No More Learning

378.
WHAT IS GENIUS ? -To aspire to a lofty aim and
to will the means to that aim.


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 171
379-
Vanity of Combatants. —He who has no hope
of victory in a combat, or who is obviously worsted,
is all the more desirous that his style of fighting
should be admired.
380.
The Philosophic Life Misinterpreted. —At
the moment when one is beginning to take philo-
sophy seriously, the whole world fancies that one is
doing the reverse.
381.
Imitation. —By imitation, the bad gains, the
good loses credit—especially in art.
382.
Final Teaching of History. —" Oh that I had
but lived in those times! " is the exclamation of
foolish and frivolous men. At every period of
history that we seriously review, even if it be the
most belauded era of the past, we shall rather cry
out at the end, "Anything but a return to that!
The spirit of that age would oppress you with the
weight of a hundred atmospheres, the good and
beautiful in it you would not enjoy, its evil you
could not digest. " Depend upon it, posterity will
pass the same verdict on our own epoch, and say
that it was unbearable, that life under such condi-
tions was intolerable. "And yet every one can
endure his own times? " Yes, because the spirit of


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172 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
his age not only lies upon him but is in him. The
spirit of the age offers resistance to itself and can
bear itself.
383.
Greatness as a Mask. —By greatness in our
comportment we embitter our foes: by envy that we
do not conceal we almost reconcile them to us. For
envy levels and makes equal; it is an unconscious,
plaintive variety of modesty. —It may be indeed that
here and there, for the sake of the above-named
advantage, envy has been assumed as a mask by
those who are not envious. Certainly, however,
greatness in comportment is often used as the mask
of envy by ambitious men who would rather suffer
drawbacks and embitter their foes than let it be seen
that they place them on an equal footing with them-
selves.
384-
y Unpardonable. —You gave him an opportunity
of displaying the greatness of his character, and he
did not make use of the opportunity. He will never
forgive you for that.
385-
CONTRASTS. —The most senile thought ever con-
ceived about men lies in the famous saying, "The
ego is always hateful," the most childish in the still
more famous saying, " Love thy neighbour as thy-
self. "—With the one knowledge'of men has ceased,
with the other it has not yet begun.


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 173
386.
A Defective Ear. —"We still belong to the
mob so long as we always shift the blame on to
others; we are on the track of wisdom when we
always make ourselves alone responsible; but the
wise man finds no one to blame, neither himself nor
others. "—Who said that? Epictetus, eighteen hun-
dred years ago. —The world has heard but forgotten
the saying. —No, the world has not heard and not
forgotten it: everything is not forgotten. But we
had not the necessary ear, the ear of Epictetus. —
So he whispered it into his own ear ? —Even so: wis-
dom is the whispering of the sage to himself in the
crowded market-place.
387-
A Defect of Standpoint, not of Vision. —
We always stand a few paces too near ourselves
and a few paces too far from our neighbour. Hence
we judge him too much in the lump, and ourselves
too much by individual, occasional, insignificant
features and circumstances.
388.
Ignorance about Weapons. —How little we
care whether another knows a subject or not ! —
whereas he perhaps sweats blood at the bare idea
that he may be considered ignorant on the point.
Yes, there are exquisite fools, who always go about
with a quiverful of mighty, excommunicatory utter-
ances, ready-to shoot down any one who shows
freely that there are matters in which their judg-
ment is not taken into acccount.


## p. 174 (#196) ############################################

174 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
389.
/ At the Drinking-Table of Experience. —
People whose innate moderation leads them to
drink but the half of every glass, will not admit
that everything in the world has its lees and sedi-
ment.
390.
Singing-Birds,—The followers of a great man
often put their own eyes out, so that they may be
the better able to sing his praise.
391-
Beyond our Ken. —The good generally dis-
pleases us when it is beyond our ken.
392.
Rule as Mother or as Child. —There is one
condition that gives birth to rules, another to which
rules give birth.
393-
COMEDy. —We sometimes earn honour or love
for actions and achievements which we have long
since sloughed as the snake sloughs his skin. We
are hereby easily seduced into becoming the comic
actors of our own past, and into throwing the old
skin once more about our shoulders—and that not
merely from vanity, but from good-will towards our
admirers.
394-
A Mistake of Biographers. —The small force
that is required to launch a boat into the stream


