of a negative over an affirmative attitude!

_In this respect we must not confound with the above:_ the joy of saying and doing _no,_ which is the result of the enormous power and tenseness of an affirmative attitude--peculiar to all rich and mighty men and ages. It is, as it were, a luxury, a form of courage too, which opposes the terrible, which has sympathy with the frightful and the questionable, because, among other things, one is terrible and questionable: the _Dionysian_ in will, intellect, and taste.

1021.

_My Five "Noes."_

(1) My fight against _the feeling of sin_ and the introduction of the notion of _punishment_ into the physical and metaphysical world, likewise into psychology and the interpretation of history. The recognition of the fact that all philosophies and valuations hitherto have been saturated with morality.

(2) My identification and my discovery of the _traditional_ ideal, of the Christian ideal, even where the dogmatic form of Christianity has been wrecked. The _danger of the Christian ideal_ resides in its valuations, in that which can dispense with concrete expression: my struggle against _latent Christianity_ (for instance, in music, in Socialism).

(3) My struggle against the eighteenth century of Rousseau, against his "Nature," against his "good man," his belief in the dominion of feeling--against the pampering, weakening, and moralising of man: an ideal born of the _hatred of aristocratic culture,_ which in practice is the dominion of unbridled feelings of resentment, and invented as a standard for the purpose of war (the Christian morality of the feeling of sin, as well as the morality of resentment, is an attitude of the mob).

(4) My fight against _Romanticism,_ in which the ideals of Christianity and of Rousseau converge, but which possesses at the same time a yearning for that _antiquity_ which knew of sacerdotal and aristocratic culture, a yearning for _virtù,_ and for the "strong man"--something extremely hybrid; a false and imitated kind of _stronger_ humanity, which appreciates extreme conditions in general and sees the symptom of strength in them ("the cult of passion"; an imitation of the most expressive _forms, furore espressivo,_ originating not out of plenitude, but out _of want)._--(In the nineteenth century there are some things which are born out of relative plenitude--_i.e._ out of _well-being;_ cheerful music, etc.--among poets, for instance, Stifter and Gottfried Keller give signs of more strength and inner well-being than--. The great strides of engineering, of inventions, of the natural sciences and of history (?) are relative products of the strength and self-reliance of the nineteenth century.)

(5) My struggle against the _predominance of gregarious instincts,_ now science makes common cause with them; against the profound hate with which every kind of order of rank and of aloofness is treated.

1022.

From the pressure of plenitude, from the tension of forces that are continually increasing within us and which cannot yet discharge themselves, a condition is produced which is very similar to that which precedes a storm: we--like Nature's sky--become overcast. I hat, too, is "pessimism.".. A teaching which puts an end to such a condition by the fact that it _commands_ something: a transvaluation of values by means of which the accumulated forces are given a channel, a direction, so that they explode into deeds and flashes of lightning-does not in the least require to be a hedonistic teaching: in so far as it _releases strength_ which was compressed to an agonising degree, it brings happiness.

1023.

_Pleasure_ appears with the feeling of power.

_Happiness_ means that the consciousness of power and triumph has begun to prevail.

_Progress_ is the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise great will-power, everything else is a misunderstanding and a danger.

1024.

There comes a time when the old masquerade and moral togging-up of the passions provokes repugnance: _naked Nature;_ when the _quanta_ of _power_ are recognised as _decidedly_ simple (as _determining rank_); when _grand style_ appears again as the result of great passion.

1025.

The purpose of culture _would have_ us enlist everything terrible, step by step and experimentally, into its service; but before it is _strong enough_ for this it must combat, moderate, mask, and even curse everything terrible.

Wherever a culture points to anything as evil, it betrays its _fear_ and therefore weakness.

_Thesis:_ everything good is the evil of yore which has been rendered serviceable. _Standard:_ the more terrible and the greater the passions may be which an age, a people, and an individual are at liberty to possess, because they are able to use them as _a means, the higher is their culture:_ the more mediocre, weak, submissive, and cowardly a man may be, the more things he will regard as _evil:_ according to him the kingdom of evil is the largest. The lowest man will see the kingdom of evil (_i.e._ that which is forbidden him and which is hostile to him) everywhere.

