He himself decides, for himself
and for others, what is honorable and what is useful.
and for others, what is honorable and what is useful.
Human, All Too Human- A Book for Free Spirits by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Certainly not for the reason that a god has forbidden
lying. But because first: it is more convenient, as falsehood entails
invention, make-believe and recollection (wherefore Swift says that
whoever invents a lie seldom realises the heavy burden he takes up: he
must, namely, for every lie that he tells, insert twenty more).
Therefore, because in plain ordinary relations of life it is expedient
to say without circumlocution: I want this, I have done this, and the
like; therefore, because the way of freedom and certainty is surer than
that of ruse. --But if it happens that a child is brought up in sinister
domestic circumstances, it will then indulge in falsehood as matter of
course, and involuntarily say anything its own interests may prompt: an
inclination for truth, an aversion to falsehood, is quite foreign and
uncongenial to it, and hence it lies in all innocence.
55
=Ethic Discredited for Faith's Sake. =--No power can sustain itself when
it is represented by mere humbugs: the Catholic Church may possess ever
so many "worldly" sources of strength, but its true might is comprised
in those still numberless priestly natures who make their lives stern
and strenuous and whose looks and emaciated bodies are eloquent of night
vigils, fasts, ardent prayer, perhaps even of whip lashes: these things
make men tremble and cause them anxiety: what, if it be really
imperative to live thus? This is the dreadful question which their
aspect occasions. As they spread this doubt, they lay anew the prop of
their power: even the free thinkers dare not oppose such
disinterestedness with severe truth and cry: "Thou deceived one,
deceive not! "--Only the difference of standpoint separates them from
him: no difference in goodness or badness. But things we cannot
accomplish ourselves, we are apt to criticise unfairly. Thus we are told
of the cunning and perverted acts of the Jesuits, but we overlook the
self mastery that each Jesuit imposes upon himself and also the fact
that the easy life which the Jesuit manuals advocate is for the benefit,
not of the Jesuits but the laity. Indeed, it may be questioned whether
we enlightened ones would become equally competent workers as the result
of similar tactics and organization, and equally worthy of admiration as
the result of self mastery, indefatigable industry and devotion.
56
=Victory of Knowledge over Radical Evil. =--It proves a material gain to
him who would attain knowledge to have had during a considerable period
the idea that mankind is a radically bad and perverted thing: it is a
false idea, as is its opposite, but it long held sway and its roots have
reached down even to ourselves and our present world. In order to
understand _ourselves_ we must understand _it_; but in order to attain a
loftier height we must step above it. We then perceive that there is no
such thing as sin in the metaphysical sense: but also, in the same
sense, no such thing as virtue; that this whole domain of ethical
notions is one of constant variation; that there are higher and deeper
conceptions of good and evil, moral and immoral. Whoever desires no more
of things than knowledge of them attains speedily to peace of mind and
will at most err through lack of knowledge, but scarcely through
eagerness for knowledge (or through sin, as the world calls it). He will
not ask that eagerness for knowledge be interdicted and rooted out; but
his single, all powerful ambition to _know_ as thoroughly and as fully
as possible, will soothe him and moderate all that is strenuous in his
circumstances. Moreover, he is now rid of a number of disturbing
notions; he is no longer beguiled by such words as hell-pain,
sinfulness, unworthiness: he sees in them merely the flitting shadow
pictures of false views of life and of the world.
57
=Ethic as Man's Self-Analysis. =--A good author, whose heart is really in
his work, wishes that someone would arise and wholly refute him if only
thereby his subject be wholly clarified and made plain. The maid in love
wishes that she could attest the fidelity of her own passion through
the faithlessness of her beloved. The soldier wishes to sacrifice his
life on the field of his fatherland's victory: for in the victory of his
fatherland his highest end is attained. The mother gives her child what
she deprives herself of--sleep, the best nourishment and, in certain
circumstances, her health, her self. --But are all these acts unegoistic?
Are these moral deeds miracles because they are, in Schopenhauer's
phrase "impossible and yet accomplished"? Is it not evident that in all
four cases man loves one part of himself, (a thought, a longing, an
experience) more than he loves another part of himself? that he thus
analyses his being and sacrifices one part of it to another part? Is
this essentially different from the behavior of the obstinate man who
says "I would rather be shot than go a step out of my way for this
fellow"? --Preference for something (wish, impulse, longing) is present
in all four instances: to yield to it, with all its consequences, is not
"unegoistic. "--In the domain of the ethical man conducts himself not as
individuum but as dividuum.
58
=What Can be Promised. =--Actions can be promised, but not feelings, for
these are involuntary. Whoever promises somebody to love him always, or
to hate him always, or to be ever true to him, promises something that
it is out of his power to bestow. But he really can promise such courses
of conduct as are the ordinary accompaniments of love, of hate, of
fidelity, but which may also have their source in motives quite
different: for various ways and motives lead to the same conduct. The
promise to love someone always, means, consequently: as long as I love
you, I will manifest the deportment of love; but if I cease to love you
my deportment, although from some other motive, will be just the same,
so that to the people about us it will seem as if my love remained
unchanged. --Hence it is the continuance of the deportment of love that
is promised in every instance in which eternal love (provided no element
of self deception be involved) is sworn.
59
=Intellect and Ethic. =--One must have a good memory to be able to keep
the promises one makes. One must have a strong imagination in order to
feel sympathy. So closely is ethics connected with intellectual
capacity.
60
=Desire for Vengeance and Vengeance Itself. =--To meditate revenge and
attain it is tantamount to an attack of fever, that passes away: but to
meditate revenge without possessing the strength or courage to attain it
is tantamount to suffering from a chronic malady, or poisoning of body
and soul. Ethics, which takes only the motive into account, rates both
cases alike: people generally estimate the first case as the worst
(because of the consequences which the deed of vengeance may entail).
Both views are short sighted.
61
=Ability to Wait. =--Ability to wait is so hard to acquire that great
poets have not disdained to make inability to wait the central motive of
their poems. So Shakespeare in Othello, Sophocles in Ajax, whose suicide
would not have seemed to him so imperative had he only been able to cool
his ardor for a day, as the oracle foreboded: apparently he would then
have repulsed somewhat the fearful whispers of distracted thought and
have said to himself: Who has not already, in my situation, mistaken a
sheep for a hero? is it so extraordinary a thing? On the contrary it is
something universally human: Ajax should thus have soothed himself.
Passion will not wait: the tragic element in the lives of great men does
not generally consist in their conflict with time and the inferiority
of their fellowmen but in their inability to put off their work a year
or two: they cannot wait. --In all duels, the friends who advise have but
to ascertain if the principals can wait: if this be not possible, a duel
is rational inasmuch as each of the combatants may say: "either I
continue to live and the other dies instantly, or vice versa. " To wait
in such circumstances would be equivalent to the frightful martyrdom of
enduring dishonor in the presence of him responsible for the dishonor:
and this can easily cost more anguish than life is worth.
62
=Glutting Revenge. =--Coarse men, who feel a sense of injury, are in the
habit of rating the extent of their injury as high as possible and of
stating the occasion of it in greatly exaggerated language, in order to
be able to feast themselves on the sentiments of hatred and revenge thus
aroused.
63
=Value of Disparagement. =--Not a few, perhaps the majority of men, find
it necessary, in order to retain their self esteem and a certain
uprightness in conduct, to mentally disparage and belittle all the
people they know. But as the inferior natures are in the majority and as
a great deal depends upon whether they retain or lose this uprightness,
so--
64
=The Man in a Rage. =--We should be on our guard against the man who is
enraged against us, as against one who has attempted our life, for the
fact that we still live consists solely in the inability to kill: were
looks sufficient, it would have been all up with us long since. To
reduce anyone to silence by physical manifestations of savagery or by a
terrorizing process is a relic of under civilization. So, too, that cold
look which great personages cast upon their servitors is a remnant of
the caste distinction between man and man; a specimen of rude antiquity:
women, the conservers of the old, have maintained this survival, too,
more perfectly than men.
65
=Whither Honesty May Lead. =--Someone once had the bad habit of
expressing himself upon occasion, and with perfect honesty, on the
subject of the motives of his conduct, which were as good or as bad as
the motives of all men. He aroused first disfavor, then suspicion,
became gradually of ill repute and was pronounced a person of whom
society should beware, until at last the law took note of such a
perverted being for reasons which usually have no weight with it or to
which it closes its eyes. Lack of taciturnity concerning what is
universally held secret, and an irresponsible predisposition to see what
no one wants to see--oneself--brought him to prison and to early death.
66
=Punishable, not Punished. =--Our crime against criminals consists in the
fact that we treat them as rascals.
67
=Sancta simplicitas of Virtue. =--Every virtue has its privilege: for
example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the
funeral pyre of one condemned.
68
=Morality and Consequence. =--Not alone the beholders of an act generally
estimate the ethical or unethical element in it by the result: no, the
one who performed the act does the same. For the motives and the
intentions are seldom sufficiently apparent, and amid them the memory
itself seems to become clouded by the results of the act, so that a man
often ascribes the wrong motives to his acts or regards the remote
motives as the direct ones. Success often imparts to an action all the
brilliance and honor of good intention, while failure throws the shadow
of conscience over the most estimable deeds. Hence arises the familiar
maxim of the politician: "Give me only success: with it I can win all
the noble souls over to my side--and make myself noble even in my own
eyes. "--In like manner will success prove an excellent substitute for a
better argument. To this very day many well educated men think the
triumph of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of the superior
truth of the former--although in this case it was simply the coarser and
more powerful that triumphed over the more delicate and intellectual. As
regards superiority of truth, it is evident that because of it the
reviving sciences have connected themselves, point for point, with the
philosophy of Epicurus, while Christianity has, point for point,
recoiled from it.
69
=Love and Justice. =--Why is love so highly prized at the expense of
justice and why are such beautiful things spoken of the former as if it
were a far higher entity than the latter? Is the former not palpably a
far more stupid thing than the latter? --Certainly, and on that very
account so much the more agreeable to everybody: it is blind and has a
rich horn of plenty out of which it distributes its gifts to everyone,
even when they are unmerited, even when no thanks are returned. It is
impartial like the rain, which according to the bible and experience,
wets not alone the unjust but, in certain circumstances, the just as
well, and to their skins at that.
70
=Execution. =--How comes it that every execution causes us more pain than
a murder? It is the coolness of the executioner, the painful
preparation, the perception that here a man is being used as an
instrument for the intimidation of others. For the guilt is not punished
even if there be any: this is ascribable to the teachers, the parents,
the environment, in ourselves, not in the murderer--I mean the
predisposing circumstances.