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 175
must not be confounded with the force of the
stream that carries the boat along. Yet this mis-
take is made in nearly all biographies.
395-
Not Buying too Dear. —The things that we
buy too dear we generally turn to bad use, because
we have no love for them but only a painful recol-
lection. Thus they involve a twofold drawback.
396.
The Philosophy that Society always
Needs. —The pillars of the social structure rest
upon the fundamental fact that every one cheer-
fully contemplates all that he is, does, and attempts,
his sickness or health, his poverty or affluence, his
honour or insignificance, and says to himself,
"After all, I would not change places with any
one! "—Whoever wishes to add a stone to the
social structure should always try to implant in
mankind this cheerful philosophy of contentment
and refusal to change places.
397-
The Mark of a Noble Soul. —A noble soul
is not that which is capable of the highest flights,
but that which rises little and falls little, living
always in a free and bright atmosphere and altitude
398.
Greatness and its Contemplator. —The
noblest effect of greatness is that it gives the con-


## p. 176 (#198) ############################################

176 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
templator a power of vision that magnifies and em-
bellishes.
399-
Being Satisfied. — We show that we have
attained maturity of understanding when we no
longer go where rare flowers lurk under the thorniest
hedges of knowledge, but are satisfied with gardens,
forests, meadows, and ploughlands, remembering
that life is too short for the rare and uncommon.
400.
Advantage in Privation. —He who always
lives in the warmth and fulness of the heart, and,
as it were, in the summer air of the soul, cannot form
an idea of that fearful delight which seizes more
wintry natures, who for once in a way are kissed
by the rays of love and the milder breath of a
sunny February day.
401.
Recipe for the Sufferer. — You find the
burden of life too heavy? Then you must increase
the burden of your life. When the sufferer finally
thirsts after and seeks the river of Lethe, then he
must become a hero to be certain of finding it.
402.
The Judge. —He who has seen another's ideal
becomes his inexorable judge, and as it were his
evil conscience.
403-
The Utility of Great Renunciation. —The
useful thing about great renunciation is that it in-


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 177
vests us with that youthful pride through which we
can thenceforth easily demand of ourselves small
renunciations.
404.
How Duty Acquires a Glamour. —You can
change a brazen duty into gold in the eyes of all
by always performing something more than you
have promised.
405.
Prayer to Mankind. —"Forgive us our virtues"
—so should we pray to mankind.
406.
They that Create and They that Enjoy.
—Every one who enjoys thinks that the principal
thing to the tree is the fruit, but in point of fact
the principal thing to it is the seed. —Herein lies
the difference between them that create and them
that enjoy.
407.
The Glory of all Great Men. —What is the
use of genius if it does not invest him who contem-
plates and reveres it with such freedom and lofti-
ness of feeling that he no longer has need of genius?
—To make themselves superfluous is the glory of
all great men.
408.
The Journey to Hades. —I too have been in
the underworld, even as Odysseus, and I shall often
be there again. Not sheep alone have I sacrificed,
VOL. 11. M


## p. 178 (#200) ############################################

178 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
that I might be able to converse with a few dead
souls, but not even my own blood have I spared.
There were four pairs who responded to me in my
sacrifice: Epicurus and Montaigne, Goethe and
Spinoza, Plato and Rousseau, Pascal and Schopen-
hauer. With them I have to come to terms. When
I have long wandered alone, I will let them prove
me right or wrong; to them will I listen, if they
prove each other right or wrong. In all that I say,
conclude, or think out for myself and others, I
fasten my eyes on those eight and see their eyes
fastened on mine. —May the living forgive me if I
look upon them at times as shadows, so pale and
fretful, so restless and, alas! so eager for life. Those
eight, on the other hand, seem to me so living that
I feel as if even now, after their death, they could
never become weary of life. But eternal vigour of
life is the important point: what matters "eternal
life," or indeed life at all?


## p. 179 (#201) ############################################

PART II.
THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW.


