No More Learning

—In the ages i
of a rude and primitive civilisation man believed I
VOL. i. B


## p. 18 (#44) ##############################################

18 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
that in dreams he became acquainted with a second
actual world; herein lies the origin of all meta-
physics. Without dreams there could have been
found no reason for a division of the world. The
distinction, too, between soul and body is connected
with the most ancient comprehension of dreams,
also the supposition of an imaginary soul-body,
therefore the origin of all belief in spirits, and
probably also the belief in gods. "The dead
continues to live, for he appears to the living
in a dream": thus men reasoned of old for
thousands and thousands of years.
The Scientific Spirit partially but not
wholly Powerful. —The smallest subdivisions
of science taken separately are dealt with purely
in relation to themselves,—the general, great
sciences, on the contrary, regarded as a whole, call
up the question—certainly a very non-objective
one—" Wherefore? To what end? " It is this
utilitarian consideration which causes them to be
dealt with less impersonally when taken as a
whole than when considered in their various parts.
In philosophy, above all, as the apex of the entire
pyramid of science, the question as to the utility of
knowledge is involuntarily brought forward, and
every philosophy has the unconscious intention of
ascribing to it the greatest usefulness. For this
reason there is so much high-flying metaphysics
in all philosophies and such a shyness of the
apparently unimportant solutions of physics; for
*


## p. 19 (#45) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 19
the importance of knowledge for life must appear
as great as possible. Here is the antagonism
between the separate provinces of science and
philosophy, The latter desires, what art does, to
give the greatest possible depth and meaning to
life and actions; in the former one seeks know-
ledge and nothing further, whatever may emerge
thereby. So far there has been no philosopher in
whose hands philosophy has not grown into an
apology for knowledge; on this point, at least,
every one is an optimist, that the greatest usefulness
must be ascribed to knowledge. They are all
tyrannised over by logic, and this is optimism—in
its essence.
7-
The Kill-joy in Science. — Philosophy
separated from science when it asked the question,
"Which is the knowledge of the world and of life
which enables man to live most happily? " This
happened in the Socratic schools; the veins of
scientific investigation were bound up by the
point of view of happiness,—and are so still.
Pneumatic Explanation of Nature. —
Metaphysics explains the writing of Nature, so to
speak,pneumatically, as the Church and her learned
men formerly did with the Bible. A great deal
of understanding is required to apply to Nature
the same method of strict interpretation as the
philologists have now established for all books,


## p. 20 (#46) ##############################################

20 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
with the intention of clearly understanding what
the text means, but not suspecting a double sense
or even taking it for granted. Just, however, as
with regard to books, the bad art of interpretation
is by no means overcome, and in the most
cultivated society one still constantly comes across
the remains of allegorical and mystic interpretation,
so it is also with regard to Nature, indeed it is
even much worse.
9-.
The Metaphysical World. —It is true that
there might be a metaphysical world; the absolute
possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We
look at everything through the human head and
cannot cut this head off; while the question
remains, What would be left of the world if it had
been cut off? This is a purely scientific problem,
and one not very likely to trouble mankind;
but everything which has hitherto made meta-
physical suppositions valuable, terrible, delightful
for man, what has produced them, is passion, error,
and self-deception; the very worst methods of
knowledge, not the best, have taught belief therein.
When these methods have been discovered as the
foundation of all existing religions and meta-
physics, they have been refuted. Then there still
always remains that possibility; but there is
nothing to be done with it, much less is it possible
to let happiness, salvation, and life depend on the
spider-thread of such a possibility. For nothing
could be said of the metaphysical world but that
it would be a different condition, a condition in-


## p. 21 (#47) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 21
accessible and incomprehensible to us; it would
be a thing of negative qualities. Were the
existence of such a world ever so well proved, the
fact would nevertheless remain that it would be
precisely the most irrelevant of all forms of
knowledge: more irrelevant than the knowledge
of the chemical analysis of water to the sailor in
danger in a storm.
IO.
The Harmlessness of Metaphysics in the
Future. —Directly the origins of religion, art,
and morals have been so described that one can
perfectly explain them without having recourse to
metaphysical concepts at the beginning and in the
course of the path, the strongest interest in the
purely theoretical problem of the " thing-in-itself"
and the "phenomenon" ceases. For however it
may be here, with religion, art, and morals we do
not touch the "essence of the world in itself" ; we
are in the domain of representation, no " intuition"
can carry us further. With the greatest calmness
we shall leave the question as to how our own
conception of the world can differ so widely from
the revealed essence of the world, to physiology
and the history of the evolution of organisms and
ideas.
11.
'Language as a Presumptive Science. —
The importance of language for the development
of culture lies in the fact that in language man has


## p. 22 (#48) ##############################################

22 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
placed a world of his own beside the other, a
position which he deemed so fixed that he might
therefrom lift the rest of the world off its hinges,
and make himself master of it. Inasmuch as
man has believed in the ideas and names of things
as aterncB veritates for a great length of time, he
has acquired that pride by which he has raised
himself above the animal; he really thought that
in language he possessed the knowledge of the
world. The maker of language was not modest
enough to think that he only gave designations to
things, he believed rather that with his words he
expressed the widest knowledge of the things; in
reality language is the first step in the endeavour
after science. Here also it is belief in ascertained
truth, from which the mightiest sources of strength
have flowed. Much later—only now—it is dawn-
ing upon men that they have propagated a
tremendous error in their belief in language.
Fortunately it is now too late to reverse the
development of reason, which is founded upon that
belief. Logic, also, is founded upon suppositions
to which nothing in the actual world corresponds,—
for instance, on the supposition of the equality of
things, and the identity of the same thing at
different points of time,—but that particular
science arose out of the contrary belief (that such
things really existed in the actual world). It is
the same with mathematics, which would certainly
not have arisen if it had been known from the
beginning that in Nature there are no exactly
straight lines, no real circle, no absolute standard
of size.


