Sensitiveness is
infinitely
more acute (beneath moral vestments: the increase of pity), the abund ance of different impressions is greater than ever.
Nietzsche - Works - v14 - Will to Power - a
This the European form Buddhism, that active negation,
order destroyed, that, having been deprived morality, they no longer have any reason
after existence has lost
meaning.
must not be supposed that "distress" has grown more acute, on the contrary "God,
morality, resignation" were remedies the very
deepest stages misery: active Nihilism made
its appearance circumstances which were rela tively much more favourable. The fact, alone, that morality regarded overcome, presupposes
certain degree intellectual culture; while this very culture, for its part, bears evidence
certain relative well-being. certain intellectual fatigue, brought the long struggle concerning
? opinions, and carried hopeless scepticism against philosophy, shows moreover that the level these Nihilists by no means low one. Only think the conditions which
Buddha appeared The teaching the eternal
philosophical
principles go upon (just Buddha's teaching, for instance, had
recurrence would have learned the notion causality, etc. ).
What do we mean to-day by the words "botched and bungled"? the first place, they are used
? ? In
>k
|
of
on by
of
in of
of
of
of as
of is to
to be
to
in
a
to aa
is
to
is
as A
:k
its
of
to
in !
:
--i :
of in
It
all
? NIHILISM,
53
Physiologically and not politically. The unhealthiest
kind of man all over Europe (in all classes) is the
soil out of which Nihilism grows: this species of
man will regard eternal recurrence as damnation--
once he is bitten by the thought, he can no longer
recoil before any action. He would not extirpate
passively, but would cause everything to be extir
pated which is meaningless and without a goal to this extent; although it is only a spasm, or sort of
blind rage in the presence of the fact that everything has existed again and again for an eternity--even
this period of Nihilism and destruction. The value
of such a crisis is that it purifies, that it unites similar elements, and makes them mutually destructive,
that it assigns common duties to men of opposite
persuasions, and brings the weaker and more un-ti. certain among them to the light, thus taking the first step towards a new order of rank among forces from the standpoint of health: recognising com manders as commanders, subordinates as sub
ordinates. Naturally irrespective of all the present forms of society.
sk
What class of men will prove they are strongest
in this new order of things? The most moderate
--they who do not require any extreme forms of belief, they who not only admit of, but actually
like, a certain modicum of chance and nonsense; they who can think of man with a very moderate view of his value, without becoming weak and small on that account; the most rich in health,
'. -
? ? ? ? R
who are able to withstand a maximum amount of sorrow, and who are therefore not so very much
afraid of sorrow--men who are certain of their power, and who represent with conscious pride the state of strength to which man has attained.
:k
How could such a man think of Eternal Re
# currence?
56.
The Periods of European Nihilism.
The Period of Obscurity : all kinds of groping measures devised to preserve old institutions and not to arrest the progress of new ones.
The Period of Light: men see that old and new are fundamental contraries; that the old values are born of descending life, and that the new ones are born of ascending life--that all ola
ideals are unfriendly to life (born of decadence and determining however much they may
54
THE WILL TO POWER
? decked out the
Sunday finery morality).
We understand the old, but are far from being sufficiently strong for the new.
The Periods of the Three Great Passions con tempt, pity, destruction. -
The Periods of Catastrophes: the rise teach.
ing
the weak some decision and the strong also
which will sift mankind which drives
? ? to
in
it,
. . .
of a
:
be
of
? II.
CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN NIHILISM. *
(a) MODERN GLOOMINESS.
57.
My friends, we had a hard time asyouths; we even suffered from youth itself as though it were a serious disease. This is owing to the age in which we were born--an age of enormous internal decay and dis integration which, with all its weakness and even
with the best of its strength, is opposed to the spirit of youth. Disintegration--that is to say, un certainty--is peculiar to this age: nothing stands
on solid ground or on a sound faith. People live for the morrow, because the day-after-to-morrow is
doubtful. All our road is slippery and dangerous, while the ice which still bears us has grown un conscionably thin: we all feel the mild and grue some breath of the thaw-wind--soon, where we are walking, no one will any longer be able to stand
58.
If this is not an age of decay and of diminishing vitality, it is at least one of indiscriminate and arbitrary experimentalising--and it is probable
that out of an excess of abortive experiments there
? ? ? ? 56
THE WILL TO POWER.
? f*
has grown this general impression, as of decay: and perhaps decay itself.
59.
Concerning the history of modern gloominess.
The state-nomads (officials, etc. ): "home less"--.
The break-up of the family.
The "good man" as a symptom of exhaustion.
Justice as Will to Power (Rearing). Lewdness and neurosis.
Black music: whither has real music gone? The anarchist.
Contempt of man, loathing.
Most profound distinction: whether hunger or
The first creates the
superabundance
Valeals of Romanticism.
is creative P
Northern unnaturalness.
The need of Alcohol: the "need" of the work
ing classes.
Philosophical Nihilism.
6O.
The slow advance and rise of the middle and
lower classes (including the lower kind of spirit and body), which was already well under way before the French Revolution, and would have
made the same progress forward without the latter, --in short, then, the preponderance of the herd
over herdsmen and bell-wethers,--brings train:-- -
(I) Gloominess spirit (the juxtaposition
appearance h-appiness,
stoical and frivolous
? ? la
all
of *
a
of
in of its
? NIHILISM.
57
peculiar noble cultures, on the decline; much
suffering
formerly was borne concealment;
allowed be seen and heard which
hypocrisy way distinguishing
(2) Moral
oneself through morality, but by means the values the herd: pity, solicitude, moderation; and
not by means those virtues which are recognised
and honoured outside the herd's sphere power); (3) really large amount sympathy with
both pain and joy feeling pleasure resulting from being herded together, which peculiar
all gregarious animals--"public ism," everything, fact, which
individual),
*spirit," "patriot apart from the
? - ---------->
***
Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours mitigate distress, honour and wage war advance with unpleasant possibilities, an age the poor. Our "rich people. "--they are the poorest The real purpose all wealth has been forgotten.
62.
Criticism modern man --"the good man," but
corrupted and misled by bad institutions (tyrants
and priests);--reason elevated authority;--history regarded
errors;--the future regarded
position
the surmounting progress;--
armies");--
Christian sexual intercourse (as marriage);--th:e realm "justice" (the cult "mankind");-- "freedom. "
the Christian state ("God the
The romantic attitudes of the modern man
? ? of of
A of
is to
of
as to as a
is
of
of
is is
in to
of
of
to
- in
of (a
6I.
of ' it, of
(a
is
of
to
isto
t ! ofinto
is
of
of
. . .
? 58
THE WILL TO POWER.
the noble man (Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand); --taking the part the oppressed and the bungled and the botched: motto for historians and romancers;--the Stoics duty;--disinterestedness regarded art and knowledge;--altruism
the most mendacious form the most sentimental form
egoism (utilitarianism), egoism.
