No More Learning

Collective Intellect. —A good author
possesses not only his own intellect, but also that
of his friends.
181.
Different Kinds of Mistakes. —The mis-
fortune of acute and clear authors is that people
consider them as shallow and therefore do not
devote any effort to them ; and the good fortune of
obscure writers is that the reader makes an effort
to understand them and places the delight in his
own zeal to their credit.
. 182.
Relation to Science. —None of the people
have any real interest in a science, who only begin
to be enthusiastic about it when they themselves
have made discoveries in it.
"


## p. 179 (#249) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 179
183.
THE Key. —The single thought on which an
eminent man sets a great value, arousing the
derision and laughter of the masses, is for him a
key to hidden treasures; for them, however, it is
nothing more than a piece of old iron.
184.
Untranslatable. —It is neither the best nor
the worst parts of a book which are untranslatable.
185.
Authors' Paradoxes. —The so-called para-
doxes of an author to which a reader objects are
often not in the author's book at all, but in the
reader's head.
186.
Wit. —The wittiest authors produce a scarcely
noticeable smile.
187.
Antithesis. —Antithesis is the narrow gate
through which error is fondest of sneaking to the
truth.
188.
Thinkers as Stylists. —Most thinkers write
badly, because they communicate not only their
thoughts, but also the thinking of them.


## p. 180 (#250) ############################################

163 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
180 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
189.
Thoughts in Poetry. —The poet conveys
his thoughts ceremoniously in the vehicle of
rhythm, usually because they are not able to go
on foot.
190.
The Sin against the Reader's Intellect.
—When an author renounces his talent in order
merely to put himself on a level with the reader,
he commits the only deadly sin which the latter
will never forgive, should he notice anything of it.
One may say everything that is bad about a
person, but in the manner in which it is said one
must know how to revive his vanity anew.
191.
The Limits of Uprightness. —Even the
most upright author lets fall a word too much
when he wishes to round off a period.
192.
The Best Author. —The best author will be
he who is ashamed to become one.
193-
Draconian Law against Authors. —One
should regard authors as criminals who only
obtain acquittal or mercy in the rarest cases,—
that would be a remedy for books becoming too
rife.


## p. 181 (#251) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. l8l
194.
The Fools of Modern Culture. —The fools
of mediaeval courts correspond to our feuilleton
writers; they are the same kind of men, semi-
rational, witty, extravagant, foolish, sometimes
there only for the purpose of lessening the pathos
of the outlook with fancies and chatter, and of
drowning with their clamour the far too deep and
solemn chimes of great events; they were formerly
in the service of princes and nobles, now they are in
the service of parties (since a large portion of the
old obsequiousness in the intercourse of the people
with their prince still survives in party-feeling and
party-discipline). Modern literary men, however,
are generally very similar to the feuilleton writers,
they are the "fools of modern culture," whom one
judges more leniently when one does not regard
them as fully responsible beings. To look upon
writing as a regular profession should justly be
regarded as a form of madness.
195-
After the Example of the Greeks. —It
is a great hindrance to knowledge at present
that, owing to centuries of exaggeration of feeling,
all words have become vague and inflated. The
higher stage of culture, which is under the sway
(though not under the tyranny) of knowledge,
requires great sobriety of feeling and thorough
concentration of words—on which points the
Greeks in the time of Demosthenes set an


## p. 182 (#252) ############################################

168 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
182 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
example to us. Exaggeration is a distinguishing
mark of all modern writings, and even when
they are simply written the expressions therein
are still felt as too eccentric. Careful reflection,
conciseness, coldness, plainness, even carried
intentionally to the farthest limits,—in a word,
suppression of feeling and taciturnity,—these
are the only remedies. For the rest, this cold
manner of writing and feeling is now very
attractive, as a contrast; and to be sure there is a
new danger therein. For intense cold is as good
a stimulus as a high degree of warmth.
196.
Good Narrators, Bad Explainers. —In
good narrators there is often found an admirable
psychological sureness and logicalness, as far
as these qualities can be observed in the actions
of their personages, in positively ludicrous contrast
to their inexperienced pyschological reasoning,
so that their culture appears to be as extra-
ordinarily high one moment as it seems regret-
tably defective the next. It happens far too
frequently that they give an evidently false ex-
planation of their own heroes and their actions,—
of this there is no doubt, however improbable
the thing may appear. It is quite likely that
the greatest pianoforte player has thought but
little about the technical conditions and the
special virtues, drawbacks, usefulness, and tract-
ability of each finger (dactylic ethics), and makes
big mistakes whenever he speaks of such things.