## p. 23 (#49) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 23
12.
Dream and Culture. —The function of the
brain which is most influenced by sleep is the
memory; not that it entirely ceases; but it is
brought back to a condition of imperfection, such as
everyone may have experienced in pre-historic times,
whether asleep or awake. Arbitrary and confused
as it is, it constantly confounds things on the
ground of the most fleeting resemblances; but
with the same arbitrariness and confusion the
ancients invented their mythologies, and even at
the present day travellers are accustomed to
remark how prone the savage is to forgetfulness,
how, after a short tension of memory, his mind
begins to sway here and there from sheer weariness
and gives forth lies and nonsense. But in dreams
we all resemble the savage; bad recognition and
erroneous comparisons are the reasons of the bad
conclusions, of which we are guilty in dreams: so
that, when we clearly recollect what we have
dreamt, we are alarmed at ourselves at harbour-
ing so much foolishness within us. The perfect
distinctness of all dream-representations, which
pre-suppose absolute faith in their reality, recall
the conditions that appertain to primitive man,
in whom hallucination was extraordinarily frequent,
and sometimes simultaneously seized entire com-
munities, entire nations. Therefore, in sleep and
in dreams we once more carry out the task of
early humanity.
/


## p. 24 (#50) ##############################################

24 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
13-
The Logic of Dreams. —In sleep our nervous
system is perpetually excited by numerous inner
occurrences; nearly all the organs are disjointed
and in a state of activity, the blood runs its
turbulent course, the position of the sleeper causes
pressure on certain limbs, his coverings influence
his sensations in various ways, the stomach digests
and by its movements it disturbs other organs,
the intestines writhe, the position of the head
occasions unaccustomed play of muscles, the feet,
unshod, not pressing upon the floor with the soles,
occasion the feeling of the unaccustomed just as
does the different clothing of the whole body:
all this, according to its daily change and extent,
excites by its extraordinariness the entire system
to the very functions of the brain;, and thus there
are a hundred occasions for the spirit to be sur-
prised and to seek for the reasons of this excita-
tion ;—the dream, however, is the seeking and
representing of the causes of those excited sensa-
tions,—that is, of the supposed causes. A person
who, for instance, binds his feet with two straps
will perhaps dream that two serpents are coiling
round his feet; this is first hypothesis, then a
belief, with an accompanying mental picture and
interpretation—" These serpents must be the causa
of those sensations which I, the sleeper, experi-
ence,"—so decides the mind of the sleeper. The
immediate past, so disclosed, becomes to him the
present through his excited imagination. Thus
every one knows from experience how quickly the


## p. 25 (#51) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 2$
dreamer weaves into his dream a loud sound that
he hears, such as the ringing of bells or the firing
of cannon, that is to say, explains it from after-
wards so that he first thinks he experiences the
producing circumstances and then that sound.
But how does it happen that the mind of the
dreamer is always so mistaken, while the same
mind when awake is accustomed to be so tem-
perate, careful, and sceptical with regard to its
hypotheses? so that the first random hypo-
thesis for the explanation of a feeling suffices for
him to believe immediately in its truth? (For in
dreaming we believe in the dream as if it were a
reality, i. e. we think our hypothesis completely
proved. ) I hold, that as man now still reasons'!
in dreams, so men reasoned also when awake
through thousands of years; the first causa which}
occurred to the mind to explain anything that;
required an explanation, was sufficient and stood;
for truth. (Thus, according to travellers' tales,;
savages still do to this very day. ) This ancienti
element in human nature still manifests itself in,
our dreams, for it is the foundation upon which i
the higher reason has developed and still develops I
in every individual; the dream carries us back
into remote conditions of human culture, and pro-
vides a ready means of understanding them better.
Dream-thinking is now so easy to us because'
during immense periods of human development
we have been so well drilled in this form of
fantastic and cheap explanation, by means of the
first agreeable notions. In so far, dreaming is a
recreation for the brain, which by day has to


## p. 26 (#52) ##############################################

26 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
satisfy the stern demands of thought, as they are
\Jaid down by the higher culture. We can at
once discern an allied process even in our
awakened state, as the door and ante-room of the
dream. If we shut our eyes, the brain produces
a number of impressions of light and colour, prob-
ably as a kind of after-play and echo of all
those effects of light which crowd in upon it by
day. Now, however, the understanding, together
with the imagination, instantly works up this
play of colour, shapeless in itself, into definite
figures, forms, landscapes, and animated groups.
The actual accompanying process thereby is again
a kind of conclusion from the effect to the cause:
since the mind asks, " Whence come these impres-
sions of light and colour? " it supposes those
figures and forms as causes; it takes them for the
origin of those colours and lights, because in the
daytime, with open eyes, it is accustomed to find
a producing cause for every colour, every effect of
light. Here, therefore, the imagination constantly
places pictures before the mind, since it supports
itself on the visual impressions of the day in their
production, and the dream-imagination does just
the same thing,—that is, the supposed cause is
deduced from the effect and represented after the
effect; all this happens with extraordinary rapidity,
so that here, as with the conjuror, a Confusion of
judgment may arise and a sequence may look like
something simultaneous, or even like a reversed
sequence. From these circumstances we may
gather how itift/j/ the more acute logical thinking,
the strict discrimination of cause and effect has


## p. 27 (#53) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 27
been developed, when our reasoning and under-
standing faculties still involuntarily hark back to
those primitive forms of deduction, and when we
pass about half our life in this condition. The
poet, too, and the artist assign causes for their
moods and conditions which are by no means the
true ones; in this they recall an older humanity
and can assist us to the understanding of it.
14.
Co-ECHOING. —-All stronger moods bring with
them a co-echoing of kindred sensations and
moods, they grub up the memory, so to speak.
Along with them something within us remembers
and becomes conscious of similar conditions and
their origin. Thus there are formed quick habit-
ual connections of feelings and thoughts, which
eventually, when they follow each other with
lightning speed, are no longer felt as complexes
but as unities. In this sense one speaks of the
moral feeling, of the religious feeling, as if they
were absolute unities: in reality they are streams
with a hundred sources and tributaries. Here
also, as so often happens, the unity of the word
is no security for the unity of the thing.
IS-
No Internal and External in the
WORLD. —As Democritus transferred the con-
cepts "above" and "below" to endless space
where they have no sense, so philosophers in