71
=Hope. =--Pandora brought the box containing evils and opened it. It was
the gift of the gods to men, a gift of most enticing appearance
externally and called the "box of happiness. " Thereupon all the evils,
(living, moving things) flew out: from that time to the present they fly
about and do ill to men by day and night. One evil only did not fly out
of the box: Pandora shut the lid at the behest of Zeus and it remained
inside. Now man has this box of happiness perpetually in the house and
congratulates himself upon the treasure inside of it; it is at his
service: he grasps it whenever he is so disposed, for he knows not that
the box which Pandora brought was a box of evils. Hence he looks upon
the one evil still remaining as the greatest source of happiness--it is
hope. --Zeus intended that man, notwithstanding the evils oppressing him,
should continue to live and not rid himself of life, but keep on making
himself miserable. For this purpose he bestowed hope upon man: it is, in
truth, the greatest of evils for it lengthens the ordeal of man.
72
=Degree of Moral Susceptibility Unknown. =--The fact that one has or has
not had certain profoundly moving impressions and insights into
things--for example, an unjustly executed, slain or martyred father, a
faithless wife, a shattering, serious accident,--is the factor upon
which the excitation of our passions to white heat principally depends,
as well as the course of our whole lives. No one knows to what lengths
circumstances (sympathy, emotion) may lead him. He does not know the
full extent of his own susceptibility. Wretched environment makes him
wretched. It is as a rule not the quality of our experience but its
quantity upon which depends the development of our superiority or
inferiority, from the point of view of good and evil.
73
=The Martyr Against His Will. =--In a certain movement there was a man
who was too cowardly and vacillating ever to contradict his comrades. He
was made use of in each emergency, every sacrifice was demanded of him
because he feared the disfavor of his comrades more than he feared
death: he was a petty, abject spirit. They perceived this and upon the
foundation of the qualities just mentioned they elevated him to the
altitude of a hero, and finally even of a martyr. Although the cowardly
creature always inwardly said No, he always said Yes with his lips, even
upon the scaffold, where he died for the tenets of his party: for beside
him stood one of his old associates who so domineered him with look and
word that he actually went to his death with the utmost fortitude and
has ever since been celebrated as a martyr and exalted character.
74
=General Standard. =--One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed
to vanity, ordinary actions to habit and mean actions to fear.
75
=Misunderstanding of Virtue. =--Whoever has obtained his experience of
vice in connection with pleasure as in the case of one with a youth of
wild oats behind him, comes to the conclusion that virtue must be
connected with self denial. Whoever, on the other hand, has been very
much plagued by his passions and vices, longs to find in virtue the rest
and peace of the soul. That is why it is possible for two virtuous
people to misunderstand one another wholly.
76
=The Ascetic. =--The ascetic makes out of virtue a slavery.
77
=Honor Transferred from Persons to Things. =--Actions prompted by love or
by the spirit of self sacrifice for others are universally honored
wherever they are manifest. Hence is magnified the value set upon
whatever things may be loved or whatever things conduce to self
sacrifice: although in themselves they may be worth nothing much. A
valiant army is evidence of the value of the thing it fights for.
78
=Ambition a Substitute for Moral Feeling. =--Moral feeling should never
become extinct in natures that are destitute of ambition. The ambitious
can get along without moral feeling just as well as with it. --Hence the
sons of retired, ambitionless families, generally become by a series of
rapid gradations, when they lose moral feeling, the most absolute
lunkheads.
79
=Vanity Enriches. =--How poor the human mind would be without vanity! As
it is, it resembles a well stacked and ever renewed ware-emporium that
attracts buyers of every class: they can find almost everything, have
almost everything, provided they bring with them the right kind of
money--admiration.
80
=Senility and Death. =--Apart from the demands made by religion, it may
well be asked why it is more honorable in an aged man, who feels the
decline of his powers, to await slow extinction than to fix a term to
his existence himself? Suicide in such a case is a quite natural and due
proceeding that ought to command respect as a triumph of reason: and did
in fact command respect during the times of the masters of Greek
philosophy and the bravest Roman patriots, who usually died by their own
hand. Eagerness, on the other hand, to keep alive from day to day with
the anxious counsel of physicians, without capacity to attain any nearer
to one's ideal of life, is far less worthy of respect. --Religions are
very rich in refuges from the mandate of suicide: hence they ingratiate
themselves with those who cling to life.
81
=Delusions Regarding Victim and Regarding Evil Doer. =--When the rich man
takes a possession away from the poor man (for example, a prince who
deprives a plebeian of his beloved) there arises in the mind of the poor
man a delusion: he thinks the rich man must be wholly perverted to take
from him the little that he has. But the rich man appreciates the value
of a single possession much less because he is accustomed to many
possessions, so that he cannot put himself in the place of the poor man
and does not act by any means as ill as the latter supposes. Both have a
totally false idea of each other. The iniquities of the mighty which
bulk most largely in history are not nearly so monstrous as they seem.
The hereditary consciousness of being a superior being with superior
environment renders one very callous and lulls the conscience to rest.
We all feel, when the difference between ourselves and some other being
is exceedingly great, that no element of injustice can be involved, and
we kill a fly with no qualms of conscience whatever. So, too, it is no
indication of wickedness in Xerxes (whom even the Greeks represent as
exceptionally noble) that he deprived a father of his son and had him
drawn and quartered because the latter had manifested a troublesome,
ominous distrust of an entire expedition: the individual was in this
case brushed aside as a pestiferous insect. He was too low and mean to
justify continued sentiments of compunction in the ruler of the world.
Indeed no cruel man is ever as cruel, in the main, as his victim thinks.
The idea of pain is never the same as the sensation. The rule is
precisely analogous in the case of the unjust judge, and of the
journalist who by means of devious rhetorical methods, leads public
opinion astray. Cause and effect are in all these instances entwined
with totally different series of feeling and thoughts, whereas it is
unconsciously assumed that principal and victim feel and think exactly
alike, and because of this assumption the guilt of the one is based upon
the pain of the other.
82
=The Soul's Skin. =--As the bones, flesh, entrails and blood vessels are
enclosed by a skin that renders the aspect of men endurable, so the
impulses and passions of the soul are enclosed by vanity: it is the skin
of the soul.
83
=Sleep of Virtue. =--If virtue goes to sleep, it will be more vigorous
when it awakes.
84
=Subtlety of Shame. =--Men are not ashamed of obscene thoughts, but they
are ashamed when they suspect that obscene thoughts are attributed to
them.
85
=Naughtiness Is Rare. =--Most people are too much absorbed in themselves
to be bad.
86
=The Mite in the Balance. =--We are praised or blamed, as the one or the
other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of
discernment.
87
=Luke 18:14 Improved. =--He that humbleth himself wisheth to be exalted.
88
=Prevention of Suicide. =--There is a justice according to which we may
deprive a man of life, but none that permits us to deprive him of death:
this is merely cruelty.
89
=Vanity. =--We set store by the good opinion of men, first because it is
of use to us and next because we wish to give them pleasure (children
their parents, pupils their teacher, and well disposed persons all
others generally). Only when the good opinion of men is important to
somebody, apart from personal advantage or the desire to give pleasure,
do we speak of vanity. In this last case, a man wants to give himself
pleasure, but at the expense of his fellow creatures, inasmuch as he
inspires them with a false opinion of himself or else inspires "good
opinion" in such a way that it is a source of pain to others (by
arousing envy). The individual generally seeks, through the opinion of
others, to attest and fortify the opinion he has of himself; but the
potent influence of authority--an influence as old as man himself--leads
many, also, to strengthen their own opinion of themselves by means of
authority, that is, to borrow from others the expedient of relying more
upon the judgment of their fellow men than upon their own. --Interest in
oneself, the wish to please oneself attains, with the vain man, such
proportions that he first misleads others into a false, unduly exalted
estimate of himself and then relies upon the authority of others for his
self estimate; he thus creates the delusion that he pins his faith
to. --It must, however, be admitted that the vain man does not desire to
please others so much as himself and he will often go so far, on this
account, as to overlook his own interests: for he often inspires his
fellow creatures with malicious envy and renders them ill disposed in
order that he may thus increase his own delight in himself.
90
=Limits of the Love of Mankind. =--Every man who has declared that some
other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man
conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous.
91
=Weeping Morality. =--How much delight morality occasions! Think of the
ocean of pleasing tears that has flowed from the narration of noble,
great-hearted deeds! --This charm of life would disappear if the belief
in complete irresponsibility gained the upper hand.
92
=Origin of Justice. =--Justice (reasonableness) has its origin among
approximate equals in power, as Thucydides (in the dreadful conferences
of the Athenian and Melian envoys) has rightly conceived. Thus, where
there exists no demonstrable supremacy and a struggle leads but to
mutual, useless damage, the reflection arises that an understanding
would best be arrived at and some compromise entered into. The
reciprocal nature is hence the first nature of justice. Each party makes
the other content inasmuch as each receives what it prizes more highly
than the other. Each surrenders to the other what the other wants and
receives in return its own desire. Justice is therefore reprisal and
exchange upon the basis of an approximate equality of power. Thus
revenge pertains originally to the domain of justice as it is a sort of
reciprocity. Equally so, gratitude. --Justice reverts naturally to the
standpoint of self preservation, therefore to the egoism of this
consideration: "why should I injure myself to no purpose and perhaps
never attain my end? "--So much for the origin of justice. Only because
men, through mental habits, have forgotten the original motive of so
called just and rational acts, and also because for thousands of years
children have been brought to admire and imitate such acts, have they
gradually assumed the appearance of being unegotistical. Upon this
appearance is founded the high estimate of them, which, moreover, like
all estimates, is continually developing, for whatever is highly
esteemed is striven for, imitated, made the object of self sacrifice,
while the merit of the pain and emulation thus expended is, by each
individual, ascribed to the thing esteemed. --How slightly moral would
the world appear without forgetfulness! A poet could say that God had
posted forgetfulness as a sentinel at the portal of the temple of human
merit!
93
=Concerning the Law of the Weaker. =--Whenever any party, for instance, a
besieged city, yields to a stronger party, under stipulated conditions,
the counter stipulation is that there be a reduction to insignificance,
a burning and destruction of the city and thus a great damage inflicted
upon the stronger party. Thus arises a sort of equalization principle
upon the basis of which a law can be established. The enemy has an
advantage to gain by its maintenance. --To this extent there is also a
law between slaves and masters, limited only by the extent to which the
slave may be useful to his master. The law goes originally only so far
as the one party may appear to the other potent, invincible, stable, and
the like. To such an extent, then, the weaker has rights, but very
limited ones. Hence the famous dictum that each has as much law on his
side as his power extends (or more accurately, as his power is believed
to extend).
