The
Possibility
of Progress.
Nietzsche - v06 - Human All-Too-Human - a
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. From
this it will, perhaps, follow that we should make
no judgments at all; if one could only live without
making estimations, without having likes and
dislikes! For all dislike is connected with an
estimation, as well as all inclination. An impulse
towards or away from anything without a feeling
that something advantageous is desired, something
injurious avoided, an impulse without any kind of
conscious valuation of the worth of the aim does
not exist in man. We are from the beginning
illogical, and therefore unjust beings, and can
recognise this; it is one of the greatest and most
inexplicable discords of existence.
33-
Error about Life necessary for Life. —
Every belief in the value and worthiness of life is
based on vitiated thought; it is only possible
through the fact that sympathy for the general life
and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed
';. . ;:>:,±. . ■WE4/. -
## p. 48 (#84) ##############################################
48 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
■*
in the individual. Even the rarer people who
think outside themselves do not contemplate this
general life, but only a limited part of it. If one
understands how to direct one's attention chiefly
to the exceptions,—I mean to the highly gifted and
the rich souls,—if one regards the production of
these as the aim of the whole world-development
and rejoices in its operation, then one may
believe in the value of life, because one thereby
overlooks the other men—one consequently thinks
fallaciously. So too, when one directs one's
attention to all mankind, but only considers one
species of impulses in them, the less egoistical
ones, and excuses them with regard to the other
instincts, one may then again entertain hopes of
mankind in general and believe so far in the value
of life, consequently in this case also through
fallaciousness of thought. Let one, however,
behave in this or that manner: with such
behaviour one is an exception amongst men.
Now, most people bear life without any consider-
able grumbling, and consequently believe in the
value of existence, but precisely because each one is
solely self-seeking and self-affirming, and does not
step out of himself like those exceptions; every-
thing extra-personal is imperceptible to them, or
at most seems only a faint shadow. Therefore on
this alone is based the value of life for the ordinary
everyday man, that he regards himself as more
important than the world. The great lack of
imagination from which he suffers is the reason why
he cannot enter into the feelings of other beings,
and therefore sympathises as little as possible with
## p. 49 (#85) ##############################################
FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 49
their fate and suffering. He, on the other hand,
who really could sympathise therewith, would have
to despair of the value of life; were he to succeed
in comprehending and feeling in himself the
general consciousness of mankind, he would
collapse with a curse on existence; for mankind
as a whole has no goals, consequently man, in
considering his whole course, cannot find in it his
comfort and support, but his despair. If, in all
that he does, he considers the final aimlessness of
man, his own activity assumes in his eyes the
character of wastefulness. But to feel one's self
just as much wasted as humanity (and not only
as an individual) as we see the single blossom of
nature wasted, is a feeling above all other feelings.
But who is capable of it? Assuredly only a
poet, and poets always know how to console
themselves. XL^
34-
For Tranquillity. —But does not our philo-
sophy thus become a tragedy? Does not truth
become hostile to life, to improvement? A ques-
tion seems to weigh upon our tongue and yet
hesitate to make itself heard: whether one can
consciously remain in untruthfulness? or, supposing
one were obliged to do this, would not death be
preferable? For there is no longer any "must";
morality, in so far as it had any " must" or " shalt,"
has been destroyed by our mode of contemplation,
just as religion has been destroyed. Knowledge
can only allow pleasure and pain, benefit and in-
jury to subsist as motives; but how will these
vol. i. D
J
## p. 50 (#86) ##############################################
50 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
motives agree with the sense of truth? They also
contain errors (for, as already said, inclination and
aversion, and their very incorrect determinations,
practically regulate our pleasure and pain). The
whole of human life is deeply immersed in un-
truthfulness; the individual cannot draw it up out
of this well, without thereby taking a deep dislike to
his whole past, without finding his present motives
—those of honour, for instance—inconsistent, and
without opposing scorn and disdain to the passions
which conduce to happiness in the future. Is it
true that there remains but one sole way of think-
ing which brings after it despair as a personal