## p. 183 (#253) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 183
will
197-
The Writings of Acquaintances and
their Readers. —We read the writings of our
acquaintances (friends and enemies) in a double
sense, inasmuch as our perception constantly
me( whispers, "That is something of himself, a
iml remembrance of his inward being, his experiences,
we his talents," and at the same time another kind
gr of perception endeavours to estimate the profit
wl of the work in itself, what valuation it merits
o' apart from its author, how far it will enrich
H knowledge. These two manners of reading and
3 estimating interfere with each other, as may
1 naturally be supposed. And a conversation with
! a friend will only bear good fruit of knowledge
when both think only of the matter under
consideration and forget that they are friends.
198.
Rhythmical Sacrifice. —Good writers alter
the rhythm of many a period merely because they
do not credit the general reader with the ability
to comprehend the measure followed by the
period in its first version; thus they make it
easier for the reader, by giving the preference
to the better known rhythms. This regard for
the rhythmical incapacity of the modern reader
has already called forth many a sigh, for much
has been sacrificed to it. Does not the same
thing happen to good musicians?
"
■-


## p. 184 (#254) ############################################

HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.

HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
1"' ishihg
The Incomplete as an Artistic Stimulus. |^en
—The incomplete is often more effective than S rejn
perfection, and this is the case with eulogies, iction
To effect their purpose a stimulating incomplete- arried
ness is necessary, as an irrational element, which Word
calls up a sea before the hearer's imagination, these
and, like a mist, conceals the opposite coast, i. e. cold
the limits of the object of praise. If the well- tvery
known merits of a person are referred to and \ is a
described at length and in detail, it always Jood
gives rise to the suspicion that these are his only
merits. The perfect eulogist takes his stand
above the person praised, he appears to overlook
him. Therefore complete praise has a weakening
effect.
200.
Precautions in Writing and Teaching. ■
—Whoever has once written and has been seized I
with the passion for writing learns from almost I
all that he does and experiences that which is S2»
literally communicable. He thinks no longer J
of himself, but of the author and his public;
he desires insight into things; but not for his
own use. He who teaches is mostly incapable
of doing anything for his own good: he is always
thinking of the good of his scholars, and all
knowledge delights him only in so far as he
is able to teach it. He comes at last to regard
himself as a medium of knowledge, and above
all as a means thereto, so that he has lost all
serious consideration for himself.
ible
i


## p. 185 (#255) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 185
w
20I.
The Necessity for Bad Authors. —There
will always be a need of bad authors; for they
p3 meet the taste of readers of an undeveloped,
clj immature age—these have their requirements as
sq well as mature readers. If human life were of
ai greater length, the number of mature individuals
a< would be greater than that of the immature,
e\ or at least equally great; but, as it is, by far
the greater number die too young: i. e. there
are always many more undeveloped intellects
with bad taste. These demand, with the greater
impetuosity of youth, the satisfaction of their
needs, and they insist on having bad authors.
it
T
202.
Too Near and too Far. —The reader and
the author very often do not understand each
pother, because the author knows his theme too
well and finds it almost slow, so that he omits
the examples, of which he knows hundreds;
the reader, however, is interested in the subject,
and is liable to consider it as badly proved if
examples are lacking.
203.
A Vanished Preparation for Art. —Of
everything that was practised in public schools,
: the thing of greatest value was the exercise in
Latin style,—this was an exercise in art, whilst all
.


## p. 186 (#256) ############################################

186 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.

other occupations aimed only at the acquirement
of knowledge. It is a barbarism to put German
composition before it, for there is no typical
German style developed by public oratory; but if
there is a desire to advance practice in thought
by means of German composition, then it is
certainly better for the time being to pay no
attention to style, to separate the practice in
thought, therefore, from the practice in reproduc-
tion. The latter should confine itself to the
various modes of presenting a given subject, and
should not concern itself with the independent
finding of a subject. The mere presentment of a
given subject was the task of the Latin style, for
which the old teachers possessed a long vanished
delicacy of ear. Formerly, whoever learned to
write well in a modern language had to thank
this practice for the acquirement (now we are
obliged to go to school to the older French
writers). But yet more: he obtained an idea of
the loftiness and difficulty of form, and was
prepared for art in the only right way: by
practice.
204.
Darkness and Over-Brightness Side by
Side. —Authors who, in general, do not under-
stand how to express their thoughts clearly are
fond of choosing, in detail, the strongest, most
exaggerated distinctions and superlatives,—there-
by is produced an effect of light, which is like
torchlight in intricate forest paths.


## p. 187 (#257) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 187
205.
Literary Painting. —An important object
will be best described if the colours for the
painting are taken out of the object itself, as a
chemist does, and then employed like an artist,
so that the drawing develops from the outlines
and transitions of the colours. Thus the painting
acquires something of the entrancing natural
element which gives such importance to the object
itself.
206.
Books which Teach how to Dance. —
There are authors who, by representing the
impossible as possible, and by talking of morality
and cleverness as if both were merely moods and
humours assumed at will, produce a feeling of
exuberant freedom, as if man stood on tiptoe and
were compelled to dance from sheer, inward
delight.
207.
Unfinished Thoughts. —Just as not only
manhood, but also youth and childhood have a
value per se, and are not to be looked upon merely
as passages and bridges, so also unfinished
thoughts have their value. For this reason we
must not torment a poet with subtle explanations,
but must take pleasure in the uncertainty of his
horizon, as if the way to further thoughts were still
open. We stand on the threshold; we wait as
for the digging up of a treasure, it is as if a well
of profundity were about to be discovered. The