94
=The Three Phases of Morality Hitherto. =--It is the first evidence that
the animal has become human when his conduct ceases to be based upon the
immediately expedient, but upon the permanently useful; when he has,
therefore, grown utilitarian, capable of purpose. Thus is manifested the
first rule of reason. A still higher stage is attained when he regulates
his conduct upon the basis of honor, by means of which he gains mastery
of himself and surrenders his desires to principles; this lifts him far
above the phase in which he was actuated only by considerations of
personal advantage as he understood it. He respects and wishes to be
respected. This means that he comprehends utility as a thing dependent
upon what his opinion of others is and their opinion of him. Finally he
regulates his conduct (the highest phase of morality hitherto attained)
by his own standard of men and things.
He himself decides, for himself
and for others, what is honorable and what is useful. He has become a
law giver to opinion, upon the basis of his ever higher developing
conception of the utilitarian and the honorable. Knowledge makes him
capable of placing the highest utility, (that is, the universal,
enduring utility) before merely personal utility,--of placing ennobling
recognition of the enduring and universal before the merely temporary:
he lives and acts as a collective individuality.
95
=Ethic of the Developed Individual. =--Hitherto the altruistic has been
looked upon as the distinctive characteristic of moral conduct, and it
is manifest that it was the consideration of universal utility that
prompted praise and recognition of altruistic conduct. Must not a
radical departure from this point of view be imminent, now that it is
being ever more clearly perceived that in the most personal
considerations the most general welfare is attained: so that conduct
inspired by the most personal considerations of advantage is just the
sort which has its origin in the present conception of morality (as a
universal utilitarianism)? To contemplate oneself as a complete
personality and bear the welfare of that personality in mind in all that
one does--this is productive of better results than any sympathetic
susceptibility and conduct in behalf of others. Indeed we all suffer
from such disparagement of our own personalities, which are at present
made to deteriorate from neglect. Capacity is, in fact, divorced from
our personality in most cases, and sacrificed to the state, to science,
to the needy, as if it were the bad which deserved to be made a
sacrifice. Now, we are willing to labor for our fellowmen but only to
the extent that we find our own highest advantage in so doing, no more,
no less. The whole matter depends upon what may be understood as one's
advantage: the crude, undeveloped, rough individualities will be the
very ones to estimate it most inadequately.
96
=Usage and Ethic. =--To be moral, virtuous, praiseworthy means to yield
obedience to ancient law and hereditary usage. Whether this obedience be
rendered readily or with difficulty is long immaterial. Enough that it
be rendered. "Good" finally comes to mean him who acts in the
traditional manner, as a result of heredity or natural disposition, that
is to say does what is customary with scarcely an effort, whatever that
may be (for example revenges injuries when revenge, as with the ancient
Greeks, was part of good morals). He is called good because he is good
"to some purpose," and as benevolence, sympathy, considerateness,
moderation and the like come, in the general course of conduct, to be
finally recognized as "good to some purpose" (as utilitarian) the
benevolent man, the helpful man, is duly styled "good". (At first other
and more important kinds of utilitarian qualities stand in the
foreground. ) Bad is "not habitual" (unusual), to do things not in
accordance with usage, to oppose the traditional, however rational or
the reverse the traditional may be. To do injury to one's social group
or community (and to one's neighbor as thus understood) is looked upon,
through all the variations of moral laws, in different ages, as the
peculiarly "immoral" act, so that to-day we associate the word "bad"
with deliberate injury to one's neighbor or community. "Egoistic" and
"non-egoistic" do not constitute the fundamental opposites that have
brought mankind to make a distinction between moral and immoral, good
and bad; but adherence to traditional custom, and emancipation from it.
How the traditional had its origin is quite immaterial; in any event it
had no reference to good and bad or any categorical imperative but to
the all important end of maintaining and sustaining the community, the
race, the confederation, the nation. Every superstitious custom that
originated in a misinterpreted event or casualty entailed some
tradition, to adhere to which is moral. To break loose from it is
dangerous, more prejudicial to the community than to the individual
(because divinity visits the consequences of impiety and sacrilege upon
the community rather than upon the individual). Now every tradition
grows ever more venerable--the more remote is its origin, the more
confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from
generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and
inspires awe. Thus it is that the precept of piety is a far loftier
morality than that inculcated by altruistic conduct.
97
=Delight in the Moral. =--A potent species of joy (and thereby the source
of morality) is custom. The customary is done more easily, better,
therefore preferably. A pleasure is felt in it and experience thus shows
that since this practice has held its own it must be good. A manner or
moral that lives and lets live is thus demonstrated advantageous,
necessary, in contradistinction to all new and not yet adopted
practices. The custom is therefore the blending of the agreeable and the
useful. Moreover it does not require deliberation. As soon as man can
exercise compulsion, he exercises it to enforce and establish his
customs, for they are to him attested lifewisdom. So, too, a community
of individuals constrains each one of their number to adopt the same
moral or custom. The error herein is this: Because a certain custom has
been agreeable to the feelings or at least because it proves a means of
maintenance, this custom must be imperative, for it is regarded as the
only thing that can possibly be consistent with well being. The well
being of life seems to spring from it alone. This conception of the
customary as a condition of existence is carried into the slightest
detail of morality. Inasmuch as insight into true causation is quite
restricted in all inferior peoples, a superstitious anxiety is felt that
everything be done in due routine. Even when a custom is exceedingly
burdensome it is preserved because of its supposed vital utility. It is
not known that the same degree of satisfaction can be experienced
through some other custom and even higher degrees of satisfaction, too.
But it is fully appreciated that all customs do become more agreeable
with the lapse of time, no matter how difficult they may have been found
in the beginning, and that even the severest way of life may be rendered
a matter of habit and therefore a pleasure.
98
=Pleasure and Social Instinct. =--Through his relations with other men,
man derives a new species of delight in those pleasurable emotions which
his own personality affords him; whereby the domain of pleasurable
emotions is made infinitely more comprehensive. No doubt he has
inherited many of these feelings from the brutes, which palpably feel
delight when they sport with one another, as mothers with their young.
So, too, the sexual relations must be taken into account: they make
every young woman interesting to every young man from the standpoint of
pleasure, and conversely. The feeling of pleasure originating in human
relationships makes men in general better. The delight in common, the
pleasures enjoyed together heighten one another. The individual feels a
sense of security. He becomes better natured. Distrust and malice
dissolve. For the man feels the sense of benefit and observes the same
feeling in others. Mutual manifestations of pleasure inspire mutual
sympathy, the sentiment of homogeneity. The same effect is felt also at
mutual sufferings, in a common danger, in stormy weather. Upon such a
foundation are built the earliest alliances: the object of which is the
mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes, and the
welfare of each individual. And thus the social instinct develops from
pleasure.
99
=The Guiltless Nature of So-Called Bad Acts. =--All "bad" acts are
inspired by the impulse to self preservation or, more accurately, by
the desire for pleasure and for the avoidance of pain in the individual.
Thus are they occasioned, but they are not, therefore, bad. "Pain self
prepared" does not exist, except in the brains of the philosophers, any
more than "pleasure self prepared" (sympathy in the Schopenhauer sense).
In the condition anterior to the state we kill the creature, be it man
or ape, that attempts to pluck the fruit of a tree before we pluck it
ourselves should we happen to be hungry at the time and making for that
tree: as we would do to-day, so far as the brute is concerned, if we
were wandering in savage regions. --The bad acts which most disturb us at
present do so because of the erroneous supposition that the one who is
guilty of them towards us has a free will in the matter and that it was
within his discretion not to have done these evil things. This belief in
discretionary power inspires hate, thirst for revenge, malice, the
entire perversion of the mental processes, whereas we would feel in no
way incensed against the brute, as we hold it irresponsible. To inflict
pain not from the instinct of self preservation but in requital--this is
the consequence of false judgment and is equally a guiltless course of
conduct. The individual can, in that condition which is anterior to the
state, act with fierceness and violence for the intimidation of another
creature, in order to render his own power more secure as a result of
such acts of intimidation. Thus acts the powerful, the superior, the
original state founder, who subjugates the weaker. He has the right to
do so, as the state nowadays assumes the same right, or, to be more
accurate, there is no right that can conflict with this. A foundation
for all morality can first be laid only when a stronger individuality or
a collective individuality, for example society, the state, subjects the
single personalities, hence builds upon their unification and
establishes a bond of union. Morality results from compulsion, it is
indeed itself one long compulsion to which obedience is rendered in
order that pain may be avoided. At first it is but custom, later free
obedience and finally almost instinct. At last it is (like everything
habitual and natural) associated with pleasure--and is then called
virtue.
100
=Shame. =--Shame exists wherever a "mystery" exists: but this is a
religious notion which in the earlier period of human civilization had
great vogue. Everywhere there were circumscribed spots to which access
was denied on account of some divine law, except in special
circumstances. At first these spots were quite extensive, inasmuch as
stipulated areas could not be trod by the uninitiated, who, when near
them, felt tremors and anxieties. This sentiment was frequently
transferred to other relationships, for example to sexual relations,
which, as the privilege and gateway of mature age, must be withdrawn
from the contemplation of youth for its own advantage: relations which
many divinities were busy in preserving and sanctifying, images of which
divinities were duly placed in marital chambers as guardians. (In
Turkish such an apartment is termed a harem or holy thing, the same word
also designating the vestibule of a mosque). So, too, Kingship is
regarded as a centre from which power and brilliance stream forth, as a
mystery to the subjects, impregnated with secrecy and shame, sentiments
still quite operative among peoples who in other respects are without
any shame at all. So, too, is the whole world of inward states, the
so-called "soul," even now, for all non-philosophical persons, a
"mystery," and during countless ages it was looked upon as a something
of divine origin, in direct communion with deity. It is, therefore, an
adytum and occasions shame.
101
=Judge Not. =--Care must be taken, in the contemplation of earlier ages,
that there be no falling into unjust scornfulness. The injustice in
slavery, the cruelty in the subjugation of persons and peoples must not
be estimated by our standard. For in that period the instinct of justice
was not so highly developed. Who dare reproach the Genoese Calvin for
burning the physician Servetus at the stake? It was a proceeding growing
out of his convictions. And the Inquisition, too, had its justification.
The only thing is that the prevailing views were false and led to those
proceedings which seem so cruel to us, simply because such views have
become foreign to us. Besides, what is the burning alive of one
individual compared with eternal hell pains for everybody else? And yet
this idea then had hold of all the world without in the least vitiating,
with its frightfulness, the other idea of a god. Even we nowadays are
hard and merciless to political revolutionists, but that is because we
are in the habit of believing the state a necessity, and hence the
cruelty of the proceeding is not so much understood as in the other
cases where the points of view are repudiated. The cruelty to animals
shown by children and Italians is due to the same misunderstanding. The
animal, owing to the exigencies of the church catechism, is placed too
far below the level of mankind. --Much, too, that is frightful and
inhuman in history, and which is almost incredible, is rendered less
atrocious by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who
executes are different persons. The former does not witness the
performance and hence it makes no strong impression on him. The latter
obeys a superior and hence feels no responsibility. Most princes and
military chieftains appear, through lack of true perception, cruel and
hard without really being so. --Egoism is not bad because the idea of the
"neighbor"--the word is of Christian origin and does not correspond to
truth--is very weak in us, and we feel ourselves, in regard to him, as
free from responsibility as if plants and stones were involved. That
another is in suffering must be learned and it can never be wholly
learned.
