No More Learning

501.
MORTal SOuls. —Where knowledge is con-
cerned perhaps the most useful conquest that has
ever been made is the abandonment of the belief in
the immortality of the soul. Humanity is hence-
forth at liberty to wait: men need no longer be in
a hurry to swallow badly-tested ideas as they had to
do in former times. For in those times the salvation
of this poor " immortal soul" depended upon the
extent of the knowledge which could be acquired
in the course of a short existence: decisions had to
be reached from one day to another, and "know-
ledge" was a matter of dreadful importance!
Now we have acquired good courage for errors,
experiments, and the provisional acceptance of ideas
—all this is not so very important! —and for this
very reason individuals and whole races may now
face tasks so vast in extent that in former years they
would have looked like madness, and defiance of


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350 THE DAWN OF DAY.
heaven and hell. Now we have the right to ex-
periment upon ourselves! Yes, men have the right
to do so! the greatest sacrifices have not yet been
offered up to knowledge—nay, in earlier periods it
would have been sacrilege, and a sacrifice of our
eternal salvation, even to surmise such ideas as now
precede our actions.
502.
One Word for three different Condi-
tions. —When in a state of passion one man will
be forced to let loose the savage, dreadful, unbear-
able animal. Another when under the influence of
passion will raise himself to a high, noble, and lofty
demeanour, in comparison with which his usual self
appears petty. A third, whose whole person is
permeated with nobility of feeling, has also the most
noble storm and stress: and in this state he repre-
sents Nature in her state of savageness and beauty,
and stands only one degree lower than Nature in her
periods of greatness and serenity, which he usually
represents. It is while in this state of passion,
however, that men understand him better, and
venerate him more highly at these moments—for
then he is one step nearer and more akin to them.
They feel at once delighted and horrified at such a
sight and call it—divine.
503-
Friendship. —The objection to a philosophic
life that it renders us useless to our friends would
never have arisen in a modern mind: it belongs
rather to classical antiquity. Antiquity knew the


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 351
stronger bonds of friendship, meditated upon it,
and almost took it to the grave with it. This is the
advantage it has over us: we, on the other hand,
can point to our idealisation of sexual love. All
the great excellencies of ancient humanity owed
their stability to the fact that man was standing
side by side with man, and that no woman was
allowed to put forward the claim of being the
nearest and highest, nay even sole object of his love,
as the feeling of passion would teach. Perhaps
our trees do not grow so high now owing to the
ivy and the vines that cling round them.
504.
Reconciliation. —Should it then be the task
of philosophy to reconcile what the child has learnt
with what the man has come to recognise? Should
philosophy be the task of young men because they
stand midway between child and man and possess
intermediate necessities? It would almost appear
to be so if you consider at what ages of their life
philosophers are now in the habit of setting forth
their conceptions: at a time when it is too late
for faith and too early for knowledge.
SOS-
Practical People. —We thinkers have the
right of deciding good taste in all things, and if
necessary of decreeing it. The practical people
finally receive it from us: their dependence upon
us is incredibly great, and is one of the most


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352 THE DAWN OF DAY.
ridiculous spectacles in the world, little though they
themselves know it and however proudly they like
to carp at us unpractical people. Nay, they would
even go so far as to belittle their practical life if
we should show a tendency to despise it—whereto
at times we might be urged on by a slightly vin-
dictive feeling.
506.
The Necessary Desiccation of Everything
GOOD. —What! must we conceive of a work
exactly in the spirit of the age that has produced
it? but we experience greater delight and surprise,
and get more information out of it when we do
not conceive it in this spirit! Have you not re-
marked that every new and good work, so long
as it is exposed to the damp air of its own age is
least valuable—just because it still has about it
all the odour of the market, of opposition, of
modern ideas, and of all that is transient from
day to day? Later on, however, it dries up, its
"actuality" dies away: and then only does it
obtain its deep lustre and its perfume—and also,
if it is destined for it, the calm eye of eternity.
507.
Against the Tyranny of Truth. —Even if
we were mad enough to consider all our opinions
as truth, we should nevertheless not wish them
alone to exist. I cannot see why we should ask
for an autocracy and omnipotence of truth: it is
sufficient for me to know that it is a great power.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 353
Truth, however, must meet with opposition and be
able to fight, and we must be able to rest from it
at times in falsehood—otherwise truth will grow
tiresome, powerless, and insipid, and will render us
equally so.
508.
Not to take a thing Pathetically. —What
we do to benefit ourselves should not bring us in
any moral praise, either from others or from our-
selves, and the same remark applies to those things
which we do to please ourselves. It is looked
upon as bon ton among superior men to refrain
from taking things pathetically in such cases, and
to refrain from all pathetic feelings: the man who
has accustomed himself to this has retrieved his
naivete.
509.
The Third Eye. —What! You are still in
need of the theatre! are you still so young? Be
wise, and seek tragedy and comedy where they
are better acted, and where the incidents are more
interesting, and the actors more eager. It is
indeed by no means easy to be merely a spectator
in these cases—but learn ! and then, amid all difficult
or painful situations, you will have a little gate lead-
ing to joy and refuge,even when your passions attack
you. Open your stage eye, that big third eye of
yours, which looks out into the world through the
other two.
510.
Escaping from One's Virtues. —Of what
account is a thinker who does not know how to


