Part 4

The opposing of this fatality, the botching of mankind and the allowing of it to putrefy, was given the name "God" One shall not take the name of the Lord one's God in vain....

The race is corrupted--not by its vices, but by its ignorance: it is corrupted because it has not recognised exhaustion as exhaustion: physiological misunderstandings are the cause of all evil.

Virtue is our greatest misunderstanding.

Problem: how were the exhausted able to make the laws of values? In other words, how did they who are the last, come to power?... How did the instincts of the animal man ever get to stand on their heads?...

4. THE CRISIS: NIHILISM AND THE IDEA OF RECURRENCE.

55.

Extreme positions are not relieved by more moderate ones, but by extreme _opposite_ positions. And thus the belief in the utter immorality of nature, and in the absence of all purpose and sense, are psychologically necessary attitudes when the belief in God and in an essentially moral order of things is no longer tenable.

Nihilism now appears, _not_ because the sorrows of existence are greater than they were formerly, but because, in a general way, people have grown suspicious of the "meaning" which might be given to evil and even to existence. One interpretation has been overthrown: but since it was held to be _the_ interpretation, it seems as though there were no meaning in existence at all, as though everything were in vain.

***

It yet remains to be shown that this "in vain!" is the character of present Nihilism. The mistrust of our former valuations has increased to such an extent that it has led to the question: "are not all 'values' merely allurements prolonging the duration of the comedy, without, however, bringing the unravelling any closer?" The "long period of time" which has culminated in an "in vain," without either goal or purpose, is the _most paralysing_ of thoughts, more particularly when one sees that one is duped without, however, being able to resist being duped.

***

Let us imagine this thought in its worst form: existence, as it is, without either a purpose or a goal, but inevitably recurring, without an end in nonentity: "_Eternal Recurrence._"

This is the extremest form of Nihilism: nothing (purposelessness) eternal!

European form of Buddhism: the energy of knowledge and of strength drives us to such a belief. It is the most _scientific_ of all hypotheses. We deny final purposes. If existence had a final purpose it would have reached it.

***

It should be understood that what is being aimed at, here, is a contradiction of Pantheism: for "everything perfect, divine, eternal," _also_ leads _to the belief in Eternal Recurrence._ Question: has this pantheistic and affirmative attitude to all things also been made possible by morality? At bottom only the moral God has been overcome. Is there any sense in imagining a God "beyond good and evil"? Would Pantheism in _this_ sense be possible? Do we withdraw the idea of purpose from the process, and affirm the process notwithstanding? This were so if, within that process, something were _attained_ every moment--and always the same thing. Spinoza won an affirmative position of this sort, in the sense that every moment, according to him, has a logical necessity: and he triumphed by means of his fundamentally logical instinct over a like conformation of the world.

***

But his case is exceptional. If every _fundamental trait of character,_ which lies beneath every act, and which finds expression in every act, were recognised by the individual as _his_ fundamental trait of character, this individual would be driven to regard every moment of his existence in general, triumphantly as good. It would simply be necessary for that fundamental trait of character to be felt in oneself as something good, valuable, and pleasurable.

***

Now, in the case of those men and classes of men who were treated with violence and oppressed by their fellows, _morality_ saved life from despair and from the leap into nonentity:. for impotence in relation to mankind and _not_ in relation to Nature is what generates the most desperate bitterness towards existence. Morality treated the powerful, the violent, and the "masters" in general, as enemies against whom the common man must be protected--_that is to say, emboldened, strengthened._ Morality has therefore always taught the most profound _hatred_ and _contempt_ of the fundamental trait of character of all rulers--_i.e., their Will to Power._ To suppress, to deny, and to decompose this morality, would mean to regard this most thoroughly detested instinct with the reverse of the old feeling and valuation. If the sufferer and the oppressed man were _to lose his belief_ in his right to contemn the Will to Power, his position would be desperate. This would be so if the trait above-mentioned were essential to life, in which case it would follow that even that will to morality was only a cloak to this "Will to Power," as are also even that hatred and contempt. The oppressed man would then perceive that he stands _on the same platform_ with the oppressor, and that he has no individual privilege, nor any _higher rank_ than the latter.

***

On the _contrary_! There is nothing on earth which can have any value, if it have not a modicum of power--granted, of course, that life itself is the Will to Power. Morality protected the _botched_ and _bungled_ against Nihilism, in that it gave every one of them infinite worth, metaphysical worth, and classed them altogether in one order which did not correspond with that of worldly power and order of rank: it taught submission, humility, etc. _Admitting that the belief in this morality be destroyed,_ the botched and the bungled would no longer have any comfort, and would perish.

