No More Learning

"He sinks, he falls," your scornful looks portend:
The truth is, to your level he'll descend.
His Too Much Joy is turned to weariness,
His Too Much Light will in your darkness end.
48.
Nature Silenced*
Around my neck, on chain of hair,
The timepiece hangs—a sign of care.
• Translated by Miss M. U. I'etre


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JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 25
For me the starry course is o'er,
No sun and shadow as before,
No cockcrow summons at the door,
For nature tells the time no more!
Too many clocks her voice have drowned,
And droning law has dulled her sound.
49-
The Sage Speaks.
Strange to the crowd, yet useful to the crowd,
I still pursue my path, now sun, now cloud,
But always pass above the crowd!
50.
He lost his Head. . . .
She now has wit—how did it come her way?
A man through her his reason lost, they say.
His head, though wise ere to this pastime lent,
Straight to the devil—no, to woman went!
51.
A Pious Wish.
"Oh, might all keys be lost! 'Twere better so
And in all keyholes might the pick-lock go! "
Who thus reflects ye may as—picklock know.
52.
Foot Writing.
I write not with the hand alone,
My foot would write, my foot that capers,
Firm, free and bold, it's marching on
Now through the fields, now through the papers.


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24 THE JOYFUL WISDOM
44
Thorough.
I an inquirer? No, that's not my calling
Only / weigh a lot—I'm such a lump ! —
And through the waters I keep falling, falling,
Till on the ocean's deepest bed I bump.
45-
The Immortals.
"To-day is meet for me, I come to-day,"
Such is the speech of men foredoomed to stay.
"Thou art too soon," they cry, " thou art too late,"
What care the Immortals what the rabble say?
46.
Verdicts of the Weary.
The weary shun the glaring sun, afraid,
And only care for trees to gain the shade.
47-
Descent.
"He sinks, he falls," your scornful looks portend:
The truth is, to your level he'll descend.
His Too Much Joy is turned to weariness,
His Too Much Light will in your darkness end.
Nature Silenced*
Around my neck, on chain of hair,
The timepiece hangs—a sign of care.
* Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.


## p. 25 (#47) ##############################################

JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 25
For me the starry course is o'er, •
No sun and shadow as before, v
No cockcrow summons at the door,
For nature tells the time no more!
Too many clocks her voice have drowned,
And droning law has dulled her sound.
49.
The Sage Speaks.
Strange to the crowd, yet useful to the crowd,
I still pursue my path, now sun, now cloud,
But always pass above the crowd!
50.
He lost his Head. . . .
She now has wit—how did it come her way?
A man through her his reason lost, they say.
His head, though wise ere to this pastime lent,
Straight to the devil—no, to woman went!
Si-
A Pious Wish.
"Oh, might all keys be lost! 'Twere better so
And in all keyholes might the pick-lock go! "
Who thus reflects ye may as—picklock know.
52.
Foot Writing.
I write not with the hand alone,
My foot would write, my foot that capers,
Firm, free and bold, it's marching on
Now through the fields, now through the papers.


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26 THE JOYFUL WISDOM
S3-
"Human, Ail-too-Human" . . .
Shy, gloomy, when your looks are backward
thrust,
Trusting the future where yourself you trust,
Are you an eagle, mid the nobler fowl,
Or are you like Minerva's darling owl?
54-
To my Reader.
Good teeth and a digestion good
I wish you—these you need, be sure!
And, certes, if my book you've stood,
Me with good humour you'll endure.
55-
The Realistic Painter.
"To nature true, complete! " so he begins.
Who complete Nature to his canvas wins?
Her tiniest fragment's endless, no constraint
Can know: he paints just what his fancy pins:
What does his fancy pin? What he can paint!
56.
Poets' Vanity.
Glue, only glue to me dispense,
The wood I'll find myself, don't fear!
To give four senseless verses sense—
That's an achievement I revere!


## p. 27 (#49) ##############################################

JEST, RUSE AND REVENGE 27
57-
Taste in Choosing.
If to choose my niche precise
Freedom I could win from fate,
I'd be in midst of Paradise—
Or, sooner still—before the gate!
58.
The Crooked Nose.
Wide blow your nostrils, and across
The land your nose holds haughty sway:
So you, unhorned rhinoceros,
Proud mannikin, fall forward aye!
The one trait with the other goes:
A straight pride and a crooked nose.
59-
The Pen is Scratching. . . .
The pen is scratching: hang the pen!
To scratching I'm condemned to sink!
I grasp the inkstand fiercely then
And write in floods of flowing ink.
How broad, how full the stream's career!
What luck my labours doth requite!
'Tis true, the writing's none too clear—
What then? Who reads the stuff I write?
60.
Loftier Spirits.
This man's climbing up—let us praise him—
But that other we love
From aloft doth eternally move,
So above even praise let us raise him,
He comes from above!