## p. 28 (#54) ##############################################

28 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
general have transferred the concepts "Internal"
and " External" to the essence and appearance of
the world; they think that with deep feelings one
can penetrate deeply into the internal and ap-
proach the heart of Nature. But these feelings
are only deep in so far as along with fhem, barely
noticeable, certain complicated groups of thoughts,
which we call deep, are regularly excited; a feel-
ing is deep because we think that the accompany-
ing thought is deep. But the "deep" thought
can nevertheless be very far from the truth, as, for
instance, every metaphysical one; if one take away
from the deep feeling the commingled elements
of thought, then the strong feeling remains, and
this guarantees nothing for knowledge but itself,
just as strong faith proves only its strength and
not the truth of what is believed in.
16.
Phenomenon and Thing-in-itself. —Phil-
osophers are in the habit of setting themselves
before life and experience—before that which they
call the world of appearance—as before a picture
that is once for all unrolled and exhibits unchange-
ably fixed the same process,—this process, they
think, must be rightly interpreted in order to come
to a conclusion about the being that produced the
picture: about the thing-in-itself, therefore, which
is always accustomed to be regarded as sufficient
ground for the world of phenomenon. On the
other hand, since one always makes the idea of the
metaphysical stand definitely as that of the uncon-


## p. 29 (#55) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 29
ditioned, consequently also unconditioning, one
must directly disown all connection between the
unconditioned (the metaphysical world) and the
world which is known to us; so that the thing-in-
itself should most certainly not appear in the
phenomenon, and every conclusion from the former
as regards the latter is to be rejected. Both
sides overlook the fact that that picture—that
which we now call human life and experience—
has gradually evolved,—nay, is still in the full pro-
cess of evolving,—and therefore should not be
regarded as a fixed magnitude from which a con-
clusion about its originator might be deduced (the
sufficing cause) or even merely neglected. It is
because for thousands of years we have looked
into the world with moral, aesthetic, and religious
pretensions, with blind inclination, passion, or fear,
and have surfeited ourselves in the vices of illogical
thought, that this world has gradually become so
marvellously motley, terrible, full of meaning and
of soul, it has acquired colour—but we were the
colourists; the human intellect, on the basis of
human needs, of human emotions, has caused this
'/ phenomenon" to appear and has carried its
erroneous fundamental conceptions into things.
Late, very late, it takes to thinking, and now the
world of experience and the thing-in-itself seem
to it so extraordinarily different and separated,
that it gives up drawing conclusions from the
former to the latter—or in a terribly mysterious
manner demands the renunciation of our intellect,
of our personal will, in order thereby to reach the
essential, that one may become essential. Again,


## p. 30 (#56) ##############################################

30 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
others have collected all the characteristic features
of our world of phenomenon,—that is, the idea of
the world spun out of intellectual errors and in-
herited by us,—and instead of accusing the intellect
as the offenders, they have laid the blame on the
nature of things as being the cause of the hard fact
of this very sinister character of the world, and have
preached the deliverance from Being. With all
these conceptions the constant and laborious pro-
cess of science (which at last celebrates its great-
est triumph in a history of the origin of thought)
becomes completed in various ways, the result of
which might perhaps run as follows :—"That which
we now call the world is the result of a mass of
errors and fantasies which arose gradually in the
general development of organic being, which are
inter-grown with each other, and are now inherited
by us as the accumulated treasure of all the past,
—as a treasure, for the value of our humanity
depends upon it. From this world of representa-
tion strict science is really only able to liberate
us to a very slight extent—as it is also not at
all desirable—inasmuch as it cannot essentially
break the power of primitive habits of feeling; but
it can gradually elucidate the history of the rise of
that world as representation,—and lift us, at least
for moments, above and beyond the whole process.
Perhaps we shall then recognise that the thing in
itself is worth a Homeric laugh; that it seemed
so much, indeed everything, and is really empty,
namely, empty of meaning. "


## p. 31 (#57) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 31
17-
Metaphysical Explanations. —The young
man values metaphysical explanations, because
they show him something highly significant in
things which he found unpleasant or despicable,
and if he is dissatisfied with himself, the feeling
becomes lighter when he recognises the innermost
world-puzzle or world-misery in that which he so
strongly disapproves of in himself. To feel him-
self less responsible and at the same time to find
things more interesting—that seems to him a
double benefit for which he has to thank meta-
physics. Later on, certainly, he gets distrustful
of the whole metaphysical method of explanation;
then perhaps it grows clear to him that those
results can be obtained equally well and more
scientifically in another way: that physical and
historical explanations produce the feeling of
personal relief to at least the same extent,
and that the interest in life and its problems is
perhaps still more aroused thereby.
18.
Fundamental Questions of Metaphysics.
—When the history of the rise of thought comes
to be written, a new light will be thrown on the
following statement of a distinguished logician:—
"The primordial general law of the cognisant
subject consists in the inner necessity of recog-
nising every object in itself in its own nature, as a
thing identical with itself, consequently self-exist-


## p. 32 (#58) ##############################################

32 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
ing and at bottom remaining ever the same
and unchangeable: in short, in recognising every-
thing as a substance. " Even this law, which is
here called " primordial," has evolved: it will some
day be shown how gradually this tendency arises
in the lower organisms, how the feeble mole-eyes
of their organisations at first see only the same
thing,—how then, when the various awakenings
of pleasure and displeasure become noticeable,
various substances are gradually distinguished, but
each with one attribute, i. e. one single relation to
such an organism. The first step in logic is the
judgment,—the nature of which, according to the
decision of the best logicians, consists in belief.
At the bottom of all belief lies the sensation of the
pleasant or the painful in relation to the sentient
subject. A new third sensation as the result of
two previous single sensations is the judgment
in its simplest form. We organic beings have
originally no interest in anything but its relation to
us in connection with pleasure and pain. Between
the moments (the states of feeling) when we become
conscious of this connection, lie moments of rest,
of non-feeling; the world and everything is then
without interest for us, we notice no change in it
(as even now a deeply interested person does not
notice when any one passes him). To the plant,
things are as a rule tranquil and eternal, every-
thing like itself. From the period of the lower
organisms man has inherited the belief that
similar things exist (this theory is only con-
tradicted by the matured experience of the most
advanced science). The primordial belief of