This _perishing_ seems like _self-annihilation,_ like an instinctive selection of that which must be destroyed. The _symptoms_ of this self-destruction of the botched and the bungled: self-vivisection, poisoning, intoxication, romanticism, and, above all, the instinctive constraint to acts whereby the powerful are made into _mortal enemies_ (training, so to speak, one's own hangmen), _the will to destruction_ as the will of a still deeper instinct--of the instinct of self-destruction, of the Will to Nonentity.

***

Nihilism is a sign that the botched and bungled in order to be destroyed, that, having been deprived of morality, they no longer have any reason to "resign themselves," that they take up their stand on the territory of the opposite principle, and _will also exercise power_ themselves, by compelling the powerful to become their hangmen. This is the European form of Buddhism, that _active negation,_ after all existence has lost its meaning.

***

It must not be supposed that "poverty" has grown more acute, on the contrary! "God, morality, resignation" were remedies in the very deepest stages of misery: _active_ Nihilism made its appearance in circumstances which were relatively much more favourable. The fact, alone, that morality is regarded as overcome, presupposes a certain degree of intellectual culture; while this very culture, for its part, bears evidence to a certain relative well-being. A certain intellectual fatigue, brought on by the long struggle concerning philosophical opinions, and carried to hopeless scepticism _against_ philosophy, shows moreover that the level of these Nihilists is by no means a low one. Only think of the conditions in which Buddha appeared! The teaching of the eternal recurrence would have learned principles to go upon (just as Buddha's teaching, for instance, had the notion of causality, etc.).

***

What do we mean to-day by the words "botched and bungled"? In the first place, they are used _physiologically_ and not politically. The unhealthiest kind of man all over Europe (in all classes) is the soil out of which Nihilism grows: this species of man will regard eternal recurrence as damnation--once he is bitten by the thought, he can no longer recoil before any action. He would not extirpate passively, but would cause everything to be extirpated which is meaningless and without a goal to this extent; although it is only a spasm, or sort of blind rage in the presence of the fact that everything has existed again and again for an eternity--even this period of Nihilism and destruction. The value of such a _crisis_ is that it _purifies,_ that it unites similar elements, and makes them mutually destructive, that it assigns common duties to men of opposite persuasions, and brings the weaker and more uncertain among them to the light, thus taking the first step towards a new _order of rank_ among forces from the standpoint of health: recognising commanders as commanders, subordinates as subordinates. Naturally irrespective of all the present forms of society.

***

What class of men will prove they are strongest in this new order of things? The most moderate--they who do not _require_ any extreme forms of belief, they who not only admit of, but actually like, a certain modicum of chance and nonsense; they who can think of man with a very moderate view of his value, without becoming weak and small on that account; the most rich in health, who are able to withstand a maximum amount of sorrow, and who are therefore not so very much afraid of sorrow--men who are _certain of their power,_ and who represent with conscious pride the state of strength to which man has attained.

***

How could such a man think of Eternal Recurrence?

56.

_The Periods of European Nihilism._

_The Period of Obscurity_: all kinds of groping measures devised to preserve old institutions and not to arrest the progress of new ones.

_The Period of Light_: men see that old and new are fundamental contraries; that the old values are born of descending life, and that the new ones are born of ascending life--_that all old ideals_ are unfriendly to life (born of decadence and determining it, however much they may be decked out in the Sunday finery of morality). We _understand_ the old, but are far from being sufficiently strong for the new.

_The Periods of the Three Great Passions_: contempt, pity, destruction.

_The Periods of Catastrophes_: the rise of a teaching which will sift mankind ... which drives the weak to some decision and the strong also.

II.

CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN NIHILISM.

_(a)_ MODERN GLOOMINESS.

57.

My friends, we had a hard time as youths; we even suffered from youth itself as though it were a serious disease. This is owing to the age in which we were born--an age of enormous internal decay and disintegration which, with all its weakness and even with the best of its strength, is opposed to the spirit of youth. Disintegration--that is to say, uncertainty--is peculiar to this age: nothing stands on solid ground or on a sound faith. People live for the morrow, because the day-after-to-morrow is doubtful. All our road is slippery and dangerous, while the ice which still bears us has grown unconscionably thin: we all feel the mild and gruesome breath of the thaw-wind--soon, where we are walking, no one will any longer _be able_ to stand!

58.

If this is not an age of decay and of diminishing vitality, it is at least one of indiscriminate and arbitrary experimentalising--and it is probable that out of an excess of abortive experiments there has grown this general impression, as of decay: and perhaps decay itself.

59.

_Concerning the history of modern gloominess._

The state-nomads (officials, etc.): "homeless"--.

The break-up of the family.

The "good man" as a symptom of exhaustion.

Justice as Will to Power (Rearing).

Lewdness and neurosis.

Black music: whither has real music gone?

The anarchist.

Contempt of man, loathing.