## p. 180 (#202) ############################################



## p. 181 (#203) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW.
The Shadow. It is so long since I heard you
speak that I should like to give you an opportunity
of talking.
The Wanderer: I hear a voice—where? whose?
I almost fancied that 1 heard myself speaking, but
with a voice yet weaker than my own.
The Shadow (after a pause): Are you not glad
to have an opportunity of speaking?
The Wanderer: By God and everything else in
which I disbelieve, it is my shadow that speaks. I
hear it, but I do not believe it.
The Shadow: Let us assume that it exists, and
think no more about it. In another hour all will be
over.
The Wanderer: That is just what I thought
when in a forest near Pisa I saw first two and then
five camels.
The Shadow: It is all the better if we are both
equally forbearing towards each other when for once
our reason is silent. Thus we shall avoid losing our
tempers in conversation, and shall not at once apply
mutual thumb-screws in the event of any word
sounding for once unintelligible to us. If one does
not know exactly how to answer, it is enough to


## p. 182 (#204) ############################################

182 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
say something. Those are the reasonable terms on
which I hold conversation with any person. During
a long talk the wisest of men becomes a fool once
and a simpleton thrice.
The Wanderer: Your moderation is not flatter-
ing to those to whom you confess it.
The Shadow: Am I, then, to flatter?
The Wanderer: I thought a man's shadow was
his vanity. Surely vanity would never say, "Am
I, then, to flatter? "
The Shadow: Nor does human vanity, so far as
I am acquainted with it, ask, as I have done twice,
zuhether it may speak. It simply speaks.
The Wanderer: Now I see for the first time how
rude I am to you, my beloved shadow. I have not
said a word of my supreme delight in hearing and
not merely seeing you. You must know that I love
shadows even as I love light. For the existence of
beauty of face, clearness of speech, kindliness and
firmness of character, the shadow is as necessary
as the light. They are not opponents—rather do
they hold each other's hands like good friends; and
when the light vanishes, the shadow glides after it.
The Shadow: Yes, and I hate the same thing
that you hate—night. I love men because they are
votaries of life. I rejoice in the gleam of their eyes
when they recognise and discover, they who never
weary of recognising and discovering. That
shadow which all things cast when the sunshine
of knowledge falls upon them—that shadow too
am I.
The Wanderer: I think I understand you, al-
though you have expressed yourself in somewhat


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 183
shadowy terms. You are right. Good friends give
to each other here and there, as a sign of mutual
understanding, an obscure phrase which to any third
party is meant to be a riddle. And we are good
friends, you and I. So enough of preambles! Some
few hundred questions oppress my soul, and the time
for you to answer them is perchance but short. Let
us see how we may come to an understanding as
quickly and peaceably as possible.
The Shadow: But shadows are more shy than
men. You will not reveal to any man the manner
of our conversation?
The Wanderer: The manner of our conversation?
Heaven preserve me from wire-drawn, literary dia-
logues! If Plato had found less pleasure in spin-
ning them out, his readers would have found more
pleasure in Plato. A dialogue that in real life is
a source of delight, when turned into writing and
read, is a picture with nothing but false perspectives.
Everything is too long or too short. —Yet perhaps
I may reveal the points on which we have come to
an understanding?
The Shadow: With that I am content. For
every one will only recognise your views once more,
and no one will think of the shadow.
The Wanderer: Perhaps you are wrong, my
friend! Hitherto they have observed in my views
more of the shadow than of me.
The Shadow: More of the shadow than of the
light? Is that possible?
The Wanderer: Be serious, dear fool!
My very
first question demands seriousness.


## p. 184 (#206) ############################################

184 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
Of the Tree of Knowledge. —Probability,
but no truth; the semblance of freedom, but no free-
dom—these are the two fruits by virtue of which the
tree of knowledge cannot be confounded with the
tree of life.
The World's Reason. —That the world is not
the abstract essence of an eternal reasonableness is
sufficiently proved by the fact that that bit of the
-world which we know—I mean our human reason—
is none too reasonable. And if this is not eternally
and wholly wise and reasonable, the rest of the world
will not be so either. Here the conclusion a minori
ad majus, a parte ad totum holds good, and that
with decisive force.
3-
"In the Beginning was. "—To glorify the
origin—that is the metaphysical after-shoot which
sprouts again at the contemplation of history, and
absolutely makes us imagine that in the beginning of
things lies all that is most valuable and essential.
4-
Standard for the Value of Truth. —The
difficulty of climbing mountains is no gauge of their
height. Yet in the case of science it is different! —
we are told by certain persons who wish to be con-
sidered "the initiated,"—the difficulty in finding


