No More Learning

" Come l'uom s'eterna. . . "-]nf. xv. 85.
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1003.
To him who is one of Nature's lucky strokes, to him unto whom my heart goes out, to him who is carved from one integral block, which is hard, sweet, and fragrant--to him from whom even my nose can derive some pleasure--let this book be dedicated.
He enjoys that which is beneficial to him.
His pleasure in anything ceases when the limits of what is beneficial to him are overstepped.
He divines the remedies for partial injuries; his illnesses are the great stimulants of his existence.
He understands how to exploit his serious ,
accidents.
He grows stronger under the misfortunes which
threaten to annihilate him.
He instinctively gathers from all he sees, hears,
and experiences, the materials for what concerns him most,--he pursues a selective principle,---he rejects a good deal.
He reacts with that tardiness which long caution 388
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and deliberate pride have bred in him,--he tests the stimulus: whence does it come? whither does it lead ? He does not submit.
He is always in his own company, whether his intercourse be with books, with men, or with
'Nature.
'He honours anything by choosing by
conceding to by trusting it.
1004.
We should attain to such height, to such
lofty eagle's ledge, in our Observation, as to be able to understand that everything happens,
just as ought to happen and that all " imperfec tion," and the pain brings, belong to all that which most eminently desirable.
1005.
Towards 18 76 experienced fright; for saw that everything had most wished for up to that time was being compromised. realised this when perceived what Wagner was actually driving at: and was bound very fast to him by all the bonds of profound similarity of needs, by gratitude, by the thought that he could not be replaced, and by the absolute void which saw facing me.
about this time believed myself to be inextricably entangled in my philology and my professorship--in the accident and last shift of my life: did not know how to get out of and was tired, used up, and on my last legs.
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DIONYSUS.
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THE WILL TO POWER.
At about the same time I realised that what my instincts most desired to attain was precisely the reverse of what Schopenhauer's instincts wanted --that is to say, a justification of life, even where it was most terrible, most equivocal, and most ' false: to this end, I had the formula " Dionysian " in my hand. "
Schopenhauer's interpretation of the " absolute as will was certainly a step towards that concept of the "absolute" which supposed it to be necessarily good, blessed, true, and integral; but Schopenhauer did not understand how to deify this will: he remained suspended in the moral Christian ideal. Indeed, he was still so very much under the dominion of Christian values, that, once he could no longer regard the absolute as God, he had to conceive it as evil, foolish, utterly reprehensible. He did not realise that
there is an infinite number of ways of being different, and even of being God.
1006.
Hitherto, moral values have been the highest
? If we bring down the values from their pedestal, we thereby alter all values : the principle of their order
of rank which has prevailed hitherto is thus over thrown.
Ioo7.
Transvalue values-what does this mean? It implies that all spontaneous motives, all new,
values: does anybody doubt this? . . .
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future, and stronger motives, are still extant; but that they now appear under false names and false valuations, and have not yet become conscious of themselves.
We ought to have the courage to become conscious, and to affirm all that which has been attained--to get rid of the humdrum character of Old valuations, which makes us unworthy of the best and strongest things that we have achieved.
1008.
Any doctrine would be superfluous for which WV everything is not already prepared in the way of accumulated forces and explosive material. A
transvaluation of values can only be accomplished when there is a tension of new needs, and a new set of needy people who feel all old values as painful,--although they are not conscious of What is wrong. '
1009.
The standpoint from which my values are determined: is abundance or desire active? . . . Is one a mere spectator, or is one's own shoulder at
the wheel--is one looking away or is one turning aside? . . . Is one acting spontaneously, as the result of accumulated strength, or is one merely reacting to a goad or to a stimulus? . . . Is one simply acting as the result of a paucity of elements, or of such an overwhelming dominion over a host of elements that this power enlists the latter into its service if it requires them? . . . Is one a
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THE WILL TO POWER.
problem one's self or is one a solution already ? . . . Is one perfect through the smallness of the task, or imperfect owing to the extraordinary character of the aim? . . . Is one genuine or only an actor; is one genuine as an actor, or only the bad copy of
an actor? is one a representative or the creature represented? Is one a personality or merely a
rendezvous of personalities? . . . Is one ill from a disease or from surplus health? Does one lead as a shepherd, or as an " exception " (third alternative: as a fugitive)? Is one in need of dignity, or can one play the clown? Is one in search Of resistance, or is one evading it? Is one imperfect owing to one's precocity or to one's tardiness? Is it one's nature to say yea, or no, or is one a peacock's tail of garish parts? Is one proud enough not to feel ashamed even of one's vanity? Is one still able to feel a bite of conscience (this species is becoming rare ; formerly conscience had to bite too often : it is as if it now no longer had enough teeth to do so)? Is one still capable of a, "duty"? (there are some people who would lose the whole joy of their lives if they were deprived of their duty--this holds good especially of feminine creatures, who are born subjects).