All this savours the eighteenth century. But had other qualities which were not inherited,
namely, certain insouciance, cheerfulness, ele gance, spiritual clearness. The spiritual tempo has altered; the pleasure which was begotten by
spiritual refinement and clearness has given room the pleasure colour, harmony, mass, reality,
? Sensuality spiritual things. short, the eighteenth century Rousseau.
63.
Taken all all, considerable amount of humanity has been attained by our men to-day.
etc. etc.
That we do not feel this itself proof
the
fact that we have become sensitive
regard
small cases distress, that we somewhat unjustly overlook what has been achieved.
Here we must make allowances for the fact
that great deal decadencesis rife, and that,
through such eyes, our world must appear bad and
wretched. But these eyes have always seen the s same way, ages.
(1) certain hypersensitiveness, even moral feelings.
(2) The quantum bitterness and gloominess,
? ? #*-:: |
A
a
in all
of
in
of of of a in
of
as of
of
in
in
of of
In
so is in
of
of of
a in
to
as
it to is
it
,
a
as
? extraordinarily
that may also be added--
NIHILISM.
59
which pessimism bears with it in judgments-- both together have helped bring about the pre ponderance the other and opposite point view,
that things are not well with our morality.
The fact credit, the commerce the world,
and the means traffic--are expressions an
mild trustfulness men. To
(3) The deliverance science from moral and religious prejudices: very good sign, though for
the most part misunderstood.
my own way, am attempting justification
history.
64.
The second appearance cursory signs: the increase
? all problems the The glory war which calls forth counter-stroke. Just the
sharp demarcation nations generates counter
exhaustion. The reduction question pleasure and pain.
hearty "Fraternity. " The fact that impossible for religion carry its work any longer with
movement the form the most
dogma and fables.
The catastrophe Nihilism will put end
all this Buddhistic culture. -----
65,
. . . **
That which most sorely afflicted to-day the instinct and will of tradition: all institutions
which owe their origin this instinct, are opposed
Buddhism. --Its pre pity. Spiritual
? ? to
of
is
of of of
is
& to *
i
;
*
to
in
of
of on ofa
I a
of
to
it of is
of
as of
to
.
of
of
of of
in
ana .
of In
a
its of
? 6o THE WILL TO POWER.
to the tastes of the age. . . . At bottom, nothin is thought or done which is not calculated to tea
up this spirit of tradition by the roots. Traditio is looked upon as a fatality; it is studied an acknowledged (in the form of "heredity"), bu
people will not have anything to do with Th
extension one will over long periods time, selection of conditions and valuations which mak
possible precisely,
From which give our age
dispose
centuries advance--thi what most utterly anti-modern
follows, that disorganising principle specific character.
66.
? "Be simple. "--a demand which, when made complicated and incomprehensible triers
heart and reins, simple absurdity.
natural: but one should be by nature "un natural," what then?
67.
The means employed
arrive similarly constituted and lasting type
throughout long generations: entailed propert
and the respect elders (the origin the fait gods and heroes ancestors).
Now, the subdivision property belongs
opposite tendency. newspaper
daily prayers. Railways, the telegraph. Th centralisation of an enormous number of differen
interests one soul: which, that end, must very strong and mutable,
former times orde
instead
? ? in
itsit is to of is of
to
b
th
A
of
as
a
of to th th
in
. of B th t
in
to at
us
.
it
of
if
is
of
of
it.
in
in
? NIHILISM,
68.
61
Why does everything become mummery. --The modern man is lacking in unfailing instinct (instinct
being
outcome of a long period of activity in the same occupation on the part of one family of men); the
ply incapability producing anything perfect, sim:
understood here to mean that which is the
of is
the result of this lack of instinct : one individual
. \ , ***
alone cannot make up for the schooling his ancestors should have transmitted to him. |
What a morality or book of law creates: that deep instinct which renders automatism and
*3 *\
*** ***
? fection possible in life and in work.
But now we have reached the * -
*
* sciousness, through introspection on the part of man
and of history: and thus we are practically most ; ; , distant from perfection in Being, doing, and willing:
our desires--even our will to knowledge--shows how prodigiously decadent we are. We are striving after the very reverse of what strong races and strong | natures will have--understanding is an end. . . . |
That Science is possible in the way in which it is practised to-day, proves that all elementary
instincts, the instincts which ward off danger and
Protect life, are no longer active. We no longer save, we are merely spending the capital of our
forefathers, even in the way in which we pursue knowledge,
yes, we wanted to reach it--the most extreme con-
69.
(a) In the natural sciences ("purposelessness"),
Mihilistic trait.
\- opposite point; f
*_ . . . "
? ? ? ** *
s menalism even here: character
62 THE WILL TO POWER.
causality, mechanism, "conformity to law," an in terval, a remnant.
(b) Likewise in politics: the individual lacks the
belief in his own right, innocence; falsehood rules supreme, as also opportunism.
Likewise political economy: the abolition slavery: the lack redeeming class, and
one who justifies--the rise anarchy. "Educa tion "?
biographies can longer endured (Pheno
regarded
history: fatalism, Darwinism;
(a) Likewise
the last attempts reconciling reason and Godli ness fail. Sentimentality regard the past:
? mask; there are facts. )
(e) Likewise Art: romanticism and
counter-stroke (repugnance towards romantic ideals
and lies). The latter, morally, est truthfulness, but pessimistic.
(indifference the "subject").
ology the father-confessor and puritanical psy chology--two forms psychological romanticism: but also their counter-stroke, the attempt main
tain purely artistic attitude towards "men"--but even this respect no one dares make the opposite valuation. )
70.
Against the teaching the influence environ ment and external causes: the power coming from inside infinitely superior; much that appears like
influence acting from without merely the sub jection environment this inner power. Pre
sense great Pure "artists" (The psych
? ? of
is
of
to of is
of a
to of
to
a in
(c)
to
of
of
in no
as to
no
at in
of
in
as a
its
as a
of
*- * *:
:
of
be in
,
? -
NIHILISM.
63
cisely the same environment may be used and '
- interpreted in opposite ways: there are no facts. ** * ? ? ? ?
A genius is not explained by such theories con-| ; )
cerning origins.
~ *
7 I.
"Modernity" regarded in the light of nutrition and digestion.
Sensitiveness is infinitely more acute (beneath moral vestments: the increase of pity), the abund ance of different impressions is greater than ever. The cosmopolitanism of articles of diet, of literature, newspapers, forms, tastes, and even landscapes.
-
? The speed of this affluence is prestissimo; im-. pressions are wiped out, and people instinctively guard against assimilating anything or against taking anything seriously and "digesting" it; the result is a weakening of the powers of digestion. -
There begins a sort of adaptation to this accumula tionofimpressions. Manunlearns theartofdoing,
and all he does is to react to stimuli coming from his environment. He spends his strength, partly in the process of assimilation, partly in defending himself, and again partly in responding to stimuli.