## p. 28 (#50) ##############################################

28
THE JOYFUL WISDOM
61.
The Sceptic Speaks.
Your life is half-way o'er ;
The clock-hand moves; your soul is thrilled with
fear,
It roamed to distant shore
And sought and found not, yet you—linger here!
Your life is half-way o'er ;
That hour by hour was pain and error sheer :
Why stay? What seek you more?
“That's what I'm seeking-reasons why I'm here! ”
62.
Ecce Homo.
Yes, I know where I'm related,
Like the flame, unquenched, unsated,
I consume myself and glow :
All's turned to light I lay my hand on,
All to coal that I abandon,
Yes, I am a flame, I know !
63.
Star Morality. *
Foredoomed to spaces vast and far,
What matters darkness to the star?
Roll calmly on, let time go by,
Let sorrows pass thee-nations die !
Compassion would but dim the light
That distant worlds will gladly sight.
To thee one law-be pure and bright!
* Translated by Miss M. D. Petre.


## p. 29 (#51) ##############################################

BOOK FIRST


## p. 30 (#52) ##############################################

n


## p. 31 (#53) ##############################################

The Teachers of the Object of Existence. —Whether
I look with a good or an evil eye upon men, I find
them always at one problem, each and all of them:
to do that which conduces to the conservation of
the human species. And certainly not out of any
sentiment of love for this species, but simply
because nothing in them is older, stronger, more
inexorable, and more unconquerable than that
instinct,—because it is precisely the essence of our
race and herd. Although we are accustomed
readily enough, with our usual short-sightedness,
to separate our neighbours precisely into useful
and hurtful, into good and evil men, yet when we
make a general calculation, and on longer reflection
on the whole question, we become distrustful
of this defining and separating, and finally
leave it alone. Even the most hurtful man
is still perhaps, in respect to the conservation
of the race, the most useful of all; for he conserves
in himself, or by his effect on others, impulses
without which mankind might long ago have lan-
guished or decayed. Hatred, delight in mischief,
rapacity and ambition, and whatever else is called
evil—belong to the marvellous economy of the
conservation of the race; to be sure a costly, lavish,


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32 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
and on the whole very foolish economy:—which
has, however, hitherto preserved our race, as is
demonstrated to us. I no longer know, my dear
fellow-man and neighbour, if thou canst at all live to
the disadvantage of the race, and therefore, "un-
reasonably" and "badly"; that which could have
injured the race has perhaps died out many
millenniums ago, and now belongs to the things
which are no longer possible even to God. Indulge
thy best or thy worst desires, and above all, go to
wreck ! —in either case thou art still probably the
furtherer and benefactor of mankind in some way
or other, and in that respect thou mayest have
thy panegyrists—and similarly thy mockers! But
thou wilt never find him who would be quite
qualified to mock at thee, the individual, at thy
best, who could bring home to thy conscience its
limitless, buzzing and croaking wretchedness so
as to be in accord with truth! To laugh at
oneself as one would have to laugh in order to
laugh out of the veriest truth,—to do this the best
have not hitherto had enough of the sense of truth,
and the most endowed have had far too little
genius! There is perhaps still a future even for
laughter! When the maxim, "The race is all,
the individual is nothing,"—has incorporated itself
in humanity, and when access stands open to
every one at all times to this ultimate emancipa-
tion and irresponsibility. —Perhaps then laughter
will have united with wisdom, perhaps then there
will be only "joyful wisdom. " Meanwhile, however,
it is quite otherwise, meanwhile the comedy of
existence has not yet "become conscious " of itself,


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, 1 33
meanwhile it is still the period of tragedy, the
period of morals and religions. What does the
ever new appearing of founders of morals and
religions, of instigators of struggles for moral valua-
tions, of teachers of remorse of conscience and
religious war, imply? What do these heroes on
this stage imply? For they have hitherto been
the heroes of it, and all else, though solely visible
for the time being, and too close to one, has served
only as preparation for these heroes, whether as
machinery and coulisse, or in the rdle of confidants
and valets. (The poets, for example, have always
been the valets of some morality or other. )—It is
obvious of itself that these tragedians also work in
the interest of the race, though they may believe
that they work in the interest of God, and as
emissaries of God. They also further the life of
the species, in that they further the belief in life.
"It is worth while to live" — each of them calls
out,—" there is something of importance in this
life; life has something behind it and under it;
take care! " That impulse, which rules equally in
the noblest and the ignoblest, the impulse towards
the conservation of the species, breaks forth from
time to time as reason and passion of spirit; it
has then a brilliant train of motives about it, and
tries with all its power to make us forget that
fundamentally it is just impulse, instinct, folly and
baselessness. Life should be loved, for . . . 1 Man
should benefit himself and his neighbour, for . . . /
And whatever all these shoulds and fors imply,
and may imply in future! In order that that
which necessarily and always happens of itself and
3


