No More Learning

Serpent's Tooth. —Whetherwe have a serpent's
tooth or not we cannot know before some one has
set his heel upon our necks. A wife or a mother
could say: until some one has put his heel upon the
neck of our darling, our child. —Our character is
determined more by the absence of certain ex-
periences than by the experiences we have under-
gone.
37-
Deception in Love. —We forget and purposely
banish from our minds a good deal of our past.
In other words, we wish our picture, that beams at
us from the past, to belie us, to flatter our vanity—
we are constantly engaged in this self-deception.
And you who talk and boast so much of "self-
oblivion in love," of the "absorption of the ego in
the other person "—you hold that this is something
different? So you break the mirror, throw your-
selves into another personality that you admire,
and enjoy the new portrait of your ego, though
calling it by the other person's name—and this


## p. 32 (#52) ##############################################

32 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
whole proceeding is not to be thought self-deception,
self-seeking, you marvellous beings ? —It seems to
me that those who hide something of themselves
from themselves, or hide their whole selves from
themselves, are alike committing a theft from the
treasury of knowledge. It is clear, then, against
what transgression the maxim " Know thyself" is
a warning.
33.
To the Denier of his Vanity. —He who
denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so
brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes
to avoid the necessity of despising himself.
39-
Why the Stupid so often Become Mal-
ignant. —To those arguments of our adversary
against which our head feels too weak our heart
replies by throwing suspicion on the motives of his
arguments.
40.
The Art of Moral Exceptions. —An art that
points out and glorifies the exceptional cases of
morality—where the good becomes bad and the
unjust just—should rarely be given a hearing: just
as now and again we buy something from gipsies,
with the fear that they are diverting to their own
pockets much more than their mere profit from the
purchase.


## p. 33 (#53) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 33
41-
Enjoyment and Non-enjoyment of Poisons.
—The only decisive argument that has always
deterred men from drinking a poison is not that it
is deadly, but that it has an unpleasant taste.
42.
The World without Consciousness of Sin.
—If men only committed such deeds as do not
give rise to a bad conscience, the human world
would still look bad and rascally enough, but not
so sickly and pitiable as at present. — Enough
wicked men without conscience have existed at all
times, and many good honest folk lack the feeling
of pleasure in a good conscience.
43-
The Conscientious. —It is more convenient to
follow one's conscience than one's intelligence, for
at every failure conscience finds an excuse and an
encouragement in itself. That is why there are so
many conscientious and so few intelligent people.
44.
Opposite Means of Avoiding Bitterness. —
One temperament finds it useful to be able to give
vent to its disgust in words, being made sweeter by
speech. Another reaches its full bitterness only by
speaking out: it is more advisable for it to have to
gulp down something—the restraint that men of this
VOl. 11. C


## p. 34 (#54) ##############################################

34 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
stamp place upon themselves in the presence of
enemies and superiors improves their character and
prevents it from becoming too acrid and sour.
45-
Not to be Too Dejected. —To get bed-sores
is unpleasant, but no proof against the merits of the
cure that prescribes that you should take to your
bed. Men who have long lived outside themselves,
and have at last devoted themselves to the inward
philosophic life, know that one can also get sores of
character and intellect. This, again, is on the whole
no argument against the chosen way of life, but
necessitates a few small exceptions and apparent
relapses.
46.
The Human "Thing in Itself. "—The most
vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things
is human vanity: nay, through being wounded its
strength increases and can grow to giant propor-
tions.
47-
The Farce of Many Industrious Persons.
—By an excess of effort they win leisure for them-
selves, and then they can do nothing with it but
count the hours until the tale is ended.
48.
The Possession of Joy Abounding. —He that
has joy abounding must be a good man, but perhaps