Profound enfeeblement of spontaneity:--the his torian, the critic, the analyst, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader,--all reactive
talents,--all science
-
Artificial modification of one's own nature in order to make it resemble a "mirror"; one is interested, but only epidermally: this is system
atic coolness, equilibrium, a steady low temperature,
? ? ? 64
THE WILL TO POWER.
just beneath the thin surface on which war movement, "storm," and undulations play.
Opposition of external mobility to a certain heaviness and fatigue.
72.
Where must our modern world be classe
73.
Overwork, curiosity and sympathy--our me? vices.
74.
A contribution to the characterisation of "M
under exhaustion or under
Its multiformity and lack of repose are bro about by the highest form of consciousness.
increasing stren;
? nity. "--Exaggerated development
forms; the decay of types; the break-up of t tion, schools; the predominance of the inst (philosophically prepared: the unconscious has
greater value) after the appearance of the enf ment of will power and of the will to an end to the means thereto,
75.
A capable artisan or scholar cuts a good fi if he have his pride in his art, and looks pleasa and contentedly upon life. On the other h there is no sight more wretched than that cobbler or a schoolmaster who, with the air martyr, gives one to understand that he was r
of intermel
? ? ? "represent" grievances. tremely expensive, thanks
that infest it; whereas and many city
where there echo
Our modern life ex
the host middlemen the city antiquity,
Spain and Italy to-day,
the ancient spirit, the
NIHILISM,
65
born for something better. There is nothing better than what is good l and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and to use This virta` the Italian style the Renaissance.
Nowadays, when the state has nonsensically oversized belly, all fields and branches work there are "representatives" over and above the real workman: for instance, addition the scholars, there are the journalists; addition the suffering masses, there crowd jabbering
and bragging ne'er-do-wells who "represent" that suffering--not speak the professional politi
cians who, though quite satisfied with their lot, stand up Parliament and, with strong lungs,
? man himself comes forward and will have nothing
do with representative an intermediary
the modern style--except perhaps kick him hence
76.
The pre-eminence the merchant and the middleman, even the most intellectual spheres: the journalist, the "representative," the historian
(as an intermediary between the past and the pre sent), the exotic and cosmopolitan, the middleman
between natural science and philosophy, the semi theologians.
WOL.
? ? I,
E
in
of
of
of into
of
is
to |
in
to
of of
a of in
a
an
to
in
of
in is a
or a
in
it.
to
in to in
is
is of
? 66 THE WILL TO POWER.
77.
The men I have regarded with the most loath heretofore, are the parasites of intellect: they
to be found everywhere, already, in our mod
Europe, and as a matter of fact their conscienc as light as it possibly can be. They may b
little turbid, and savour somewhat of Pessimi but in the main they are voracious, dirty, dirty stealthy, insinuating, light-fingered gentry, scal --and as innocent as all small sinners and micro
are. They live at the expense of those who h
intellect and who distribute it liberally: they kr
that it is peculiar to the rich mind to live in a
interested fashion, without taking too much pe
thought for the morrow, and to distribute its we
? prodigally.
mist, and pays no heed whatever to the fact t everything lives on it and devours
78. MODERN MUMMERY
The motleyness modern men and its cha
Essentially mask and sign boredom. The journalist.
The political man (in the "national swindle
ing oneself for them (Fromentin);
Mummery
For intellect is a bad domestic eco
the arts:--
The lack honesty preparing and scho
? ? a of in
a in
of
of
it.
? cealed beneath all kinds of moral
finery. --The
NIHILISM.
67
The Romanticists (their lack of philosophy and science and their excess of literature); The novelists (Walter Scott, but also the monsters of the Nibelung, with their in
ordinately nervous music);
The lyricists. "Scientificality. "
Virtuosos (Jews). -
The popular ideals are overcome, but not yet in the presence of the people:
The saint, the sage, the prophet.
79.
The want of discipline in the modern spirit con
? show-words are: Toleration (for the "incapacity of saying yes or no"); la largeur de sympathie
(= a third of indifference, a third of curiosity, and
susceptibility); "objectivity"
(the lack of personality and of will, and the in ability to "love"); "freedom" in regard to the
rule (Romanticism); "truth" as opposed to false
hood and lying (Naturalism); the "scientific spirit" (the "human document"; or, in plain
English, the serial story which means "addition" --instead of "composition"); "passion" in the
place of disorder and intemperance; "depth" in the place of confusion and the pell-mell of symbols.
8O.
Concerning the criticism of big words. --I am full of mistrust and malice towards what is called
a third of morbid
? ? ? 68 THE WILL TO POWER.
! " ideal": this is my Pessimism, that I have inised to what extent "sublime sentiments"
say, belittling
depreciating
Every time "progress" expected
from an ideal, disappointment invariably follo
the triumph ideal has always been
grade movement.
Christianity, revolution, the abolition slav
equal rights, philanthropy, love peace, just
truth: all these big words are only valuable struggle, banners: not realities, but
words, for something quite different (yea, even opposed what they mean
The kind of man known who has faller
love with the sentence "tout comprendre c'est Pardonner. " the weak and, above all, the
source evil--that
man.
? something pardon everything, there also something conten
the philosophy disappointment, which swathes itself humanly pity, and gazes
sweetly.
They are Romanticists, whose faith has gone
pot: now they least wish look on and
how everything vanishes and fades. They cal l'art pour l'art, "objectivity," etc.
82.
The main symptoms of Pessimism --Dinners Magny's; Russian Pessimism (Tolstoy, Dostoi
illusioned: there
? ? so
It is
a
at
of
is
is
is
in to
8I.
l).
as
of
is to
so
if It is
of
of
h
to to
to
as
of an
of
a
to
qshi rere re.
as
is
a
? NIHILISM.
sky); aesthetic Pessimism, l'art pour l'art, "de
scription"
69
(the romantic and the anti-romantic
Pessimism); Pessimism in the theory of know ledge (Schopenhauer: phenomenalism); anarchical
Pessimism; the "religion of pity," Buddhistic preparation; the Pessimism of culture (exoticness, cosmopolitanism); moral Pessimism, myself.
83.
"Without the Christian Faith," said Pascal, "you would yourselves be like nature and history, un monstreet un chaos. " We fulfilled this prophecy: once the weak and optimistic eighteenth century had embellished and rationalised man.
Schopenhauer and Pascal. --Inone essential point, Schopenhauer is the first who takes up Pascal's movement again: un monstre et un chaos, conse quently something that must be negatived . . . history, nature, and man himself!
"Our inability to know the truth is the result of our corruption, of our moral decay," says Pascal. And Schopenhauer says essentially the same.
"The more profound the corruption of reason the more necessary the doctrine salvation"-- or, putting into Schopenhauerian phraseology, negation.