## p. 188 (#258) ############################################

I 68 . HUMAN—ALI—IQQjau
188 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
poet anticipates something of the thinker's
pleasure in the discovery of a leading thought, and
makes us covetous, so that we give chase to it;
but it flutters past our head and exhibits the
loveliest butterfly-wings,—and yet it escapes us.
208.
The Book Grown almost into a Human
Being. —Every author is surprised anew at the
way in which his book; as soon as he has sent it
out, continues to live a life of its own; it seems
to him as if one part of an insect had been cut
off and now went on its own way. Perhaps he
forgets it almost entirely, perhaps he rises above
the view expressed therein, perhaps even he under-
stands it no longer, and has lost that impulse
upon which he soared at the time he conceived
the book; meanwhile it seeks its readers, inflames
life, pleases, horrifies, inspires new works, becomes
the soul of designs and actions,—in short, it lives
like a creature endowed with mind and soul, and
yet is no human being. The happiest fate is that
of the author who, as an old man, is able to say
that all there was in him of life-inspiring,
strengthening, exalting, enlightening thoughts and
feelings still lives on in his writings, and that he
himself now only represents the gray ashes, whilst
the fire has been kept alive and spread out. And
if we consider that every human action, not only
a book, is in some way or other the cause of other
actions, decisions, and thoughts; that everything
that happens is inseparably connected with every-


## p. 189 (#259) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 189
thing that is going to happen, we recognise the
real immortality, that of movement,—that which
has once moved is enclosed and immortalised in
the general union of all existence, like an insect
within a piece of amber.
209.
Joy in Old Age. —The thinker, as likewise
the artist, who has put his best self into his works,
feels an almost malicious joy when he sees how
mind and body are being slowly damaged and
destroyed by time, as if from a dark corner he
were spying a thief at his money-chest, knowing
all the time that it was empty and his treasures
in safety.
210.
Quiet Fruitfulness. —The born aristocrats
of the mind are not in too much of a hurry; their
creations appear and fall from the tree on some
quiet autumn evening, without being rashly
desired, instigated, or pushed aside by new
matter. The unceasing desire to create is vulgar,
and betrays envy, jealousy, and ambition. If a
man is something, it is not really necessary for
him to do anything—-and yet he does a great
deal. There is a human species higher even than
the " productive" man.
211.
Achilles and Homer. —It is always like
the case of Achilles and Homer,—the one has


## p. 190 (#260) ############################################

190 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
i
the experiences and sensations, the other describes
them. A genuine author only puts into words
the feelings and adventures of others, he is an
artist, and divines much from the little he has
experienced. Artists are by no means creatures
of great passion; but they frequently represent (
themselves as such with the unconscious feeling
that their depicted passion will be better believed
in if their own life gives credence to their experi-
ence in these affairs. They need only let them-
selves go, not control themselves, and give free play
to their anger and their desires, and every one will
immediately cry out, " How passionate he is! " But
the deeply stirring passion that consumes and often
destroys the individual is another matter: those
who have really experienced it do not describe it
in dramas, harmonies or romances. Artists are
frequently unbridled individuals, in so far as they
are not artists, but that is a different thing.
212.
•
Old Doubts about the Effect of Art.
—Should pity and fear really be unburdened
through tragedy, as Aristotle would have it, so
that the hearers return home colder and quieter?
Should ghost-stories really make us less fearful
and superstitious? In the case of certain
physical processes, in the satisfaction of love, for
instance, it is true that with the fulfilment of a
need there follows an alleviation and temporary
decrease in the impulse. But fear and pity are
not in this sense the needs of particular organs


## p. 191 (#261) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 191
which require to be relieved. And in time
every instinct is even strengthened by practice
in its satisfaction, in spite of that periodical
mitigation. It might be possible that in each
single case pity and fear would be soothed and
relieved by tragedy; nevertheless, they might, on
the whole, be increased by tragic influences, and
Plato would be right in saying that tragedy
makes us altogether more timid and susceptible.
The tragic poet himself would then of necessity
acquire a gloomy and fearful view of the world,
and a yielding, irritable, tearful soul; it would
also agree with Plato's view if the tragic poets,
and likewise the entire part of the community
that derived particular pleasure from them,
degenerated into ever greater licentiousness and
intemperance. But what right, indeed, has our
age to give an answer to that great question of
Plato's as to the moral influence of art? If we
even had art,—where have we an influence, any
kind of an art-influence?
213. .
Pleasure in Nonsense. —How can we take
pleasure in nonsense? But wherever there is
laughter in the world this is the case: it may
even be said that almost everywhere where there
is happiness, there is found pleasure in nonsense.
The transformation of experience into its opposite,
of the suitable into the unsuitable, the obligatory
into the optional (but in such a manner that
this process produces','• no injury and is only