IOIO.
Supposing our common comprehension of the universe were a misunderstanding, would it be
? to conceive of a form of perfection, within the limits of which even such a misunderstanding as this could be sanctioned? _
possible
The concept of a new form of perfection: that
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which does not correspond to our logic, to our "beauty," to our " good," to our "truth," might be perfect in a higher sense even than our ideal is.
101 I.
Our most important limitation: we must not deify the unknown ; we are just beginning to know so little. The false and wasted endeavours.
Our " new world ": we must ascertain to what extent we are the creators of our valuations--we will thus be able to put " sense " into history.
This belief in truth is reaching its final logical conclusion in us--ye know how it reads: that if there is anything at all that must be worshipped it is appearance; that falsehood and not truth is-- divine.
1012.
' He who urges rational thought forward, thereby also drives its antagonistic power--mysticism and foolery of every kind--to new feats of strength.
We should recognise that every movement is (1) partly the manifestation of fatigue resulting from a previous movement (satiety after the malice of weakness towards and disease) and (2) partly a newly awakened accumulation of long slumbering forces, and therefore wanton, violent, healthy.
1013.
Health and morbidness: let us be careful The standard the bloom of the body, the agility, courage, and cheerfulness of the mind--but also, of
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course, how much morbidness a man can bear and overcome,--~and convert into health. That which would send more delicate natures t0 the dogs, belongs to the stimulating means ofgreat health.
1014.
It is only a question of power: to have all the morbid traits of the century, but to balance them by means of overflowing, plastic, and rejuvenating power. The strong man.
1015.
Concerningthe strength of the nineteenth century. -- We are more mediaeval than the eighteenth century ; not only more inquisitive or more susceptible to the strange and to the rare. We have revolted against the Revolution. . . . We have freed ourselves from the fear of reason, which was the spectre of the
eighteenth century: we once' more dare tO- be childish, lyrical, absurd,--in a word, _" we are musicians. " And we are just as little frightened of the ridiculous as of the absurd. ' The devil finds that he is tolerated even by God: better still, he has become interesting as one who has been mis understood and slandered for ages,--we are the saviours of the devil's honour.
We no longer separate the great from the terrible. We reconcile good things, in all their complexity,
* This is reminiscent of Goethe's Faust. See " Prologue in Heaven. "--TR.
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395
with the very worst things; we have overcome the desideratum of the past (which wanted goodness to grow without the increase of evil). The cowardice towards the ideal, peculiar to the Renaissance, has diminished--we even dare to aspire to the latter's morality. Intolerance towards priests and the Church has at the same time come to an end "It
immoral to believe in God "--but this pre cisely what we regard as the best possible justifica tion of this belief.
On all these things we have conferred the civic rights of our minds. We do not tremble before the back side of "good things " (we even look
we are brave and inquisitive enough for that), of Greek antiquity, of morality, of reason, of good taste, for instance (we reckon up the losses which we incur with all this treasure: we almost reduce ourselves to poverty with such treasure). Neither do we conceal the back side of " evil things"
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from ourselves.
1016.
That which does us honour. --If anything does us honour, this: we" have transferred our serious ness to other things; all those things which have been despised and laid aside as base by all ages, we regard as important--on the other hand, we surrender " fine feelings " at cheap rate.
Could any aberration be more dangerous than the contempt of the body? As all intellectuality
,were not thereby condemned to become morbid, and to take refuge in the vapeurs of "idealism "!
Nothing that has been thought out by Christians
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THE WILL TO POWER.
and idealists holds water: we are more radical. We have discovered the "smallest world " every where as the most decisive.
The paving-stones in the streets, good air in our rooms, food understood according to its worth: we value all the necessaries of life seriously, and despise all " beautiful soulfulness " as a form of " levity and frivolity. " That which has been most
hitherto, is now pressed into the front rank.