84.
Schopenhauer an epigone (state affairs
? before the eighteenth century.
Revolution):--Pity, sensuality, art,
weakness will, Catholicism the most intel
lectual desires--that bottom, the good old
? ? is, at
of
it
of
as
is
of of
is,
? 7o
THE WILL TO POWER.
Schopenhauer's fundamental misunderstanding of the will (just as though passion, instinct, and
desire were the essential factors of will) is typical:
the depreciation of the will to the extent of mis
taking it altogether. Likewise the hatred of willing: the attempt at seeing something superior
--yea, even superiority itself, and that which really matters, in non-willing, in the "subject-being
without aim or intention. " Great symptom of fatigue or of the weakness of will: for this, in reality, is what treats the passions as master, and
directs them as to the way and to the measure. . . .
85.
The undignified attempt has been made to regard
Wagner and Schopenhauer as types of the mentally
unsound: an infinitely more essential understanding
of the matter would have been gained if the exact
decadent type which each of them represents had been scientifically and a-ccurately defined.
-- * ? 86. )
Henrik Ibsen has become very clear to me.
With all his robust idealism and "Will to Truth,"
he never dared to ring himself free from moral
illusionism which says "freedom," and will not
admit, even to itself, what freedom is: the second stage in the metamorphosis of the "Will to Power,"
in him who lacks the first stage, one
demands justice the hands those who have power. the second, one speaks "freedom,"
? ? ? In
of of
|
at
it.
In
? Christianity And,
NIHILISM.
71
that is to say, one wishes to "shake oneself free" from those who have power. In the third stage, one speaks of "equal rights"--that is to say, so long as one is not a predominant personality one
wishes to prevent one's competitors from growing- 1n power.
87.
The Decline of Protestantism: theoretically and
historically understood as a half-measure. Un
deniable predominance of Catholicism to-day:
Protestant feeling is so dead that the strongest
anti-Protestant movements (Wagner's Parsifal, for
instance) are no longer regarded as such. The
whole of the more elevated intellectuality in France
is Catholic in instinct; Bismarck recognised that
there was no longer any such thing as Protest antism.
88.
Protestantism, that spiritually unclean and
tiresome form of decadence, in which Christianity
has known how to survive in the mediocre North, is something incomplete and complexly valuable
for knowledge, in so far as it was able to bring
experiences of different kinds and origins into the same heads.
89.
What has the German spirit not made out of
and more lounging form of Christian belief be
? to refer to Protestantism again, how much beer is there not still in Pro testant Christianity | Can a crasser, more indolent,
? ? ? 72
THE WILL TO POWER.
imagined, than that of the average German Pro
testant? . . . It is indeed a very humble Christi | anity. I call it the Homoeopathy of Christianity
I am reminded that, to-day, there also exists a less humble sort of Protestantism; it is taught by
royal chaplains and anti-Semitic speculators: but
nobody has ever maintained that any "spirit" "hovers" over these waters. It is merely a less respectable form of Christian faith, not by any
means a more comprehensible one.
90.
Progress. --Let us be on our guard lest we
deceive ourselves! Time flies forward apace,--
we would fain believe that everything flies forward with it,--that evolution is an advancing develop
ment. . . . That is the appearance of things which deceives the most circumspect. But the nineteenth century shows no advance whatever on the six teenth: and the German spirit of 1888 is an example of a backward movement when compared
succeed, while an incalculable number things fail; where all order, logic, co-ordination, and
? with that of 1788.
advance, it does not even exist. The aspect of the whole is much more like that of a huge experi menting workshop where some things in ages
responsibility lacking.
How dare we blink the
fact that the rise Christianity decadent movement? --that the German Reformation was
recrudescence of Christian barbarism ? --that the Revolution destroyed the instinct for organisa
Mankind does not
? ? - a
is an a
is of
of all
? NIHILISM.
73
tion of society on a large scale? . . . Man is not
an example of progress as compared with animals:
the tender son of culture is an abortion compared
with the Arab or the Corsican; the Chinaman
is a more successful type--that is to say, possess ing more lasting powers than the European.
(b) THE LAST CENTURIES.
9 I.
Gloominess and pessimistic influence necessarily follow in the wake of enlightenment. Towards 177o a falling-off in cheerfulness was already noticeable; women, with that very feminine instinct which always defends virtue, believed that immor
ality was the cause of Galiani hit the bull's
? eye:
quotes Voltaire's verse:
"Un monstre gai vaut mieux
Qu'un sentimental
ennuyeux. "
ahead,
now maintain that am century two enlightenment,
Voltaire and Galiani--who was much more profound, how deeply must have sunk into gloominess! This
also true, and betimes somewhat reluctantly manifested some caution regard the German
and Christian narrowness and
inconsistency
Schopenhauerian or, worse still, Leopardian Pessim
ism, and sought the most characteristic form (Asia).
Tragedy), live alone "without God morality,"
But,
order endure that extreme Pessimism (which here and there peeps out my Birth
? ? to
to
or I I
of or
of
of
by of a
in
in I to
it. I
is
If
he
of
? 74
THE WILL TO POWER.
I was compelled to invent a counter-prop for my
self. Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers so excruciat ingly that he was compelled to invent laughter. The unhappiest and most melancholy animal
might have been expected, the most cheerful.
92.
regard German culture, have always had
feeling
know declining form culture has often made
decline. The fact that learned
phenomenon European culture. The Germans always follow some distance behind: they always go the
root things, for instance:--
Dependance upon foreigners; Kant--Rousseau,
sensualists, Hume, Swedenborg. Schopenhauer--the Indians and Romanticism,
Voltaire.
Wagner--the French cult the ugly and grand opera, Paris, and the flight into primitive
barbarism (the marriage brother and sister). The law the laggard (the provinces go
Greek (the more instinct developed, the more tempted run for once into its opposite).
Music the last breath every culture.
93.
Renaissance and Reformation. --What does the Renaissance prove? That the reign the
me unfair towards the whole
? the
Paris, Germany goes
France).
How that precisely Germans discovered the
? ? of
to
toof ofto is,
is
is it
as
of to
of
of is
it is
at a as In
to
of
an
to
of
of
I I
of
a
? NIHILISM.
75
"individual" can be only a short one. The out
put is too great; there is not even the possibility of husbanding or of capitalising forces, and ex
haustion sets in step by step. These are times when everything is squandered, when even the
strength itself with which one collects, capitalises, and heaps riches upon riches, is squandered.
Even the opponents of such movements are driven to preposterous extremes in the dissipation of
their strength: and they too are very soon exhausted, used up, and completely sapped.
In the Reformation we are face to face with
a wild and plebeian counterpart of the Italian Renaissance, generated by similar impulses, except
that the former, in the backward and still vulgar North, had to assume a religious form--there the concept of a higher life had not yet been divorced from that of a religious one.