1026.

It is not a fact that "happiness follows virtue"--but it is the mighty man who first _declares his happy state to be virtue._

Evil actions belong to the mighty and the virtuous: bad and base actions belong to the subjected.

The mightiest man, the creator, would have to be the most evil, inasmuch as he makes his ideal prevail over all men in _opposition_ to their ideals, and remoulds them according to his own image.

Evil, in this respect, means hard, painful, enforced.

Such men as Napoleon must always return and always settle our belief in the self-glory of the individual afresh: he himself, however, was corrupted by the means he had to stoop to, and had _lost noblesse_ of character. If he had had to prevail among another kind of men, he could have availed himself of other means; and thus it would not seem _necessary_ that a Cæsar _must become bad._

1027.

Man is a combination of the _beast_ and the _super-beast_; higher man a combination of the monster and the superman:[7] these opposites belong to each other. With every degree of a man's growth towards greatness and loftiness, he also grows downwards into the depths and into the terrible: we should not desire the one without the other;--or, better still: the more fundamentally we desire the one, the more completely we shall achieve the other.

[Footnote 7: The play on the German words: "Unthier" and "Überthier," "Unmensch" and "Übermensch," is unfortunately not translatable.--Tr.]

1028.

Terribleness belongs to greatness: let us not deceive ourselves.

1029.

I have taught the knowledge of such terrible things, that all "Epicurean contentment" is impossible concerning them. Dionysian pleasure is the only _adequate_ kind here: _I was the first to discover the tragic._ Thanks to their superficiality in ethics, the Greeks misunderstood it. Resignation is not the lesson of tragedy, but only the misunderstanding of it! The yearning for nonentity is the _denial_ of tragic wisdom, its opposite!

1030.

A rich and powerful soul not only gets over painful and even terrible losses, deprivations, robberies, and insults: it actually leaves such dark infernos in possession of still greater plenitude and power; and, what is most important of all, in possession of an increased blissfulness in love. I believe that he who has divined something of the most fundamental conditions of love, will understand Dante for having written over the door of his Inferno: "I also am the creation of eternal love."

1031.

To have travelled over the whole circumference of the modern soul, and to have sat in all its corners--my ambition, my torment, and my happiness.

Veritably to have _overcome_ pessimism, and, as the result thereof, to have acquired the eyes of a Goethe--full of love and goodwill.

1032.

The first question is by no means whether we are satisfied with ourselves; but whether we are satisfied with anything at all. Granting that we should say yea to any single moment, we have then affirmed not only ourselves, but the whole of existence. For nothing stands by itself, either in us or in other things: and if our soul has vibrated and rung with happiness, like a chord, once only and only once, then all eternity was necessary in order to bring about that one event,--and all eternity, in this single moment of our affirmation, was called good, was saved, justified, and blessed.

1033.

The passions which _say yea._ I ride, happiness, health, the love of the sexes, hostility and war, reverence, beautiful attitudes, manners, strong will, the discipline of lofty spirituality, the will to power, and gratitude to the Earth and to Life: all that is rich, that would fain bestow, and that refreshes, gilds, immortalises, and deifies Life--the whole power of the virtues that _glorify_--all declaring things good, saying yea, and doing yea.

1034.

We, many or few, who once more dare to live in a world _purged of morality_, we _pagans_ in faith, we are probably also the first who understand what a _pagan faith_ is: to be obliged to imagine higher creatures than man, but to imagine them _beyond_ good and evil; to be compelled to value all higher existence as _immoral_ existence. We believe in Olympus, and _not_ in the "man on the cross."

1035.

The more modern man has exercised his idealising power in regard to a _God_ mostly by _moralising the latter_ ever more and more--what does that mean?--nothing good, a diminution in man's strength.

As a matter of fact, the reverse would be possible: and indications of this are not wanting. God imagined as emancipation from morality, comprising the whole of the abundant assembly of Life's contrasts, and _saving_ and _justifying_ them in a divine agony. God as the beyond, the superior elevation, to the wretched _cul-de-sac_ morality of "Good and Evil."

1036.