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 185
truth is to determine the value of truth! This in-
sane iiorality originates in the idea that" truths " are
really nothing more than gymnastic appliances, with
which we have to exercise ourselves until we are
thoroughly tired. It is a morality for the athletes
and gymnasts of the intellect.
5-
Use of Words and Reality. —There exists
a simulated contempt for all the things that man-
kind actually holds most important, for all everyday
matters. For instance, we say "we only eat to live"
—an abominable lie, like that which speaks of the
procreation of children as the real purpose of all
sexual pleasure. Conversely, the reverence for " the
most important things " is hardly ever quite genuine.
The priests and metaphysicians have indeed accus-
tomed us to a hypocritically exaggerated use of
words regarding these matters, but they have not
altered the feeling that these most important things
are not so important as those despised "everyday
matters. " A fatal consequence of this twofold hypo-
crisy is that we never make these everyday matters
(such as eating, housing, clothes, and intercourse)
the object of a constant unprejudiced and universal.
reflection and revision, but, as such a process appears
degrading, we divert from them our serious intel-
lectual and artistic side. Hence in such matters
habit and frivolity win an easy victory over the
thoughtless, especially over inexperienced youth.
On theother hand, our continual transgressions of the
simplest laws of body and mind reduce us all, young


## p. 186 (#208) ############################################

186 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
and old, to a disgraceful state of dependence and
servitude—I mean to that fundamentally super-
fluous dependence upon physicians, teachers and
clergymen, whose dead-weight still lies heavy upon
the whole of society.
6.
Earthly Infirmities and their Main Cause.
—If we look about us, we are always coming across
men who have eaten eggs all their lives without ob-
serving that theoblong-shaped taste the best; whodo
not know that a thunder-storm is beneficial to the
stomach; that perfumes are most fragrant in cold,
clear air; that our sense of taste varies in different
parts of our mouths; that every meal at which we
talk well or listen well does harm to the digestion.
If we are not satisfied with these examples of de-
fective powers of observation, we shall concede all
the more readily that the everyday matters are
very imperfectly seen and rarely observed by the
majority. Is this a matter of indifference ? —Let us
remember, after all, that from this defect are derived
nearly all the bodily and spiritual infirmities of the
individual. Ignorance of what is good and bad for
us, in the arrangement of our mode of life, the division
of our day, the selection of our friends and the time
we devote to them, in business and leisure, com-
manding and obeying, our feeling for nature and for
art, our eating, sleeping, and meditation; ignorance
and lack of keen perceptions in the smallest and most
ordinary details—this it is that makes the world "a
vale of tears " for so many. Let us not say that here


## p. 187 (#209) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 187
as everywhere the fault lies with human unreason.
Of reason there is enough and to spare, hut it is
wrongly directed and artificially diverted from these
little intimate things. Priests and teachers, and the
sublime ambition of all idealists, coarser and subtler,
din it even into the child's ears that the means of
serving mankind at large depend upon altogether
different things—upon the salvation of the soul, the
service of the State, the advancement of science, or
even upon social position and property; whereas the
needs of the individual, his requirements great and
small during the twenty-four hours of the day, are
quite paltry or indifferent. —Even Socrates attacked
with all his might this arrogant neglect of the human
for the benefit of humanity, and loved to indicate by
a quotation from Homer the true sphere and con-
ception of all anxiety and reflection: " All that really
matters," he said, "is the good and evil hap I find
at home. "
Two Means of Consolation. —Epicurus, the
soul-comforter of later antiquity, said, with that mar-
vellous insight which to this very day is so rarely to
be found, that for the calming of the spirit the solu-
tion of the final and ultimate theoretical problems is
by no means necessary. Hence, instead of raising a
barren and remote discussion of the final question,
whether the Gods existed, it sufficed him to say to
those who were tormented by " fear of the Gods ":
"If there are Gods, they do not concern themselves
with us. " The latter position is far stronger and