## p. 192 (#262) ############################################

192 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
Hlfi nnir'" -—
imagined in jest), is a pleasure; for it tempor-
arily liberates us from the yoke of the obligatory,
suitable and experienced, in which we usually
find our pitiless masters; we play and laugh
when the expected (which generally causes fear
and expectancy) happens without bringing any
injury. It is the pleasure felt by slaves in the
Saturnalian feasts.
214.
The Ennobling of Reality. —Through the
fact that in the aphrodisiac impulse men discerned
a godhead and with adoring gratitude felt it
working within themselves, this emotion has in
the course of time become imbued with higher
conceptions, and has thereby been materially
ennobled. Thus certain nations, by virtue of
this art of idealisation, have created great aids to
culture out of diseases,—the Greeks, for instance,
who in earlier centuries suffered from great
nervous epidemics (like epilepsy and St. Vitus'
Dance), and developed out of them the splendid
type of the Bacchante. The Greeks, however, en-
joyed an astonishingly high degree of health—
their secret was, to revere even disease as a god,
if it only possessed power.
215.
MUSIC. —Music by and for itself is not so
portentous for our inward nature, so deeply-
moving, that it ought to be looked upon as the
direct language of the feelings; but its ancient
union with poetry has infused so much symbolism


## p. 193 (#263) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS.
193
into rhythmical movement, into loudness and
softness of tone, that we now imagine it speaks
directly to and comes from the inward nature.
Dramatic music is only possible when the art
of harmony has acquired an immense range of
symbolical means, through song, opera, and a
hundred attempts at description by sound.
"Absolute music" is either form per se, in
the rude condition of music, when playing in
time and with various degrees of strength gives
pleasure, or the symbolism of form which speaks
to the understanding even without poetry, after
the two arts were joined finally together after
long development and the musical form had been
woven about with threads of meaning and feeling.
People who are backward in musical develop-
ment can appreciate a piece of harmony merely
as execution, whilst those who are advanced will
comprehend it symbolically. No music is deep
and full of meaning in itself, it does not speak
of "will," of the "thing-in-itself"; that could be
imagined by the intellect only in an age which
had conquered for musical symbolism the entire
range of inner life. It was the intellect itself
that first gave this meaning to sound, just as it
also gave meaning to the relation between lines
and masses in architecture, but which in itself is
quite foreign to mechanical laws.
216.
Gesture and Speech". —Older than speech is
the imitation of gestures, which is carried on un-
vol. 1. N


## p. 194 (#264) ############################################

194 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
consciously and which, in the general repression of
the language of gesture and trained control of the
muscles, is still so great that we cannot look at a
face moved by emotion without feeling an agita-
tion of our own face (it may be remarked that
feigned yawning excites real yawning in any one
who sees it). The imitated gesture leads the one
who imitates back to the sensation it expressed
in the face or body of the one imitated. Thus
men learned to understand one another, thus the
child still learns to understand the mother.
Generally speaking, painful sensations may also
have been expressed by gestures, and the pain
which caused them (for instance, tearing the hair,
beating the breast, forcible distortion and straining
of the muscles of the face). On the other hand,
gestures of joy were themselves joyful and lent
themselves easily to the communication of the
understanding; (laughter, as the expression of
the feeling when being tickled, serves also for the
expression of other pleasurable sensations). As
soon as men understood each other by gestures,
there could be established a symbolism of gestures;
I mean, an understanding could be arrived at
respecting the language of accents, so that first
accent and gesture (to which it was symbolically
added) were produced, and later on the accent
alone. In former times there happened very
frequently that which now happens in the de-
velopment of music, especially of dramatic music,
—while music, without explanatory dance and
pantomime (language of gesture), is at first only
empty sound, but by long familiarity with that


## p. 195 (#265) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 195
combination of music and movement the ear
becomes schooled into instant interpretation of the
figures of sound, and finally attains a height of
quick understanding, where it has no longer any
need of visible movement and understands the
sound-poet without it. It is then called absolute
music, that is music in which, without further help,
everything is symbolically understood.
217.
The Spiritualising of Higher Art. —By
virtue of extraordinary intellectual exercise through
the art-development of the new music, our ears
have been growing more intellectual. For this
reason we can now endure a much greater volume
of sound, much more " noise," because we are far
better practised in listening for the sense in it
than were our ancestors. As a matter of fact,
all our senses have been somewhat blunted, because
they immediately look for the sense; that is, they
ask what "it means" and not what "it is,"—such
a blunting betrays itself, for instance, in the abso-
lute dominion of the temperature of sounds; for
ears which still make the finer distinctions, between
cis and des, for instance, are now amongst the
exceptions. In this respect our ear has grown
coarser. And then the ugly side of the world,
the one originally hostile to the senses, has been
conquered for music ; its power has been immensely
widened, especially in the expression of the noble,
the terrible, and the mysterious: our music now


## p. 196 (#266) ############################################

r-JkUrti
196 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
gives utterance to things which had formerly no
tongue. In the same way certain painters have
rendered the eye more intellectual, and have gone
far beyond that which was formerly called pleasure
in colour and form. Here, too, that side of the
world originally considered as ugly has been
conquered by the artistic intellect. What results
from all this? The more capable of thought that
eye and ear become, the more they approach the
limit where they become senseless, the seat of
pleasure is moved into the brain, the organs of the
senses themselves become dulled and weak, the
symbolical takes more and more the place of the
actual,—and thus we arrive at barbarism in this
way as surely as in any other. In the meantime
we may say: the world is uglier than ever, but it
represents a more beautiful world than has ever
existed. But the more the amber-scent of mean-
ing is dispersed and evaporated, the rarer become
those who perceive it, and the remainder halt at
what is ugly and endeavour to enjoy it direct, an
aim, however, which they never succeed in attain-
ing. Thus, in Germany there is a twofold direction
of musical development, here a throng of ten
thousand with ever higher, finer demands, ever
listening more and more for the " it means," and
there the immense countless mass which yearly
grows more incapable of understanding what is
important even in the form of sensual ugliness,
and which therefore turns ever more willingly to
what in music is ugly and foul in itself, that is, to
the basely sensual.