102
"=Man Always Does Right. ="--We do not blame nature when she sends a
thunder storm and makes us wet: why then do we term the man who inflicts
injury immoral? Because in the latter case we assume a voluntary,
ruling, free will, and in the former necessity. But this distinction is
a delusion. Moreover, even the intentional infliction of injury is not,
in all circumstances termed immoral. Thus, we kill a fly intentionally
without thinking very much about it, simply because its buzzing about is
disagreeable; and we punish a criminal and inflict pain upon him in
order to protect ourselves and society. In the first case it is the
individual who, for the sake of preserving himself or in order to spare
himself pain, does injury with design: in the second case, it is the
state. All ethic deems intentional infliction of injury justified by
necessity; that is when it is a matter of self preservation. But these
two points of view are sufficient to explain all bad acts done by man to
men. It is desired to obtain pleasure or avoid pain. In any sense, it is
a question, always, of self preservation. Socrates and Plato are right:
whatever man does he always does right: that is, does what seems to him
good (advantageous) according to the degree of advancement his intellect
has attained, which is always the measure of his rational capacity.
103
=The Inoffensive in Badness. =--Badness has not for its object the
infliction of pain upon others but simply our own satisfaction as, for
instance, in the case of thirst for vengeance or of nerve excitation.
Every act of teasing shows what pleasure is caused by the display of
our power over others and what feelings of delight are experienced in
the sense of domination. Is there, then, anything immoral in feeling
pleasure in the pain of others? Is malicious joy devilish, as
Schopenhauer says? In the realm of nature we feel joy in breaking
boughs, shattering rocks, fighting with wild beasts, simply to attest
our strength thereby. Should not the knowledge that another suffers on
our account here, in this case, make the same kind of act, (which, by
the way, arouses no qualms of conscience in us) immoral also? But if we
had not this knowledge there would be no pleasure in one's own
superiority or power, for this pleasure is experienced only in the
suffering of another, as in the case of teasing. All pleasure is, in
itself, neither good nor bad. Whence comes the conviction that one
should not cause pain in others in order to feel pleasure oneself?
Simply from the standpoint of utility, that is, in consideration of the
consequences, of ultimate pain, since the injured party or state will
demand satisfaction and revenge. This consideration alone can have led
to the determination to renounce such pleasure. --Sympathy has the
satisfaction of others in view no more than, as already stated, badness
has the pain of others in view. For there are at least two (perhaps many
more) elementary ingredients in personal gratification which enter
largely into our self satisfaction: one of them being the pleasure of
the emotion, of which species is sympathy with tragedy, and another,
when the impulse is to action, being the pleasure of exercising one's
power. Should a sufferer be very dear to us, we divest ourselves of pain
by the performance of acts of sympathy. --With the exception of some few
philosophers, men have placed sympathy very low in the rank of moral
feelings: and rightly.
104
=Self Defence. =--If self defence is in general held a valid
justification, then nearly every manifestation of so called immoral
egoism must be justified, too. Pain is inflicted, robbery or killing
done in order to maintain life or to protect oneself and ward off harm.
A man lies when cunning and delusion are valid means of self
preservation. To injure intentionally when our safety and our existence
are involved, or the continuance of our well being, is conceded to be
moral. The state itself injures from this motive when it hangs
criminals. In unintentional injury the immoral, of course, can not be
present, as accident alone is involved. But is there any sort of
intentional injury in which our existence and the maintenance of our
well being be not involved? Is there such a thing as injuring from
absolute badness, for example, in the case of cruelty? If a man does not
know what pain an act occasions, that act is not one of wickedness. Thus
the child is not bad to the animal, not evil. It disturbs and rends it
as if it were one of its playthings. Does a man ever fully know how much
pain an act may cause another? As far as our nervous system extends, we
shield ourselves from pain. If it extended further, that is, to our
fellow men, we would never cause anyone else any pain (except in such
cases as we cause it to ourselves, when we cut ourselves, surgically, to
heal our ills, or strive and trouble ourselves to gain health). We
conclude from analogy that something pains somebody and can in
consequence, through recollection and the power of imagination, feel
pain also. But what a difference there always is between the tooth ache
and the pain (sympathy) that the spectacle of tooth ache occasions!
Therefore when injury is inflicted from so called badness the degree of
pain thereby experienced is always unknown to us: in so far, however, as
pleasure is felt in the act (a sense of one's own power, of one's own
excitation) the act is committed to maintain the well being of the
individual and hence comes under the purview of self defence and lying
for self preservation. Without pleasure, there is no life; the struggle
for pleasure is the struggle for life. Whether the individual shall
carry on this struggle in such a way that he be called good or in such a
way that he be called bad is something that the standard and the
capacity of his own intellect must determine for him.
105
=Justice that Rewards. =--Whoever has fully understood the doctrine of
absolute irresponsibility can no longer include the so called rewarding
and punishing justice in the idea of justice, if the latter be taken to
mean that to each be given his due. For he who is punished does not
deserve the punishment. He is used simply as a means to intimidate
others from certain acts. Equally, he who is rewarded does not merit the
reward. He could not act any differently than he did act. Hence the
reward has only the significance of an encouragement to him and others
as a motive for subsequent acts. The praise is called out only to him
who is running in the race and not to him who has arrived at the goal.
Something that comes to someone as his own is neither a punishment nor a
reward. It is given to him from utiliarian considerations, without his
having any claim to it in justice. Hence one must say "the wise man
praises not because a good act has been done" precisely as was once
said: "the wise man punishes not because a bad act has been done but in
order that a bad act may not be done. " If punishment and reward ceased,
there would cease with them the most powerful incentives to certain acts
and away from other acts. The purposes of men demand their continuance
[of punishment and reward] and inasmuch as punishment and reward, blame
and praise operate most potently upon vanity, these same purposes of men
imperatively require the continuance of vanity.
106
=The Water Fall. =--At the sight of a water fall we may opine that in the
countless curves, spirations and dashes of the waves we behold freedom
of the will and of the impulses. But everything is compulsory,
everything can be mathematically calculated. Thus it is, too, with human
acts. We would be able to calculate in advance every single action if we
were all knowing, as well as every advance in knowledge, every delusion,
every bad deed. The acting individual himself is held fast in the
illusion of volition. If, on a sudden, the entire movement of the world
stopped short, and an all knowing and reasoning intelligence were there
to take advantage of this pause, he could foretell the future of every
being to the remotest ages and indicate the path that would be taken in
the world's further course. The deception of the acting individual as
regards himself, the assumption of the freedom of the will, is a part of
this computable mechanism.
107
=Non-Responsibility and Non-Guilt. =--The absolute irresponsibility of
man for his acts and his nature is the bitterest drop in the cup of him
who has knowledge, if he be accustomed to behold in responsibility and
duty the patent of nobility of his human nature. All his estimates,
preferences, dislikes are thus made worthless and false. His deepest
sentiment, with which he honored the sufferer, the hero, sprang from an
error. He may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is irrational to
blame and praise nature and necessity. Just as he cherishes the
beautiful work of art, but does not praise it (as it is incapable of
doing anything for itself), just as he stands in the presence of plants,
he must stand in the presence of human conduct, his own included. He may
admire strength, beauty, capacity, therein, but he can discern no merit.
The chemical process and the conflict of the elements, the ordeal of
the invalid who strives for convalescence, are no more merits than the
soul-struggles and extremities in which one is torn this way and that by
contending motives until one finally decides in favor of the
strongest--as the phrase has it, although, in fact, it is the strongest
motive that decides for us. All these motives, however, whatever fine
names we may give them, have grown from the same roots in which we
believe the baneful poisons lurk. Between good and bad actions there is
no difference in kind but, at most, in degree. Good acts are sublimated
evil. Bad acts are degraded, imbruted good. The very longing of the
individual for self gratification (together with the fear of being
deprived of it) obtains satisfaction in all circumstances, let the
individual act as he may, that is, as he must: be it in deeds of vanity,
revenge, pleasure, utility, badness, cunning, be it in deeds of self
sacrifice, sympathy or knowledge. The degrees of rational capacity
determine the direction in which this longing impels: every society,
every individual has constantly present a comparative classification of
benefits in accordance with which conduct is determined and others are
judged. But this standard perpetually changes. Many acts are called bad
that are only stupid, because the degree of intelligence that decided
for them was low. Indeed, in a certain sense, all acts now are stupid,
for the highest degree of human intelligence that has yet been attained
will in time most certainly be surpassed and then, in retrospection, all
our present conduct and opinion will appear as narrow and petty as we
now deem the conduct and opinion of savage peoples and ages. --To
perceive all these things may occasion profound pain but there is,
nevertheless, a consolation. Such pains are birth pains. The butterfly
insists upon breaking through the cocoon, he presses through it, tears
it to pieces, only to be blinded and confused by the strange light, by
the realm of liberty. By such men as are capable of this sadness--how
few there are! --will the first attempt be made to see if humanity may
convert itself from a thing of morality to a thing of wisdom. The sun of
a new gospel sheds its first ray upon the loftiest height in the souls
of those few: but the clouds are massed there, too, thicker than ever,
and not far apart are the brightest sunlight and the deepest gloom.
Everything is necessity--so says the new knowledge: and this knowledge
is itself necessity. All is guiltlessness, and knowledge is the way to
insight into this guiltlessness. If pleasure, egoism, vanity be
necessary to attest the moral phenomena and their richest blooms, the
instinct for truth and accuracy of knowledge; if delusion and confusion
of the imagination were the only means whereby mankind could gradually
lift itself up to this degree of self enlightenment and self
emancipation--who would venture to disparage the means? Who would have
the right to feel sad if made aware of the goal to which those paths
lead? Everything in the domain of ethic is evolved, changeable,
tottering; all things flow, it is true--but all things are also in the
stream: to their goal. Though within us the hereditary habit of
erroneous judgment, love, hate, may be ever dominant, yet under the
influence of awaking knowledge it will ever become weaker: a new habit,
that of understanding, not-loving, not-hating, looking from above, grows
up within us gradually and in the same soil, and may, perhaps, in
thousands of years be powerful enough to endow mankind with capacity to
develop the wise, guiltless man (conscious of guiltlessness) as
unfailingly as it now developes the unwise, irrational, guilt-conscious
man--that is to say, the necessary higher step, not the opposite of it.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
108
=The Double Contest Against Evil.
lying. But because first: it is more convenient, as falsehood entails
invention, make-believe and recollection (wherefore Swift says that
whoever invents a lie seldom realises the heavy burden he takes up: he
must, namely, for every lie that he tells, insert twenty more).