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34 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
without design, may henceforth appear to be done
by design, and may appeal to men as reason and
ultimate command,—for that purpose the ethi-
culturist comes forward as the teacher of design in
existence; for that purpose he devises a second and
different existence, and by means of this new
mechanism he lifts the old common existence off
its old common hinges. No! he does not at all
want us to laugh at existence, nor even at ourselves
—nor at himself; to him an individual is always
an individual, something first and last and immense,
to him there are no species, no sums, no noughts.
However foolish and fanatical his inventions and
valuations may be, however much he may mis-
understand the course of nature and deny its con-
ditions—and all systems of ethics hitherto have
been foolish and anti-natural to such a degree that
mankind would have been ruined by any one of
them had it got the upper hand,—at any rate, every
time that "the hero" came upon the stage some-
thing new was attained: the frightful counterpart
of laughter, the profound convulsion of many in-
dividuals at the thought, "Yes, it is worth while to
live! yes, I am worthy to live! "—life, and thou, and
I, and all of us together became for a while interest-
ing to ourselves once more. —It is not to be denied
that hitherto laughter and reason and nature have
in the long run got the upper hand of all the great
teachers of design: in the end the short tragedy
always passed over once more into the eternal
comedy of existence; and the "waves of innu-
merable laughters"—to use the expression of
^Eschylus—must also in the end beat over the great-


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 35
est of these tragedies. But with all this corrective
laughter, human nature has on the whole been
changed by the ever new appearance of those
teachers of the design of existence,—human nature
has now an additional requirement, the very require-
ment of the ever new appearance of such teachers
and doctrines of " design. " Man has gradually be-
come a visionary animal, who has to fulfil one more
condition of existence than the other animals: man
must from time to time believe that he knows why
he exists; his species cannot flourish without periodi-
cally confiding in life! Without the belief in
reason in life! And always from time to time
will the human race decree anew that "there is
something which really may not be laughed at. "
And the most clairvoyant philanthropist will add
that" not only laughing and joyful wisdom, but also
the tragic, with all its sublime irrationality, counts
among the means and necessities for the conserva-
tion of the race! "—And consequently! Conse-
quently! Consequently! Do you understand me,
oh my brothers? Do you understand this new
law of ebb and flow? We also shall have our time!
2.
The Intellectual Conscience. —I have always the
same experience over again, and always make a
new effort against it; for although it is evident to
me I do not want to believe it: in the greater number
of men the intellectual conscience is lacking; indeed,
it would often seem to me that in demanding such
a thing, one is as solitary in the largest cities as in
the desert Everyone looks at you with strange


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36 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
eyes, and continues to make use of his scales,
calling this good and that bad ; and no one blushes
for shame when you remark that these weights are
not the full amount,—there is also no indignation
against you; perhaps they laugh at your doubt. I
mean to say that the greater number of people do
not find it contemptible to believe this or that, and
live according to it, without having been previously
aware of the ultimate and surest reasons for and
against it, and without even giving themselves any
trouble about such reasons afterwards,—the most
gifted men and the noblest women still belong to
this "greater number. " But what is kind-hearted-
ness, refinement and genius to me, if the man with
these virtues harbours indolent sentiments in belief
and judgment, if the longing for certainty does not
rule in him, as his innermost desire and profoundest
need—as that which separates higher from lower
men! In certain pious people I have found
a hatred of reason, and have been favourably
disposed to them for it: their bad, intellectual
conscience still betrayed itself, at least in this
manner! But to stand in the midst of this rerum
concordia discors and all the marvellous uncertainty
and ambiguity of existence, and not to question, not
to tremble with desire and delight in questioning,
not even to hate the questioner—perhaps even to
make merry over him to the extent of weariness—
that is what I regard as contemptible, and it is this
sentiment which I first of all search for in every
one:—some folly or other always persuades me
anew that every man has this sentiment, as man.
This is my special kind of unrighteousness.


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 37
Noble and Ignoble. —To ignoble natures all noble,
magnanimous sentiments appear inexpedient, and
on that account first and foremost, as incredible:
they blink with their eyes when they hear of such
matters, and seem inclined to say, "there will, no
doubt, be some advantage therefrom, one cannot
see through all walls;"—they are jealous of the
noble person, as if he sought advantage by back-
stair methods. When they are all too plainly
convinced of the absence of selfish intentions and
emoluments, the noble person is regarded by them
as a kind of fool: they despise him in his gladness,
and laugh at the lustre of his eye. "How can a
person rejoice at being at a disadvantage, how can
a person with open eyes want to meet with dis-
advantage! It must be a disease of the reason
with which the noble affection is associated,"—so
they think, and they look depreciatingly thereon;
just as they depreciate the joy which the lunatic
derives from his fixed idea. The ignoble nature
is distinguished by the fact that it keeps its
advantage steadily in view, and that this thought
of the end and advantage is even stronger than
its strongest impulse: not to be tempted to
inexpedient activities by its impulses—that is its
wisdom and inspiration. In comparison with
the ignoble nature the higher nature is more
irrational: — for the noble, magnanimous, and
self-sacrificing person succumbs in fact to his
impulses, and in his best moments his reason
lapses altogether. An animal, which at the risk