## p. 35 (#55) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 35
he is not the cleverest of men, although he has
reached the very goal towards which the cleverest
man is striving with all his cleverness.
49.
IN THE MIRROR OF NATURE. —Is not a man
fairly well described, when we are told that he likes
to walk between tall fields of golden corn: that he
prefers the forest and flower colours of sere and
chilly autumn to all others, because they point to
something more beautiful than Nature has ever
attained: that he feels as much at home under big
broad - leaved walnut trees as among his nearest
kinsfolk: that in the mountains his greatest joy is to
come across those tiny distant lakes from which the
very eyes of solitude seem to peer at him: that he
loves that grey calm of the misty twilight that steals
along the windows on autumn and early winter
evenings and shuts out all soulless sounds as with
velvet curtains: that in unhewn stones he recognises
the last remaining traces of the primeval age, eager
for speech, and honours them from childhood up-
wards: that, lastly, the sea with its shifting serpent
skin and wild-beast beauty is, and remains to him,
unfamiliar? — Yes, something of the man is described
herewith, but the mirror of Nature does not say that
the same man, with (and not even “in spite of") all
his idyllic sensibilities, might be disagreeable, stingy,
and conceited. Horace, who was a good judge of
such matters, in his famous beatus ille qui procul
negotiis puts the tenderest feeling for country life
into the mouth of a Roman money-lender.


## p. 36 (#56) ##############################################

36 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
So.
Power without Victory. —The strongest cogn i-
tion (that of the complete non-freedom of the human
will) is yet the poorest in results, for it has always
had the mightiest of opponents—human vanity.
Si-
Pleasure and Error. —A beneficial influence
on friends is exerted by one man unconsciously,
through his nature; by another consciously, through
isolated actions. Although the former nature is
held to be the higher, the latter alone is allied to
good conscience and pleasure—the pleasure in justi-
fication by good works, which rests upon a belief in
the volitional character of our good and evil doing
—that is to say, upon a mistake.
52.
The Folly of Committing Injustice. —The
injustice we have inflicted ourselves is far harder to
bear than the injustice inflicted upon us by others (not
always from moral grounds, be it observed). After all,
the doer is always thesufferer—that is, if he be capable
of feeling the sting of conscience or of perceiving that
by his action he has armed society against himself
and cut himself off. For this reason we should be-
ware still more of doing than of suffering injustice,
for the sake of our own inward happiness—so as
not to lose our feeling of well-being—quite apart
from any consideration of the precepts of religion
and morality. For in suffering injustice we have


## p. 37 (#57) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 37
the consolation of a good conscience, of hope and of
revenge, together with the sympathy and applause of
the just, nay of the whole of society, which is afraid
of the evil-doer. Not a few are skilled in the impure
self-deception that enables them to transform every
injustice of their own into an injustice inflicted upon
them from without, and to reserve for their own acts
the exceptional right to the plea of self-defence.
Their object, of course, is to make their own burden
lighter.
53-
Envy with or without a Mouthpiece. —
Ordinary envy is wont to cackle when the envied
hen has laid an egg, thereby relieving itself and be-
coming milder. But there is a yet deeper envy that
in such a case becomes dead silent, desiring that
every mouth should be sealed and always more and
more angry because this desire is not gratified.
Silent envy grows in silence.
54-
ANgER as a Spy. —Anger exhausts the soul and
brings its very dregs to light. Hence, if we know
no other means of gaining certainty, we must under-
stand how to arouse anger in our dependents and
adversaries, in order to learn what is really done and
thought to our detriment.
55-
Defence Morally more Difficult than
Attack. —The true heroic deed and masterpiece of
J


## p. 38 (#58) ##############################################

38 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
the good man does not lie in attacking opinions and
continuing to love their propounders, but in the far
harder task of defending his own position without
causing or intending to cause bitter heartburns to
his opponent. The sword of attack is honest and
broad, the sword of defence usually runs out to a
needle point.
56.
Honest towards Honesty. —One who is
openly honest towards himself ends by being rather
conceited about this honesty. He knows only too
well why he is honest—for the same reason that
another man prefers outward show and hypocrisy.
57-
Coals of Fire. —The heaping of coals of fire on
another's head is generally misunderstood and falls
flat, because the other knows himself to be just as
much in the right, and on his side too has thought
of collecting coals.
58.
Dangerous Books. —A man says: "Judging
from my own case, I find that this book is harmful. "
Let him but wait, and perhaps one day he will con-
fess that the book did him a great service by thrust-
ing forward and bringing to light the hidden disease
of his soul. —Altered opinions alter not at all (or
very little) the character of a man: but they illu-
minate individual facets of his personality, which
hitherto, in another constellation of opinions, had
remained dark and unrecognisable.