## p. 197 (#267) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 197
2 I 8.
A Stone is More of a Stone than
Formerly. —As a general rule we no longer
understand architecture, at least by no means in
the same way as we understand music. We have
outgrown the symbolism of lines and figures, just
as we are no longer accustomed to the sound-
effects of rhetoric, and have not absorbed this
kind of mother's milk of culture since our first
moment of life. Everything in a Greek or Chris-
tian building originally had a meaning, and re-
ferred to a higher order of things; this feeling of
inexhaustible meaning enveloped the edifice like
a mystic veil. Beauty was only a secondary con-
sideration in the system, without in any way
materially injuring the fundamental sentiment of
the mysteriously-exalted, the divinely and magic-
ally consecrated; at the most, beauty tempered
horror—but this horror was everywhere pre-
supposed. What is the beauty of a building now?
The same thing as the beautiful face of a stupid
woman, a kind of mask.
219.
The Religious Source of the Newer
MUSIC. —Soulful music arose out of the Catholi-
cism re-established after the Council of Trent,
through Palestrina, who endowed the newly-
awakened, earnest, and deeply moved spirit with
sound; later on, in Bach, it appeared also in


## p. 198 (#268) ############################################

198 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
Protestantism, as far as this had been deepened
by the Pietists and released from its originally
dogmatic character. The supposition and neces-
sary preparation for both origins is the familiarity
with music, which existed during and before the
Renaissance, namely that learned occupation with
music, which was really scientific pleasure in the
masterpieces of harmony and voice-training. On
the other hand, the opera must have preceded it,
wherein the layman made his protest against a
music that had grown too learned and cold, and
endeavoured to re-endow Polyhymnia with a
soul. Without the change to that deeply religious
sentiment, without the dying away of the inwardly
moved temperament, music would have remained
learned or operatic; the spirit of the counter-
reformation is the spirit of modern music (for that
pietism in Bach's music is also a kind of counter-
reformation). So deeply are we indebted to the
religious life. Music was the counter-reformation
in the field of art; to this belongs also the later
painting of the Caracci and Caravaggi, perhaps
also the baroque style, in any case more than the
architecture of the Renaissance or of antiquity.
And we might still ask: if our newer music could
move stones, would it build them up into antique
architecture? I very much doubt it. For that
which predominates in this music, affections,
pleasure in exalted, highly-strained sentiments, the
desire to be alive at any cost, the quick change of
feeling, the strong relief-effects of light and shade,
the combination of the ecstatic and the naive,—
all this has already reigned in the plastic arts and


## p. 199 (#269) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 199
created new laws of style:—but it was neither in
the time of antiquity nor of the Renaissance.
220.
The Beyond in Art. —It is not without deep
pain that we acknowledge the fact that in their
loftiest soarings, artists of all ages have exalted
and divinely transfigured precisely those ideas
which we now recognise as false; they are the
glorifiers of humanity's religious and philosophical
errors, and they could not have been this without
belief in the absolute truth of these errors. But
if the belief in such truth diminishes at all, if the
rainbow colours at the farthest ends of human
knowledge and imagination fade, then this kind
of art can never re-flourish, for, like the Divina
Commedia, Raphael's paintings, Michelangelo's
frescoes, and Gothic cathedrals, they indicate not
only a cosmic but also a metaphysical meaning in
the work of art. Out of all this will grow a
touching legend that such an art and such an
artistic faith once existed.
221.
Revolution in Poetry. —The strict limit
which the French dramatists marked out with
regard to unity of action, time and place, con-
struction of style, verse and sentence, selection
of words and ideas, was a school as important as
that of counterpoint and fugue in the development
of modern music or that of the Gorgianic figures
in Greek oratory. Such a restriction may appear


## p. 200 (#270) ############################################

200 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
absurd; nevertheless there is no means of getting
out of naturalism except by confining ourselves
at first to the strongest (perhaps most arbitrary)
means. Thus we gradually learn to walk grace-
fully on the narrow paths that bridge giddy
abysses, and acquire great suppleness of movement
as a result, as the history of music proves to our
living eyes. Here we see how, step by step, the
fetters get looser, until at last they may appear
to be altogether thrown off; this appearance is the
highest achievement of a necessary development
in art. In the art of modern poetry there existed
no such fortunate, gradual emerging from self-
imposed fetters. Lessing held up to scorn in
Germany the French form, the only modern form
of art, and pointed to Shakespeare; and thus the
steadiness of that unfettering was lost and a spring
was made into naturalism—that is, back into the
beginnings of art. From this Goethe endeavoured
to save himself, by always trying to limit himself
anew in different ways; but even the most gifted
only succeeds by continuously experimenting, if
the thread of development has once been broken.
It is to the unconsciously revered, if also
repudiated, model of French tragedy that Schiller
owes his comparative sureness of form, and he
! remained fairly independent of Lessing (whose
n \ dramatic attempts he is well known to have
rejected). But after Voltaire the French them-
selves suddenly lacked the great talents which
would have led the development of tragedy out of
constraint to that apparent freedom; later on they
followed the German example and made a spring
j! »