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354 THE DAWN OF DAY.
escape from his own virtues occasionally! Surely
a thinker should be more than "a moral being "!
511.
The Temptress. —Honesty is the great tempt-
ress of all fanatics. * What seemed to tempt Luther
in the guise of the devil or -a beautiful woman,
and from which he defended himself in that un-
couth way of his, was probably nothing but
honesty, and perhaps in a few rarer cases even
truth.
512.
Bold towards Things. —The man who, in
accordance with his character, is considerate and
timid towards persons, but is courageous and bold
towards things, is afraid of new and closer acquaint-
ances, and limits his old ones in order that he may
thus make his incognito and his inconsiderateness
coincide with truth.
513.
Limits and Beauty. —Are you looking for
men with a fine culture? Then you will have to
be satisfied with restricted views and sights, exactly
as when you are looking for fine countries. —There
are, of course, such panoramic men: they are like
panoramic regions, instructive and marvellous : but
not beautiful.
* Hence the violence of all fanatics, who do not wish to
shout down the outer world so much as to shout down their
own inner enemy, viz. truth. —Tr.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 355
5M.
To THE STRONGER. —Ye stronger and arrogant
intellects, we ask you for only one thing: throw no
further burdens upon our shoulders, but take some
of our burdens upon your own, since ye are stronger!
but ye delight in doing the exact contrary: for ye
wish to soar, so that we must carry your burden
in addition to our own—we must crawl!
5 15-
The Increase of Beauty. —Why has beauty
increased by the progress of civilisation? because
the three occasions for ugliness appear ever more
rarely among civilised men: first, the wildest out-
bursts of ecstasy; secondly, extreme bodily exer-
tion, and, thirdly, the necessity of inducing fear by
one's very sight and presence—a matter which is
so frequent and of so great importance in the lower
and more dangerous stages of culture that it even
lays down the proper gestures and ceremonials and
makes ugliness a duty.
516.
Not to Imbue our Neighbours with our
OWN Demon. —Let us in our age continue to hold
the belief that benevolence and beneficence are the
characteristics of a good man; but let us not fail
to add " provided that in the first place he exhibits
his benevolence and beneficence towards himself. "
For if he acts otherwise—that is to say, if he shuns,
hates, or injures himself—he is certainly not a good


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356 THE DAWN OF DAY.
man. He then merely saves himself through
others: and let these others take care that they
do not come to grief through him, however well
disposed he may appear to be to them I—but to
shun and hate one's own ego, and to live in and
for others, this has up to the present, with as much
thoughtlessness as conviction, been looked upon as
"unselfish," and consequently as " good. "
517-
Tempting into Love. —We ought to fear a
man who hates himself; for we are liable to become
the victims of his anger and revenge. Let us
therefore try to tempt him into self-love.
518.
Resignation. —What is resignation? It is the
most comfortable position of a patient, who, after
having suffered a long time from tormenting pains
in order to find it, at last became tired—and then
found it.
519-
Deception. —When you wish to act you must
close the door upon doubt, said a man of action. —
And are you not afraid of being deceived in doing
so? replied the man of a contemplative mind.
520.
Eternal Obsequies. —Both within and beyond
the confines of history we might imagine that we


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 357
were listening to a continual funeral oration: we
have buried, and are still burying, all that we have
loved best, our thoughts, and our hopes, receiving
in exchange pride, gloria mundi—that is, the pomp
of the graveside speech. It is thus that everything
is made good! Even at the present time the
funeral orator remains the greatest public bene-
factor.
521.
Exceptional Vanity. —Yonder man possesses
one great quality which serves as a consolation for
him: his look passes with contempt over the
remainder of his being, and almost his entire
character is included in this. But he recovers
from himself when, as it were, he approaches his
sanctuary; already the road leading to it appears
to him to be an ascent on broad soft steps—and
yet, ye cruel ones, ye call him vain on this account!
522.
Wisdom without Ears. —To hear every day
what is said about us, or even to endeavour to
discover what people think of us, will in the end
kill even the strongest man. Our neighbours
permit us to live only that they may exercise a daily
claim upon us! They certainly would not tolerate
us if we wished to claim rights over them, and
still less if we wished to be right! In short, let
us offer up a sacrifice to the general peace, let us
not listen when they speak of us, when they praise
us, blame us, wish for us, or hope for us—nay, let
us not even think of it.