## p. 39 (#59) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 39
59-
Simulated Pity. —We simulate pity when we
wish to show ourselves superior to the feeling of
animosity, but generally in vain. This point is not
noticed without a considerable enhancement of that
feeling of animosity.
60.
Open Contradiction often Conciliatory.
—At the moment when a man openly makes known
his difference of opinion from a well-known party
leader, the whole world thinks that he must be
angry with the latter. Sometimes, however, he is
just on the point of ceasing to be angry with him.
He ventures to put himself on the same plane as
his opponent, and is free from the tortures of sup-
pressed envy.
61.
Seeing our Light Shining. —In the darkest
hour of depression, sickness, and guilt, we are still
glad to see others taking a light from us and making
use of us as of the disk of the moon. By this round-
about route we derive some light from our own illu-
minating faculty.
62.
Fellowship in Joy. *—The snake that stings
us means to hurt us and rejoices in so doing: the
lowest animal can picture to itself the pain of others.
* The German word \Mitfreude, coined by Nietzsche in
opposition to Mitleid (sympathy), is untranslateable. —Tr.


## p. 40 (#60) ##############################################

40 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
But to picture to oneself the joy of others and to
rejoice thereat is the highest privilege of the highest
animals, and again, amongst them, is the property
only of the most select specimens—accordingly a
rare " human thing. " Hence there have been philo-
sophers who denied fellowship in joy.
63-
Supplementary Pregnancy. —Those who have
arrived at works and deeds are in an obscure way,
they know not how, all the more pregnant with them,
as if to prove supplementarily that these are their
children and not those of chance.
64.
Hard-hearted from Vanity. —Just as justice
is so often a cloak for weakness, so men who are
fairly intelligent, but weak, sometimes attempt dis-
simulation from ambitious motives and purposely
show themselves unjust and hard, in order to leave
behind them the impression of strength.
65.
Humiliation. —If in a large sack of profit we
find a single grain of humiliation we still make a
wry face even at our good luck.
66.
Extreme Herostratism*—There might be
* Herostratus of Ephesus (in 356 B. C. ) set fire to the temple
of Diana in order (as he confessed on the rack) to gain
notoriety. —Tr.


## p. 41 (#61) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 41
Herostratuses who set fire to their own temple, in
which their images are honoured.
67.
A World of Diminutives. —The fact that all
that is weak and in need of help appeals to the
heart induces in us the habit of designating by
diminutive and softening terms all that appeals to
our hearts—and accordingly making such things
weak and clinging to our imaginations.
68.
The Bad Characteristic of Sympathy. —
Sympathy has a peculiar impudence for its com-
panion. For, wishing to help at all costs, sympathy
is in no perplexity either as to the means of assist-
ance or as to the nature and cause of the disease,
and goes on courageously administering all its
quack medicines to restore the health and reputa-
tion of the patient.
69.
Importunacy. —There is even an importunacy
in relation to works, and the act of associating one-
self from early youth on an intimate footing with
the illustrious works of all times evinces an entire
absence of shame. —Others are only importunate
from ignorance, not knowing with whom they have
to do—for instance classical scholars young and old
in relation to the works of the Greeks.