## p. 201 (#271) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 201
into a sort of Rousseau-like state of nature and
experiments. It is only necessary to read
Voltaire's " Mahomet" from time to time in order
to perceive clearly what European culture has lost
through that breaking down of tradition. Once
for all, Voltaire was the last of the great dramatists
who with Greek proportion controlled his manifold
soul, equal even to the greatest storms of tragedy,
—he was able to do what no German could,because
the French nature is much nearer akin to the
Greek than is the German; he was also the last
great writer who in the wielding of prose possessed
the Greek ear, Greek artistic conscientiousness,
and Greek simplicity and grace; he was, also, one
of the last men able to combine in himself the
greatest freedom of mind and an absolutely
unrevolutionary way of thinking without being
inconsistent and cowardly. Since that time the
modern spirit, with its restlessness and its hatred
of moderation and restrictions, has obtained the
mastery on all sides, let loose at first by the fever
of revolution, and then once more putting a bridle
on itself when it became filled with fear and horror
at itself,—but it was the bridle of rigid logic, no
longer that of artistic moderation. It is true that
through that unfettering for a time we are able to
enjoy the poetry of all nations, everything that
has sprung up in hidden places, original, wild,
wonderfully beautiful and gigantically irregular,
from folk-songs up to the "great barbarian"
Shakespeare; we taste the joys of local colour
and costume, hitherto unknown to all artistic
nations; we make liberal use of the "barbaric


## p. 202 (#272) ############################################

. . im—M. ' n
202 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
advantages " of our time, which Goethe accentuated
against Schiller in order to place the formlessness
of his Faust in the most favourable light. But
for how much longer? The encroaching flood of
poetry of all styles and all nations must gradually
sweep away that magic garden upon which a quiet
and hidden growth would still have been possible;
all poets must become experimenting imitators, dar-
ing copyists, however great their primary strength
may be. Eventually, the public, which has lost
the habit of seeing the actual artistic fact in the
controlling of depicting power, in the organising
mastery over all art-means, must come ever more
and more to value power for power's sake, colour
for colour's sake, idea for idea's sake, inspiration
for inspiration's sake; accordingly it will not enjoy
the elements and conditions of the work of art,
unless isolated, and finally will make the very
natural demand that the artist must deliver it to
them isolated. True, the "senseless" fetters of
Franco-Greek art have been thrown off, but un-
consciously we have grown accustomed to consider
all fetters, all restrictions as senseless;—and so
art moves towards its liberation, but, in so doing,
it touches—which is certainly highly edifying—
upon all the phases of its beginning, its childhood,
its incompleteness, its sometime boldness and
excesses,—in perishing it interprets its origin and
growth. One of the great ones, whose instinct
may be relied on and whose theory lacked nothing
but thirty years more of practice, Lord Byron,
once said: that with regard to poetry in general,
the more he thought about it the more convinced
~


## p. 203 (#273) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 203
he was that one and all we are entirely on a wrong
track, that we are following an inwardly false
revolutionary system, and that either our own
generation or the next will yet arrive at this same
conviction. It is the same Lord Byron who said
that he "looked upon Shakespeare as the very
worst model, although the most extraordinary poet. "
And does not Goethe's mature artistic insight in
the second half of his life say practically the same
thing ? —that insight by means of which he made
such a bound in advance of whole generations that,
generally speaking, it may be said that Goethe's
influence has not yet begun, that his time has still
to come. Just because his nature held him fast
for a long time in the path of the poetical
revolution, just because he drank to the dregs of
whatsoever new sources, views and expedients had
been indirectly discovered through that breaking
down of tradition, of all that had been unearthed
from under the ruins of art, his later transformation
and conversion carries so much weight; it shows
that he felt the deepest longing to win back the
traditions of art, and to give in fancy the ancient
perfection and completeness to the abandoned ruins
and colonnades of the temple, with the imagination
of the eye at least, should the strength of the arm
be found too weak to build where such tremendous
powers were needed even to destroy. Thus he
lived in art as in the remembrance of the true
art, his poetry had become an aid to remembrance,
to the understanding of old and long-departed
ages of art. With respect to the strength of the
new age, his demands could not be satisfied; but
r