experience, as a theoretical result, a philosophy of
dissolution, disintegration, and self-destruction? I
believe that the decision with regard to the after-
effects of the knowledge will be given through the
temperament of a man; I could imagine another
after-effect, just as well as that one described, which
is possible in certain natures, by means of which a
life would arise much simpler, freer from emotions
than is the present one, so that though at first,
indeed, the old motives of passionate desire might
still have strength from old hereditary habit, they
would gradually become weaker under the influence
of purifying knowledge. One would live at last
amongst men, and with one's self as with Nature,
without praise, reproach, or agitation, feasting one's
eyes, as if it were a play, upon much of which one
was formerly afraid. One would be free from the
emphasis, and would no longer feel the goading, of
the thought that one is not only nature or more
than nature. Certainly, as already remarked, a
-
## p. 51 (#87) ##############################################
FIRST AND LAST THINGS. Si
good temperament would be necessary for this, an
even, mild, and naturally joyous soul, a disposition
which would not always need to be on its guard
against spite and sudden outbreaks, and would
not convey in its utterances anything of a grumb-
ling or sudden nature,—those well-known vexatious
qualities of old dogs and men who have been long
chained up. On the contrary, a man from whom
the ordinary fetters of life have so far fallen that
he continues to live only for the sake of ever better
knowledge must be able to renounce without envy
and regret: much, indeed almost everything that is
precious to other men, he must regard as the all-
sufficing and the most desirable condition; the free,
fearless soaring over men, customs, laws, and the
traditional valuations of things. The joy of this
condition he imparts willingly, and he has perhaps
nothing else to impart,—wherein, to be sure, there
is more privation and renunciation. If, nevertheless,
more is demanded from him, he will point with a
friendly shake of his head to his brother, the free
man of action, and will perhaps not conceal a little
derision, for as regards this " freedom" it is a very
peculiar case.
## p. 52 (#88) ##############################################
## p. 53 (#89) ##############################################
\
SECOND DIVISION.
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL
SENTIMENTS.
35-
Advantages of Psychological Observa-
tion. —That reflection on the human, all-tooV
human—or, according to the learned expression!
psychological observation—is one of the means\
by which one may lighten the burden of life, that
exercise in this art produces presence of mind in
difficult circumstances, in the midst of tiresome
surroundings, even that from the most thorny and
unpleasant periods of one's own life one may gather
maxims and thereby feel a little better: all this
was believed, was known in former centuries. Why
was it forgotten by our century, when in Germany
at least, even in all Europe, the poverty of
psychological observation betrays itself by many
signs? Not exactly in novels, tales, and philo-
sophical treatises,—they are the work of exceptional
individuals,—rather in the judgments on public
events and personalities; but above all there is al
lack of the art of psychological analysis and sum-!
ming-up in every rank of society, in which a great'
deal is talked about men, but nothing about man.
Why do we allow the richest and most harmless
## p. 54 (#90) ##############################################
54 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
/
subject of conversation to escape us? Why are
not the great masters of psychological maxims
more read? For, without any exaggeration, the
educated man in Europe who has read La Roche-
foucauld and his kindred in mind and art, is rarely
found, and still more rare is he who knows them
and does not blame them. It is probable, how-
ever, that even this exceptional reader will find
much less pleasure in them than the form of this
artist should afford him; for even the clearest head
is not capable of rightly estimating the art of
shaping and polishing maxims unless he has really
been brought up to it and has competed in it.
Without this practical teaching one deems this
shaping and polishing to be easier than it is; one
has not a sufficient perception of fitness and charm.
For this reason the present readers of maxims find
in them a comparatively small pleasure, hardly
a mouthful of pleasantness, so that they resemble
the people who generally look at cameos, who
praise because they cannot love, and are very ready
^ to admire, but still more ready to run away.
36.
— OBJECTION. —Or should there be a counter-
reckoning to that theory that places psychological
observation amongst the means of charming, curing,
and relieving existence? Should one have suffi-
ciently convinced one's self of the unpleasant con-
sequences of this art to divert from it designedly
the attention of him who is educating himself in it?