Therefore, because in plain ordinary relations of life it is expedient
to say without circumlocution: I want this, I have done this, and the
like; therefore, because the way of freedom and certainty is surer than
that of ruse. --But if it happens that a child is brought up in sinister
domestic circumstances, it will then indulge in falsehood as matter of
course, and involuntarily say anything its own interests may prompt: an
inclination for truth, an aversion to falsehood, is quite foreign and
uncongenial to it, and hence it lies in all innocence.
55
=Ethic Discredited for Faith's Sake. =--No power can sustain itself when
it is represented by mere humbugs: the Catholic Church may possess ever
so many "worldly" sources of strength, but its true might is comprised
in those still numberless priestly natures who make their lives stern
and strenuous and whose looks and emaciated bodies are eloquent of night
vigils, fasts, ardent prayer, perhaps even of whip lashes: these things
make men tremble and cause them anxiety: what, if it be really
imperative to live thus? This is the dreadful question which their
aspect occasions. As they spread this doubt, they lay anew the prop of
their power: even the free thinkers dare not oppose such
disinterestedness with severe truth and cry: "Thou deceived one,
deceive not! "--Only the difference of standpoint separates them from
him: no difference in goodness or badness. But things we cannot
accomplish ourselves, we are apt to criticise unfairly. Thus we are told
of the cunning and perverted acts of the Jesuits, but we overlook the
self mastery that each Jesuit imposes upon himself and also the fact
that the easy life which the Jesuit manuals advocate is for the benefit,
not of the Jesuits but the laity. Indeed, it may be questioned whether
we enlightened ones would become equally competent workers as the result
of similar tactics and organization, and equally worthy of admiration as
the result of self mastery, indefatigable industry and devotion.
56
=Victory of Knowledge over Radical Evil. =--It proves a material gain to
him who would attain knowledge to have had during a considerable period
the idea that mankind is a radically bad and perverted thing: it is a
false idea, as is its opposite, but it long held sway and its roots have
reached down even to ourselves and our present world. In order to
understand _ourselves_ we must understand _it_; but in order to attain a
loftier height we must step above it. We then perceive that there is no
such thing as sin in the metaphysical sense: but also, in the same
sense, no such thing as virtue; that this whole domain of ethical
notions is one of constant variation; that there are higher and deeper
conceptions of good and evil, moral and immoral. Whoever desires no more
of things than knowledge of them attains speedily to peace of mind and
will at most err through lack of knowledge, but scarcely through
eagerness for knowledge (or through sin, as the world calls it). He will
not ask that eagerness for knowledge be interdicted and rooted out; but
his single, all powerful ambition to _know_ as thoroughly and as fully
as possible, will soothe him and moderate all that is strenuous in his
circumstances. Moreover, he is now rid of a number of disturbing
notions; he is no longer beguiled by such words as hell-pain,
sinfulness, unworthiness: he sees in them merely the flitting shadow
pictures of false views of life and of the world.
57
=Ethic as Man's Self-Analysis. =--A good author, whose heart is really in
his work, wishes that someone would arise and wholly refute him if only
thereby his subject be wholly clarified and made plain. The maid in love
wishes that she could attest the fidelity of her own passion through
the faithlessness of her beloved. The soldier wishes to sacrifice his
life on the field of his fatherland's victory: for in the victory of his
fatherland his highest end is attained. The mother gives her child what
she deprives herself of--sleep, the best nourishment and, in certain
circumstances, her health, her self. --But are all these acts unegoistic?
Are these moral deeds miracles because they are, in Schopenhauer's
phrase "impossible and yet accomplished"? Is it not evident that in all
four cases man loves one part of himself, (a thought, a longing, an
experience) more than he loves another part of himself? that he thus
analyses his being and sacrifices one part of it to another part? Is
this essentially different from the behavior of the obstinate man who
says "I would rather be shot than go a step out of my way for this
fellow"? --Preference for something (wish, impulse, longing) is present
in all four instances: to yield to it, with all its consequences, is not
"unegoistic. "--In the domain of the ethical man conducts himself not as
individuum but as dividuum.
58
=What Can be Promised. =--Actions can be promised, but not feelings, for
these are involuntary. Whoever promises somebody to love him always, or
to hate him always, or to be ever true to him, promises something that
it is out of his power to bestow. But he really can promise such courses
of conduct as are the ordinary accompaniments of love, of hate, of
fidelity, but which may also have their source in motives quite
different: for various ways and motives lead to the same conduct. The
promise to love someone always, means, consequently: as long as I love
you, I will manifest the deportment of love; but if I cease to love you
my deportment, although from some other motive, will be just the same,
so that to the people about us it will seem as if my love remained
unchanged. --Hence it is the continuance of the deportment of love that
is promised in every instance in which eternal love (provided no element
of self deception be involved) is sworn.
59
=Intellect and Ethic. =--One must have a good memory to be able to keep
the promises one makes. One must have a strong imagination in order to
feel sympathy. So closely is ethics connected with intellectual
capacity.
60
=Desire for Vengeance and Vengeance Itself. =--To meditate revenge and
attain it is tantamount to an attack of fever, that passes away: but to
meditate revenge without possessing the strength or courage to attain it
is tantamount to suffering from a chronic malady, or poisoning of body
and soul. Ethics, which takes only the motive into account, rates both
cases alike: people generally estimate the first case as the worst
(because of the consequences which the deed of vengeance may entail).
Both views are short sighted.
61
=Ability to Wait. =--Ability to wait is so hard to acquire that great
poets have not disdained to make inability to wait the central motive of
their poems. So Shakespeare in Othello, Sophocles in Ajax, whose suicide
would not have seemed to him so imperative had he only been able to cool
his ardor for a day, as the oracle foreboded: apparently he would then
have repulsed somewhat the fearful whispers of distracted thought and
have said to himself: Who has not already, in my situation, mistaken a
sheep for a hero? is it so extraordinary a thing? On the contrary it is
something universally human: Ajax should thus have soothed himself.
Passion will not wait: the tragic element in the lives of great men does
not generally consist in their conflict with time and the inferiority
of their fellowmen but in their inability to put off their work a year
or two: they cannot wait. --In all duels, the friends who advise have but
to ascertain if the principals can wait: if this be not possible, a duel
is rational inasmuch as each of the combatants may say: "either I
continue to live and the other dies instantly, or vice versa. " To wait
in such circumstances would be equivalent to the frightful martyrdom of
enduring dishonor in the presence of him responsible for the dishonor:
and this can easily cost more anguish than life is worth.
62
=Glutting Revenge. =--Coarse men, who feel a sense of injury, are in the
habit of rating the extent of their injury as high as possible and of
stating the occasion of it in greatly exaggerated language, in order to
be able to feast themselves on the sentiments of hatred and revenge thus
aroused.
63
=Value of Disparagement. =--Not a few, perhaps the majority of men, find
it necessary, in order to retain their self esteem and a certain
uprightness in conduct, to mentally disparage and belittle all the
people they know. But as the inferior natures are in the majority and as
a great deal depends upon whether they retain or lose this uprightness,
so--
64
=The Man in a Rage. =--We should be on our guard against the man who is
enraged against us, as against one who has attempted our life, for the
fact that we still live consists solely in the inability to kill: were
looks sufficient, it would have been all up with us long since. To
reduce anyone to silence by physical manifestations of savagery or by a
terrorizing process is a relic of under civilization. So, too, that cold
look which great personages cast upon their servitors is a remnant of
the caste distinction between man and man; a specimen of rude antiquity:
women, the conservers of the old, have maintained this survival, too,
more perfectly than men.
65
=Whither Honesty May Lead. =--Someone once had the bad habit of
expressing himself upon occasion, and with perfect honesty, on the
subject of the motives of his conduct, which were as good or as bad as
the motives of all men. He aroused first disfavor, then suspicion,
became gradually of ill repute and was pronounced a person of whom
society should beware, until at last the law took note of such a
perverted being for reasons which usually have no weight with it or to
which it closes its eyes. Lack of taciturnity concerning what is
universally held secret, and an irresponsible predisposition to see what
no one wants to see--oneself--brought him to prison and to early death.
66
=Punishable, not Punished. =--Our crime against criminals consists in the
fact that we treat them as rascals.
67
=Sancta simplicitas of Virtue. =--Every virtue has its privilege: for
example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the
funeral pyre of one condemned.
68
=Morality and Consequence. =--Not alone the beholders of an act generally
estimate the ethical or unethical element in it by the result: no, the
one who performed the act does the same. For the motives and the
intentions are seldom sufficiently apparent, and amid them the memory
itself seems to become clouded by the results of the act, so that a man
often ascribes the wrong motives to his acts or regards the remote
motives as the direct ones. Success often imparts to an action all the
brilliance and honor of good intention, while failure throws the shadow
of conscience over the most estimable deeds. Hence arises the familiar
maxim of the politician: "Give me only success: with it I can win all
the noble souls over to my side--and make myself noble even in my own
eyes. "--In like manner will success prove an excellent substitute for a
better argument. To this very day many well educated men think the
triumph of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of the superior
truth of the former--although in this case it was simply the coarser and
more powerful that triumphed over the more delicate and intellectual. As
regards superiority of truth, it is evident that because of it the
reviving sciences have connected themselves, point for point, with the
philosophy of Epicurus, while Christianity has, point for point,
recoiled from it.
69
=Love and Justice. =--Why is love so highly prized at the expense of
justice and why are such beautiful things spoken of the former as if it
were a far higher entity than the latter? Is the former not palpably a
far more stupid thing than the latter? --Certainly, and on that very
account so much the more agreeable to everybody: it is blind and has a
rich horn of plenty out of which it distributes its gifts to everyone,
even when they are unmerited, even when no thanks are returned. It is
impartial like the rain, which according to the bible and experience,
wets not alone the unjust but, in certain circumstances, the just as
well, and to their skins at that.
70
=Execution. =--How comes it that every execution causes us more pain than
a murder? It is the coolness of the executioner, the painful
preparation, the perception that here a man is being used as an
instrument for the intimidation of others. For the guilt is not punished
even if there be any: this is ascribable to the teachers, the parents,
the environment, in ourselves, not in the murderer--I mean the
predisposing circumstances.