## p. 188 (#210) ############################################

188 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
more favourable, for, by conceding a few points to the
other, one makes him readier to listen and to take
to heart. But as soon as he sets about proving the
opposite (that the Gods do concern themselves with
us), into what thorny jungles of error must the poor
man fall, quite of his own accord, and without any
cunning on the part of his interlocutor! The latter
must only have enough subtlety and humanity to
conceal his sympathy with this tragedy. Finally,the
other comes to feel disgust—the strongest argument
against any proposition—disgust with his own hypo-
thesis. He becomes cold, and goes away in the same
frame of mind as the pure atheist who says, " What
do the Gods matter to me? The devil take them! "—
In other cases, especially when a half-physical, half-
moral assumption had cast a gloom over his spirit,
Epicurus did not refute the assumption. He agreed
that it might be true, but that there was a second
assumption to explain the same phenomenon, and
that it could perhaps be maintained in other ways.
The plurality of hypotheses (for example, that con-
cerning the origin of conscientious scruples) suffices
even in our time to remove from the soul the shadows
that arise so easily from pondering over a hypothesis
which is isolated, merely visible, and hence overvalued
a hundredfold. —Thus whoever wishes to console the
unfortunate, the criminal, the hypochondriac, the
dying, may call to mind the two soothing suggestions
of Epicurus, which can be applied to a great number
of problems. In their simplest form they would run:
firstly, granted the thing is so, it does not concern
us; secondly, the thing may be so, but it may also
be otherwise.


## p. 189 (#211) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 189
8.
In the NIgHT. —So soon as night begins to fall
our sensations concerning everyday matters are
altered. There is the wind, prowling as if on for-
bidden paths, whispering as if in search of some-
thing, fretting because he cannot find it. There is
the lamplight, with its dim red glow, its weary look,
unwillingly fighting against night, a sullen slave to
wakeful man. There are the breathings of the sleeper,
with their terrible rhythm, to which an ever-recur-
ring care seems to blow the trumpet-melody—we do
not hear it, but when the sleeper's bosom heaves we
feel our heart-strings tighten; and when the breath
sinks and almost dies away into a deathly stillness,
we say to ourselves, "Rest awhile, poor troubled
spirit! " All living creatures bear so great a burden
that we wish them an eternal rest; night invites to
death. —If human beings were deprived of the sun
and resisted night by means of moonlight and oil-
lamps, what a philosophy would cast its veil over
them! We already see only too plainly how a
shadow is thrown over the spiritual and intellectual
nature of man by that moiety of darkness and sun-
lessness that envelops life.
Origin of the Doctrine of Free Will. —
Necessity sways one man in the shape of his pas-
sions, another as a habit of hearing and obeying, a
third as a logical conscience, a fourth as a caprice
and a mischievous delight in evasions. These four,


## p. 190 (#212) ############################################

190 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
however, seek the freedom of their will at the very-
point where they are most securely fettered. It is
as if the silkworm sought freedom of will in spinning.
What is the reason? Clearly this, that every one
thinks himself most free where his vitality is strong-
est; hence, as I have said, now in passion, now in
duty, now in knowledge, now in caprice. A man un-
consciously imagines that where he is strong, where
he feels most thoroughly alive, the element of his
freedom must lie. He thinks of dependence and
apathy, independence and vivacity as forming in-
evitable pairs. —Thus an experience that a man
has undergone in the social and political sphere is
wrongly transferred to the ultimate metaphysical
sphere. There the strong man is also the free man,
there the vivid feeling of joy and sorrow, the high
hopes, the keen desires, the powerful hates are the
attributes of the ruling, independent natures, while
the thrall and the slave live in a state of dazed
oppression. —The doctrine of free will is an invention
of the ruling classes.
10.
Absence of Feeling of New Chains. —So
long as we do not feel that we are in some way de-
pendent, we consider ourselves independent—a false
conclusion that shows how proud man is, how eager
for dominion. For he hereby assumes that he would
always be sure to observe and recognise dependence
so soon as he suffered it, the preliminary hypothesis
being that he generally lives in independence, and
that, should he lose that independence for once in a
way, he would immediately detect a contrary sensa-


## p. 191 (#213) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 191
tion. —Suppose, however, the reverse to be true—
that he is always living in a complex state of depend-
ence, but thinks himself free where, through long
habit, he no longer feels the weight of the chain?
He only suffers from new chains, and "free will"
really means nothing more than an absence of feel-
ing of new chains.
11.
Freedom of the Will and the Isolation of
FACTS. —Our ordinary inaccurate observation takes
a group of phenomena as one and calls them a fact.
Between this fact and another we imagine a vacuum,
we isolate each fact. In reality, however, the sum
of our actions and cognitions is no series of facts
and intervening vacua, but a continuous stream.
Now the belief in free will is incompatible with the
idea of a continuous, uniform, undivided, indivisible
flow. This belief presupposes that every single
action is isolated and indivisible; it is an atomic
theory as regards volition and cognition. —We mis-
understand facts as we misunderstand characters,
speaking of similar characters and similar facts,
whereas both are non-existent. Further, we bestow
praise and blame only on this false hypothesis, that
there are similar facts, that a graduated order of
species of facts exists, corresponding to a graduated
order of values. Thus we isolate not only the single
fact, but the groups of apparently equal facts (good,
evil, compassionate, envious actions, and so forth).
In both cases we are wrong. —The word and the
concept are the most obvious reason for our belief
in this isolation of groups of actions. We do not