As a matter of fact, a certain blind belief in the
V
## p. 55 (#91) ##############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. 55
goodness of human nature, an innate aversion to,
the analysis of human actions, a kind of shame-
facedness with respect to the nakedness of the soul
may really be more desirable for the general well-
being of a man than that quality, useful in iso-
lated cases, of psychological sharp-sightedness ; and
perhaps the belief in goodness, in virtuous men
and deeds, in an abundance of impersonal good-
will in the world, has made men better inasmuch
as it has made them less distrustful. When one,
imitates Plutarch's heroes with enthusiasm, and
turns with disgust from a suspicious examination
of the motives for their actions, it is not truth
which benefits thereby, but the welfare of human
society; the psychological mistake and, generally
speaking, the insensibility on this matter helps
humanity forwards, while the recognition of truth
gains more through the stimulating power of
hypothesis than La Rochefoucauld has said in his,
preface to the first edition of his "Sentences el
maximes morales'. ' . . . "Ce que le monde nomme
vertu nest d'ordinaire quun fantome forme"par nos
passions, a qui on donne un no7n honnete pour faire
impune'ment ce qu'on veut. " La Rochefoucauld and^
those other French masters of soul-examination
(who have lately been joined by a German, the
author of Psychological Observations *) resemble
good marksmen who again and again hit' the
bull's-eye; but it is the bull's-eye of human nature.
Their art arouses astonishment; but in the end a
spectator who is not led by the spirit of science,
* Dr. Paul RfSe. —J. M. K.
\°
*H\
rk
0
-,
## p. 56 (#92) ##############################################
56 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-IIUMAN.
\
but by humane intentions, will probably execrate an
art which appears to implant in the soul the sense
of the disparagement and suspicion of mankind.
^EVEI
37-
Nevertheless. —However it may be with
reckoning and counter-reckoning, in the present
condition of philosophy the awakening of moral
observation is necessary. Humanity can no
"""1 longer be spared the cruel sight of the psycho-
logical dissecting-table with its knives and forceps.
For here rules that science which inquires into
the origin and history of the so-called moral
sentiments, and which, in its progress, has to
draw up and solve complicated sociological
j problems:— the older philosophy knows the
Vlatter one not at all, and has always avoided the
examination of the origin and history of moral
Sentiments on any feeble pretext. With what
consequences it is now very easy to see, after it
has been shown by many examples how the
/ mistakes of the greatest philosophers generally
! have their starting-point in a wrong explanation
1 of certain human actions and sensations, just as
i\ on the ground of an erroneous analysis—for
instance, that of the so-called unselfish actions—
a false ethic is built up; then, to harmonise with
this again, religion and mythological confusion
are brought in to assist, and finally the shades
l^of these dismal spirits fall also over physics and
the general mode of regarding the world. If it
is certain, however, that superficiality in psycho-
:
## p. 57 (#93) ##############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. S7
logical observation has laid, and still lays, the
most dangerous snares for human judgments and I
conclusions, then there is need now of that
endurance of work which does not grow weary
of piling stone upon stone, pebble on pebble;
there is need of courage not to be ashamed of
such humble work and to turn a deaf ear to
scorn. And this is also true,—numberless single
observations on the human and all-too-human
have first been discovered, and given utterance to,
in circles of society which were accustomed to
offer sacrifice therewith to a clever desire to please,
and not to scientific knowledge,—and the odour
of that old home of the moral maxim, a very
seductive odour, has attached itself almost in-
separably to the whole species, so that on its
account the scientific man involuntarily betrays a.
certain distrust of this species and its earnestness.
But it is sufficient to point to the consequences,
for already it begins to be seen what results of
a serious kind spring from the ground of psycho-
logical observation. What, after all, is the
principal axiom to which the boldest and coldest
thinker, the author of the book On the Origin of
Moral Sensations^ has attained by means of his
incisive and decisive analyses of human actions?
"The moral man," he says, "is no nearer to the
intelligible (metaphysical) world than is the
physical man. " This theory, hardened and
sharpened under the hammer-blow of historical
knowledge, may some time or other, perhaps in
* Dr. Paul Ree. —J. M. K.
S
## p. 58 (#94) ##############################################
Jj 58 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