## p. 33 (#59) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 33
everything organic from the beginning is perhaps
, even this, that all the rest of the world is one and
immovable. The point furthest removed from
those early beginnings of logic is the idea of
Causality,—indeed we still really think that all
sensations and activities are acts of the free will;
when the sentient individual contemplates himself,
he regards every sensation, every alteration as
something isolated, that is to say, unconditioned
and disconnected,—it rises up in us without con-
nection with anything foregoing or following.
We are hungry, but do not originally think that
the organism must be nourished; the feeling seems
to make itself felt without cause and purpose, it
isolates itself and regards itself as arbitrary.
Therefore, belief in the freedom of the will is an
original error of everything organic, as old as the
existence of the awakenings of logic in it; the
belief in unconditioned substances and similar
> things is equally a primordial as well as an old
error of everything organic. But inasmuch as
all metaphysics has concerned itself chiefly with
substance and the freedom of will, it may be
designated as the science which treats of the
fundamental errors of mankind, but treats of
them as if they were fundamental truths.
19-
Number. —The discovery of the laws of numbers
is made upon the ground of the original, already
prevailing error, that there are many similar things
(but in reality there is nothing similar), at least,


## p. 34 (#60) ##############################################

34 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
that there are things (but there is no "thing").
The supposition of plurality always presumes that
there is something which appears frequently,—but
here already error reigns, already we imagine
beings, unities, which do not exist. Our sensations
of space and time are false, for they lead—ex-
amined in sequence—to logical contradictions.
In all scientific determinations we always reckon
inevitably with certain false quantities, but as these
quantities are at least constant, as, for instance,
our sensation of time and space, the conclusions
of science have still perfect accuracy and certainty
in their connection with one another; one may
continue to build upon them—until that final limit
where the erroneous original suppositions, those
constant faults, come into conflict with the con-
clusions, for instance in the doctrine of atoms.
There still we always feel ourselves compelled to
the acceptance of a "thing" or material "sub-
stratum" that is moved, whilst the whole scientific
procedure has pursued the very task of resolving
everything substantial (material) into motion; here,
too, we still separate with our sensation the mover
and the moved and cannot get out of this circle,
because the belief in things has from immemorial
times been bound up with our being. When Kant
says, "The understanding does not derive its
laws from Nature, but dictates them to her," it is
perfectly true with regard to the idea of Nature
which we are compelled to associate with her
(Nature = World as representation, that is to say
as error), but which is the summing up of a
number of errors of the understanding. The laws


## p. 35 (#61) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 35
of numbers are entirely inapplicable to a world
which is not our representation—these laws obtain
only in the human world.
20.
A Few Steps Back. —A degree of culture,
and assuredly a very high one, is attained when
man rises above superstitious and religious notions
and fears, and, for instance, no longer believes in
guardian angels or in original sin, and has also
ceased to talk of the salvation of his soul,—if he
has attained to this degree of freedom, he has still
also to overcome metaphysics with the greatest
exertion of his intelligence. Then, however, a re-
trogressive movement is necessary; he must under-
stand the historical justification as well as the
psychological in such representations, he must
recognise how the greatest advancement of
humanity has come therefrom, and how, without
such a retrocursive movement, we should have
been robbed of the best products of hitherto
existing mankind. With regard to philosophical
metaphysics, I always see increasing numbers
who have attained to the negative goal (that all
positive metaphysics is error), but as yet few who
. climb a few rungs backwards; one ought to look
out, perhaps, over the last steps of the ladder, but
not try to stand upon them. The most enlightened
only succeed so far as to free themselves from
metaphysics and look back upon it with superiority,
while it is necessary here, too, as in the hippo-
drome, to turn round the end of the course.


## p. 36 (#62) ##############################################

36 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
21.
Conjectural Victory of Scepticism. —For
once let the sceptical starting-point be accepted,
—granted that there were no other metaphysical
world, and all explanations drawn from meta-
physics about the only world we know were useless
to us, in what light should we then look upon
men and things? We can think this out for
ourselves, it is useful, even though the question
whether anything metaphysical has been scientific-
ally proved by Kant and Schopenhauer were
altogether set aside. For it is quite possible,
according to historical probability, that some time
or other man, as a general rule, may grow sceptical;
the question will then be this: What form will
human society take under the influence of such a
mode of thought? Perhaps the scientific proof of
some metaphysical world or other is already so
difficult that mankind will never get rid of a cer-
tain distrust of it. And when there is distrust
of metaphysics, there are on the whole the same
results as if it had been directly refuted and could
no longer be believed in. The historical question
with regard to an unmetaphysical frame of mind
in mankind remains the same in both cases.
22.
Unbelief in the " Monumentum alre per-
ennius. " — An actual drawback which accom-
panies the cessation of metaphysical views lies in the
fact that the individual looks upon his short span


## p. 37 (#63) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 37
of life too exclusively and receives no stronger in-
centives to build durable institutions intended to
last for centuries,—he himself wishes to pluck the
fruit from the tree which he plants, and therefore
he no longer plants those trees which require
regular care for centuries, and which are destined
to afford shade to a long series of generations.
For metaphysical views furnish the belief that in
them the last conclusive foundation has been given,
upon which henceforth all the future of mankind
is compelled to settle down and establish itself;
the individual furthers his salvation, when, for
instance, he founds a church or convent, he thinks
it will be reckoned to him and recompensed to
him in the eternal life of the soul, it is work for
the soul's eternal salvation. Can science also
arouse such faith in its results? As a matter of
fact, it needs doubt and distrust as its most faithful
auxiliaries; nevertheless in the course of time, the
sum of inviolable truths—those, namely, which
have weathered all the storms of scepticism, and
all destructive analysis—may have become so great
(in the regimen of health, for instance), that one
may determine to found thereupon "eternal" works.
For the present the contrast between our excited
ephemeral existence and the long-winded repose
of metaphysical ages still operates too strongly,
because the two ages still stand too closely
together; the individual man himself now goes
through too many inward and outward develop-
ments for him to venture to arrange his own
lifetime permanently, and once and for all. An
entirely modern man, for instance, who is going