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358 THE DAWN OF DAY.
523-
A Question of Penetration. —When we are
confronted with any manifestation which some one
has permitted us to see, we may ask: what is it
meant to conceal? What is it meant to draw our
attention from? What prejudices does it seek to
raise? and again, how far does the subtlety of the
dissimulation go? and in what respect is the man
mistaken?
524.
The Jealousy of the Lonely Ones. —This
is the difference between sociable and solitary
natures, provided that both possess an intellect:
the former are satisfied, or nearly satisfied, with
almost anything whatever; from the moment that
their minds have discovered a communicable and
happy version of it they will be reconciled even
with the devil himself! But the lonely souls
have their silent rapture, and their speechless
agony about a thing: they hate the ingenious
and brilliant display of their inmost problems as
much as they dislike to see the women they
love too loudly dressed—they watch her mourn-
fully in such a case, as if they were just begin-
ning to suspect that she was desirous of pleasing
others. This is the jealousy which all lonely
thinkers and passionate dreamers exhibit with re-
gard to the esprit.
525.
The Effect of Praise. —Some people become
modest when highly praised, others insolent.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 359
526.
Unwilling to be a Symbol. —I sympathise
with princes: they are not at liberty to discard
their high rank even for a short time, and thus
they come to know people only from the very
uncomfortable position of constant dissimulation—
their continual compulsion to represent something
actually ends by making solemn ciphers of them. —
Such is the fate of all those who deem it their
duty to be symbols.
527.
The Hidden Men. —Have you never come
across those people who check and restrain even
their enraptured hearts, and who would rather
become mute than lose the modesty of modera-
tion? and have you never met those embarrassing,
and yet so often good-natured people who do not
wish to be recognised, and who time and again
efface the tracks they have made in the sand? and
who even deceive others as well as themselves in
order to remain obscure and hidden?
528.
Unusual Forbearance. —It is often no small
indication of kindness to be unwilling to criticise
some one, and even to refuse to think of him.
529.
How Men and Nations gain Lustre. —How
many really individual actions are left undone
t


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360 THE DAWN OF DAY.
merely because before performing them we perceive
or suspect that they will be misunderstood ! —those
actions, for example, which have some intrinsic
value, both in good and evil. The more highly an
age or a nation values its individuals, therefore, and
the more right and ascendancy we accord them,
the more will actions of this kind venture to make
themselves known,—and thus in the long run a
lustre of honesty, of genuineness in good and evil,
will spread over entire ages and nations, so that
they—the Greeks, for example—like certain stars,
will continue to shed light for thousands of years
after their sinking.
530.
Digressions of the Thinker. —The course
of thought in certain men is strict and inflexibly
bold. At times it is even cruel towards such men,
although considered individually they may be
gentle and pliable. With well-meaning hesitation
they will turn the matter ten times over in their
heads, but will at length continue their strict course.
They are like streams that wind their way past
solitary hermitages: there are places in their course
where the stream plays hide and seek with itself,
and indulges in short idylls with islets, trees,
grottos, and cascades—and then it rushes ahead
once more, passes by the rocks, and forces its way
through the hardest stones.
531-
Different Feelings towards Art. —From
the time when we begin to live as a hermit, con-


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 361
suming and consumed, our only company being
deep and prolific thoughts, we expect from art
either nothing more, or else something quite
different from what we formerly expected—in a
word, we change our taste. For in former times
we wished to penetrate for a moment by means of
art into the element in which we are now living
permanently: at that time we dreamt ourselves
into the rapture of a possession which we now
actually possess. Indeed, flinging away from us
for the time being what we now have, and imagin-
ing ourselves to be poor, or to be a child, a beggar,
or a fool, may now at times fill us with delight.
532.
"Love Equalises. "—Love wishes to spare the
other to whom it devotes itself any feeling of
strangeness: as a consequence it is permeated with
disguise and simulation; it keeps on deceiving con-
tinuously, and feigns an equality which in reality
does not exist. And all this is done so instinctively
that women who love deny this simulation and
constant tender trickery, and have even the
audacity to assert that love equalises (in other
words that it performs a miracle)!
This phenomenon is a simple matter if one of
the two permits himself or herself to be loved, and
does not deem it necessary to feign, but leaves
this to the other. No drama, however, could offer
a more intricate and confused instance than when
both persons are passionately in love with one
another; for in this case both are anxious to