Even the Reformation was a movement for
individual liberty; "every one his own priest" is really no more than a formula for libertinage.
order destroyed, that, having been deprived morality, they no longer have any reason
after existence has lost
meaning.
must not be supposed that "distress" has grown more acute, on the contrary "God,
morality, resignation" were remedies the very
deepest stages misery: active Nihilism made
its appearance circumstances which were rela tively much more favourable. The fact, alone, that morality regarded overcome, presupposes
certain degree intellectual culture; while this very culture, for its part, bears evidence
certain relative well-being. certain intellectual fatigue, brought the long struggle concerning
? opinions, and carried hopeless scepticism against philosophy, shows moreover that the level these Nihilists by no means low one. Only think the conditions which
Buddha appeared The teaching the eternal
philosophical
principles go upon (just Buddha's teaching, for instance, had
recurrence would have learned the notion causality, etc. ).
What do we mean to-day by the words "botched and bungled"? the first place, they are used
? ? In
>k
|
of
on by
of
in of
of
of
of as
of is to
to be
to
in
a
to aa
is
to
is
as A
:k
its
of
to
in !
:
--i :
of in
It
all
? NIHILISM,
53
Physiologically and not politically. The unhealthiest
kind of man all over Europe (in all classes) is the
soil out of which Nihilism grows: this species of
man will regard eternal recurrence as damnation--
once he is bitten by the thought, he can no longer
recoil before any action. He would not extirpate
passively, but would cause everything to be extir
pated which is meaningless and without a goal to this extent; although it is only a spasm, or sort of
blind rage in the presence of the fact that everything has existed again and again for an eternity--even
this period of Nihilism and destruction. The value
of such a crisis is that it purifies, that it unites similar elements, and makes them mutually destructive,
that it assigns common duties to men of opposite
persuasions, and brings the weaker and more un-ti. certain among them to the light, thus taking the first step towards a new order of rank among forces from the standpoint of health: recognising com manders as commanders, subordinates as sub
ordinates. Naturally irrespective of all the present forms of society.
sk
What class of men will prove they are strongest
in this new order of things? The most moderate
--they who do not require any extreme forms of belief, they who not only admit of, but actually
like, a certain modicum of chance and nonsense; they who can think of man with a very moderate view of his value, without becoming weak and small on that account; the most rich in health,
'. -
? ? ? ? R
who are able to withstand a maximum amount of sorrow, and who are therefore not so very much
afraid of sorrow--men who are certain of their power, and who represent with conscious pride the state of strength to which man has attained.
:k
How could such a man think of Eternal Re
# currence?
56.
The Periods of European Nihilism.
The Period of Obscurity : all kinds of groping measures devised to preserve old institutions and not to arrest the progress of new ones.
The Period of Light: men see that old and new are fundamental contraries; that the old values are born of descending life, and that the new ones are born of ascending life--that all ola
ideals are unfriendly to life (born of decadence and determining however much they may
54
THE WILL TO POWER
? decked out the
Sunday finery morality).
We understand the old, but are far from being sufficiently strong for the new.
The Periods of the Three Great Passions con tempt, pity, destruction. -
The Periods of Catastrophes: the rise teach.
ing
the weak some decision and the strong also
which will sift mankind which drives
? ? to
in
it,
. . .
of a
:
be
of
? II.
CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN NIHILISM. *
(a) MODERN GLOOMINESS.
57.
My friends, we had a hard time asyouths; we even suffered from youth itself as though it were a serious disease. This is owing to the age in which we were born--an age of enormous internal decay and dis integration which, with all its weakness and even
with the best of its strength, is opposed to the spirit of youth. Disintegration--that is to say, un certainty--is peculiar to this age: nothing stands
on solid ground or on a sound faith. People live for the morrow, because the day-after-to-morrow is
doubtful. All our road is slippery and dangerous, while the ice which still bears us has grown un conscionably thin: we all feel the mild and grue some breath of the thaw-wind--soon, where we are walking, no one will any longer be able to stand
58.
If this is not an age of decay and of diminishing vitality, it is at least one of indiscriminate and arbitrary experimentalising--and it is probable
that out of an excess of abortive experiments there
? ? ? ? 56
THE WILL TO POWER.
? f*
has grown this general impression, as of decay: and perhaps decay itself.
59.
Concerning the history of modern gloominess.
The state-nomads (officials, etc. ): "home less"--.
The break-up of the family.
The "good man" as a symptom of exhaustion.
Justice as Will to Power (Rearing). Lewdness and neurosis.
Black music: whither has real music gone? The anarchist.
Contempt of man, loathing.
Most profound distinction: whether hunger or
The first creates the
superabundance
Valeals of Romanticism.
is creative P
Northern unnaturalness.
The need of Alcohol: the "need" of the work
ing classes.
Philosophical Nihilism.
6O.
The slow advance and rise of the middle and
lower classes (including the lower kind of spirit and body), which was already well under way before the French Revolution, and would have
made the same progress forward without the latter, --in short, then, the preponderance of the herd
over herdsmen and bell-wethers,--brings train:-- -
(I) Gloominess spirit (the juxtaposition
appearance h-appiness,
stoical and frivolous
? ? la
all
of *
a
of
in of its
? NIHILISM.
57
peculiar noble cultures, on the decline; much
suffering
formerly was borne concealment;
allowed be seen and heard which
hypocrisy way distinguishing
(2) Moral
oneself through morality, but by means the values the herd: pity, solicitude, moderation; and
not by means those virtues which are recognised
and honoured outside the herd's sphere power); (3) really large amount sympathy with
both pain and joy feeling pleasure resulting from being herded together, which peculiar
all gregarious animals--"public ism," everything, fact, which
individual),
*spirit," "patriot apart from the
? - ---------->
***
Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours mitigate distress, honour and wage war advance with unpleasant possibilities, an age the poor. Our "rich people. "--they are the poorest The real purpose all wealth has been forgotten.
62.
Criticism modern man --"the good man," but
corrupted and misled by bad institutions (tyrants
and priests);--reason elevated authority;--history regarded
errors;--the future regarded
position
the surmounting progress;--
armies");--
Christian sexual intercourse (as marriage);--th:e realm "justice" (the cult "mankind");-- "freedom. "
the Christian state ("God the
The romantic attitudes of the modern man
? ? of of
A of
is to
of
as to as a
is
of
of
is is
in to
of
of
to
- in
of (a
6I.
of ' it, of
(a
is
of
to
isto
t ! ofinto
is
of
of
. . .
? 58
THE WILL TO POWER.
the noble man (Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand); --taking the part the oppressed and the bungled and the botched: motto for historians and romancers;--the Stoics duty;--disinterestedness regarded art and knowledge;--altruism
the most mendacious form the most sentimental form
egoism (utilitarianism), egoism.