## p. 38 (#64) ##############################################

38 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
to build himself a house, has a feeling as if he
were going to immure himself alive in a mausoleum.
23-
The Age of Comparison. —The less men are
fettered by tradition, the greater becomes the
inward activity of their motives; the greater, again,
in proportion thereto, the outward restlessness, the
confused flux of mankind, the polyphony of striv-
ings. For whom is there still an absolute com-
pulsion to bind himself and his descendants to one
place? For whom is there still anything strictly
compulsory? As all styles of arts are imitated
simultaneously, so also are all grades and kinds of
morality, of customs, of cultures. Such an age
obtains its importance because in it the various
views of the world, customs, and cultures can be
compared and experienced simultaneously,—which
was formerly not possible with the always localised
sway of every culture, corresponding to the root-
ing of all artistic styles in place and time.
An increased aesthetic feeling will now at last
decide amongst so many forms presenting them-
selves for comparison; it will allow the greater
number, that is to say all those rejected by it, to
die out. In the same way a selection amongst
the forms and customs of the higher moralities is
taking place, of which the aim can be nothing
else than the downfall of the lower moralities.
It is the age of comparison! That is its pride,
but more justly also its grief. Let us not be
afraid of this grief! Rather will we comprehend


## p. 39 (#65) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 39
as adequately as possible the task our age sets us:
posterity will bless us for doing so,—a posterity
which knows itself to be as much above the
terminated original national cultures as above the
culture of comparison, but which looks back with
gratitude on both kinds of culture as upon
antiquities worthy of veneration.
24.
The Possibility of Progress. —When a
scholar of the ancient culture forswears the
company of men who believe in progress, he
does quite right. For the greatness and good-
ness of ancient culture lie behind it, and historical
education compels one to admit that they can
never be fresh again; an unbearable stupidity or
an equally insufferable fanaticism would be neces-
sary to deny this. But men can consciously resolve
to develop themselves towards a new culture;
whilst formerly they only developed unconsciously
and by chance, they can now create better con-
ditions for the rise of human beings, for their
nourishment, education and instruction; they can
administer the earth economically as a whole, and
can generally weigh and restrain the powers of
man. This new, conscious culture kills the old,
which, regarded as a whole, has led an unconscious
animal and plant life; it also kills distrust in
progress,—progress is possible. I must say that it
is over-hasty and almost nonsensical to believe
that progress must necessarily follow; but how
could one deny that it is possible? On the


## p. 40 (#66) ##############################################

40 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
other hand, progress in the sense and on the
path of the old culture is not even thinkable.
Even if romantic fantasy has also constantly used
the word "progress" to denote its aims (for in-
stance, circumscribed primitive national cultures),
it borrows the picture of it in any case from the
past; its thoughts and ideas on this subject are
entirely without originality.
25-
Private and (Ecumenical Morality. —
Since the belief has ceased that a God directs in
general the fate of the world and, in spite of all
apparent crookedness in the path of humanity,
leads it on gloriously, men themselves must set
themselves oecumenical aims embracing the whole
earth. The older morality, especially that of
Kant, required from the individual actions which
were desired from all men,—that was a delight-
fully naive thing, as if each one knew off-hand
what course of action was beneficial to the whole
of humanity, and consequently which actions in
general were desirable; it is a theory like that of
free trade, taking for granted that the general
harmony must result of itself according to innate
laws of amelioration. Perhaps a future contem-
plation of the needs of humanity will show that
it is by no means desirable that all men should
act alike; in the interest of oecumenical aims it
might rather be that for whole sections of man-
kind, special, and perhaps under certain circum-
stances even evil, tasks would have to be set. In


## p. 41 (#67) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 41
any case, if mankind is not to destroy itself by
such a conscious universal rule, there must pre-
viously be found, as a scientific standard for
oecumenical aims, a knowledge of the conditions of
culture superior to what has hitherto been attained.
Herein lies the enormous task of the great minds
of the next century.
26.
Reaction as Progress. —Now and again
there appear rugged, powerful, impetuous, but
nevertheless backward-lagging minds which con-
jure up once more a past phase of mankind; they
serve to prove that the new tendencies against
which they are working are not yet sufficiently
strong, that they still lack something, otherwise
they would show better opposition to those
exorcisers. Thus, for example, Luther's Re-
formation bears witness to the fact that in his
century all the movements of the freedom of the
spirit were still uncertain, tender, and youthful;
science could not yet lift up its head. Indeed
the whole Renaissance seems like an early spring
which is almost snowed under again. But in this
century also, Schopenhauer's Metaphysics showed
that even now the scientific spirit is not yet strong
enough; thus the whole mediaeval Christian view
of the world and human feeling could celebrate
its resurrection in Schopenhauer's doctrine, in spite
of the long achieved destruction of all Christian
dogmas. There is much science in his doctrine,
but it does not dominate it: it is rather the old
well - known "metaphysical requirement" that


## p. 42 (#68) ##############################################

j 42 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
does so. It is certainly one of the greatest and
quite invaluable advantages which we gain from
Schopenhauer, that he occasionally forces our
sensations back into older, mightier modes of
contemplating the world and man, to which no
other path would so easily lead us. The gain to
history and justice is very great,—I do not think
that any one would so easily succeed now in doing
justice to Christianity and its Asiatic relations
without Schopenhauer's assistance, which is speci-
ally impossible from the basis of still existing
Christianity. Only after this great success of
justice, only after we have corrected so essential
a point as the historical mode of contemplation
which the age of enlightenment brought with it,
may we again bear onward the banner of en-
lightenment, the banner with the three names,
Petrarch, Erasmus, Voltaire. We have turned
reaction into progress.
27.
A Substitute for Religion. —It is believed
that something good is said of philosophy when
it is put forward as a substitute for religion for
the people. As a matter of fact, in the spiritual
economy there is need, at times, of an intermediary
order of thought: the transition from religion to
scientific contemplation is a violent, dangerous
leap, which is not to be recommended. To this
extent the recommendation is justifiable. But
one should eventually learn that the needs which
have been satisfied by religion and are now to
be satisfied by philosophy are not unchangeable;