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362 THE DAWN OF DAY.
surrender and to endeavour to conform to the
other, and finally they are both at a loss to know
what to imitate and what to feign. The beautiful
madness of this spectacle is too good for this world,
and too subtle for human eyes.
533-
We Beginners. —How many things does an
actor see and divine when he watches another on
the stage! He notices at once when a muscle fails
in some gesture; he can distinguish those little
artificial tricks which are so calmly practised
separately before the mirror, and are not in con-
formity with the whole; he feels when the actor is
surprised on the stage by his own invention, and
when he spoils it amid this surprise. —How differ-
ently, again, does a painter look at some one who
happens to be moving before him! He will see
a great deal that does not actually exist in order
to complete the actual appearance of the person,
and to give it its full effect. In his mind he
attempts several different illuminations of the same
object, and divides the whole by an additional
contrast. —Oh, that we now possessed the eyes of
such an actor and such a painter for the province
of the human soul!
534-
Small Doses. —If we wish a change to be as
deep and radical as possible, we must apply the
remedy in minute doses, but unremittingly for long
periods. What great action can be performed all


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 363
at once?
Let us therefore be careful not to
exchange violently and precipitately the moral
conditions with which we are familiar for a new
valuation of things,—nay, we may even wish to
continue living in the old way for a long time to
come, until probably at some very remote period
we become aware of the fact that the new valua-
tion has made itself the predominating power
within us, and that its minute doses to which we
must henceforth become accustomed have set up
a new nature within us. —We now also begin to
understand that the last attempt at a great change
of valuations—that which concerned itself with
political affairs (the "great revolution")—was
nothing more than a pathetic and sanguinary piece
of quackery which, by means of sudden crises, was
able to inspire a credulous Europe with the hope
of a sudden recovery, and has therefore made all
political invalids impatient and dangerous up to
this very moment.
535-
Truth requires Power. —Truth in itself is
no power at all, in spite of all that flattering
rationalists are in the habit of saying to the
contrary. Truth must either attract power to
its side, or else side with power, for otherwise it
will perish again and again. This has already
been sufficiently demonstrated, and more than
sufficiently!
536.
The Thumbscrew. —It is disgusting to observe
with what cruelty every one charges his two or
. '


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364 THE DAWN OF DAY.
three private virtues to the account of others who
may perhaps not possess them, and whom he
torments and worries with them. Let us therefore
deal humanely with the "sense of honesty," although
we may possess in it a thumbscrew with which we
can worry to death all these presumptuous egoists
who even yet wish to impose their own beliefs upon
the whole world—we have tried this thumbscrew
on ourselves!
537-
Mastery. —We have reached mastery when we
neither mistake nor hesitate in the achievement.
538.
The Moral Insanity of Genius. —In a
certain category of great intellects we may observe
a painful and partly horrible spectacle: in their
most productive moments their flights aloft and
into the far distance appear to be out of harmony
with their general constitution and to exceed their
power in one way or another, so that each time
there remains a deficiency, and also in the long
run a defectiveness in the entire machinery, which
latter is manifested among those highly intellectual
natures by various kinds of moral and intellectual
symptoms more regularly than by conditions of
bodily distress.
Thus those incomprehensible characteristics of
their nature—all their timidity, vanity, hatefulness,
envy, their narrow and narrowing disposition—and
that too personal and awkward element in natures
like those of Rousseau and Schopenhauer, may very


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 365
well be the consequences of a periodical attack of
heart disease; and this in its turn may be the
result of a nervous complaint, and this latter the
consequence of *
So long as genius dwells within us we are full
of audacity, yea, almost mad, and heedless of
health, life, and honour; we fly through the day
as free and swift as an eagle, and in the darkness
we feel as confident as an owl. —But let genius
once leave us and we are instantly overcome by a
feeling of the most profound despondency: we can
no longer understand ourselves; we suffer from
everything that we experience and do not ex-
perience; we feel as if we were in the midst of
shelterless rocks with the tempest raging round us,
and we are at the same time like pitiful childish
souls, afraid of a rustle or a shadow. —Three-
fourths of all the evil committed in the world is
due to timidity; and this is above all a physio-
logical process.
539-
Do YOU KNOW WhaT YOU Want ? —Have you
never been troubled by the fear that you might
not be at all fitted for recognising what is true?
by the fear that your senses might be too dull, and
even your delicacy of sight far too blunt? If you
could only perceive, even once, to what extent your
volition dominates your sight! How, for example,
you wished yesterday to see more than some one
else, while to-day you wish to see it differently!
and how from the start you were anxious to see
* This omission is in the original. —Tr.