71
=Hope. =--Pandora brought the box containing evils and opened it. It was
the gift of the gods to men, a gift of most enticing appearance
externally and called the "box of happiness. " Thereupon all the evils,
(living, moving things) flew out: from that time to the present they fly
about and do ill to men by day and night. One evil only did not fly out
of the box: Pandora shut the lid at the behest of Zeus and it remained
inside. Now man has this box of happiness perpetually in the house and
congratulates himself upon the treasure inside of it; it is at his
service: he grasps it whenever he is so disposed, for he knows not that
the box which Pandora brought was a box of evils. Hence he looks upon
the one evil still remaining as the greatest source of happiness--it is
hope. --Zeus intended that man, notwithstanding the evils oppressing him,
should continue to live and not rid himself of life, but keep on making
himself miserable. For this purpose he bestowed hope upon man: it is, in
truth, the greatest of evils for it lengthens the ordeal of man.
72
=Degree of Moral Susceptibility Unknown. =--The fact that one has or has
not had certain profoundly moving impressions and insights into
things--for example, an unjustly executed, slain or martyred father, a
faithless wife, a shattering, serious accident,--is the factor upon
which the excitation of our passions to white heat principally depends,
as well as the course of our whole lives. No one knows to what lengths
circumstances (sympathy, emotion) may lead him. He does not know the
full extent of his own susceptibility. Wretched environment makes him
wretched. It is as a rule not the quality of our experience but its
quantity upon which depends the development of our superiority or
inferiority, from the point of view of good and evil.
73
=The Martyr Against His Will. =--In a certain movement there was a man
who was too cowardly and vacillating ever to contradict his comrades. He
was made use of in each emergency, every sacrifice was demanded of him
because he feared the disfavor of his comrades more than he feared
death: he was a petty, abject spirit. They perceived this and upon the
foundation of the qualities just mentioned they elevated him to the
altitude of a hero, and finally even of a martyr. Although the cowardly
creature always inwardly said No, he always said Yes with his lips, even
upon the scaffold, where he died for the tenets of his party: for beside
him stood one of his old associates who so domineered him with look and
word that he actually went to his death with the utmost fortitude and
has ever since been celebrated as a martyr and exalted character.
74
=General Standard. =--One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed
to vanity, ordinary actions to habit and mean actions to fear.
75
=Misunderstanding of Virtue. =--Whoever has obtained his experience of
vice in connection with pleasure as in the case of one with a youth of
wild oats behind him, comes to the conclusion that virtue must be
connected with self denial. Whoever, on the other hand, has been very
much plagued by his passions and vices, longs to find in virtue the rest
and peace of the soul. That is why it is possible for two virtuous
people to misunderstand one another wholly.
76
=The Ascetic. =--The ascetic makes out of virtue a slavery.
77
=Honor Transferred from Persons to Things. =--Actions prompted by love or
by the spirit of self sacrifice for others are universally honored
wherever they are manifest. Hence is magnified the value set upon
whatever things may be loved or whatever things conduce to self
sacrifice: although in themselves they may be worth nothing much. A
valiant army is evidence of the value of the thing it fights for.
78
=Ambition a Substitute for Moral Feeling. =--Moral feeling should never
become extinct in natures that are destitute of ambition. The ambitious
can get along without moral feeling just as well as with it. --Hence the
sons of retired, ambitionless families, generally become by a series of
rapid gradations, when they lose moral feeling, the most absolute
lunkheads.
79
=Vanity Enriches. =--How poor the human mind would be without vanity! As
it is, it resembles a well stacked and ever renewed ware-emporium that
attracts buyers of every class: they can find almost everything, have
almost everything, provided they bring with them the right kind of
money--admiration.
80
=Senility and Death. =--Apart from the demands made by religion, it may
well be asked why it is more honorable in an aged man, who feels the
decline of his powers, to await slow extinction than to fix a term to
his existence himself? Suicide in such a case is a quite natural and due
proceeding that ought to command respect as a triumph of reason: and did
in fact command respect during the times of the masters of Greek
philosophy and the bravest Roman patriots, who usually died by their own
hand. Eagerness, on the other hand, to keep alive from day to day with
the anxious counsel of physicians, without capacity to attain any nearer
to one's ideal of life, is far less worthy of respect. --Religions are
very rich in refuges from the mandate of suicide: hence they ingratiate
themselves with those who cling to life.
81
=Delusions Regarding Victim and Regarding Evil Doer. =--When the rich man
takes a possession away from the poor man (for example, a prince who
deprives a plebeian of his beloved) there arises in the mind of the poor
man a delusion: he thinks the rich man must be wholly perverted to take
from him the little that he has. But the rich man appreciates the value
of a single possession much less because he is accustomed to many
possessions, so that he cannot put himself in the place of the poor man
and does not act by any means as ill as the latter supposes. Both have a
totally false idea of each other. The iniquities of the mighty which
bulk most largely in history are not nearly so monstrous as they seem.
The hereditary consciousness of being a superior being with superior
environment renders one very callous and lulls the conscience to rest.
We all feel, when the difference between ourselves and some other being
is exceedingly great, that no element of injustice can be involved, and
we kill a fly with no qualms of conscience whatever. So, too, it is no
indication of wickedness in Xerxes (whom even the Greeks represent as
exceptionally noble) that he deprived a father of his son and had him
drawn and quartered because the latter had manifested a troublesome,
ominous distrust of an entire expedition: the individual was in this
case brushed aside as a pestiferous insect. He was too low and mean to
justify continued sentiments of compunction in the ruler of the world.
Indeed no cruel man is ever as cruel, in the main, as his victim thinks.
The idea of pain is never the same as the sensation. The rule is
precisely analogous in the case of the unjust judge, and of the
journalist who by means of devious rhetorical methods, leads public
opinion astray. Cause and effect are in all these instances entwined
with totally different series of feeling and thoughts, whereas it is
unconsciously assumed that principal and victim feel and think exactly
alike, and because of this assumption the guilt of the one is based upon
the pain of the other.
82
=The Soul's Skin. =--As the bones, flesh, entrails and blood vessels are
enclosed by a skin that renders the aspect of men endurable, so the
impulses and passions of the soul are enclosed by vanity: it is the skin
of the soul.
83
=Sleep of Virtue. =--If virtue goes to sleep, it will be more vigorous
when it awakes.
84
=Subtlety of Shame. =--Men are not ashamed of obscene thoughts, but they
are ashamed when they suspect that obscene thoughts are attributed to
them.
85
=Naughtiness Is Rare. =--Most people are too much absorbed in themselves
to be bad.
86
=The Mite in the Balance. =--We are praised or blamed, as the one or the
other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of
discernment.
87
=Luke 18:14 Improved. =--He that humbleth himself wisheth to be exalted.
88
=Prevention of Suicide. =--There is a justice according to which we may
deprive a man of life, but none that permits us to deprive him of death:
this is merely cruelty.
89
=Vanity. =--We set store by the good opinion of men, first because it is
of use to us and next because we wish to give them pleasure (children
their parents, pupils their teacher, and well disposed persons all
others generally). Only when the good opinion of men is important to
somebody, apart from personal advantage or the desire to give pleasure,
do we speak of vanity. In this last case, a man wants to give himself
pleasure, but at the expense of his fellow creatures, inasmuch as he
inspires them with a false opinion of himself or else inspires "good
opinion" in such a way that it is a source of pain to others (by
arousing envy). The individual generally seeks, through the opinion of
others, to attest and fortify the opinion he has of himself; but the
potent influence of authority--an influence as old as man himself--leads
many, also, to strengthen their own opinion of themselves by means of
authority, that is, to borrow from others the expedient of relying more
upon the judgment of their fellow men than upon their own. --Interest in
oneself, the wish to please oneself attains, with the vain man, such
proportions that he first misleads others into a false, unduly exalted
estimate of himself and then relies upon the authority of others for his
self estimate; he thus creates the delusion that he pins his faith
to. --It must, however, be admitted that the vain man does not desire to
please others so much as himself and he will often go so far, on this
account, as to overlook his own interests: for he often inspires his
fellow creatures with malicious envy and renders them ill disposed in
order that he may thus increase his own delight in himself.
90
=Limits of the Love of Mankind. =--Every man who has declared that some
other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man
conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous.
91
=Weeping Morality. =--How much delight morality occasions! Think of the
ocean of pleasing tears that has flowed from the narration of noble,
great-hearted deeds! --This charm of life would disappear if the belief
in complete irresponsibility gained the upper hand.
92
=Origin of Justice. =--Justice (reasonableness) has its origin among
approximate equals in power, as Thucydides (in the dreadful conferences
of the Athenian and Melian envoys) has rightly conceived. Thus, where
there exists no demonstrable supremacy and a struggle leads but to
mutual, useless damage, the reflection arises that an understanding
would best be arrived at and some compromise entered into. The
reciprocal nature is hence the first nature of justice. Each party makes
the other content inasmuch as each receives what it prizes more highly
than the other. Each surrenders to the other what the other wants and
receives in return its own desire. Justice is therefore reprisal and
exchange upon the basis of an approximate equality of power. Thus
revenge pertains originally to the domain of justice as it is a sort of
reciprocity. Equally so, gratitude. --Justice reverts naturally to the
standpoint of self preservation, therefore to the egoism of this
consideration: "why should I injure myself to no purpose and perhaps
never attain my end? "--So much for the origin of justice. Only because
men, through mental habits, have forgotten the original motive of so
called just and rational acts, and also because for thousands of years
children have been brought to admire and imitate such acts, have they
gradually assumed the appearance of being unegotistical. Upon this
appearance is founded the high estimate of them, which, moreover, like
all estimates, is continually developing, for whatever is highly
esteemed is striven for, imitated, made the object of self sacrifice,
while the merit of the pain and emulation thus expended is, by each
individual, ascribed to the thing esteemed. --How slightly moral would
the world appear without forgetfulness! A poet could say that God had
posted forgetfulness as a sentinel at the portal of the temple of human
merit!
93
=Concerning the Law of the Weaker. =--Whenever any party, for instance, a
besieged city, yields to a stronger party, under stipulated conditions,
the counter stipulation is that there be a reduction to insignificance,
a burning and destruction of the city and thus a great damage inflicted
upon the stronger party. Thus arises a sort of equalization principle
upon the basis of which a law can be established. The enemy has an
advantage to gain by its maintenance. --To this extent there is also a
law between slaves and masters, limited only by the extent to which the
slave may be useful to his master. The law goes originally only so far
as the one party may appear to the other potent, invincible, stable, and
the like. To such an extent, then, the weaker has rights, but very
limited ones. Hence the famous dictum that each has as much law on his
side as his power extends (or more accurately, as his power is believed
to extend).