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38 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
of life protects its young, or in the pairing season
follows the female where it meets with death, does
not think of the risk and the death; its reason
pauses likewise, because its delight in its young,
or in the female, and the fear of being deprived
of this delight, dominate it exclusively; it becomes
stupider than at other times, like the noble and
magnanimous person. He possesses feelings of
pleasure and pain of such intensity that the
intellect must either be silent before them, or
yield itself to their service: his heart then goes
into his head, and one henceforth speaks of
"passions. " (Here and there to be sure, the
antithesis to this, and as it were the "reverse of
passion," presents itself; for example in Fontenelle,
to whom some one once laid the hand on the heart
with the words, " What you have there, my dearest
friend, is brain also.
") It is the unreason, or perverse
reason of passion, which the ignoble man despises
in the noble individual, especially when it con-
centrates upon objects whose value appears to him
to be altogether fantastic and arbitrary. He is
offended at him who succumbs to the passion
of the belly, but he understands the allurement which
here plays the tyrant; but he does not understand,
for example, how a person out of love of knowledge
can stake his health and honour on the game.
The taste of the higher nature devotes itself to
exceptional matters, to things which usually do
not affect people, and seem to have no sweetness;
the higher nature has a singular standard of value.
Besides, it is mostly of the belief that it has not
a singular standard of value in its idiosyncrasies


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 39
of taste; it rather sets up its values and non-values
as the generally valid values and non-values, and
thus becomes incomprehensible and impracticable.
It is very rarely that a higher nature has so much
reason over and above as to understand and deal
with everyday men as such; for the most part
it believes in its passion as if it were the concealed
passion of every one, and precisely in this belief
it is full of ardour and eloquence. If then such
exceptional men do not perceive themselves as
exceptions, how can they ever understand the
ignoble natures and estimate average men fairly!
Thus it is that they also speak of the folly,
inexpediency and fantasy of mankind, full of
astonishment at the madness of the world, and
that it will not recognise the "one thing needful
for it. "—This is the eternal unrighteousness of
noble natures.
That which Preserves the Species. —The strongest
and most evil spirits have hitherto advanced man-
kind the most: they always rekindled the sleeping
passions—all orderly arranged society lulls the
passions to sleep; they always reawakened the
sense of comparison, of contradiction, of delight
in the new, the adventurous, the untried; they
compelled men to set opinion against opinion, ideal
plan against ideal plan. By means of arms, by
upsetting boundary-stones, by violations of piety
most of all: but also by new religions and morals!
The same kind of " wickedness" is in every teacher
and preacher of the new—which makes a conqueror


## p. 40 (#62) ##############################################

40 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
infamous, although it expresses itself more refinedly,
and does not immediately set the muscles in motion
(and just on that account does not make so in-
famous ! ). The new, however, is under all circum-
stances the evil, as that which wants to conquer,
which tries to upset the old boundary-stones and
the old piety; only the old is the good! The
good men of every age are those who go to the
roots of the old thoughts and bear fruit with them,
the agriculturists of the spirit. But every soil be-
comes finally exhausted, and the ploughshare of
evil must always come once more. —There is at
present a fundamentally erroneous theory of morals
which is much celebrated, especially in England:
according to it the judgments "good" and "evil"
are the accumulation of the experiences of that
which is "expedient" and "inexpedient"; accord-
ing to this theory, that which is called good is
conservative of the species, what is called evil, how-
ever, is detrimental to it. But in reality the evil
impulses are just in as high a degree expedient,
indispensable, and conservative of the species as
the good :—only, their function is different.
5-
Unconditional Duties. —All men who feel that
they need the strongest words and intonations, the
most eloquent gestures and attitudes, in order to
operate at all—revolutionary politicians, socialists,
preachers of repentance with or without Christianity,
with all of whom there must be no mere half-success,
—all these speak of "duties," and indeed, always
of duties, which have the character of being uncon-


## p. 41 (#63) ##############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 41
ditional—without such they would have no right
to their excessive pathos: they know that right
well! They grasp, therefore, at philosophies of
morality which preach some kind of categorical
imperative, or they assimilate a good lump ot
religion, as, for example, Mazzini did. Because
they want to be trusted unconditionally, it is first
of all necessary for them to trust themselves uncon-
ditionally, on the basis of some ultimate, undebat-
able command, sublime in itself, as the ministers
and instruments of which, they would fain feel and
announce themselves. Here we have the most
natural, and for the most part, very influential
opponents of moral enlightenment and scepticism:
but they are rare. On the other hand, there is
always a very numerous class of those opponents
wherever interest teaches subjection, while repute
and honour seem to forbid it. He who feels himself
dishonoured at the thought of being the instrument
of a prince, or of a party and sect, or even of
wealthy power (for example, as the descendant of
a proud, ancient family), but wishes just to be
this instrument, or must be so before himself and
before the public — such a person has need of
pathetic principles which can at all times be
appealed to :—principles of an unconditional ought,
to which a person can subject himself without
shame, and can show himself subjected. All more
refined servility holds fast to the categorical impera-
tive, and is the mortal enemy of those who want to
take away the unconditional character of duty:
propriety demands this from them, and not only
propriety.