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366 THE DAWN OF DAY.
something which would be in conformity with or
in opposition to anything that people thought they
had observed up to the present. Oh, those shame-
ful cravings! How often you keep your eyes open
for what is efficacious, for what is soothing, just
because you happen to be tired at the moment!
Always full of secret predeterminations of what
truth should be like, so that you—you, forsooth ! —
might accept it! or do you think that to-day,
because you are as frozen and dry as a bright
winter morning, and because nothing is weighing
on your mind, you have better eyesight! Are not
ardour and enthusiasm necessary to do justice to
the creations of thought ? —and this indeed is what
is called sight! as if you could treat matters of
thought any differently from the manner in which
you treat men. In all relations with thought there
is the same morality, the same honesty of purpose,
the same arriere-pensee, the same slackness, the
same faint-heartedness—your whole lovable and
hateful self! Your physical exhaustion will lend
the things pale colours whilst your feverishness will
turn them into monsters! Does not your morning
show the things in a different light from the
evening? Are you not afraid of finding in the
cave of all knowledge your own phantom, the veil
in which truth is wrapped up and hidden from
your sight? Is it not a dreadful comedy in which
you so thoughtlessly wish to take part?
540.
Learning. —Michelangelo considered Raphael's
genius as having been acquired by study, and upon


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 367
his own as a natural gift: learning as opposed to
talent; though this is mere pedantry, with all due
respect to the great pedant himself. For what is
talent but a name for an older piece of learning, ex-
perience, exercise, appropriation, and incorporation,
perhaps as far back as the times of our ancestors,
or even earlier! And again: he who learns forms
his own talents, only learning is not such an easy
matter and depends not only upon our willingness,
but also upon our being able to learn at all.
Jealousy often prevents this in an artist, or that
pride which, when it experiences any strange feel-
ing, at once assumes an attitude of defence instead
of an attitude of scholarly receptiveness. Raphael,
like Goethe, lacked this pride, on which account
they were great learners, and not merely the ex-
ploiters of those quarries which had been formed
by the manifold genealogy of their forefathers.
Raphael vanishes before our eyes as a learner
in the midst of that assimilation of what his
great rival called his "nature": this noblest of
all thieves daily carried off a portion of it; but
before he had appropriated all the genius of
Michelangelo he died—and the final series of his
works, because it is the beginning of a new plan of
study, is less perfect and good, for the simple reason
that the great student was interrupted by death in
the midst of his most difficult task, and took away
with him that justifying and final goal which he had
in view.
541.
HOW WE SHOULD TURN TO STONE. — By
slowly, very, very slowly, becoming hard like a
--


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368 THE DAWN OF DAY.
precious stone, and at last lie still, a joy to all
eternity.
542.
The Philosopher and Old Age. —It is not
wise to permit evening to act as a judge of the
day; for only too often in this case weariness be-
comes the judge of success and good will. We
should also take the greatest precautions in regard
to everything connected with old age and its judg-
ment upon life, more especially since old age, like
the evening, is fond of assuming a new and charm-
ing morality, and knows well enough how to
humiliate the day by the glow of the evening skies,
twilight and a peaceful and wistful silence. The
reverence which we feel for an old man, especially
if he is an old thinker and sage, easily blinds us to
the deterioration of his intellect, and it is always
necessary to bring to light the hidden symptoms of
such a deterioration and lassitude, that is to say, to
uncover the physiological phenomenon which is still
concealed behind the old man's moral judgments
and prejudices, in case we should be deceived by
our veneration for him, and do something to the
disadvantage of knowledge. For it is not seldom
that the illusion of a great moral renovation and
regeneration takes possession of the old man.
Basing his views upon this, he then proceeds to
express his opinions on the work and development
of his life as if he had only then for the first time
become clearsighted—and nevertheless it is not
wisdom, but fatigue, which prompts his present state
of well-being and his positive judgments.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 369
The most dangerous indication of this weariness
is above all the belief in genius, which as a rule only
arises in great and semi-great men of intellect at
this period of their lives: the belief in an excep-
tional position, and exceptional rights. The thinker
who thus believes himself to be inspired by genius
henceforth deems it permissible for him to take
things more easily, and takes advantage of his
position as a genius to decree rather than to prove.
It is probable, however, that the need felt by the
weary intellect for alleviation is the main source of
this belief—it precedes it in time, though appear-
ances may indicate the contrary.
At this time too, as the result of the love which
all weary and old people feel for enjoyment, such
men as those I am speaking of wish to enjoy the
results of their thinking instead of again testing
them and scattering the seeds abroad once more.
This leads them to make their thoughts palatable
and enjoyable, and to take away their dryness,
coldness, and want of flavour; and thus it comes
about that the old thinker apparently raises him-
self above his life's work, while in reality he spoils
it by infusing into it a certain amount of fantasy,
sweetness, flavour, poetic mists, and mystic lights.
This is how Plato ended, as did also that great
and honest Frenchman, Auguste Comte, who, as a
conqueror of the exact sciences, cannot be matched
either among the Germans or the Englishmen of
this century.
There is a third symptom of fatigue: that
ambition which actuated the great thinker when
he was young, and which could not then find any-
2A
f