1017
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In the place of Rousseau's "man of Nature," the nineteenth century has discovered a much more genuine image of " Man,"-it had the courage to do this. . . . On the whole, the Christian concept of man has in a way been reinstalled. What we have not had the courage to do, was to call precisely this "man par excellence," good, and to see the future of mankind guaranteed in him. In the
same way, we did not dare to regard the growth in the terrible side of man's character as an ac companying feature of every advance in culture; in this sense we are still under the influence of the Christian ideal, and side with it against paganism, and likewise against the Renaissance concept of virtu. But the key of culture is not' to be found in this way: and in praxi we still have the forgeries of history in favour of the "good man" (as if he alone constituted the progress of humanity) and the socialistic ideal (i. e. the residue of Christianity and of Rousseau in the de Christianised world).
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despised
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397
The fight against the eighteenth century meets with its greatest conquerors in Goethe and Napoleon. Schopenhauer, too, fights against the eighteenth century; but he returns involuntarily to the seventeenth--he modern Pascal, with Pascalian valuations, without Christianity. Schopenhauer was not strong enough to invent new yea.
Napoleon we see the necessary relationship between the higher and the terrible man. " Man " reinstalled, and her due Of contempt and fear re
stored to woman.
Highest activity and health are the signs of the great man; the straight line and grand style rediscovered in action; the mightiest of all instincts, that of life itself,---the lust of dominion,----heartily welcomed
1018.
(Revue des deux mondes, 15th February 1887. Taine concerning Napoleon) "Suddenly the master faculty reveals itself: the artist, which was latent in the politician, comes forth from his
scabbard; he creates dans l'ide? al et l'impossible. He once more recognised as that which he is: the
? brother of Dante and of Michelangelo; and verily, in view of the definite contours of his vision, the intensity, the coherence, and inner con sistency of his dream, the depth of his meditations, the superhuman greatness of his conception, he
-. . their equal son ge'nie a la meme tail/e et la meme
structure; est un des trois eqorits souverains de
la renaissance italienne. "
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posthumous
Nota Ilene--Dante, Michelangelo, Napoleon.
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THE WILL To POWER.
I019.
Concerning the pessimism of strength--In the internal economy of the primitive man's soul, the fear of evil preponderates. What is evil? Three kinds of things: accident, uncertainty, the unex pected. How does primitive man combat evil ? --
He conceives it as a thing of reason, of power, even as a person. By this means he is enabled to make treaties with and generally to operate upon in advance--to forestall it.
---Another expedient to declare its evil and harmful character to be but apparent: the conse quences of accidental occurrences, and 0f uncer tainty and the unexpected, are interpreted as well meant, as reasonable.
---A third means to interpret evil, above all,
? as merited: evil thus justified as
--In short, man submits to it: all religious
and moral interpretations are but forms of sub mission to evil--The belief that good purpose lies behind all evil, implies the renunciation of any desire to combat it.
Now, the, history of every culture shows a diminution of this fear of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected. Culture means precisely, to learn to reckon, to discover causes, to acquire the power of forestalling events, to acquire belief in necessity. With the growth of culture, man able to dispense with that primitive form of submission to evil (called religion or morality), and that "justification of evil. " Now he wages war against " evil,"--he gets rid of it. Yes, state of
punishment.
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security, of belief in law and the possibility of cal culation, possible, in which consciousness regards these things with tedium,-in which the joy of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected, actually becomes spur.
Let us halt moment before this symptom of highest culture,--I call the pessimism of strength. Man now no longer requires "justification of evil justification precisely what he abhors: he enjoys evil, far, one he regards purposeless evil as the most interesting kind of evil. If he had required God in the past, he now delights in cosmic disorder without God, world of accident, to the essence of which terror, ambiguity, and seductiveness belong.
In state of this sort, precisely goodness which requires to be justified--that to say, must either have an evil and dangerous basis, or else must contain a vast amount of stupidity: in which case still pleases. Animality no longer awakens terror now; avery intellectual and happy wanton spirit in favour of the animal in man, in such periods, the most triumphant form Of spirit uality. Man now strong enough to be able to feel ashamed of a belief in God: he may now play the part of the devil's advocate afresh. If in practice he pretends to uphold virtue, will be for those reasons which lead virtue to be associated with subtlety, cunning, lust of gain, and form of the lust of power. ,
This pessimism of strength also ends in theo dicy, i. e. in an absolute saying Of yea to. the world ---but the same arguments will be raised in favour Of
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THE WILL TO POWER.
life which forinerly were raised against it: and in this way, in a conception of this world as the highest ideal possible, which has been effectively attained.
I
I020.