## p. 42 (#64) ##############################################

42 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
6.
Loss of Dignity. —Meditation has lost all its
dignity of form; the ceremonial and solemn bearing
of the meditative person have been made a mockery,
and one would no longer endure a wise man of
the old style. We think too hastily and on the
way and while walking and in the midst of business
of all kinds, even when we think on the most
serious matters; we require little preparation, even
little quiet:—it is as if each of us carried about an
unceasingly revolving machine in his head, which
still works, even under the most unfavourable cir-
cumstances. Formerly it was perceived in a person
that on some occasion he wanted to think—it was
perhaps the exception! —that he now wanted to
become wiser and collected his mind on a thought:
he put on a long face for it, as for a prayer, and
arrested his step—nay, stood still for hours on the
street when the thought "came"—on one or on
two legs. It was thus "worthy of the affair "!
7-
Something for the Laborious. —He who at present
wants to make moral questions a subject of study
has an immense field of labour before him. All
kinds of passions must be thought about singly,
and followed singly throughout periods, peoples,
great and insignificant individuals; all their ration-
ality, all their valuations and elucidations of things,
ought to come to light! Hitherto all that has
given colour to existence has lacked a history:
where would one find a history of love, of avarice,


## p. 43 (#65) ##############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 43
of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty? Even
a comparative history of law, as also of punish-
ment, has hitherto been completely lacking. Have
the different divisions of the day, the consequences
of a regular appointment of the times for labour,
feast, and repose, ever been made the object of
investigation? Do we know the moral effects of
the alimentary substances? Is there a philosophy
of nutrition? (The ever-recurring outcry for and
against vegetarianism proves that as yet there
is no such philosophy! ) Have the experiences
with regard to communal living, for example, in
monasteries, been collected? Has the dialectic
of marriage and friendship been set forth? The
customs of the learned, of trades-people, of artists,
and of mechanics—have they already found their
thinkers? There is so much to think of thereon!
All that up till now has been considered as the
"conditions of existence," of human beings, and all
reason, passion and superstition in this considera-
tion—have they been investigated to the end?
The observation alone of the different degrees of
development which the human impulses have
attained, and could yet attain, according to the
different moral climates, would furnish too much
work for the most laborious; whole generations,
and regular co-operating generations of the learned,
would be needed in order to exhaust the points
of view and the material here furnished. The
same is true of the determining of the reasons
for the differences of the moral climates (" on what
account does this sun of a fundamental moral judg-
ment and standard of highest value shine here—and


## p. 44 (#66) ##############################################

44 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
that sun there ? "). And there is again a new labour
which points out the erroneousness of all these
reasons, and determines the entire essence of the
moral judgments hitherto made. Supposing all these
labours to be accomplished, the most critical of all
questions would then come into the foreground:
whether science is in a position to furnish goals for
human action, after it has proved that it can take
them away and annihilate them—and then would be
the time for a process of experimenting in which
every kind of heroism could satisfy itself, an
experimenting for centuries, which would put into
the shade all the great labours and sacrifices of
previous history. Science has not hitherto built
its Cyclopic structures; for that also the time will
come.
8.
Unconscious Virtues. —All qualities in a man of
which he is conscious—and especially when he
presumes that they are visible and evident to his
environment also—are subject to quite other laws
of development than those qualities which are un-
known to him, or imperfectly known, which by
their subtlety can also conceal themselves from
the subtlest observer, and hide as it were behind
nothing,—as in the case of the delicate sculptures
on the scales of reptiles (it would be an error to
suppose them an adornment or a defence—for one
sees them only with the microscope; consequently,
with an eye artificially strengthened to an extent
of vision which similar animals, to which they
might perhaps have meant adornment or defence,


## p. 45 (#67) ##############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 45
do not possess ! ) Our visible moral qualities, and
especially our moral qualities believed to be visible,
follow their own course,—and our invisible qualities
of similar name, which in relation to others neither
serve for adornment nor defence, also follow their
own course: quite a different course probably, and
with lines and refinements, and sculptures, which
might perhaps give pleasure to a God with a divine
microscope. We have, for example, our diligence,
our ambition, our acuteness: all the world knows
about them,—and besides, we have probably once
more our diligence, our ambition, our acuteness;
but for these—our reptile scales—the microscope
has not yet been invented ! —And here the adherents
of instinctive morality will say, "Bravo! He at
least regards unconscious virtues as possible—that
suffices us ! "—Oh, ye unexacting creatures!
9-
Our Eruptions. — Numberless things which
humanity acquired in its earlier stages, but so
weakly and embryonically that it could not be
noticed that they were acquired, are thrust suddenly
into light long afterwards, perhaps after the lapse of
centuries: they have in the interval become strong
and mature. In some ages this or that talent, this
or that virtue seems to be entirely lacking, as it
is in some men; but let us wait only for the
grandchildren and grandchildren's children, if we
have time to wait,—they bring the interior of their
grandfathers into the sun, that interior of which
the grandfathers themselves were unconscious.
The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of his father;
.