## p. 42 (#62) ##############################################

42 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
70.
The Will is Ashamed of the Intellect. —
In all coolness we make reasonable plans against
our passions. But we make the most serious mis-
take in this connection in being often ashamed,
when the design has to be carried out, of the cool-
ness and calculation with which we conceived it.
So we do just the unreasonable thing, from that
sort of defiant magnanimity that every passion in-
volves.
71.
Why the Sceptics Offend Morality. —He
who takes his morality solemnly and seriously is
enraged against the sceptics in the domain of morals.
For where he lavishes all his force, he wishes others
to marvel but not to investigate and doubt. Then
there are natures whose last shred of morality is
just the belief in morals. They behave in the same
way towards sceptics, if possible still more passion-
ately.
72.
SHyNESS. —All moralists are shy, because they
know they are confounded with spies and traitors,
so soon as their penchant is noticed. Besides, they
are generally conscious of being impotent in action,
for in the midst of work the motives of their activity
almost withdraw their attention from the work.
73-
A Danger to Universal Morality. —People
who are at the same time noble and honest come


## p. 43 (#63) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 43
to deify every devilry that brings out their honesty,
and to suspend for a time the balance of their moral
judgment.
74.
THE SADDEST ERROR. —It is an unpardonable
offence when one discovers that where one was con-
vinced of being loved, one is only regarded as a
household utensil and decoration, whereby the
master of the house can find an outlet for his
vanity before his guests.
75.
LOVE AND DUALITY. —What else is love but
understanding and rejoicing that another lives,
works, and feels in a different and opposite way to
ourselves ? That love may be able to bridge over
the contrasts by joys, we must not remove or deny
those contrasts. Even self-love presupposes an irre-
concileable duality (or plurality) in one person.
76.
SIGNS FROM DREAMS. —What one sometimes
does not know and feel accurately in waking hours
—whether one has a good or a bad conscience as
regards some person-is revealed completely and
unambiguously by dreams.
77.
DEBAUCHERY. —Not joy but joylessness is the
mother of debauchery.


## p. 44 (#64) ##############################################

44
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
78.
REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. -No one accuses
without an underlying notion of punishment and
revenge, even when he accuses his fate or himself.
All complaint is accusation, all self-congratulation
is praise. Whether we do one or the other, we
always make some one responsible.
79.
DOUBLY UNJUST. -We sometimes advance truth
by a twofold injustice: when we see and represent
consecutively the two sides of a case which we are
not in a position to see together, but in such a way
that every time we mistake or deny the other side,
fancying that what we see is the whole truth.
80.
MISTRUST. -Self-mistrust does not always pro-
ceed uncertainly and shyly, but sometimes in a
furious rage, having worked itself into a frenzy in
order not to tremble.
81.
PHILOSOPHY OF PARVENUS.
If you want to be
a personality you must even hold your shadow in
honour.
82.
KNOWING HOW TO WASH ONESELF CLEAN. -
We must know how to emerge cleaner from unclean
conditions, and, if necessary, how to wash ourselves
even with dirty water.


## p. 45 (#65) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 45
S3-
Letting Yourself Go. —The more you let
yourself go, the less others let you go.
84.
The Innocent Rogue. —There is a slow, grad-
ual path to vice and rascality of every description.
In the end, the traveller is quite abandoned by the
insect-swarms of a bad conscience, and although a
thorough scoundrel he walks in innocence.
85.
MAKINg PLANS. —Making plans and conceiving
projects involves many agreeable sentiments. He
that had the strength to be nothing but a contriver
of plans all his life would be a happy man. But
one must occasionally have a rest from this activity
by carrying a plan into execution, and then comes
anger and sobriety.
86.
Wherewith We See the Ideal. —Every effi-
cient man is blocked by his efficiency and cannot
look out freely from its prison. Had he not also
a goodly share of imperfection, he could, by reason
of his virtue, never arrive at an intellectual or moral
freedom. Our shortcomings are the eyes with
which we see the ideal.
87.
Dishonest Praise. —Dishonest praise causes
many more twinges of conscience than dishonest