## p. 204 (#274) ############################################

204 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
the pain this occasioned was amply balanced by
the joy that they have been satisfied once, and that
we ourselves can still participate in this satis-
faction. Not individuals, but more or less ideal
masks; no reality, but an allegorical generality;
topical characters, local colours toned down and
rendered mythical almost to the point of in-
visibility; contemporary feeling and the problems
of contemporary society reduced to the simplest
forms, stripped of their attractive, interesting
pathological qualities, made ineffective in every
"other but the artistic sense; no new materials and
characters, but the old, long-accustomed ones in
constant new animation and transformation; that
is art, as Goethe understood it later, as the Greeks
and even the French practised it.
222.
What Remains of Art. —It is true that art
has a much greater value in the case of certain
metaphysical hypotheses, for instance when the
belief obtains that the character is unchangeable
and that the essence of the world manifests itself
continually in all character and action; thus the
artist's work becomes the symbol of the eternally
constant, while according to our views the artist
can only endow his picture with temporary value,
because man on the whole has developed and is
mutable, and even the individual man has nothing
fixed and constant. The same thing holds good
with another metaphysical hypothesis: assuming
that our visible world were only a delusion, as
metaphysicians declare, then art would come very


## p. 204 (#275) ############################################

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## p. 204 (#276) ############################################

2O4 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
nea
the pain this occasioned was amply balanced b
the joy that they have been satisfied once, and tha
we ourselves can still participate in this satis
faction. Not individuals, but more or less idea
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of contemporary society reduced to the simples
forms, stripped of their attractive, interesting
pathological qualities, made ineffective in every
Tother but the artistic sense; no new materials and
characters, but the old, long-accustomed ones it
constant new animation and transformation ; that
is art, as Goethe understood it later, as the Greeks
and even the French practised it.
222.
WHAT REMAINS OF ART. -It is true that art
has a much greater value in the case of certain
metaphysical hypotheses, for instance when the
belief obtains that the character is unchangeable
and that the essence of the world manifests itself
continually in all character and action; thus the
artist's work becomes the symbol of the eternally
constant, while according to our views the artist
can only endow his picture with temporary value,
because man on the whole has developed and is
mutable, and even the individual man has nothing
fixed and constant. The same thing holds good
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## p. 205 (#277) ############################################

THE SOUL OF ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. 205
near to the real world, for there would then be far
too much similarity between the world of appear-
ance and the dream-world of the artist; and the
remaining difference would place the meaning of
art higher even than the meaning of nature,
because art would represent the same forms, the
types and models of nature. But those supposi-
tions are false; and what position does art retain
after this acknowledgment? Above all, for
centuries it has taught us to look upon life in
every shape with interest and pleasure and to
carry our feelings so far that at last we exclaim,
"Whatever it may be, life is good. " This teaching
of art, to take pleasure in existence and to regard
human life as a piece of nature, without too
vigorous movement, as an object of regular
development,—this teaching has grown into us;
it reappears as an all-powerful need of knowledge.
We could renounce art, but we should not there-
with forfeit the ability it has taught us,—just as
we have given up religion, but not the exalting
and intensifying of temperament acquired through
religion. As the plastic arts and music are the
standards of that wealth of feeling really acquired
and obtained through religion, so also, after a dis-
appearance of art, the intensity and multiplicity of
the joys of life which it had implanted in us would
still demand satisfaction. The scientific man is
the further development of the artistic man.
223.
The After-glow of Art. —Just as in old
age we remember our youth and celebrate festi-
/


## p. 206 (#278) ############################################

206 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
vals of memory, so in a short time mankind will
stand towards art: its relation will be that of a
touching memory of the joys of youth. Never,
perhaps, in former ages was art dealt with so
seriously and thoughtfully as now when it appears
to be surrounded by the magic influence of death.
We call to mind that Greek city in southern
Italy, which once a year still celebrates its Greek
feasts, amidst tears and mourning, that foreign
barbarism triumphs ever more and more over the
customs its people brought with them into the
land; and never has Hellenism been so much
appreciated, nowhere has this golden nectar been
drunk with so great delight, as amongst these fast
disappearing Hellenes. The artist will soon come
to be regarded as a splendid relic, and to him,
as to a wonderful stranger on whose power and
beauty depended the happiness of former ages,
there will be paid such honour as is not often
enjoyed by one of our race. The best in us is
perhaps inherited from the sentiments of former
times, to which it is hardly possible for us now
to return by direct ways; the sun has already
disappeared, but the heavens of our life are still
glowing and illumined by it, although we can
behold it no longer.
1

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J


## p. 207 (#279) ############################################

FIFTH DIVISION.
THE SIGNS OF HIGHER AND
LOWER CULTURE.
224.
Ennoblement through Degeneration. —
History teaches that a race of people is best
preserved where the greater number hold one
common spirit in consequence of the similarity
of their accustomed and indisputable principles:
in consequence, therefore, of their common faith.
Thus strength is afforded by good and thorough
customs, thus is learnt the subjection of the
individual, and strenuousness of character becomes
a birth gift and afterwards is fostered as a habit.
The danger to these communities founded on
individuals of strong and similar character is
that gradually increasing stupidity through trans-
mission, which follows all stability like its shadow.
It is on the more unrestricted, more uncertain
and morally weaker individuals that depends the
intellectual progress of such communities, it is they
who attempt all that is new and manifold.
Numbers of these perish on account of their
weakness, without having achieved any specially
visible effect; but generally, particularly when
they have descendants, they flare up and from