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46 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
the latter understands himself better since he has
got his son. We have all hidden gardens and
plantations in us; and by another simile, we are
all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours
of eruption:—how near or how distant this is,
nobody of course knows, not even the good God.
10.
A Species of Atavism. — I like best to think of the
rare men of an age as suddenly emerging after-
shoots of past cultures, and of their persistent
strength: like the atavism of a people and its civili-
sation :—there is thus still something in them to
think of! They now seem strange, rare, and extra-
ordinary: and he who feels these forces in himself
has to foster them in face of a different, opposing
world; he has to defend them, honour them, and rear
them to maturity: and he either becomes a great man
thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person, unless
he should altogether break down betimes. Formerly
these rare qualities were usual, and were conse-
quently regarded as common: they did not dis-
tinguish people. Perhaps they were demanded and
presupposed; it was impossible to become great
with them, for indeed there was also no danger
of becoming insane and solitary with them. —
It is principally in the old-established families and
castes of a people that such after-effects of old
impulses present themselves, while there is no
probability of such atavism where races, habits,
and valuations change too rapidly. For the tempo
of the evolutional forces in peoples implies just
as much as in music; for our case an andante of


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 47
evolution is absolutely necessary, as the tempo of a
passionate and slow spirit:—and the spirit of con-
serving families is certainly of that sort.
i1.
Consciousness. — Consciousness is the last and
latest development of the organic, and consequently
also the most unfinished and least powerful of these
developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out
of consciousness, which," in spite of fate," as Homer
says, cause an animal or a man to break down
earlier than might be necessary. If the conserv-
ing bond of the instincts were not very much
more powerful, it would not generally serve as a
regulator: by perverse judging and dreaming
with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity,
in short, just by consciousness, mankind would
necessarily have broken down: or rather, without
the former there would long ago have been nothing
more of the latter! Before a function is fully formed
and matured, it is a danger to the organism:
all the better if it be then thoroughly tyrannised
over! Consciousness is thus thoroughly tyrannised
over — and not least by the pride in it! It is
thought that here is the quintessence of man; that
which is enduring, eternal, ultimate, and most
original in him! Consciousness is regarded as a
fixed, given magnitude! Its growth and intermit-
tences are denied! It is accepted as the "unity of
the organism "! —This ludicrous overvaluation and
misconception of consciousness, has as its result the
great utility, that a too rapid maturing of it has
thereby been hindered. Because men believed that


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48 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
they already possessed consciousness, they gave
themselves very little trouble to acquire it—and
even now it is not otherwise! It is still an
entirely new problem just dawning on the human
eye and hardly yet plainly recognisable: to embody
knowledge in ourselves and make it instinctive,—a
problem which is only seen by those who have
grasped the fact that hitherto our errors alone have
been embodied in us, and that all our consciousness
is relative to errors!
12.
The Goal of Science. —What? The ultimate goal
of science is to create the most pleasure possible to
man, and the least possible pain? But what if
pleasure and pain should be so closely connected
that he who wants the greatest possible amount of
the one must also have the greatest possible amount
of the other,—that he who wants to experience the
"heavenly high jubilation," * must also be ready to
be "sorrowful unto death"? * And it is so, perhaps!
The Stoics at least believed it was so, and they
were consistent when they wished to have the least
possible pleasure, in order to have the least possible
pain from life. (When one uses the expression:
"The virtuous man is the happiest," it is as much
the sign-board of the school for the masses, as
a casuistic subtlety for the subtle. ) At present
also ye have still the choice: either the least
possible pain, in short painlessness—and after all,
* Allusions to the song of Clara in Goethe's "Egmont. "
—TR.


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 49
socialists and politicians of all parties could not
honourably promise more to their people,—or the
greatest possible amount of pain, as the price of
the growth of a fullness of refined delights and
enjoyments rarely tasted hitherto! If ye decide
for the former, if ye therefore want to depress and
minimise man's capacity for pain, well, ye must
also depress and minimise his capacity for enjoy-
ment. In fact, one can further the one as well as
the other goal by science! Perhaps science is as
yet best known by its capacity for depriving man
of enjoyment, and making him colder, more
statuesque, and more Stoical. But it might also
turn out to be the great pain-bringer ! —And then,
perhaps, its counteracting force would be discovered
simultaneously, its immense capacity for making
new sidereal worlds of enjoyment beam forth!
13.
The Theory of the Sense of Power. —We exercise
our power over others by doing them good or
by doing them ill—that is all we care for!
Doing ill to those on whom we have to make our
power felt; for pain is a far more sensitive means
for that purpose than pleasure:—pain always asks
concerning the cause, while pleasure is inclined
to keep within itself and not look backward.
Doing good and being kind to those who are in
any way already dependent on us (that is, who
are accustomed to think of us ps their raison
tTitre); we want to increase their power, because
we thus increase our own; or we want to show
4