All this savours the eighteenth century. But had other qualities which were not inherited,
namely, certain insouciance, cheerfulness, ele gance, spiritual clearness. The spiritual tempo has altered; the pleasure which was begotten by
spiritual refinement and clearness has given room the pleasure colour, harmony, mass, reality,
? Sensuality spiritual things. short, the eighteenth century Rousseau.
63.
Taken all all, considerable amount of humanity has been attained by our men to-day.
etc. etc.
That we do not feel this itself proof
the
fact that we have become sensitive
regard
small cases distress, that we somewhat unjustly overlook what has been achieved.
Here we must make allowances for the fact
that great deal decadencesis rife, and that,
through such eyes, our world must appear bad and
wretched. But these eyes have always seen the s same way, ages.
(1) certain hypersensitiveness, even moral feelings.
(2) The quantum bitterness and gloominess,
? ? #*-:: |
A
a
in all
of
in
of of of a in
of
as of
of
in
in
of of
In
so is in
of
of of
a in
to
as
it to is
it
,
a
as
? extraordinarily
that may also be added--
NIHILISM.
59
which pessimism bears with it in judgments-- both together have helped bring about the pre ponderance the other and opposite point view,
that things are not well with our morality.
The fact credit, the commerce the world,
and the means traffic--are expressions an
mild trustfulness men. To
(3) The deliverance science from moral and religious prejudices: very good sign, though for
the most part misunderstood.
my own way, am attempting justification
history.
64.
The second appearance cursory signs: the increase
? all problems the The glory war which calls forth counter-stroke. Just the
sharp demarcation nations generates counter
exhaustion. The reduction question pleasure and pain.
hearty "Fraternity. " The fact that impossible for religion carry its work any longer with
movement the form the most
dogma and fables.
The catastrophe Nihilism will put end
all this Buddhistic culture. -----
65,
. . . **
That which most sorely afflicted to-day the instinct and will of tradition: all institutions
which owe their origin this instinct, are opposed
Buddhism. --Its pre pity. Spiritual
? ? to
of
is
of of of
is
& to *
i
;
*
to
in
of
of on ofa
I a
of
to
it of is
of
as of
to
.
of
of
of of
in
ana .
of In
a
its of
? 6o THE WILL TO POWER.
to the tastes of the age. . . . At bottom, nothin is thought or done which is not calculated to tea
up this spirit of tradition by the roots. Traditio is looked upon as a fatality; it is studied an acknowledged (in the form of "heredity"), bu
people will not have anything to do with Th
extension one will over long periods time, selection of conditions and valuations which mak
possible precisely,
From which give our age
dispose
centuries advance--thi what most utterly anti-modern
follows, that disorganising principle specific character.
66.
? "Be simple. "--a demand which, when made complicated and incomprehensible triers
heart and reins, simple absurdity.
natural: but one should be by nature "un natural," what then?
67.
The means employed
arrive similarly constituted and lasting type
throughout long generations: entailed propert
and the respect elders (the origin the fait gods and heroes ancestors).
Now, the subdivision property belongs
opposite tendency. newspaper
daily prayers. Railways, the telegraph. Th centralisation of an enormous number of differen
interests one soul: which, that end, must very strong and mutable,
former times orde
instead
? ? in
itsit is to of is of
to
b
th
A
of
as
a
of to th th
in
. of B th t
in
to at
us
.
it
of
if
is
of
of
it.
in
in
? NIHILISM,
68.
61
Why does everything become mummery. --The modern man is lacking in unfailing instinct (instinct
being
outcome of a long period of activity in the same occupation on the part of one family of men); the
ply incapability producing anything perfect, sim:
understood here to mean that which is the
of is
the result of this lack of instinct : one individual
. \ , ***
alone cannot make up for the schooling his ancestors should have transmitted to him. |
What a morality or book of law creates: that deep instinct which renders automatism and
*3 *\
*** ***
? fection possible in life and in work.
But now we have reached the * -
*
* sciousness, through introspection on the part of man
and of history: and thus we are practically most ; ; , distant from perfection in Being, doing, and willing:
our desires--even our will to knowledge--shows how prodigiously decadent we are. We are striving after the very reverse of what strong races and strong | natures will have--understanding is an end. . . . |
That Science is possible in the way in which it is practised to-day, proves that all elementary
instincts, the instincts which ward off danger and
Protect life, are no longer active. We no longer save, we are merely spending the capital of our
forefathers, even in the way in which we pursue knowledge,
yes, we wanted to reach it--the most extreme con-
69.
(a) In the natural sciences ("purposelessness"),
Mihilistic trait.
\- opposite point; f
*_ . . . "
? ? ? ** *
s menalism even here: character
62 THE WILL TO POWER.
causality, mechanism, "conformity to law," an in terval, a remnant.
(b) Likewise in politics: the individual lacks the
belief in his own right, innocence; falsehood rules supreme, as also opportunism.
Likewise political economy: the abolition slavery: the lack redeeming class, and
one who justifies--the rise anarchy. "Educa tion "?
biographies can longer endured (Pheno
regarded
history: fatalism, Darwinism;
(a) Likewise
the last attempts reconciling reason and Godli ness fail. Sentimentality regard the past:
? mask; there are facts. )
(e) Likewise Art: romanticism and
counter-stroke (repugnance towards romantic ideals
and lies). The latter, morally, est truthfulness, but pessimistic.
(indifference the "subject").
ology the father-confessor and puritanical psy chology--two forms psychological romanticism: but also their counter-stroke, the attempt main
tain purely artistic attitude towards "men"--but even this respect no one dares make the opposite valuation. )
70.
Against the teaching the influence environ ment and external causes: the power coming from inside infinitely superior; much that appears like
influence acting from without merely the sub jection environment this inner power. Pre
sense great Pure "artists" (The psych
? ? of
is
of
to of is
of a
to of
to
a in
(c)
to
of
of
in no
as to
no
at in
of
in
as a
its
as a
of
*- * *:
:
of
be in
,
? -
NIHILISM.
63
cisely the same environment may be used and '
- interpreted in opposite ways: there are no facts. ** * ? ? ? ?
A genius is not explained by such theories con-| ; )
cerning origins.
~ *
7 I.
"Modernity" regarded in the light of nutrition and digestion.
Sensitiveness is infinitely more acute (beneath moral vestments: the increase of pity), the abund ance of different impressions is greater than ever. The cosmopolitanism of articles of diet, of literature, newspapers, forms, tastes, and even landscapes.
-
? The speed of this affluence is prestissimo; im-. pressions are wiped out, and people instinctively guard against assimilating anything or against taking anything seriously and "digesting" it; the result is a weakening of the powers of digestion. -
There begins a sort of adaptation to this accumula tionofimpressions. Manunlearns theartofdoing,
and all he does is to react to stimuli coming from his environment. He spends his strength, partly in the process of assimilation, partly in defending himself, and again partly in responding to stimuli.