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370 THE DAWN OF DAY.
thing to satisfy it, has also grown old, and, like
one that has no more time to lose, it begins to
snatch at the coarser and more immediate means
of its gratification, means which are peculiar to
active, dominating, violent, and conquering dis-
positions. From this time onwards the thinker
wishes to found institutions which shall bear his
name, instead of erecting mere brain-structures.
What are now to him the ethereal victories and
honours to be met with in the realm of proofs and
refutations, or the perpetuation of his fame in books,
or the thrill of exultation in the soul of the reader?
But the institution, on the other hand, is a temple,
as he well knows—a temple of stone, a durable
edifice, which will keep its god alive with more cer-
tainty than the sacrifices of rare and tender souls. *
Perhaps, too, at this period of his life the old
thinker will for the first time meet with that love
which is fitted for a god rather than for a human
being, and his whole nature becomes softened and
sweetened in the rays of such a sun, like fruit in
autumn. Yes, he grows more divine and beautiful,
this great old man,—and nevertheless it is old age
and weariness which permit him to ripen in this
way, to grow more silent, and to repose in the
luminous adulation of a woman. Now it is all up
with his former desire—a desire which was superior
even to his own ego—for real disciples, followers
who would carry on his thought, that is, true
opponents. This desire arose from his hitherto un-
diminished energy, the conscious pride he felt in
* This, of course, refers to Richard Wagner, as does also
the following paragraph. —Tr.


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THE DAWN OF DAY.
371
being able at any time to become an opponent
himself,—nay, even the deadly enemy of his own
doctrine, - but now his desire is for resolute
partisans, unwavering comrades, auxiliary forces,
heralds, a pompous train of followers. He is now
no longer able to bear that dreadful isolation in
which every intellect that advances beyond the
others is compelled to live. From this time forward
he surrounds himself with objects of veneration,
companionship, tenderness, and love; but he also
wishes to enjoy the privileges of all religious people,
and to worship what he venerates most highly
in his little community—he will even go as far as
to invent a religion for the purpose of having a
community.
Thus lives the wise old man, and in living thus
he falls almost imperceptibly into such a deplorable
proximity to priestly and poetic extravagances that
it is difficult to recollect all his wise and severe
period of youth, the former rigid morality of his
mind, and his truly virile dread of fancies and mis-
placed enthusiasm. When he was formerly in the
habit of comparing himself with the older thinkers,
he did so merely that he might measure his weak-
ness against their strength, and that he might
become colder and more audacious towards himself;
but now he only makes this comparison to intoxi-
cate himself with his own delusions. Formerly he
looked forward with confidence to future thinkers,
and he even took a delight in imagining himself to
be cast into the shade by their brighter light. Now,
however, he is mortified to think that he cannot be
the last: he endeavours to discover some way of


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372 THE DAWN OF DAY.
imposing upon mankind, together with the inherit-
ance which he is leaving to them, a restriction of
sovereign thinking. He fears and reviles the pride
and the love of freedom of individual minds: after
him no one must allow his intellect to govern with
absolute unrestriction: he himself wishes to remain
for ever the bulwark on which the waves of ideas
may break—these are his secret wishes, and perhaps,
indeed, they are not always secret.
The hard fact upon which such wishes are based,
however, is that he himself has come to a halt before
his teaching, and has set up his boundary stone,
his " thus far and no farther. " In canonising him-
self he has drawn up his own death warrant: from
now on his mind cannot develop further. His race
is run; the hour-hand stops. Whenever a great
thinker tries to make himself a lasting institution
for posterity, we may readily suppose that he has
passed the climax of his powers, and is very tired,
very near the setting of his sun.
543-
We must not make Passion an Argument
FOR TRUTH. —Oh, you kind-hearted and even
noble enthusiasts, I know you! You wish to seem
right in our eyes as well as in your own, but
especially in your own ! —and an irritable and subtle
evil conscience so often spurs you on against your
very enthusiasm! How ingenious you then become
in deceiving your conscience, and lulling it to sleep!
How you hate honest, simple, and clean souls; how
you avoid their innocent glances! That better
knowledge whose representatives they are, and