Most profound distinction: whether hunger or satiety is creative? The first creates the _Ideals of Romanticism._

Northern unnaturalness.

The need of Alcohol: the "need" of the working classes.

Philosophical Nihilism.

60.

The slow advance and rise of the middle and lower classes (including the lower kind of spirit and body), which was already well under way before the French Revolution, and would have made the same progress forward without the latter,--in short, then, the preponderance of the herd over all herdsmen and bell-wethers,--brings in its train:--

(1) Gloominess of spirit (the juxtaposition of a stoical and a frivolous _appearance_ of happiness, peculiar to noble cultures, is on the decline; much suffering is allowed to be _seen_ and _heard_ which formerly was borne in concealment);

(2) Moral hypocrisy (a way of _distinguishing_ oneself through morality, but by means of the values of the herd: pity, solicitude, moderation; and not by means of those virtues which are recognised and honoured outside the herd's sphere of power);

(3) A _really_ large amount of sympathy with both pain and joy (a feeling of pleasure resulting from being herded together, which is peculiar to all gregarious animals--"public spirit," "patriotism," everything, in fact, which is apart from the individual).

61.

Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours to mitigate distress, to honour it, and to wage war in advance with unpleasant possibilities, is an age of the _poor._ Our "_rich people_"--_they_ are the poorest! The real _purpose_ of all wealth has been forgotten.

62.

_Criticism of modern man_:--"the good man," but corrupted and misled by bad institutions (tyrants and priests);--reason elevated to a position of authority;--history is regarded as the surmounting of errors;--the future is regarded as progress;--the Christian state ("God of the armies");--Christian sexual intercourse (as marriage);--the realm of "justice" (the cult of "mankind");--"freedom."

The _romantic_ attitudes of the modern man;--the noble man (Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand);--taking the part of the oppressed and the bungled and the botched: motto for historians and romancers;--the Stoics of duty;--disinterestedness regarded as art and as knowledge;--altruism as the most mendacious form of egoism (utilitarianism), the most sentimental form of egoism.

All this savours of the eighteenth century. But it had other qualities which were not inherited, namely, a certain _insouciance,_ cheerfulness, elegance, spiritual clearness. The spiritual tempo has altered; the pleasure which was begotten by spiritual refinement and clearness has given room to the pleasure of colour, harmony, mass, reality, etc. etc. Sensuality in spiritual things. In short, it is the eighteenth century of Rousseau.

63.

Taken all in all, a considerable amount of _humanity_ has been attained by our men of to-day. That we feel this is in itself a proof of the fact that we have become so sensitive in regard to small cases of distress, that we somewhat unjustly overlook what has been achieved.

Here we must make allowances for the fact that a great deal of decadence is rife, and that, through such eyes, our world _must appear_ bad and wretched. But these eyes have always seen in the same way, in all ages.

(1) A certain hypersensitiveness, even in morality.

(2) The quantum of bitterness and gloominess, which pessimism bears with it in its judgments--both together have helped to bring about the preponderance of the other and _opposite_ point of view, that things are not well with our morality.

The fact of credit, of the commerce of the world, and the means of traffic--are expressions of an extraordinarily mild _trustfulness_ in men.... To that may also be added--

(3) The deliverance of science from moral and religious prejudices: a very good sign, though for the most part misunderstood.

In my own way, I am attempting a justification of history.

64.

_The second appearance of Buddhism._--Its precursory signs: the increase of pity. Spiritual exhaustion. The reduction of all problems to the question of pleasure and pain. The glory of war which calls forth a counter-stroke. Just as the sharp demarcation of nations generates a counter-movement in the form of the most hearty "Fraternity." The fact that it is impossible for religion to carry on its work any longer with dogma and fables.

The _catastrophe of Nihilism_ will put an end to all this Buddhistic culture.

65.

That which is most sorely afflicted to-day is the instinct and will of _tradition_: all institutions which owe their origin to this instinct, are opposed to the tastes of the age.... At bottom, nothing is thought or done which is not calculated to tear up this spirit of tradition by the roots. Tradition is looked upon as a fatality; it is studied and acknowledged (in the form of "heredity"), but people will not have anything to do with it. The extension of one will over long periods of time, the selection of conditions and valuations which make it possible to dispose of centuries in advance--this, precisely, is what is most utterly anti-modern. From which it follows, that disorganising principles give our age its specific character.

66.

"Be simple"--a demand which, when made to us complicated and incomprehensible triers of the heart and reins, is a simple absurdity.... Be natural: but even if we are unnatural--what then?

67.

The means employed in former times in order to arrive at _similarly constituted_ and lasting types, throughout long generations: entailed property and the respect of parents (the origin of the faith in gods and heroes as ancestors).