## p. 43 (#69) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS.
43
these themselves can be weakened and eradicated.
Think, for instance, of the Christian's distress of
soul, his sighing over inward corruption, his anxiety
for salvation,—all notions which originate only in
errors of reason and deserve not satisfaction but
destruction. A philosophy can serve either to
satisfy those needs or to set them aside; for they
are acquired, temporally limited needs, which are
based upon suppositions contradictory to those
of science. Here, in order to make a transition,
art is far rather to be employed to relieve the mind
over-burdened with emotions; for those notions
receive much less support from it than from a
metaphysical philosophy. It is easier, then, to
pass over from art to a really liberating philo-
sophical science.
28.
Ill-famed Words. —Away with those weari-
somely hackneyed terms Optimism and Pessimism!
For the occasion for using them becomes less and
less from day to day; only the chatterboxes still
find them so absolutely necessary. For why in
all the world should any one wish to be an optimist
unless he had a God to defend who must have
created the best of worlds if he himself be goodness
and perfection,—what thinker, however, still needs
the hypothesis of a God? But every occasion for
a pessimistic confession of faith is also lacking when
one has no interest in being annoyed at the advo-
cates of God (the theologians, or the theologising
philosophers), and in energetically defending the
opposite view, that evil reigns, that pain is greater



## p. 43 (#70) ##############################################

34 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
that there are things (but there is no "thing ").
The supposition of plurality always presumes that
there is something which appears frequently,—but
here already error reigns, already we imagine
beings, unities, which do not exist. Our sensations
of space and time are false, for they lead—ex-
amined in sequence—to logical contradictions.
In all scientific determinations we always reckon
inevitably with certain false quantities, but as these
quantities are at least constant, as, for instance,
our sensation of time and space, the conclusions
of science have still perfect accuracy and certainty
in their connection with one another; one may
continue to build upon them—until that final limit
where the erroneous original suppositions, those
constant faults, come into conflict with the con-
clusions, for instance in the doctrine of atoms.
There still we always feel ourselves compelled to
the acceptance of a "thing" or material "sub-
stratum " that is moved, whilst the whole scientific
procedure has pursued the very task of resolving
everything substantial (material) into motion; here,
too, we still separate with our sensation the mover
and the moved and cannot get out of this circle,
because the belief in things has from immemorial
times been bound up with our being. When Kant
says, "The understanding does not derive its
laws from Nature, but dictates them to her," it is
perfectly true with regard to the idea of Nature
which we are compelled to associate with her
(Nature = World as representation, that is to say
as error), but which is the summing up of a
number of errors of the understanding. The laws


## p. 43 (#71) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 35
of numbers are entirely inapplicable to a world
which is not our representation—these laws obtain
only in the human world.
20.
A Few Steps Back. —A degree of culture,
and assuredly a very high one, is attained when
man rises above superstitious and religious notions
and fears, and, for instance, no longer believes in
guardian angels or in original sin, and has also
ceased to talk of the salvation of his soul,—if he
has attained to this degree of freedom, he has still
also to overcome metaphysics with the greatest
exertion of his intelligence. Then, however, a re-
trogressive movement is necessary; he must under-
stand the historical justification as well as the
psychological in such representations, he must
recognise how the greatest advancement of
humanity has come therefrom, and how, without
such a retrocursive movement, we should have
been robbed of the best products of hitherto
existing mankind. With regard to philosophical
metaphysics, I always see increasing numbers
who have attained to the negative goal (that all
positive metaphysics is error), but as yet few who
climb a few rungs backwards; one ought to look
out, perhaps, over the last steps of the ladder, but
not try to stand upon them. The most enlightened
only succeed so far as to free themselves from
metaphysics and look back upon it with superiority,
while it is necessary here, too, as in the hippo-
drome, to turn round the end of the course.


## p. 43 (#72) ##############################################

36 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
-
21.
Conjectural Victory of Scepticism. —For
once let the sceptical starting-point be accepted,
—granted that there were no other metaphysical
world, and all explanations drawn from meta-
physics about the only world we know were useless
to us, in what light should we then look upon
men and things? We can think this out for
ourselves, it is useful, even though the question
whether anything metaphysical has been scientific-
ally proved by Kant and Schopenhauer were
altogether set aside. For it is quite possible,
according to historical probability, that some time
or other man, as a general rule, may grow sceptical;
the question will then be this: What form will
human society take under the influence of such a
mode of thought? Perhaps the scientific proof of
some metaphysical world or other is already so
dijficult that mankind will never get rid of a cer-
tain distrust of it. And when there is distrust
of metaphysics, there are on the whole the same
results as if it had been directly refuted and could
no longer be believed in. The historical question
with regard to an unmetaphysical frame of mind
in mankind remains the same in both cases.
22.
Unbelief in the " Monvmentum are per-
ennius" — An actual drawback which accom-
panies the cessation of metaphysical views lies in the
fact that the individual looks upon his short span


## p. 43 (#73) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 37
of life too exclusively and receives no stronger in-
centives to build durable institutions intended to
last for centuries,—he himself wishes to pluck the
fruit from the tree which he plants, and therefore
he no longer plants those trees which require
regular care for centuries, and which are destined
to afford shade to a long series of generations.
For metaphysical views furnish the belief that in
them the last conclusive foundation has been given,
upon which henceforth all the future of mankind
is compelled to settle down and establish itself;
the individual furthers his salvation, when, for
instance, he founds a church or convent, he thinks
it will be reckoned to him and recompensed to
him in the eternal life of the soul, it is work for
the soul's eternal salvation. Can science also
arouse such faith in its results? As a matter of
fact, it needs doubt and distrust as its most faithful
auxiliaries; nevertheless in the course of time, the
sum of inviolable truths—those, namely, which
have weathered all the storms of scepticism, and
all destructive analysis—may have become so great
(in the regimen of health, for instance), that one
may determine to found thereupon "eternal" works.
For the present the contrast between our excited
ephemeral existence and the long-winded repose
of metaphysical ages still operates too strongly,
because the two ages still stand too closely
together; the individual man himself now goes
through too many inward and outward develop-
ments for him to venture to arrange his own
lifetime permanently, and once and for all. An
entirely modern man, for instance, who is going