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 373
whose voice you hear only too distinctly within
yourselves when it questions your belief,—how you
try to cast suspicion upon it as a bad habit, as a
disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of
your own intellectual health! It drives you on to
hate even criticism, science, reason! You must
falsify history to make it testify in your favour;
you must deny virtues in case they should obscure
those of your own idols and ideals.
Coloured images where arguments are needed!
Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists!
Ambrosian nights! well do you know how to en-
lighten and to darken—to darken by means of
light! and indeed when your passion can no longer
be kept within bounds the moment comes when
you say to yourselves, " Now I have won for myself
a good conscience, now I am exalted, courageous,
self-denying, magnanimous; now I am honest! "
How you long for these moments when your passion
will confer upon you full and absolute rights, and
also, as it were, innocence. How happy you are
when engaged in battle and inspired with ecstasy
or courage, when you are elated beyond yourself,
when gnawing doubt has left you, and when you
can even decree: "Any man who is not in ecstasy
as we are cannot by any chance know what or
where truth is. " How you long to meet with those
who share your belief in this state—which is a
state of intellectual depravity—and to set your own
fire alight with their flames! Oh, for your martyr-
dom, your victory of the sanctified lie! Must you
really inflict so much pain upon yourselves ? —
Must you?


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374 THE DAWN OF DAY
544-
How Philosophy is now Practised. —I can
see quite well that our philosophising youths,
women, and artists require from philosophy exactly
the opposite of what the Greeks derived from it.
What does he who does not hear the continual
exultation that resounds through every speech and
counter-argument in a Platonic dialogue, this ex-
ultation over the new invention of rational thinking,
know about Plato or about ancient philosophy?
At that time souls were filled with enthusiasm when
they gave themselves up to the severe and sober
sport of ideas, generalisations, refutations,—that
enthusiasm which perhaps those old, great, severe,
and prudent contrapuntists in music have also
known. At that time the Greek palate still pos-
sessed that older and formerly omnipotent taste:
and by the side of this taste their new taste appeared
to be enveloped in so much charm that the divine
art of dialectic was sung by hesitating voices as if
its followers were intoxicated with the frenzy of
love. That old form of thinking, however, was
thought within the bounds of morality, and for it
nothing existed but fixed judgments and estab-
lished facts, and it had no reasons but those of
authority. Thinking, therefore, was simply a matter
of repetition, and all the enjoyment of speech and
dialogue could only lie in their form.
Wherever the substance of a thing is looked upon
as eternal and universally approved, there is only
one great charm, the charm of variable forms, that
is, of fashion. Even in the poets ever since the


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 375
time of Homer, and later on in the case of the sculp-
tors, the Greeks did not enjoy originality, but its
contrary. It was Socrates who discovered another
charm, that of cause and effect, of reason and
sequence, and we moderns have become so used to
it, and have been brought up to the necessity of
logic that we look upon it as the normal taste, and
as such it cannot but be repugnant to ardent and
presumptuous people. Such people are pleased
by whatever stands out boldly from the normal:
their more subtle ambition leads them to believe
only too readily that they are exceptional souls,
not dialectic and rational beings, but, let us say,
"intuitive" beings gifted with an "inner sense," or
with a certain " intellectual perception. " Above all,
however, they wish to be " artistic natures" with a
genius in their heads, and a demon in their bodies,
and consequently with special rights in this world
and in the world to come—especially the divine
privilege of being incomprehensible.
And people like these are "going in for" philo-
sophy nowadays! I fear they will discover one
day that they have made a mistake—what they
are looking for is religion!
545-
But we do not Believe you. —You would
fain pass for psychologists, but we shall not allow
it! Are we not to notice that you pretend to be
more experienced, profound, passionate, and perfect
than you actually are ? —just as we notice in yonder
painter that there is a trifling presumptuousness in


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376 THE DAWN OF DAY.
his manner of wielding the brush, and in yonder
musician that he brings forward his theme with the
desire to make it appear superior to what it really
is. Have you experienced history within your-
selves, commotions, earthquakes, long and pro-
found sadness, and sudden flashes of happiness?
Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools?
Have you really undergone the delusions and woe
of the good people? and also the woe and the
peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you
may speak to me of morality, but not otherwise!
546.
Slave and Idealist. —The followers of Epic-
tetus would doubtless not be to the taste of'those
who are now striving after the ideal. The constant
tension of his being, the indefatigable inward glance,
the prudent and reserved incommunicativeness of
his eye whenever it happens to gaze upon the outer
world, and above all, his silence or laconic speech:
all these are characteristics of the strictest fortitude,
—and what would our idealists, who above all else
are desirous of expansion, care for this? But in
spite of all this the Stoic is not fanatical. He
detests the display and boasting of our idealists:
his pride, however great it may be, is not eager
to disturb others. It permits of a certain gentle
approach, and has no desire to spoil anybody's good
humour—nay, it can even smile. A great deal of
ancient humanity is to be seen exemplified in this
ideal. The most excellent feature about it, how-
ever, is that the thinker is completely free from the