## p. 46 (#66) ##############################################

46 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
blame, probably only because we have exposed our
capacity for judgment far more completely through
excessive praise than through excessive and unjust
blame.
88.
How One Dies is Indifferent. —The whole
way in which a man thinks of death during the prime
of his life and strength is very expressive and sig-
nificant for what we call his character. But the hour
of death itself, his behaviour on the death-bed, is
almost indifferent. The exhaustion of waning life,
especially when old people die, the irregular or in-
sufficient nourishment of the brain during this last
period, the occasionally violent pain, the novel and
untried nature of the whole position, and only too
often the ebb and flow of superstitious impressions
and fears, as if dying were of much consequence and
meant the crossing of bridges of the most terrible
kind—all this forbids our using death as a testimony
concerning the living. Nor is it true that the dying
man is generally more honest than the living. On
the contrary, through the solemn attitude of the
bystanders, the repressed or flowing streams of tears
and emotions, every one is inveigled into a comedy
of vanity, now conscious, now unconscious. The
serious way in which every dying man is treated
must have been to many a poor despised devil the
highest joy of his whole life and a sort of compensa-
tion and repayment for many privations.
89.
Morality and its Sacrifice. —The origin of
morality may be traced to two ideas: "The com-


## p. 47 (#67) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 47
munity ;s of more value than the individual," and
"Th^ permanent interest is to be preferred to the
temporary. " The conclusion drawn is that the per-
manent interest of the community is unconditionally
to be set above the temporary interest of the indi-
vidual, especially his momentary well-being, but also
his permanent interest and even the prolongation
of his existence. Even if the individual suffers
by an arrangement that suits the mass, even if he
is depressed and ruined by it, morality must be
maintained and the victim brought to the sacrifice.
Such a trend of thought arises, however, only in
those who are not the victims—for in the victim's
case it enforces the claim that the individual might
be worth more than the many, and that the present
enjoyment, the " moment in paradise," * should per-
haps be rated higher than a tame succession of
untroubled or comfortable circumstances. But the
philosophy of the sacrificial victim always finds voice
too late, and so victory remains with morals and
morality: which are really nothing more than the
sentiment for the whole concept of morals under
which one lives and has been reared—and reared
not as an individual but as a member of the whole,
as a cipher in a majority. Hence it constantly
happens that the individual makes himself into a
majority by means of his morality.
90.
The Good and the Good Conscience. —You
hold that all good things have at all times had a
* Quotation from Schiller, Don Carlos, i. 5. —Tr.


## p. 48 (#68) ##############################################

48 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
good conscience? Science, which is certainly a
very good thing, has come into the world without
such a conscience and quite free from all pathos,"
rather clandestinely, by roundabout ways, walking
with shrouded or masked face like a sinner, and
always with the feeling at least of being a smuggler.
Good conscience has bad conscience for its stepping-
stone, not for its opposite. For all that is good has
at one time been new and consequently strange,
against morals, immoral, and has gnawed like a
worm at the heart of the fortunate discoverer.
91-
Success Sanctifies the Intentions. —We
should not shrink from treading the road to a virtue,
even when we see clearly that nothing but egotism,
and accordingly utility, personal comfort, fear, con-
siderations of health, reputation, or glory, are the
impelling motives. These motives are styled ignoble
and selfish. Very well, but if they stimulate us to
some virtue—for example, self-denial, dutifulness,
order, thrift, measure, and moderation—let us listen
to them, whatever their epithets may be! For if
we reach the goal to which they summon us, then
the virtue we have attained, by means of the pure
air it makes us breathe and the spiritual well-being
it communicates, ennobles the remoter impulses of
our action, and afterwards we no longer perform
those actions from the same coarse motives that
inspired us before. —Education should therefore force
the virtues on the pupil, as far as possible, according
to his disposition. Then virtue, the sunshine and