The principal kinds of pessimism :--
The pessimism of sensitiveness (excessive irrit
ability with a preponderance of the feelings of pain). The pessimism of the will that is not free (other wise expressed: the lack of resisting power a
gainst stimuli).
The pessimism of doubt (shyness in regard to
everything fixed, in regard to all grasping and touching).
The psychological conditions which belong to these different kinds of pessimism, may all be ob served in a lunatic asylum, even though they are there found in a slightly exaggerated form. The same applies to" Nihilism " (the penetrating feeling of " nonentity '
What, however, the nature of Pascal's moral pessimism, and the metaphysical pessimism of the Vedanta-Philosophy? What the nature of the social pessimism of anarchists (as of Shelley), and of the pessimism of compassion (like that of Leo, Tolstoy and of Alfred de Vigny)?
. Are all these things not also the phenomena of decay and sickness? And not excessive seriousness in regard to moral values, or in regard to "other-world" fictions, or social calamities, or sufiering in general, of the same order? All such exaggeration of single and narrow standpoint
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-in itself a sign of sickness. The same applies to the preponderance of a negative over an afl'irma tive attitude!
In this respect we must not confound with the above: the joy of saying and doing no, which is the result of the enormous power and tenseness of an affirmative attitude--peculiar to all rich and mighty men and ages. It as were, luxury,
form of courage too, which opposes the terrible, which has sympathy with the frightful and the questionable; because, among other things, one terrible and questionable: the Dionysian in will, intellect, and taste.
02 I.
. My Five " Noes. " .
(I) My fight against the feeling of sin and the introduction of the notion of punishment into the physical and metaphysical world, likewise into psychology and the interpretation of history. The recognition of the fact that all philosophies and val uations hitherto have been saturated with morality.
My identification and my discovery of the traditional ideal, of the Christian ideal, even where the dogmatic form of Christianity has been wrecked. The danger of the Christian ideal resides in its valuations, in that which can dispense with concrete expression: my struggle against latent Christianity (for instance, in music, in Socialism).
(3) My struggle against the eighteenth century of Rousseau, against his" Nature," against his " good
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man," his belief in the dominion of feeling--against the pampering, weakening, and moralising of man: an ideal born of the hatred of aristocratic culture, which in practice is the dominion of unbridled feelings of resentment, and invented as a standard for the purpose of war (the Christian morality of the feeling of sin, as well as the morality of resent ment, is an attitude of the mob).
402
My fight against Romanticism, in which the
(4)
ideals of Christianity and of Rousseau
converge, but which possesses at the same time a yearning for that antiquity which knew of sacerdotal and
aristocratic culture, a yearning for virtu, and for
the " strong man "--something extremely hybrid; a false and imitated kind of stronger humanity, which appreciates extreme conditions in general and sees the symptom of strength in them ("the cult of passion"; an imitation of the most expressive forms, furore espressivo, originating not out of pleni tude, but out ofwant). --(In the nineteenth century
there are some things which are born out of re lative plenitude--i. e. out of well-being; cheerful music, etc. -'--among poets, for instance, Stifter and Gottfried Keller give signs of more strength and inner well-being than The great strides Ofen gineering, of inventions, of the natural sciences and of history (? ) are relative products of the strength
and self-reliance of the nineteenth century. )
(5) My struggle against the predominance of
gregarious instincts, now science makes common cause with them; against the profound hate with which every kind of order of rank and of aloofness is treated.
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403
From the pressure of plenitude, from the tension of forces that are continually increasing within us and which cannot yet discharge themselves, con dition produced which very similar to that which precedes storm: we--like Nature's sky-- become overcast. That, too,
A teaching which puts an end to such condition by the fact that commands something: trans
valuation of values *by means of which the accumu lated forces are given channel, direction, so that they explode into deeds and flashes of light ning--does not in the least require to be a
hedonistic teaching: in so far as releases strength which was compressed to an agonising degree, brings happiness.
'102
Pleasure appears with the feeling of power. Happiness means that the consciousness of
power and triumph has begun to prevail.
Progress the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise great will-power: everything
" pessimism. "
? else a misunderstanding and
1024.
There comes time when the old masquerade and moral togging-up of the passions provokes repugnance: naked Nature; when the quanta of
power are recognised as decidedly simple (as deter mining rank); when grand style appears again as the result of great passion.
danger.
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1025.
The purpose of culture would have us enlist every thing terrible, step by step and experimentally, into its service; but before it is strong enough for this it must combat, moderate, mask, and even curse every thing terrible.