## p. 43 (#74) ##############################################

38 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
to build himself a house, has a feeling as if he
were going to immure himself alive in a mausoleum.
23-
The Age of Comparison. —The less men are
fettered by tradition, the greater becomes the
inward activity of their motives; the greater, again,
in proportion thereto, the outward restlessness, the
confused flux of mankind, the polyphony of striv-
ings. For whom is there still an absolute com-
pulsion to bind himself and his descendants to one
place? For whom is there still anything strictly
compulsory? As all styles of arts are imitated
simultaneously, so also are all grades and kinds of
morality, of customs, of cultures. Such an age
obtains its importance because in it the various
views of the world, customs, and cultures can be
compared and experienced simultaneously,—which
was formerly not possible with the always localised
sway of every culture, corresponding to the root-
ing of all artistic styles in place and time.
An increased aesthetic feeling will now at last
decide amongst so many forms presenting them-
selves for comparison; it will allow the greater
number, that is to say all those rejected by it, to
die out. In the same way a selection amongst
the forms and customs of the higher moralities is
taking place, of which the aim can be nothing
else than the downfall of the lower moralities.
It is the age of comparison! That is its pride,
but more justly also its grief. Let us not be
afraid of this grief! Rather will we comprehend


## p. 43 (#75) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 39
as adequately as possible the task our age sets us:
posterity will bless us for doing so,—a posterity
which knows itself to be as much above the
terminated original national cultures as above the
culture of comparison, but which looks back with
gratitude on both kinds of culture as upon
antiquities worthy of veneration.
24.
The Possibility of Progress. —When a
scholar of the ancient culture forswears the
company of men who believe in progress, he
does quite right. For the greatness and good-
ness of ancient culture lie behind it, and historical
education compels one to admit that they can
never be fresh again; an unbearable stupidity or
an equally insufferable fanaticism would be neces-
sary to deny this. But men can consciously resolve
to develop themselves towards a new culture;
whilst formerly they only developed unconsciously
and by chance, they can now create better con-
ditions for the rise of human beings, for their
nourishment, education and instruction; they can
administer the earth economically as a whole, and
can generally weigh and restrain the powers of
man. This new, conscious culture kills the old,
which, regarded as a whole, has led an unconscious
animal and plant life; it also kills distrust in
progress,—progress is possible. I must say that it
is over-hasty and almost nonsensical to believe
that progress must necessarily follow; but how
could one deny that it is possible? On the


## p. 43 (#76) ##############################################

40 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
other hand, progress in the sense and on the
path of the old culture is not even thinkable.
Even if romantic fantasy has also constantly used
the word "progress" to denote its aims (for in-
stance, circumscribed primitive national cultures),
it borrows the picture of it in any case from the
past; its thoughts and ideas on this subject are
entirely without originality.
25.
Private and CEcumenical Morality. —
Since the belief has ceased that a God directs in
general the fate of the world and, in spite of all
apparent crookedness in the path of humanity,
leads it on gloriously, men themselves must set
themselves oecumenical aims embracing the whole
earth. The older morality, especially that of
Kant, required from the individual actions which
were desired from all men,—that was a delight-
fully naive thing, as if each one knew off-hand
what course of action was beneficial to the whole
of humanity, and consequently which actions in
general were desirable; it is a theory like that of
free trade, taking for granted that the general
harmony must result of itself according to innate
laws of amelioration. Perhaps a future contem-
plation of the needs of humanity will show that
it is by no means desirable that all men should
act alike; in the interest of oecumenical aims it
might rather be that for whole sections of man-
kind, special, and perhaps under certain circum-
stances even evil, tasks would have to be set. In


## p. 43 (#77) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 41
any case, if mankind is not to destroy itself by
such a conscious universal rule, there must pre-
viously be found, as a scientific standard for
oecumenical aims, a knowledge of the conditions of
culture superior to what has hitherto been attained.
Herein lies the enormous task of the great minds
of the next century.
26.
Reaction as Progress. —Now and again
there appear rugged, powerful, impetuous, but
nevertheless backward-lagging minds which con-
jure up once more a past phase of mankind; they
serve to prove that the new tendencies against
which they are working are not yet sufficiently
strong, that they still lack something, otherwise
they would show better opposition to those
exorcisers. Thus, for example, Luther's Re-
formation bears witness to the fact that in his
century all the movements of the freedom of the
spirit were still uncertain, tender, and youthful;
science could not yet lift up its head. Indeed
the whole Renaissance seems like an early spring
which is almost snowed under again. But in this
century also, Schopenhauer's Metaphysics showed
that even now the scientific spirit is not yet strong
enough; thus the whole mediaeval Christian view
of the world and human feeling could celebrate
its resurrection in Schopenhauer's doctrine, in spite
of the long achieved destruction of all Christian
dogmas. There is much science in his doctrine,
but it does not dominate it: it is rather the old
well - known "metaphysical requirement" that