## p. 49 (#69) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 49
summer atmosphere of the soul, can contribute her
own share of work and add mellowness and sweet-
ness.
92.
Dabblers in Christianity, not Christians.
—So that is your Christianity! —To annoy humanity
you praise " God and His Saints," and again when
you want to praise humanity you go so far that
God and His Saints must be annoyed. —I wish you
would at least learn Christian manners, as you are
so deficient in the civility of the Christian heart.
93-
The Religious and Irreligious Impression
of Nature. —A true believer must be to us an
object of veneration, but the same holds good of a
true, sincere, convinced unbeliever. With men of
the latter stamp we are near to the high mountains
where mighty rivers have their source, and with
believers we are under vigorous, shady, restful trees.
94-
JUDICIAL MURDER. —The two greatest judicial
murders * in the world's history are, to speak without
exaggeration, concealed and well-concealed suicide.
In both cases a man willed to die, and in both cases
he let his breast be pierced by the sword in the
hand of human injustice.
95-
"LOVE. "—The finest artistic conception wherein
Christianity had the advantage over other religious
* This, of course, refers to Jesus and Socrates. —Tr.
vol. 11. D


## p. 50 (#70) ##############################################

5<D HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
systems lay in one word—Love. Hence it became
the lyric religion (whereas in its two other creations
Semitism bestowed heroico-epical religions upon
the world). In the word "love" there is so much
meaning, so much that stimulates and appeals to
memory and hope, that even the meanest intelli-
gence and the coldest heart feel some glimmering
of its sense. The cleverest woman and the lowest
man think of the comparatively unselfish moments
of their whole life, even if with them Eros never
soared high: and the vast number of beings who
miss love from their parents or children or sweet-
hearts, especially those whose sexual instincts have
been refined away, have found their heart's desire
in Christianity.
96.
The Fulfilment of Christianity. — In
Christianity there is also an Epicurean trend of
thought, starting from the idea that God can only
demand of man, his creation and his image, what it
is possible for man to fulfil, and accordingly that
Christian virtue and perfection are attainable and
often attained. Now, for instance, the belief in loving
one's enemies—even if it is only a belief or fancy,
and by no means a psychological reality (a real
love)—gives unalloyed happiness, so long as it is
genuinely believed. (As to the reason of this,
psychologist and Christian might well differ. )
Hence earthly life, through the belief, I mean the
fancy, that it satisfies not only the injunction to
love our enemies, but all the other injunctions of
Christianity, and that it has really assimilated


## p. 51 (#71) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 51
and embodied in itself the Divine perfection accord-
ing to the command, "Be perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect," might actually become a
holy life. Thus error can make Christ's promise
come true.
97-
Of the Future of Christianity. —We may
be allowed to form a conjecture as to the dis-
appearance of Christianity and as to the places
where it will be the slowest to retreat, if we con-
sider where and for what reasons Protestantism
spread with such startling rapidity. As is well
known, Protestantism promised to do far more
cheaply all that the old Church did, without costly
masses, pilgrimages, and priestly pomp and circum-
stance. It spread particularly among the Northern
nations, which were not so deeply rooted as those
of the South in the old Church's symbolism and
love of ritual. In the South the more powerful
pagan religion survived in Christianity, whereas in
the North Christianity meant an opposition to
and a break with the old-time creed, and hence
was from the first more thoughtful and less sensual,
but for that very reason, in times of peril, more
fanatical and more obstinate. If from the stand-
point of thought we succeed in uprooting Christi-
anity, we can at once know the point where it will
begin to disappear—the very point at which it will
be most stubborn in defence. In other places it
will bend but not break, lose its leaves but burst
into leaf afresh, because the senses, and not thought,
have gone over to its side. But it is the senses


## p. 52 (#72) ##############################################

52 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
that maintain the belief that with all its expensive
outlay the Church is more cheaply and conveniently
managed than under the stern conditions of work
and wages. Yet what does one hold leisure (or
semi-idleness) to be worth, when once one has be-
come accustomed to it? The senses plead against
a dechristianised world, saying that there would
be too much work to do in it and an insufficient
supply of leisure. They take the part of magic—
that is, they let God work himself (premus nos, Deus
labored).
98.
Theatricality and Honesty of Un-
believers. —There is no book that contains in
such abundance or expresses so faithfully all that
man occasionally finds salutary—ecstatic inward
happiness, ready for sacrifice or death in the belief
in and contemplation of his truth—as the book
that tells of Christ. From that book a clever man
may learn all the means whereby a book can be
made into a world-book, a vade-mecum for all, and
especially that master-means of representing every-
thing as discovered, nothing as future and uncertain.
All influential books try to leave the same impres-
sion, as if the widest intellectual horizon were cir-
cumscribed here and as if about the sun that shines
here every constellation visible at present or in the
future must revolve. —Must not then all purely
scientific books be poor in influence on the same
grounds as such books are rich in influence? Is
not the book fated to live humble and among
humble folk, in order to be crucified in the end
and never resurrected? In relation to what the