94
=The Three Phases of Morality Hitherto. =--It is the first evidence that
the animal has become human when his conduct ceases to be based upon the
immediately expedient, but upon the permanently useful; when he has,
therefore, grown utilitarian, capable of purpose. Thus is manifested the
first rule of reason. A still higher stage is attained when he regulates
his conduct upon the basis of honor, by means of which he gains mastery
of himself and surrenders his desires to principles; this lifts him far
above the phase in which he was actuated only by considerations of
personal advantage as he understood it. He respects and wishes to be
respected. This means that he comprehends utility as a thing dependent
upon what his opinion of others is and their opinion of him. Finally he
regulates his conduct (the highest phase of morality hitherto attained)
by his own standard of men and things.
He himself decides, for himself
and for others, what is honorable and what is useful. He has become a
law giver to opinion, upon the basis of his ever higher developing
conception of the utilitarian and the honorable. Knowledge makes him
capable of placing the highest utility, (that is, the universal,
enduring utility) before merely personal utility,--of placing ennobling
recognition of the enduring and universal before the merely temporary:
he lives and acts as a collective individuality.
95
=Ethic of the Developed Individual. =--Hitherto the altruistic has been
looked upon as the distinctive characteristic of moral conduct, and it
is manifest that it was the consideration of universal utility that
prompted praise and recognition of altruistic conduct. Must not a
radical departure from this point of view be imminent, now that it is
being ever more clearly perceived that in the most personal
considerations the most general welfare is attained: so that conduct
inspired by the most personal considerations of advantage is just the
sort which has its origin in the present conception of morality (as a
universal utilitarianism)? To contemplate oneself as a complete
personality and bear the welfare of that personality in mind in all that
one does--this is productive of better results than any sympathetic
susceptibility and conduct in behalf of others. Indeed we all suffer
from such disparagement of our own personalities, which are at present
made to deteriorate from neglect. Capacity is, in fact, divorced from
our personality in most cases, and sacrificed to the state, to science,
to the needy, as if it were the bad which deserved to be made a
sacrifice. Now, we are willing to labor for our fellowmen but only to
the extent that we find our own highest advantage in so doing, no more,
no less. The whole matter depends upon what may be understood as one's
advantage: the crude, undeveloped, rough individualities will be the
very ones to estimate it most inadequately.
96
=Usage and Ethic. =--To be moral, virtuous, praiseworthy means to yield
obedience to ancient law and hereditary usage. Whether this obedience be
rendered readily or with difficulty is long immaterial. Enough that it
be rendered. "Good" finally comes to mean him who acts in the
traditional manner, as a result of heredity or natural disposition, that
is to say does what is customary with scarcely an effort, whatever that
may be (for example revenges injuries when revenge, as with the ancient
Greeks, was part of good morals). He is called good because he is good
"to some purpose," and as benevolence, sympathy, considerateness,
moderation and the like come, in the general course of conduct, to be
finally recognized as "good to some purpose" (as utilitarian) the
benevolent man, the helpful man, is duly styled "good". (At first other
and more important kinds of utilitarian qualities stand in the
foreground. ) Bad is "not habitual" (unusual), to do things not in
accordance with usage, to oppose the traditional, however rational or
the reverse the traditional may be. To do injury to one's social group
or community (and to one's neighbor as thus understood) is looked upon,
through all the variations of moral laws, in different ages, as the
peculiarly "immoral" act, so that to-day we associate the word "bad"
with deliberate injury to one's neighbor or community. "Egoistic" and
"non-egoistic" do not constitute the fundamental opposites that have
brought mankind to make a distinction between moral and immoral, good
and bad; but adherence to traditional custom, and emancipation from it.
How the traditional had its origin is quite immaterial; in any event it
had no reference to good and bad or any categorical imperative but to
the all important end of maintaining and sustaining the community, the
race, the confederation, the nation. Every superstitious custom that
originated in a misinterpreted event or casualty entailed some
tradition, to adhere to which is moral. To break loose from it is
dangerous, more prejudicial to the community than to the individual
(because divinity visits the consequences of impiety and sacrilege upon
the community rather than upon the individual). Now every tradition
grows ever more venerable--the more remote is its origin, the more
confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from
generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and
inspires awe. Thus it is that the precept of piety is a far loftier
morality than that inculcated by altruistic conduct.
97
=Delight in the Moral. =--A potent species of joy (and thereby the source
of morality) is custom. The customary is done more easily, better,
therefore preferably. A pleasure is felt in it and experience thus shows
that since this practice has held its own it must be good. A manner or
moral that lives and lets live is thus demonstrated advantageous,
necessary, in contradistinction to all new and not yet adopted
practices. The custom is therefore the blending of the agreeable and the
useful. Moreover it does not require deliberation. As soon as man can
exercise compulsion, he exercises it to enforce and establish his
customs, for they are to him attested lifewisdom. So, too, a community
of individuals constrains each one of their number to adopt the same
moral or custom. The error herein is this: Because a certain custom has
been agreeable to the feelings or at least because it proves a means of
maintenance, this custom must be imperative, for it is regarded as the
only thing that can possibly be consistent with well being. The well
being of life seems to spring from it alone. This conception of the
customary as a condition of existence is carried into the slightest
detail of morality. Inasmuch as insight into true causation is quite
restricted in all inferior peoples, a superstitious anxiety is felt that
everything be done in due routine. Even when a custom is exceedingly
burdensome it is preserved because of its supposed vital utility. It is
not known that the same degree of satisfaction can be experienced
through some other custom and even higher degrees of satisfaction, too.
But it is fully appreciated that all customs do become more agreeable
with the lapse of time, no matter how difficult they may have been found
in the beginning, and that even the severest way of life may be rendered
a matter of habit and therefore a pleasure.
98
=Pleasure and Social Instinct. =--Through his relations with other men,
man derives a new species of delight in those pleasurable emotions which
his own personality affords him; whereby the domain of pleasurable
emotions is made infinitely more comprehensive. No doubt he has
inherited many of these feelings from the brutes, which palpably feel
delight when they sport with one another, as mothers with their young.
So, too, the sexual relations must be taken into account: they make
every young woman interesting to every young man from the standpoint of
pleasure, and conversely. The feeling of pleasure originating in human
relationships makes men in general better. The delight in common, the
pleasures enjoyed together heighten one another. The individual feels a
sense of security. He becomes better natured. Distrust and malice
dissolve. For the man feels the sense of benefit and observes the same
feeling in others. Mutual manifestations of pleasure inspire mutual
sympathy, the sentiment of homogeneity. The same effect is felt also at
mutual sufferings, in a common danger, in stormy weather. Upon such a
foundation are built the earliest alliances: the object of which is the
mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes, and the
welfare of each individual. And thus the social instinct develops from
pleasure.
99
=The Guiltless Nature of So-Called Bad Acts. =--All "bad" acts are
inspired by the impulse to self preservation or, more accurately, by
the desire for pleasure and for the avoidance of pain in the individual.
Thus are they occasioned, but they are not, therefore, bad. "Pain self
prepared" does not exist, except in the brains of the philosophers, any
more than "pleasure self prepared" (sympathy in the Schopenhauer sense).
In the condition anterior to the state we kill the creature, be it man
or ape, that attempts to pluck the fruit of a tree before we pluck it
ourselves should we happen to be hungry at the time and making for that
tree: as we would do to-day, so far as the brute is concerned, if we
were wandering in savage regions. --The bad acts which most disturb us at
present do so because of the erroneous supposition that the one who is
guilty of them towards us has a free will in the matter and that it was
within his discretion not to have done these evil things. This belief in
discretionary power inspires hate, thirst for revenge, malice, the
entire perversion of the mental processes, whereas we would feel in no
way incensed against the brute, as we hold it irresponsible. To inflict
pain not from the instinct of self preservation but in requital--this is
the consequence of false judgment and is equally a guiltless course of
conduct. The individual can, in that condition which is anterior to the
state, act with fierceness and violence for the intimidation of another
creature, in order to render his own power more secure as a result of
such acts of intimidation. Thus acts the powerful, the superior, the
original state founder, who subjugates the weaker. He has the right to
do so, as the state nowadays assumes the same right, or, to be more
accurate, there is no right that can conflict with this. A foundation
for all morality can first be laid only when a stronger individuality or
a collective individuality, for example society, the state, subjects the
single personalities, hence builds upon their unification and
establishes a bond of union. Morality results from compulsion, it is
indeed itself one long compulsion to which obedience is rendered in
order that pain may be avoided. At first it is but custom, later free
obedience and finally almost instinct. At last it is (like everything
habitual and natural) associated with pleasure--and is then called
virtue.
100
=Shame. =--Shame exists wherever a "mystery" exists: but this is a
religious notion which in the earlier period of human civilization had
great vogue. Everywhere there were circumscribed spots to which access
was denied on account of some divine law, except in special
circumstances. At first these spots were quite extensive, inasmuch as
stipulated areas could not be trod by the uninitiated, who, when near
them, felt tremors and anxieties. This sentiment was frequently
transferred to other relationships, for example to sexual relations,
which, as the privilege and gateway of mature age, must be withdrawn
from the contemplation of youth for its own advantage: relations which
many divinities were busy in preserving and sanctifying, images of which
divinities were duly placed in marital chambers as guardians. (In
Turkish such an apartment is termed a harem or holy thing, the same word
also designating the vestibule of a mosque). So, too, Kingship is
regarded as a centre from which power and brilliance stream forth, as a
mystery to the subjects, impregnated with secrecy and shame, sentiments
still quite operative among peoples who in other respects are without
any shame at all. So, too, is the whole world of inward states, the
so-called "soul," even now, for all non-philosophical persons, a
"mystery," and during countless ages it was looked upon as a something
of divine origin, in direct communion with deity. It is, therefore, an
adytum and occasions shame.
101
=Judge Not. =--Care must be taken, in the contemplation of earlier ages,
that there be no falling into unjust scornfulness. The injustice in
slavery, the cruelty in the subjugation of persons and peoples must not
be estimated by our standard. For in that period the instinct of justice
was not so highly developed. Who dare reproach the Genoese Calvin for
burning the physician Servetus at the stake? It was a proceeding growing
out of his convictions. And the Inquisition, too, had its justification.
The only thing is that the prevailing views were false and led to those
proceedings which seem so cruel to us, simply because such views have
become foreign to us. Besides, what is the burning alive of one
individual compared with eternal hell pains for everybody else? And yet
this idea then had hold of all the world without in the least vitiating,
with its frightfulness, the other idea of a god. Even we nowadays are
hard and merciless to political revolutionists, but that is because we
are in the habit of believing the state a necessity, and hence the
cruelty of the proceeding is not so much understood as in the other
cases where the points of view are repudiated. The cruelty to animals
shown by children and Italians is due to the same misunderstanding. The
animal, owing to the exigencies of the church catechism, is placed too
far below the level of mankind. --Much, too, that is frightful and
inhuman in history, and which is almost incredible, is rendered less
atrocious by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who
executes are different persons. The former does not witness the
performance and hence it makes no strong impression on him. The latter
obeys a superior and hence feels no responsibility. Most princes and
military chieftains appear, through lack of true perception, cruel and
hard without really being so. --Egoism is not bad because the idea of the
"neighbor"--the word is of Christian origin and does not correspond to
truth--is very weak in us, and we feel ourselves, in regard to him, as
free from responsibility as if plants and stones were involved. That
another is in suffering must be learned and it can never be wholly
learned.