Now, the _subdivision of property_ belongs to the opposite tendency. The centralisation of an enormous number of, different interests in one soul: which, _to that end,_ must be very strong and mutable.

68.

Why does everything become _mummery._--The modern man is lacking in unfailing instinct (instinct being understood here to mean that which is the outcome of a _long period of activity in the same occupation_ on the part of one family of men); the incapability of producing anything perfect, is simply the result of this lack of instinct: one individual alone cannot make up for the schooling his ancestors should have transmitted to him.

What a morality or book of law creates: that deep instinct which renders _automatism_ and perfection possible in life and in work.

But now we have reached the opposite point; yes, we wanted to reach it--the most extreme consciousness, through introspection on the part of man and of history: and thus we are practically most distant from perfection in Being, doing, and willing: our desires--even our will to knowledge--shows how prodigiously decadent we are. We are striving after the very reverse of what _strong races_ and _strong natures_ will have--understanding is an _end_....

That Science is possible in the way in which it is practised to-day, proves that all elementary instincts, _the instincts which ward off danger and protect life,_ are no longer active. We no longer save, we are merely spending the capital of our forefathers, even in the way in which we _pursue knowledge_.

69.

_Nihilistic trait_.

_(a)_ In the _natural sciences_ ("purposelessness"), causality, mechanism, "conformity to law," an interval, a remnant.

_(b)_ Likewise in _politics_: the individual lacks the belief in his own right, innocence; falsehood rules supreme, as also the worship of the moment.

_(d)_ Likewise in _political economy_: the abolition of slavery: the lack of a redeeming class, and of _one who justifies_--the rise of anarchy. "Education"?

_(d)_ Likewise in _history_: fatalism, Darwinism; the last attempts at reconciling reason and Godliness fail. Sentimentality in regard to the past: biographies can no longer be endured! (Phenomenalism even here: character regarded as a mask; there are no facts.)

_(e)_ Likewise in _Art_: romanticism and its _counter-stroke_ (repugnance towards romantic ideals and lies). The latter, morally, as a sense of greatest truthfulness, but pessimistic. Pure "artists" (indifference as to the "subject"). (The psychology of the father-confessor and puritanical psychology--two forms of psychological romanticism: but also their counter-stroke, the attempt to maintain a purely artistic attitude towards "men"--but even in this respect no one dares to make the _opposite_ valuation.)

70.

_Against_ the teaching of the influence of _environment_ and external causes: the power coming from inside is infinitely _superior_; much that appears like influence acting from without is merely the subjection of environment to this inner power.

Precisely the same environment may be used and interpreted in opposite ways: there are no facts. A genius is _not_ explained by such theories concerning origins.

71.

"_Modernity_" regarded in the light of nutrition and digestion.

Sensitiveness is infinitely more acute (beneath moral vestments: the increase of pity), the abundance of different impressions is greater than ever. The _cosmopolitanism_ of articles of diet, of literature, newspapers, forms, tastes, and even landscapes. The speed of this affluence is _prestissimo_; impressions are wiped out, and people instinctively guard against assimilating anything or against taking anything _seriously_ and "digesting" it; the result is a weakening of the powers of digestion. There begin a sort of _adaptation_ to this accumulation of impressions. Man unlearns the art of _doing,_ and _all he does is to react_ to stimuli coming from his environment. _He spends his strength,_ partly in the process of _assimilation,_ partly in _defending himself,_ and again partly in _responding to stimuli. Profound enfeeblement of spontaneity_:--the historian, the critic, the analyst, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader,--all reactive talents,--_all_ science!

Artificial _modification_ of one's own nature in order to make it resemble a "mirror"; one is interested, but only epidermally: this is systematic coolness, equilibrium, a steady _low_ temperature, just beneath the thin surface on which warmth, movement, "storm," and undulations play.

Opposition of _external_ mobility to a certain _dead heaviness and fatigue_.

72.

Where must our modern world be classed--under exhaustion or under increasing strength? Its multiformity and lack of repose are brought about by the highest form of _consciousness._

73.

Overwork, curiosity and sympathy--our _modern vices._

74.

A contribution to the characterisation of "_Modernity._"--Exaggerated development of intermediate forms; the decay of types; the break-up of tradition, schools; the predominance of the instincts (philosophically prepared: the unconscious has the greater value) after the appearance of the _enfeeblement of will power_ and of the will to an end _and_ to the means thereto.

75.

A capable artisan or scholar cuts a good figure if he have his pride in his art, and looks pleasantly and contentedly upon life. On the other hand, there is no sight more wretched than that of a cobbler or a schoolmaster who, with the air of a martyr, gives one to understand that he was really born for something better. There is nothing better than what is good! and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and to use it. This is _virtù_ in the Italian style of the Renaissance.