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50 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
them the advantage there is in being in our
power,—they thus become more contented with
their position, and more hostile to the enemies of
our power and readier to contend with them.
If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill,
it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions;
even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs for
the sake of our church, it is a sacrifice to our
longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving
our sense of power. He who under these circum-
stances feels that he "is in possession of truth,"
how many possessions does he not let go, in order
to preserve this feeling! What does he not throw
overboard, in order to keep himself " up,"—that is
to say, above the others who lack the "truth"!
Certainly the condition we are in when we do ill
is seldom so pleasant, so purely pleasant, as that
in which we practise kindness,—it is an indication
that we still lack power, or it betrays ill-humour
at this defect in us; it brings with it new dangers
and uncertainties as to the power we already
possess, and clouds our horizon by the prospect of
revenge, scorn, punishment and failure. Perhaps
only those most susceptible to the sense of power,
and eager for it, will prefer to impress the seal of
power on the resisting individual,—those to whom
the sight of the already subjugated person as the
object of benevolence is a burden and a tedium.
It is a question how a person is accustomed to
season his life; it is a matter of taste whether a
person would rather have the slow or the sudden,
the safe or the dangerous and daring increase of
power,—he seeks this or that seasoning always



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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 51
according to his temperament. An easy booty
is something contemptible to proud natures; they
have an agreeable sensation only at the sight of
men of unbroken spirit who could be enemies to
them, and similarly, also, at the sight of all not easily
accessible possession; they are often hard toward
the sufferer, for he is not worthy of their effort or
their pride,—but they show themselves so much
the more courteous towards their equals, with whom
strife and struggle would in any case be full of
honour, if at any time an occasion for it should
present itself. It is under the agreeable feelings
of this perspective that the members of the
knightly caste have habituated themselves to ex-
quisite courtesy toward one another. —Pity is the
most pleasant feeling in those who have not much
pride, and have no prospect of great conquests: the
easy booty—and that is what every sufferer is—is
for them an enchanting thing. Pity is said to
be the virtue of the gay lady.
14.
What is called Love. —The lust of property and
love: what different associations each of these
ideas evoke! —and yet it might be the same im-
pulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged
from the standpoint of those already possessing
(in whom the impulse has attained something of
repose, and who are now apprehensive for the
safety of their " possession "); on the other occa-
sion viewed from the standpoint of the unsatisfied
and thirsty, and therefore glorified as " good. " Our


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52 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
love of our neighbour,—is it not a striving after new
property? And similarly our love of knowledge, of
truth; and in general all the striving after novelties?
We gradually become satiated with the old, the
securely possessed, and again stretch out our hands;
even the finest landscape in which we live for three
months is no longer certain of our love, and any
kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness:
the possession for the most part becomes smaller
through possessing. Our pleasure in ourselves
seeks to maintain itself, by always transforming
something new into ourselves,—that is just possess-
ing. To become satiated with a possession, that is
to become satiated with ourselves. (One can also
suffer from excess,—even the desire to cast away,
to share out, can assume the honourable name of
"love. ") When we see any one suffering, we willingly
utilise the opportunity then afforded to take posses-
sion of him; the beneficent and sympathetic man,
for example, does this; he also calls the desire for
new possession awakened in him, by the name of
"love," and has enjoyment in it, as in a new
acquisition suggesting itself to him. The love of
the sexes, however, betrays itself most plainly as
the striving after possession: the lover wants the
unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed
for by him; he wants just as absolute power over
her soul as over her body; he wants to be loved
solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as
what is highest and most to be desired. When
one considers that this means precisely to ex-
clude all the world from a precious possession, a
happiness, and an enjoyment; when one considers


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 53
that the lover has in view the impoverishment and
privation of all other rivals, and would like to
become the dragon of his golden hoard, as the
most inconsiderate and selfish of all "conquerors"
and exploiters; when one considers finally that to
the lover himself, the whole world besides appears
indifferent, colourless, and worthless, and that he
is ready to make every sacrifice, disturb every
arrangement, and put every other interest behind
his own,—one is verily surprised that this ferocious
lust of property and injustice of sexual love should
have been glorified and deified to such an extent at
all times; yea, that out of this love the conception
of love as the antithesis of egoism should have been
derived, when it is perhaps precisely the most un-
qualified expression of egoism. Here, evidently, the
non-possessors and desirers have determined the
usage of language,—there were, of course, always
too many of them. Those who have been favoured
with much possession and satiety, have, to be sure,
dropped a word now and then about the "raging
demon," as, for instance, the most lovable and most
beloved of all the Athenians—Sophocles; but Eros
always laughed at such revilers, — they were
always his greatest favourites. —There is, of course,
here and there on this terrestrial sphere a kind of
sequel to love, in which that covetous longing of
two persons for one another has yielded to a new
desire and covetousness, to a common, higher thirst
for a superior ideal standing above them: but who
knows this love? Who has experienced it? Its
right name is friendship.