102
"=Man Always Does Right. ="--We do not blame nature when she sends a
thunder storm and makes us wet: why then do we term the man who inflicts
injury immoral? Because in the latter case we assume a voluntary,
ruling, free will, and in the former necessity. But this distinction is
a delusion. Moreover, even the intentional infliction of injury is not,
in all circumstances termed immoral. Thus, we kill a fly intentionally
without thinking very much about it, simply because its buzzing about is
disagreeable; and we punish a criminal and inflict pain upon him in
order to protect ourselves and society. In the first case it is the
individual who, for the sake of preserving himself or in order to spare
himself pain, does injury with design: in the second case, it is the
state. All ethic deems intentional infliction of injury justified by
necessity; that is when it is a matter of self preservation. But these
two points of view are sufficient to explain all bad acts done by man to
men. It is desired to obtain pleasure or avoid pain. In any sense, it is
a question, always, of self preservation. Socrates and Plato are right:
whatever man does he always does right: that is, does what seems to him
good (advantageous) according to the degree of advancement his intellect
has attained, which is always the measure of his rational capacity.
103
=The Inoffensive in Badness. =--Badness has not for its object the
infliction of pain upon others but simply our own satisfaction as, for
instance, in the case of thirst for vengeance or of nerve excitation.
Every act of teasing shows what pleasure is caused by the display of
our power over others and what feelings of delight are experienced in
the sense of domination. Is there, then, anything immoral in feeling
pleasure in the pain of others? Is malicious joy devilish, as
Schopenhauer says? In the realm of nature we feel joy in breaking
boughs, shattering rocks, fighting with wild beasts, simply to attest
our strength thereby. Should not the knowledge that another suffers on
our account here, in this case, make the same kind of act, (which, by
the way, arouses no qualms of conscience in us) immoral also? But if we
had not this knowledge there would be no pleasure in one's own
superiority or power, for this pleasure is experienced only in the
suffering of another, as in the case of teasing. All pleasure is, in
itself, neither good nor bad. Whence comes the conviction that one
should not cause pain in others in order to feel pleasure oneself?
Simply from the standpoint of utility, that is, in consideration of the
consequences, of ultimate pain, since the injured party or state will
demand satisfaction and revenge. This consideration alone can have led
to the determination to renounce such pleasure. --Sympathy has the
satisfaction of others in view no more than, as already stated, badness
has the pain of others in view. For there are at least two (perhaps many
more) elementary ingredients in personal gratification which enter
largely into our self satisfaction: one of them being the pleasure of
the emotion, of which species is sympathy with tragedy, and another,
when the impulse is to action, being the pleasure of exercising one's
power. Should a sufferer be very dear to us, we divest ourselves of pain
by the performance of acts of sympathy. --With the exception of some few
philosophers, men have placed sympathy very low in the rank of moral
feelings: and rightly.
104
=Self Defence. =--If self defence is in general held a valid
justification, then nearly every manifestation of so called immoral
egoism must be justified, too. Pain is inflicted, robbery or killing
done in order to maintain life or to protect oneself and ward off harm.
A man lies when cunning and delusion are valid means of self
preservation. To injure intentionally when our safety and our existence
are involved, or the continuance of our well being, is conceded to be
moral. The state itself injures from this motive when it hangs
criminals. In unintentional injury the immoral, of course, can not be
present, as accident alone is involved. But is there any sort of
intentional injury in which our existence and the maintenance of our
well being be not involved? Is there such a thing as injuring from
absolute badness, for example, in the case of cruelty? If a man does not
know what pain an act occasions, that act is not one of wickedness. Thus
the child is not bad to the animal, not evil. It disturbs and rends it
as if it were one of its playthings. Does a man ever fully know how much
pain an act may cause another? As far as our nervous system extends, we
shield ourselves from pain. If it extended further, that is, to our
fellow men, we would never cause anyone else any pain (except in such
cases as we cause it to ourselves, when we cut ourselves, surgically, to
heal our ills, or strive and trouble ourselves to gain health). We
conclude from analogy that something pains somebody and can in
consequence, through recollection and the power of imagination, feel
pain also. But what a difference there always is between the tooth ache
and the pain (sympathy) that the spectacle of tooth ache occasions!
Therefore when injury is inflicted from so called badness the degree of
pain thereby experienced is always unknown to us: in so far, however, as
pleasure is felt in the act (a sense of one's own power, of one's own
excitation) the act is committed to maintain the well being of the
individual and hence comes under the purview of self defence and lying
for self preservation. Without pleasure, there is no life; the struggle
for pleasure is the struggle for life. Whether the individual shall
carry on this struggle in such a way that he be called good or in such a
way that he be called bad is something that the standard and the
capacity of his own intellect must determine for him.
105
=Justice that Rewards. =--Whoever has fully understood the doctrine of
absolute irresponsibility can no longer include the so called rewarding
and punishing justice in the idea of justice, if the latter be taken to
mean that to each be given his due. For he who is punished does not
deserve the punishment. He is used simply as a means to intimidate
others from certain acts. Equally, he who is rewarded does not merit the
reward. He could not act any differently than he did act. Hence the
reward has only the significance of an encouragement to him and others
as a motive for subsequent acts. The praise is called out only to him
who is running in the race and not to him who has arrived at the goal.
Something that comes to someone as his own is neither a punishment nor a
reward. It is given to him from utiliarian considerations, without his
having any claim to it in justice. Hence one must say "the wise man
praises not because a good act has been done" precisely as was once
said: "the wise man punishes not because a bad act has been done but in
order that a bad act may not be done. " If punishment and reward ceased,
there would cease with them the most powerful incentives to certain acts
and away from other acts. The purposes of men demand their continuance
[of punishment and reward] and inasmuch as punishment and reward, blame
and praise operate most potently upon vanity, these same purposes of men
imperatively require the continuance of vanity.
106
=The Water Fall. =--At the sight of a water fall we may opine that in the
countless curves, spirations and dashes of the waves we behold freedom
of the will and of the impulses. But everything is compulsory,
everything can be mathematically calculated. Thus it is, too, with human
acts. We would be able to calculate in advance every single action if we
were all knowing, as well as every advance in knowledge, every delusion,
every bad deed. The acting individual himself is held fast in the
illusion of volition. If, on a sudden, the entire movement of the world
stopped short, and an all knowing and reasoning intelligence were there
to take advantage of this pause, he could foretell the future of every
being to the remotest ages and indicate the path that would be taken in
the world's further course. The deception of the acting individual as
regards himself, the assumption of the freedom of the will, is a part of
this computable mechanism.
107
=Non-Responsibility and Non-Guilt. =--The absolute irresponsibility of
man for his acts and his nature is the bitterest drop in the cup of him
who has knowledge, if he be accustomed to behold in responsibility and
duty the patent of nobility of his human nature. All his estimates,
preferences, dislikes are thus made worthless and false. His deepest
sentiment, with which he honored the sufferer, the hero, sprang from an
error. He may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is irrational to
blame and praise nature and necessity. Just as he cherishes the
beautiful work of art, but does not praise it (as it is incapable of
doing anything for itself), just as he stands in the presence of plants,
he must stand in the presence of human conduct, his own included. He may
admire strength, beauty, capacity, therein, but he can discern no merit.
The chemical process and the conflict of the elements, the ordeal of
the invalid who strives for convalescence, are no more merits than the
soul-struggles and extremities in which one is torn this way and that by
contending motives until one finally decides in favor of the
strongest--as the phrase has it, although, in fact, it is the strongest
motive that decides for us. All these motives, however, whatever fine
names we may give them, have grown from the same roots in which we
believe the baneful poisons lurk. Between good and bad actions there is
no difference in kind but, at most, in degree. Good acts are sublimated
evil. Bad acts are degraded, imbruted good. The very longing of the
individual for self gratification (together with the fear of being
deprived of it) obtains satisfaction in all circumstances, let the
individual act as he may, that is, as he must: be it in deeds of vanity,
revenge, pleasure, utility, badness, cunning, be it in deeds of self
sacrifice, sympathy or knowledge. The degrees of rational capacity
determine the direction in which this longing impels: every society,
every individual has constantly present a comparative classification of
benefits in accordance with which conduct is determined and others are
judged. But this standard perpetually changes. Many acts are called bad
that are only stupid, because the degree of intelligence that decided
for them was low. Indeed, in a certain sense, all acts now are stupid,
for the highest degree of human intelligence that has yet been attained
will in time most certainly be surpassed and then, in retrospection, all
our present conduct and opinion will appear as narrow and petty as we
now deem the conduct and opinion of savage peoples and ages. --To
perceive all these things may occasion profound pain but there is,
nevertheless, a consolation. Such pains are birth pains. The butterfly
insists upon breaking through the cocoon, he presses through it, tears
it to pieces, only to be blinded and confused by the strange light, by
the realm of liberty. By such men as are capable of this sadness--how
few there are! --will the first attempt be made to see if humanity may
convert itself from a thing of morality to a thing of wisdom. The sun of
a new gospel sheds its first ray upon the loftiest height in the souls
of those few: but the clouds are massed there, too, thicker than ever,
and not far apart are the brightest sunlight and the deepest gloom.
Everything is necessity--so says the new knowledge: and this knowledge
is itself necessity. All is guiltlessness, and knowledge is the way to
insight into this guiltlessness. If pleasure, egoism, vanity be
necessary to attest the moral phenomena and their richest blooms, the
instinct for truth and accuracy of knowledge; if delusion and confusion
of the imagination were the only means whereby mankind could gradually
lift itself up to this degree of self enlightenment and self
emancipation--who would venture to disparage the means? Who would have
the right to feel sad if made aware of the goal to which those paths
lead? Everything in the domain of ethic is evolved, changeable,
tottering; all things flow, it is true--but all things are also in the
stream: to their goal. Though within us the hereditary habit of
erroneous judgment, love, hate, may be ever dominant, yet under the
influence of awaking knowledge it will ever become weaker: a new habit,
that of understanding, not-loving, not-hating, looking from above, grows
up within us gradually and in the same soil, and may, perhaps, in
thousands of years be powerful enough to endow mankind with capacity to
develop the wise, guiltless man (conscious of guiltlessness) as
unfailingly as it now developes the unwise, irrational, guilt-conscious
man--that is to say, the necessary higher step, not the opposite of it.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
108
=The Double Contest Against Evil.