Wherever a culture points to anything as evil, it betrays its fear and therefore weakness.
Thesis: everything good is the evil of yore which has been rendered serviceable. Standard . 4 the more terrible and the greater the passions may be which an age, a people, and an individual are at liberty to possess, because they are able to use them as a means, the higher is their culture: the more mediocre, weak, submissive, and cowardly a man-may be, the more things he will regard as evil: according to him the kingdom of evil is the largest. The lowest man will see the kingdom of evil (i. e. that which is forbidden him and which is hostile to him) everywhere.
1026.
It is not a fact that " happiness follOws virtue " --but it is the mighty man who first declares his
happy state to be virtue.
Evil actions belong to the mighty and the
virtuous: bad and base actions belong to the subjected.
The mightiest man, the creator, would have to be the most evil, inasmuch as he makes his ideal prevail over all men in opposition to their ideals, and remoulds them according to his own image.
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Evil, "in this respect, means hard, painful, en forced;
DIONYSUS.
v405
> Such men as Napoleon must always return and _always settle our belief in the self-glory of the in
dividual afresh: he himself, however, was corrupted by the means he had to stoop to, and had lost noblesse of character. If he had had, to prevail among another kind of men, he could have availed himself of other means; and thus would not
seem necessary that Caesar must become bad.
1027
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Man combination of the beast and the super beast; higher man a combination of the monster and the superman:' these opposites belong to each otherr With every degree of man's growth towards greatness and loftiness, he also grows down wards into the depths and into the terrible: we
should not desire the one without the other ;--or, better still: the more fundamentally we desire the one, the more completely we shall achieve the
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other.
Terribleness belongs to greatness: let us not
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> 1029
have taught the knowledge of such terrible things, that all "Epicurean contentment" im
" *,The play" on the German " words " Unthier and Uberthier," Unm'ensch and Ubermensch," unfortu
nately not translatable--TR.
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possible concerning them. DIionysian pleasure is
406
the only adequate kind here:
cover the tragic. Thanks to their superficiality in ethics, the Greeks misunderstood it. Resignation is not the lesson of tragedy, but only the mis-Q understanding of it ! The yearning for nonentity is the denial of tragic wisdom, its opposite!
1030.
A rich and powerful soul not only gets over painful and even terrible losses, deprivations, rob beries, and insults: it actually leaves such dark infernos in possession of still greater plenitude and power; and, what is most important of all, in pos session of an increased blissfulness in love. I
believe that he who has divined something of the most fundamental conditions of love, will under stand Dante for having written over the door of
his Inferno: "I also am the creation of eternal love. "
1031.
To have travelled over the whole circumference of the modern soul, and to have sat in all its corners ----my ambition, my torment, and my happiness.
Veritably to have overcome pessimism, and, as the result thereof, to have acquired the eyes of a Goethe--full of love and goodwill.
1032.
The first question is by no means whether we are satisfied with ourselves: but whether we are
was the to dis first
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satisfied with anything at all. Granting that we should say yea to any single moment, we have then affirmed not only ourselves, but the whole of ex istence. For nothing stands by itself, either in us or in other things: and our soul has vibrated and rung with happiness, like a chord, once only and only once, then all eternity was necessary in order to bring about that one event,---and all eternity, this single moment of our afl'irmation, was called good, was saved, justified, and blessed.
1033.
The passions which say yup--Pride, happiness, health, the love of the sexes, hostility and war, reverence, beautiful attitudes, manners, strong will, the discipline Of lofty spirituality, the will to power, and gratitude to the Earth and to Life: all that
rich, that would fain bestow, and that refreshes, gilds, immortalises, and deifies Life--the whole power of the virtues that glon'fy--all declaring things good, saying yea, and doing yea.
1034.
We, many or few, who once more dare to live in a world purged of morality, we pagans in faith,--we
'are probably also the first who understand what pagan faith is: to be obliged to imagine higher
creatures than man, but to imagine them beyond good and evil; to be compelled to value all higher existence as immoral existence. We believe in Olympus, and not in the "man on the cross. "
DIONYSUS.
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THE WILL To POWER.
1035.
The more modern man has exercised his ideal ising power in regard to a God mostly by moralis-- ing the latter ever more and more--what does that mean ? --nothing good, a diminution in man's strength.
As a matter of fact, the reverse would be possible:
and indications of this are not wanting. God im
agined as emancipation from morality, comprising the whole of the abundant assembly of Life's con trasts, and saving and justifying them in a divine agony.