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 377
fear of God, strictly believes in reason, and is no
preacher of penitence.
Epictetus was a slave: his ideal man is,without
any particular rank, and may exist in any grade of
society, but above all he is to be sought in the
deepest and lowest social classes, as the silent and
self-sufficient man in the midst of a general state
of servitude, a man who defends himself alone
against the outer world, and is constantly living in
a state of the highest fortitude. He is distinguished
from the Christian especially,because the latter lives
in hope in the promise of "unspeakable glory,"
permits presents to be made to him, and expects
and accepts the best things from divine love and
grace, and not from himself. Epictetus, on the
other hand, neither hopes nor allows his best
treasure to be given him—he possesses it already,
holds it bravely in his hand, and defies the world
to take it away from him. Christianity was devised
for another class of ancient slaves, for those who
had a weak will and weak reason—that is to say,
for the majority of slaves.
547-
The Tyrants of the Intellect. —The pro-
gress of science is at the present time no longer
hindered by the purely accidental fact that man
attains to about seventy years, which was the case
far too long. In former times people wished to
master the entire extent of knowledge within this
period, and all the methods of knowledge were
valued according to this general desire. Minor


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378 THE DAWN OF DAY.
questions and individual experiments were looked
upon as unworthy of notice: people wanted to take
the shortest path under the impression that, since
everything in this world seemed to be arranged
with a view to man's needs, even the acquirement
of knowledge was regulated in view of the limits
of human life.
To solve everything at a single stroke, with one
word—this was the secret desire; and the task was
represented in the symbol of the Gordian knot or
the egg of Columbus. No one doubted that it was
possible to reach the goal of knowledge after the
manner of Alexander or Columbus, and to settle
all questions with one answer. "There is a mystery
to be solved," seemed to be the aim of life in the
eyes of the philosopher: it was necessary in the first
place to find out what this enigma was, and to con-
dense the problem of the world into the simplest
enigmatical formula possible. The boundless ambi-
tion and delight of being the "unraveller of the
world" charmed the dreams of many a thinker:
nothing seemed to him worth troubling about in
this world but the means of bringing everything to
a satisfactory conclusion. Philosophy thus became
a kind of supreme struggle for the tyrannical sway
over the intellect, and no one doubted that such a
tyrannical domination was reserved for some very
happy, subtle, ingenious, bold, and powerful person
—a single individual! —and many (the last was
Schopenhauer) fancied themselves to be this privi-
leged person.
From this it follows that, on the whole, science
has up to the present remained in a rather back-


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 379
ward state owing to the moral narrow-mindedness
of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to
be pursued from a higher and more generous motive.
"What do I matter? " is written over the door of
the thinker of the future.
548.
Victory over Power. —If we consider all that
has been venerated up to the present as "super-
human intellect" or " genius," we must come to the
sad conclusion that, considered as a whole, the in-
tellectuality of mankind must have been extremely
low and poor: so little mind has hitherto been
necessary in order to feel at once considerably
superior to all this! Alas for the cheap glory of
"genius "! How quickly has it been raised to the
throne, and its worship grown into a custom! We
still fall on our knees before power—according to
the old custom of slaves—and nevertheless, when
the degree of venerability comes to be determined,
only the degree of reason in the power will be the
deciding factor. We must find out, indeed, to how
great an extent power has been overcome by some-
thing higher, which it now obeys as a tool and
instrument.
As yet, however, there have been too few eyes
for such investigations: even in the majority of
cases the mere valuation of genius has almost been
looked upon as blasphemy. And thus perhaps
everything that is most beautiful still takes place in
the midst of darkness and vanishes in endless night
almost as soon as it has made its appearance,—
s


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380 THE DAWN OF DAY.
I refer to the spectacle of that power which a genius
does not lay out upon works, but upon himself as
a work, that is, his own self-control, the purifying
of his own imagination, the order and selection in
his inspirations and tasks. The great man ever
remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims
worship, like some distant star: his victory over
power remains without witnesses, and hence also
without songs and singers. The hierarchy of the
great men in all the past history of the human race
has not yet been determined.
549-
Flight from One's Self. —Those sufferers
from intellectual spasms who are impatient towards
themselves and look upon themselves with a gloomy
eye—such as Byron or Alfred de Musset—and who,
in everything that they do, resemble runaway horses,
and from their own works derive only a transient
joy and an ardent passion which almost bursts their
veins, followed by sterility and disenchantment—
how are they able to bear up!