Profound enfeeblement of spontaneity:--the his torian, the critic, the analyst, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader,--all reactive
talents,--all science
-
Artificial modification of one's own nature in order to make it resemble a "mirror"; one is interested, but only epidermally: this is system
atic coolness, equilibrium, a steady low temperature,
? ? ? 64
THE WILL TO POWER.
just beneath the thin surface on which war movement, "storm," and undulations play.
Opposition of external mobility to a certain heaviness and fatigue.
72.
Where must our modern world be classe
73.
Overwork, curiosity and sympathy--our me? vices.
74.
A contribution to the characterisation of "M
under exhaustion or under
Its multiformity and lack of repose are bro about by the highest form of consciousness.
increasing stren;
? nity. "--Exaggerated development
forms; the decay of types; the break-up of t tion, schools; the predominance of the inst (philosophically prepared: the unconscious has
greater value) after the appearance of the enf ment of will power and of the will to an end to the means thereto,
75.
A capable artisan or scholar cuts a good fi if he have his pride in his art, and looks pleasa and contentedly upon life. On the other h there is no sight more wretched than that cobbler or a schoolmaster who, with the air martyr, gives one to understand that he was r
of intermel
? ? ? "represent" grievances. tremely expensive, thanks
that infest it; whereas and many city
where there echo
Our modern life ex
the host middlemen the city antiquity,
Spain and Italy to-day,
the ancient spirit, the
NIHILISM,
65
born for something better. There is nothing better than what is good l and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and to use This virta` the Italian style the Renaissance.
Nowadays, when the state has nonsensically oversized belly, all fields and branches work there are "representatives" over and above the real workman: for instance, addition the scholars, there are the journalists; addition the suffering masses, there crowd jabbering
and bragging ne'er-do-wells who "represent" that suffering--not speak the professional politi
cians who, though quite satisfied with their lot, stand up Parliament and, with strong lungs,
? man himself comes forward and will have nothing
do with representative an intermediary
the modern style--except perhaps kick him hence
76.
The pre-eminence the merchant and the middleman, even the most intellectual spheres: the journalist, the "representative," the historian
(as an intermediary between the past and the pre sent), the exotic and cosmopolitan, the middleman
between natural science and philosophy, the semi theologians.
WOL.
? ? I,
E
in
of
of
of into
of
is
to |
in
to
of of
a of in
a
an
to
in
of
in is a
or a
in
it.
to
in to in
is
is of
? 66 THE WILL TO POWER.
77.
The men I have regarded with the most loath heretofore, are the parasites of intellect: they
to be found everywhere, already, in our mod
Europe, and as a matter of fact their conscienc as light as it possibly can be. They may b
little turbid, and savour somewhat of Pessimi but in the main they are voracious, dirty, dirty stealthy, insinuating, light-fingered gentry, scal --and as innocent as all small sinners and micro
are. They live at the expense of those who h
intellect and who distribute it liberally: they kr
that it is peculiar to the rich mind to live in a
interested fashion, without taking too much pe
thought for the morrow, and to distribute its we
? prodigally.
mist, and pays no heed whatever to the fact t everything lives on it and devours
78. MODERN MUMMERY
The motleyness modern men and its cha
Essentially mask and sign boredom. The journalist.
The political man (in the "national swindle
ing oneself for them (Fromentin);
Mummery
For intellect is a bad domestic eco
the arts:--
The lack honesty preparing and scho
? ? a of in
a in
of
of
it.
? cealed beneath all kinds of moral
finery. --The
NIHILISM.
67
The Romanticists (their lack of philosophy and science and their excess of literature); The novelists (Walter Scott, but also the monsters of the Nibelung, with their in
ordinately nervous music);
The lyricists. "Scientificality. "
Virtuosos (Jews). -
The popular ideals are overcome, but not yet in the presence of the people:
The saint, the sage, the prophet.
79.
The want of discipline in the modern spirit con
? show-words are: Toleration (for the "incapacity of saying yes or no"); la largeur de sympathie
(= a third of indifference, a third of curiosity, and
susceptibility); "objectivity"
(the lack of personality and of will, and the in ability to "love"); "freedom" in regard to the
rule (Romanticism); "truth" as opposed to false
hood and lying (Naturalism); the "scientific spirit" (the "human document"; or, in plain
English, the serial story which means "addition" --instead of "composition"); "passion" in the
place of disorder and intemperance; "depth" in the place of confusion and the pell-mell of symbols.
8O.
Concerning the criticism of big words. --I am full of mistrust and malice towards what is called
a third of morbid
? ? ? 68 THE WILL TO POWER.
! " ideal": this is my Pessimism, that I have inised to what extent "sublime sentiments"
say, belittling
depreciating
Every time "progress" expected
from an ideal, disappointment invariably follo
the triumph ideal has always been
grade movement.
Christianity, revolution, the abolition slav
equal rights, philanthropy, love peace, just
truth: all these big words are only valuable struggle, banners: not realities, but
words, for something quite different (yea, even opposed what they mean
The kind of man known who has faller
love with the sentence "tout comprendre c'est Pardonner. " the weak and, above all, the
source evil--that
man.
? something pardon everything, there also something conten
the philosophy disappointment, which swathes itself humanly pity, and gazes
sweetly.
They are Romanticists, whose faith has gone
pot: now they least wish look on and
how everything vanishes and fades. They cal l'art pour l'art, "objectivity," etc.
82.
The main symptoms of Pessimism --Dinners Magny's; Russian Pessimism (Tolstoy, Dostoi
illusioned: there
? ? so
It is
a
at
of
is
is
is
in to
8I.
l).
as
of
is to
so
if It is
of
of
h
to to
to
as
of an
of
a
to
qshi rere re.
as
is
a
? NIHILISM.
sky); aesthetic Pessimism, l'art pour l'art, "de
scription"
69
(the romantic and the anti-romantic
Pessimism); Pessimism in the theory of know ledge (Schopenhauer: phenomenalism); anarchical
Pessimism; the "religion of pity," Buddhistic preparation; the Pessimism of culture (exoticness, cosmopolitanism); moral Pessimism, myself.
83.
"Without the Christian Faith," said Pascal, "you would yourselves be like nature and history, un monstreet un chaos. " We fulfilled this prophecy: once the weak and optimistic eighteenth century had embellished and rationalised man.
Schopenhauer and Pascal. --Inone essential point, Schopenhauer is the first who takes up Pascal's movement again: un monstre et un chaos, conse quently something that must be negatived . . . history, nature, and man himself!
"Our inability to know the truth is the result of our corruption, of our moral decay," says Pascal. And Schopenhauer says essentially the same.
"The more profound the corruption of reason the more necessary the doctrine salvation"-- or, putting into Schopenhauerian phraseology, negation.
84.
Schopenhauer an epigone (state affairs
? before the eighteenth century.