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 53
religious inform us of their " knowledge" and their
"holy spirit," are not all upright men of science
"poor in spirit"? Can any religion demand more
self-denial and draw the selfish out of themselves
more inexorably than science ? —This and similar
things we may say, in any case with a certain
theatricality, when we have to defend ourselves
against believers, for it is impossible to conduct a
defence without a certain amount of theatricality.
But between ourselves our language must be more
honest, and we employ a freedom that those be-
lievers are not even allowed, in their own interests,
to understand. Away, then, with the monastic
cowl of self-denial, with the appearance of humility!
Much more and much better—so rings our truth!
If science were not linked with the pleasure of
knowledge, the utility of the thing known, what
should we care for science? If a little faith, love,
and hope did not lead our souls to knowledge,
what would attract us to science? And if in science
the ego means nothing, still the inventive, happy
ego, every upright and industrious ego, means a
great deal in the republic of the men of science.
The homage of those who pay homage, the joy of
those whom we wish well or honour, in some cases
glory and a fair share of immortality, is the personal
reward for every suppression of personality: to say
nothing here of meaner views and rewards, although
it is just on this account that the majority have sworn
and always continue to swear fidelity to the laws of
the republic and of science. If we had not remained
in some degree unscientific, what would science
matter to us? Taking everything together and
S \>-*u>


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54 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
speaking in plain language: "To a purely knowing
being knowledge would be indifferent. "—Not the
quality but the quantity of faith and devoutness
distinguishes us from the pious, the believers. We
are content with less. But should one of them cry
out to us: "Be content and show yourselves con-
tented! " we could easily answer: "As a matter
of fact, we do not belong to the most discontented
class. But you, if your faith makes you happy,
show yourselves to be happy. Your faces have
always done more harm to your faith than our
reasons! If that glad message of your Bible were
written in your faces, you would not need to de-
mand belief in the authority of that book in such
stiff-necked fashion. Your words, your actions
should continually make the Bible superfluous—in
fact, through you a new Bible should continually
come into being. As it is, your apologia for
Christianity is rooted in your unchristianity, and
with your defence you write your own condemna-
tion. If you, however, should wish to emerge from
your dissatisfaction with Christianity, you should
ponder over the experience of two thousand years,
which, clothed in the modest form of a question,
may be voiced as follows: "If Christ really in-
tended to redeem the world, may he not be said
to have failed? "
99-
The Poet as Guide to the Future. —All
the surplus poetical force that still exists in modern
humanity, but is not used under our conditions of
life, should (without any deduction) be devoted to


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 55
a definite goal—not to depicting the present nor to
reviving and summarising the past, but to pointing
the way to the future. Nor should this be so
done as if the poet, like an imaginative political
economist, had to anticipate a more favourable
national and social state of things and picture their
realisation. Rather will he, just as the earlier
poets portrayed the images of the Gods, portray
the fair images of men. He will divine those cases
where, in the midst of our modern world and reality
(which will not be shirked or repudiated in the
usual poetic fashion), a great, noble soul is still
possible, where it may be embodied in harmonious,
equable conditions, where it may become perma-
nent, visible, and representative of a type, and so, by
the stimulus to imitation and envy, help to create
the future. The poems of such a poet would be
distinguished by appearing secluded and protected
from the heated atmosphere of the passions. The
irremediable failure, the shattering of all the strings
of the human instrument, the scornful laughter and
gnashing of teeth, and all tragedy and comedy in
the usual old sense, would appear by the side of
this new art as mere archaic lumber, a blurring of
the outlines of the world-picture. Strength, kind-
ness, gentleness, purity, and an unsought, innate
moderation in the personalities and their action: a
levelled soil, giving rest and pleasure to the foot: a
shining heaven mirrored in faces and events: science
and art welded into a new unity: the mind living
together with her sister, the soul, without arrogance
or jealousy, and enticing from contrasts the grace
of seriousness, not the impatience of discord—all