## p. 43 (#78) ##############################################

42 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
i
does so. It is certainly one of the greatest and
quite invaluable advantages which we gain from
Schopenhauer, that he occasionally forces our
sensations back into older, mightier modes of
contemplating the world and man, to which no
other path would so easily lead us. The gain to
history and justice is very great,—I do not think
that any one would so easily succeed now in doing
justice to Christianity and its Asiatic relations
without Schopenhauer's assistance, which is speci-
ally impossible from the basis of still existing
Christianity. Only after this great success of
justice, only after we have corrected so essential
a point as the historical mode of contemplation
which the age of enlightenment brought with it,
may we again bear onward the banner of en-
lightenment, the banner with the three names,
Petrarch, Erasmus, Voltaire. We have turned
reaction into progress.
27.
A Substitute for Religion. —It is believed
that something good is said of philosophy when
it is put forward as a substitute for religion for
the people. As a matter of fact, in the spiritual
economy there is need, at times, of an intermediary
order of thought: the transition from religion to
scientific contemplation is a violent, dangerous
leap, which is not to be recommended. To this
extent the recommendation is justifiable. But
one should eventually learn that the needs which
have been satisfied by religion and are now to
be satisfied by philosophy are not unchangeable;


## p. 43 (#79) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 43
these themselves can be weakened and eradicated.
Think, for instance, of the Christian's distress of
soul, his sighing over inward corruption, his anxiety
for salvation,—all notions which originate only in
errors of reason and deserve not satisfaction but
destruction. A philosophy can serve either to
satisfy those needs or to set them aside; for they
are acquired, temporally limited needs, which are
based upon suppositions contradictory to those
of science. Here, in order to make a transition,
art is far rather to be employed to relieve the mind
over-burdened with emotions; for those notions
receive much less support from it than from a
metaphysical philosophy. It is easier, then, to
pass over from art to a really liberating philo-
sophical science.
28.
ILL-FAMED WORDS. —Away with those weari-
somely hackneyed terms Optimism and Pessimism!
For the occasion for using them becomes less and
less from day to day; only the chatterboxes still
find them so absolutely necessary. For why in
all the world should any one wish to be an optimist
unless he had a God to defend who must have
created the best of worlds if he himself be goodness
and perfection,-—what thinker, however, still needs
the hypothesis of a God? But every occasion for
a pessimistic confession of faith is also lacking when
one has no interest in being annoyed at the advo-
cates of God (the theologians, or the theologising
philosophers), and in energetically defending the
opposite view, that evil reigns, that pain is greater


## p. 44 (#80) ##############################################

44 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
than pleasure, that the world is a bungled piece of
work, the manifestation of an ill-will to life. But
who still bothers about the theologians now—
except the theologians? Apart from all theology
and its contentions, it is quite clear that the world
is not good and not bad (to say nothing of its
being the best or the worst), and that the terms
"good" and "bad" have only significance with
respect to man, and indeed, perhaps, they are not
justified even here in the way they are usually
employed; in any case we must get rid of both
the calumniating and the glorifying conception of
the world.
29.
Intoxicated by the Scent of the
BLOSSOMS. —It is supposed that the ship of
humanity has always a deeper draught, the heavier
it is laden; it is believed that the deeper a man
thinks, the more delicately he feels, the higher he
values himself, the greater his distance from the
other animals,—the more he appears as a genius
amongst the animals,—all the nearer will he
approach the real essence of the world and its
knowledge; this he actually does too, through
science, but he means to do so still more through
his religions and arts. These certainly are
blossoms of the world, but by no means any
nearer to the root of the world than the stalk; it
is not possible to understand the nature of things
better through them, although almost every one
believes he can. Error has made man so deep,
sensitive, and inventive that he has put forth such


## p. 45 (#81) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 45
blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge
could not have been capable of it. Whoever
were to unveil for us the essence of the world
would give us all the most disagreeable disillusion-
ment. Not the world as thing-in-itself, but the
world as representation (as error) is so full of
meaning, so deep, so wonderful, bearing happiness
and unhappiness in its bosom. This result leads
to a philosophy of the logical denial of the world,
which, however, can be combined with a practical
world-affirming just as well as with its opposite.
30.
Bad Habits in Reasoning. —The usual false
conclusions of mankind are these: a thing exists,
therefore it has a right to exist. Here there is
inference from the ability to live to its suitability;
from its suitability to its rightfulness. Then: an
opinion brings happiness; therefore it is the true
opinion. Its effect is good; therefore it is itself -
good and true. To the effect is here assigned
the predicate beneficent, good, in the sense of the
useful, and the cause is then furnished with the
same predicate good, but here in the sense of
the logically valid. The inversion of the sentences
would read thus: an affair cannot be carried
through, or maintained, therefore it is wrong; an
opinion causes pain or excites, therefore it is false.
The free spirit who learns only too often the
faultiness of this mode of reasoning, and has to
suffer from its consequences, frequently gives way
to the temptation to draw the very opposite
S


## p. 46 (#82) ##############################################

46 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
conclusions, which, in general, are naturally just
as false: an affair cannot be carried through,
therefore it is good; an opinion is distressing and
disturbing, therefore it is true.
31-
The Illogical Necessary. —One of those
things that may drive a thinker into despair is the
recognition of the fact that the illogical is necessary
for man, and that out of the illogical comes much
that is good. It is so firmly rooted in the passions,
in language, in art, in religion, and generally in
everything that gives value to life, that it cannot
be withdrawn without thereby hopelessly injuring
these beautiful things. It is only the all-too-na'ive
people who can believe that the nature of man
can be changed into a purely logical one; but if
there were degrees of proximity to this goal, how
many things would not have to be lost on this
course! Even the most rational man has need of
nature again from time to time, i. e. his illogical
fundamental attitude towards all things.
32.
Injustice Necessary. —All judgments on the
value of life are illogically developed, and therefore
unjust. The inexactitude of the judgment lies,
firstly, in the manner in which the material is
presented, namely very imperfectly; secondly, in
the manner in which the conclusion is formed out
of it; and thirdly, in the fact that every separate


## p. 47 (#83) ##############################################

FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 47
element of the material is again the result of
vitiated recognition, and this, too, of necessity.
For instance, no experience of an individual,
however near he may stand to us, can be perfect,
so that we could have a logical right to make a
complete estimate of him; all estimates are rash,
and must be so. Finally, the standard by which
we measure, our nature, is not of unalterable
dimensions,—we have moods and vacillations,
and yet we should have to recognise ourselves as
a fixed standard in order to estimate correctly the
relation of any thing whatever to ourselves.