Revolution):--Pity, sensuality, art,
weakness will, Catholicism the most intel
lectual desires--that bottom, the good old
? ? is, at
of
it
of
as
is
of of
is,
? 7o
THE WILL TO POWER.
Schopenhauer's fundamental misunderstanding of the will (just as though passion, instinct, and
desire were the essential factors of will) is typical:
the depreciation of the will to the extent of mis
taking it altogether. Likewise the hatred of willing: the attempt at seeing something superior
--yea, even superiority itself, and that which really matters, in non-willing, in the "subject-being
without aim or intention. " Great symptom of fatigue or of the weakness of will: for this, in reality, is what treats the passions as master, and
directs them as to the way and to the measure. . . .
85.
The undignified attempt has been made to regard
Wagner and Schopenhauer as types of the mentally
unsound: an infinitely more essential understanding
of the matter would have been gained if the exact
decadent type which each of them represents had been scientifically and a-ccurately defined.
-- * ? 86. )
Henrik Ibsen has become very clear to me.
With all his robust idealism and "Will to Truth,"
he never dared to ring himself free from moral
illusionism which says "freedom," and will not
admit, even to itself, what freedom is: the second stage in the metamorphosis of the "Will to Power,"
in him who lacks the first stage, one
demands justice the hands those who have power. the second, one speaks "freedom,"
? ? ? In
of of
|
at
it.
In
? Christianity And,
NIHILISM.
71
that is to say, one wishes to "shake oneself free" from those who have power. In the third stage, one speaks of "equal rights"--that is to say, so long as one is not a predominant personality one
wishes to prevent one's competitors from growing- 1n power.
87.
The Decline of Protestantism: theoretically and
historically understood as a half-measure. Un
deniable predominance of Catholicism to-day:
Protestant feeling is so dead that the strongest
anti-Protestant movements (Wagner's Parsifal, for
instance) are no longer regarded as such. The
whole of the more elevated intellectuality in France
is Catholic in instinct; Bismarck recognised that
there was no longer any such thing as Protest antism.
88.
Protestantism, that spiritually unclean and
tiresome form of decadence, in which Christianity
has known how to survive in the mediocre North, is something incomplete and complexly valuable
for knowledge, in so far as it was able to bring
experiences of different kinds and origins into the same heads.
89.
What has the German spirit not made out of
and more lounging form of Christian belief be
? to refer to Protestantism again, how much beer is there not still in Pro testant Christianity | Can a crasser, more indolent,
? ? ? 72
THE WILL TO POWER.
imagined, than that of the average German Pro
testant? . . . It is indeed a very humble Christi | anity. I call it the Homoeopathy of Christianity
I am reminded that, to-day, there also exists a less humble sort of Protestantism; it is taught by
royal chaplains and anti-Semitic speculators: but
nobody has ever maintained that any "spirit" "hovers" over these waters. It is merely a less respectable form of Christian faith, not by any
means a more comprehensible one.
90.
Progress. --Let us be on our guard lest we
deceive ourselves! Time flies forward apace,--
we would fain believe that everything flies forward with it,--that evolution is an advancing develop
ment. . . . That is the appearance of things which deceives the most circumspect. But the nineteenth century shows no advance whatever on the six teenth: and the German spirit of 1888 is an example of a backward movement when compared
succeed, while an incalculable number things fail; where all order, logic, co-ordination, and
? with that of 1788.
advance, it does not even exist. The aspect of the whole is much more like that of a huge experi menting workshop where some things in ages
responsibility lacking.
How dare we blink the
fact that the rise Christianity decadent movement? --that the German Reformation was
recrudescence of Christian barbarism ? --that the Revolution destroyed the instinct for organisa
Mankind does not
? ? - a
is an a
is of
of all
? NIHILISM.
73
tion of society on a large scale? . . . Man is not
an example of progress as compared with animals:
the tender son of culture is an abortion compared
with the Arab or the Corsican; the Chinaman
is a more successful type--that is to say, possess ing more lasting powers than the European.
(b) THE LAST CENTURIES.
9 I.
Gloominess and pessimistic influence necessarily follow in the wake of enlightenment. Towards 177o a falling-off in cheerfulness was already noticeable; women, with that very feminine instinct which always defends virtue, believed that immor
ality was the cause of Galiani hit the bull's
? eye:
quotes Voltaire's verse:
"Un monstre gai vaut mieux
Qu'un sentimental
ennuyeux. "
ahead,
now maintain that am century two enlightenment,
Voltaire and Galiani--who was much more profound, how deeply must have sunk into gloominess! This
also true, and betimes somewhat reluctantly manifested some caution regard the German
and Christian narrowness and
inconsistency
Schopenhauerian or, worse still, Leopardian Pessim
ism, and sought the most characteristic form (Asia).
Tragedy), live alone "without God morality,"
But,
order endure that extreme Pessimism (which here and there peeps out my Birth
? ? to
to
or I I
of or
of
of
by of a
in
in I to
it. I
is
If
he
of
? 74
THE WILL TO POWER.
I was compelled to invent a counter-prop for my
self. Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers so excruciat ingly that he was compelled to invent laughter. The unhappiest and most melancholy animal
might have been expected, the most cheerful.
92.
regard German culture, have always had
feeling
know declining form culture has often made
decline. The fact that learned
phenomenon European culture. The Germans always follow some distance behind: they always go the
root things, for instance:--
Dependance upon foreigners; Kant--Rousseau,
sensualists, Hume, Swedenborg. Schopenhauer--the Indians and Romanticism,
Voltaire.
Wagner--the French cult the ugly and grand opera, Paris, and the flight into primitive
barbarism (the marriage brother and sister). The law the laggard (the provinces go
Greek (the more instinct developed, the more tempted run for once into its opposite).
Music the last breath every culture.
93.
Renaissance and Reformation. --What does the Renaissance prove? That the reign the
me unfair towards the whole
? the
Paris, Germany goes
France).
How that precisely Germans discovered the
? ? of
to
toof ofto is,
is
is it
as
of to
of
of is
it is
at a as In
to
of
an
to
of
of
I I
of
a
? NIHILISM.
75
"individual" can be only a short one. The out
put is too great; there is not even the possibility of husbanding or of capitalising forces, and ex
haustion sets in step by step. These are times when everything is squandered, when even the
strength itself with which one collects, capitalises, and heaps riches upon riches, is squandered.
Even the opponents of such movements are driven to preposterous extremes in the dissipation of
their strength: and they too are very soon exhausted, used up, and completely sapped.
In the Reformation we are face to face with
a wild and plebeian counterpart of the Italian Renaissance, generated by similar impulses, except
that the former, in the backward and still vulgar North, had to assume a religious form--there the concept of a higher life had not yet been divorced from that of a religious one.
Even the Reformation was a movement for
individual liberty; "every one his own priest" is really no more than a formula for libertinage.