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54 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
I
15-
Out of the Distance. —This mountain makes the
whole district which it dominates charming in
every way, and full of significance: after we have
said this to ourselves for the hundredth time, we
are so irrationally and so gratefully disposed to-
wards it, as the giver of this charm, that we
fancy it must itself be the most charming thing
in the district — and so we climb it, and are
undeceived. All of a sudden, it itself, and the
whole landscape around and under us, is as it were
disenchanted; we had forgotten that many a great-
ness, like many a goodness, wants only to be seen
at a certain distance, and entirely from below, not
from above,—it is thus only that it operates. Per-
haps you know men in your neighbourhood who
can only look at themselves from a certain distance
to find themselves at all endurable, or attractive
and enlivening; they are to be dissuaded from self-
knowledge.
16.
Across the Plank. —One must be able to dis-
simulate in intercourse with persons who are
ashamed of their feelings; they experience a
sudden aversion towards anyone who surprises
them in a state of tender, or enthusiastic and high-
running feeling, as if he had seen their secrets. If
one wants to be kind to them in such moments
one should make them laugh, or say some kind of
cold, playful wickedness :—their feeling thereby
congeals, and they are again self-possessed. But
I give the moral before the story. —We were once


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 55
on a time so near one another in the course of our
lives, that nothing more seemed to hinder our
friendship and fraternity, and there was merely a
small plank between us. While you were just
about to step on it, I asked you: "Do you want
to come across the plank to me? " But then you
did not want to come any longer ; and when I again
entreated, you were silent. Since then mountains
and torrents, and whatever separates and alienates,
have interposed between us, and even if we wanted
to come to one another, we could no longer do so!
When, however, you now remember that small
plank, you have no longer words,—but merely sobs
and amazement.
17-
Motivation of Poverty. —We cannot, to be sure, by
any artifice make a rich and richly-flowing virtue
out of a poor one, but we can gracefully enough
reinterpret its poverty into necessity, so that its
aspect no longer gives pain to us, and we do not
make any reproachful faces at fate on account of it.
It is thus that the wise gardener does, who puts the
tiny streamlet of his garden into the arms of a
fountain-nymph, and thus motivates the poverty :—
and who would not like him need the nymphs!
18.
Ancient Pride. —The ancient savour of nobility
is lacking in us, because the ancient slave is lacking
in our sentiment. A Greek of noble descent found
such immense intermediate stages, and such a
distance betwixt his elevation and that ultimate


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56 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
baseness, that he could hardly even see the slave
plainly: even Plato no longer saw him entirely.
It is otherwise with us, accustomed as we are to
the doctrine of the equality of men, although not
to the equality itself. A being who has not the
free disposal of himself and has not got leisure,
—that is not regarded by us as anything con-
temptible; there is perhaps too much of this kind
of slavishness in each of us, in accordance with
the conditions of our social order and activity,
which are fundamentally different from those of
the ancients. —The Greek philosopher went through
life with the secret feeling that there were many
more slaves than people supposed — that is to
say, that every one was a slave who was not a
philosopher. His pride was puffed up when he
considered that even the mightiest of the earth
were thus to be looked upon as slaves. This
pride is also unfamiliar to us, and impossible; the
word " slave" has not its full force for us even in
simile.
19.
Evil. —Test the life of the best and most pro-
ductive men and nations, and ask yourselves
whether a tree which is to grow proudly heaven-
ward can dispense with bad weather and tempests:
whether disfavour and opposition from without,
whether every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubborn-
ness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not
belong to the favouring circumstances without
which a great growth even in virtue is hardly
possible? The poison by which the weaker nature



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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I 57
is destroyed is strengthening to the strong indi-
vidual—and he does not call it poison.
20.
Dignity of Folly. —Several millenniums further
on in the path of the last century! —and in every-
thing that man does the highest prudence will be
exhibited: but just thereby prudence will have
lost all its dignity. It will then, sure enough, be
necessary to be prudent, but it will also be so
usual and common, that a more fastidious taste
will feel this necessity as vulgarity. And just as a
tyranny of truth and science would be in a position
to raise the value of falsehood, a tyranny of prudence
could force into prominence a new species of noble-
ness. To be noble—that might then mean, perhaps,
to be capable of follies.
21.
To the Teachers of Unselfishness. —The virtues of
a man are called good, not in respect of the results
they have for himself, but in respect of the results
which we expect therefrom for ourselves and for
society:—we have all along had very little unselfish-
ness, very little "non-egoism " in our praise of the
virtues! For otherwise it could not but have been
seen that the virtues (such as diligence, obedience,
chastity, piety, justice) are mostly injurious to
their possessors, as impulses which rule in them
too vehemently and ardently, and do not want
to be kept in co-ordination with the other im-
pulses by the reason. If you have a virtue, an
actual, perfect virtue (and not merely a kind of


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58 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, I
impulse towards virtue! )—you are its victim!