## p. 208 (#280) ############################################

208 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
time to time inflict a wound on the stable element
of the community. Precisely in this sore and
weakened place the community is inoculated with
something new; but its general strength must
be great enough to absorb and assimilate this
new thing into its blood. Deviating natures are
of the utmost importance wherever there is to
be progress. Every wholesale progress must be
preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest
natures retain the type, the weaker ones help it
to develop. Something similar happens in the
case of individuals; a deterioration, a mutilation,
even a vice and, above all, a physical or moral
loss is seldom without its advantage. For
instance, a sickly man in the midst of a warlike
and restless race will perhaps have more chance
of being alone and thereby growing quieter and
wiser, the one-eyed man will possess a stronger
eye, the blind man will have a deeper inward
sight and will certainly have a keener sense of
. hearing. In so far it appears to me that the
famous Struggle for Existence is not the only
point of view from which an explanation can be
given of the progress or strengthening of an
individual or a race. Rather must two different
things converge: firstly, the multiplying of stable
strength through mental binding in faith and
common feeling; secondly, the possibility of
attaining to higher aims, through the fact that
there are deviating natures and, in consequence,
partial weakening and wounding of the stable
strength; it is precisely the weaker nature, as
the more delicate and free, that makes all progress



## p. 209 (#281) ############################################

SIGNS OF HIGHER AND LOWER CULTURE. 200
at all possible. A people that is crumbling and
weak in any one part, but as a whole still strong
and healthy, is able to absorb the infection of
what is new and incorporate it to its advantage.
The task of education in a single individual is
this: to plant him so firmly and surely that, as
a whole, he can no longer be diverted from his
path. Then, however, the educator must wound
him, or else make use of the wounds which fate
inflicts, and when pain and need have thus arisen,
something new and noble can be inoculated into
the wounded places. With regard to the State,
Machiavelli says that, " the form of Government
is of very small importance, although half-
educated people think otherwise. The great aim
of State-craft should be duration, which out-
weighs all else, inasmuch as it is more valuable
than liberty. " It is only with securely founded
and guaranteed duration that continual develop-
ment and ennobling inoculation are at all possible.
As a rule, however, authority, the dangerous com-
panion of all duration, will rise in opposition to
this.
225.
Free-Thinker a Relative Term. — We
call that man a free-thinker who thinks otherwise
than is expected of him in consideration of his
origin, surroundings, position, and office, or by
reason of the prevailing contemporary views.
He is the exception, fettered minds are the rule;
these latter reproach him, saying that his free
principles either have their origin in a desire
vol. 1. O


## p. 210 (#282) ############################################

2IO HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
i
<.
to be remarkable or else cause free actions to be
inferred,—that is to say, actions which are not
compatible with fettered morality. Sometimes it
is also said that the cause of such and such free
principles may be traced to mental perversity
and extravagance; but only malice speaks thus,
nor does it believe what it says, but wishes
thereby to do an injury, for the free-thinker
usually bears the proof of his greater goodness
and keenness of intellect written in his face so
plainly that the fettered spirits understand it well
enough. But the two other derivations of free-
thought are honestly intended; as a matter of
fact, many free-thinkers are created in one or
other of these ways. For this reason, however,
the tenets to which they attain in this manner
might be truer and more reliable than those of
the fettered spirits. In the knowledge of truth,
what really matters is the possession of it, not
the impulse under which it was sought, the way
in which it was found. If the free-thinkers are
right then the fettered spirits are wrong, and it is
a matter of indifference whether the former have
reached truth through immorality or the latter
hitherto retained hold of untruths through
morality. Moreover, it is not essential to the
free-thinker that he should hold more correct
views, but that he should have liberated himself
from what was customary, be it successfully or
disastrously. As a rule, however, he will have
truth, or at least the spirit of truth-investigation, f|
on his side; he demands reasons, the others
demand faith.
':.
i
1



## p. 211 (#283) ############################################

SIGNS OF HIGHER AND LOWER CULTURE. 211
226.
The Origin of Faith. —The fettered spirit
does not take up his position from conviction,
but from habit; he is a Christian, for instance,
not because he had a comprehension of different
creeds and could take his choice; he is an
Englishman, not because he decided for England,
but he found Christianity and England ready-
made and accepted them without any reason,
just as one who is born in a wine-country
becomes a wine-drinker. Later on, perhaps, as
he was a Christian and an Englishman, he dis-
covered a few reasons in favour of his habit;
these reasons may be upset, but he is not
therefore upset in his whole position. For
instance, let a fettered spirit be obliged to bring
forward his reasons against bigamy and then it
will be seen whether his holy zeal in favour of
monogamy is based upon reason or upon custom.
The adoption of guiding principles without reasons
is called faith.
227.
Conclusions drawn from the Conse-
quences AND TRACED BACK TO REASON AND
UN-REASON. —All states and orders of society,
professions, matrimony, education, law: all these
find strength and duration only in the faith which
the fettered spirits repose in them,—that is, in
the absence of reasons, or at least in the averting
of inquiries as to reasons. The restricted spirits
do not willingly acknowledge this, and feel that


## p.