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56 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
this would be the general environment, the back-
ground on which the delicate differences of the em-
bodied ideals would make the real picture, that of
ever-growing human majesty. Many roads to this
poetry of the future start from Goethe, but the quest
needs good pathfinders and above all a far greater
strength than is possessed by modern poets, who
unscrupulously represent the half-animal and the
immaturity and intemperance that are mistaken
by them for power and naturalness.
ioo.
/ The Muse as Penthesilea*—"Better to rot
than to be a woman without charm. " When once
the Muse thinks thus, the end of her art is again
at hand. But it can be a tragic and also a comic
finale.
IOI.
The Circuitous Path to the Beautiful. —
If the beautiful is to be identified with that which
gives pleasure—and thus sang the Muses once—
the useful is often the necessary circuitous path
to the beautiful, and has a perfect right to spurn
the short-sighted censure of men who live for the
moment, who will not wait, and who think that
they can reach all good things without ever taking
a circuitous path.
102.
An Excuse for many a Transgression. —The
ceaseless desire to create, the eternal looking out-
* Queen of the Amazons, slain by Achilles in the Trojan
War. —Tr.


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. $7
ward of the artist, hinders him from becoming better
and more beautiful as a personality: unless his crav-
ing for glory be great enough to compel him to
exhibit in his relations with other men a growth
corresponding to the growing beauty and greatness
of his works. In any case he has but a limited
measure of strength, and how could the proportion
of strength that he spends on himself be of any
benefit to his work—or vice versa?
103.
Satisfying the Best People. —If we have sat-
isfied the best people of our time with our art, it is
a sign that we shall not satisfy the best people of
the succeeding period. We have indeed "lived for
all time," and the applause of the best people ensures
our fame. *
104.
Of One Substance. —If we are of one substance
with a book or a work of art, we think in our heart
of hearts that it must be excellent, and are offended
if others find it ugly, over-spiced, or pretentious.
105.
Speech and Emotion. —That speech is not given
to us to communicate our emotions may be seen
from the fact that all simple men are ashamed to
seek for words to express their deeper feelings. These
* From Schiller, Wallensteiris Lager: "Wer den Besten
seiner Zeit genug gethan, der hat gelebt fur alle Zeiten"
(" He that has satisfied the best men of his time has lived for
all time").


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58 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
feelings are expressed only in actions, and even here
such men blush if others seem to divine their motives.
After all, among poets, to whom God generally
denies this shame, the more noble are more mono-
syllabic in the language of emotion, and evince a
certain constraint: whereas the real poets of emotion
are for the most part shameless in practical life.
106.
A Mistake about a Privation. —He that has
not for a long time been completely weaned from an
art, and is still always at home in it, has no idea how
small a privation it is to live without that art.
107.
Three-quarter Strength. —A work that is
meant to give an impression of health should be
produced with three-quarters, at the most, of the
strength of its creator. If he has gone to his farthest
limit, the work excites the observer and disconcerts
him by its tension. All good things have some-
thing lazy about them and lie like cows in the
meadow.
108.
Refusing to have Hunger as a Guest. —As
refined fare serves a hungry man as well as and no
better than coarser food, the more pretentious artist
will not dream of inviting the hungry man to his
meal.
109.
Living without Art and Wine. —It is with
works of art as with wine—it is better if one can do


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 59
without both and keep to water, and if from the
inner fire and inner sweetness of the soul the water
spontaneously changes again into wine.