## p. 192 (#214) ############################################

192 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
merely thereby designate the things ; the thought at
the back of our minds is that by the word and the
concept we can grasp the essence of the actions.
We are still constantly led astray by words and
actions, and are induced to think of things as simpler
than they are, as separate, indivisible, existing in
the absolute. Language contains a hidden philo-
sophical mythology, which, however careful we may
be, breaks out afresh at every moment. The belief
in free will—that is to say, in similar facts and iso-
lated facts—finds in language its continual apostle
and advocate.
12.
The Fundamental Errors. —A man cannot
feel any psychical pleasure or pain unless he is
swayed by one of two illusions. Either he believes
in the identity of certain facts, certain sensations,
and in that case finds spiritual pleasure and pain
in comparing present with past conditions and in
noting their similarity or difference (as is invariably
the case with recollection); or he believes in the
freedom of the will, perhaps when he reflects, "I
ought not to have done this," "This might have
turned out differently," and from these reflections
likewise he derives pleasure and pain. Without
the errors that are rife in every psychical pain and
pleasure, humanity would never have developed.
For the root idea of humanity is that man is free in a
world of bondage—man, the eternal wonder-worker,
whether his deeds be good or evil—man, the amaz-
ing exception, the super-beast, the quasi-God, the
mind of creation, the indispensable, the key-word


## p. 193 (#215) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 193
to the cosmic riddle, the mighty lord of nature and
despiser of nature, the creature that calls its history
"the history of the world"! Vanitas vanitatum.
homo.
13-
Repetition. —It is an excellent thing to express
a thing consecutively in two ways, and thus provide
it with a right and a left foot. Truth can stand
indeed on one leg, but with two she will walk and
complete her journey.
14. y
Man as the Comic Actor of the World. —
It would require beings more intellectual than men
to relish to the full the humorous side of man's view
of himself as the goal of all existence and of his
serious pronouncement that he is satisfied only with
the prospect of fulfilling a world-mission. If a God
created the world, he created man to be his ape, as
a perpetual source of amusement in the midst of his
rather tedious eternities. The music of the spheres
surrounding the world would then presumably be
the mocking laughter of all the other creatures
around mankind. God in his boredom uses pain
for the tickling of his favourite animal, in order to
enjoy his proudly tragic gestures and expressions
of suffering, and, in general, the intellectual inven-
tiveness of the vainest of his creatures—as inventor
of this inventor. For he who invented man as a
joke had more intellect and more joy in intellect
than has man. —Even here, where our human nature
is willing to humble itself, our vanity again plays us
a trick, in that we men should like in this vanity at
vol. n. N


## p. 194 (#216) ############################################

194 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
least to be quite marvellous and incomparable. Our
uniqueness in the world! Oh, what an improbable
thing it is! Astronomers, who occasionally acquire
a horizon outside our world, give us to understand
that the drop of life on the earth is without signific-
ance for the total character of the mighty ocean of
birth and decay; that countless stars present con-
ditions for the generation of life similar to those of
the earth—and yet these are but a handful in com-
parison with the endless number that have never
known, or have long been cured, of the eruption of
life; that life on each of these stars, measured by
the period of its existence, has been but an instant,
a nicker, with long, long intervals afterwards—and
thus in no way the aim and final purpose of their
existence. Possibly the ant in the forest is quite
as firmly convinced that it is the aim and purpose
of the existence of the forest, as we are convinced
in our imaginations (almost unconsciously) that the
destruction of mankind involves the destruction of
the world. It is even modesty on our part to go
no farther than this, and not to arrange a universal
twilight of the world and the Gods as the funeral
ceremony of the last man. Even to the eye of
the most unbiassed astronomer a lifeless world can
scarcely appear otherwise than as a shining and
swinging star wherein man lies buried.
15-
The Modesty of Man. —How little pleasure is
enough for the majority to make them feel that life
is good! How modest is man!


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 195
16.
Where Indifference is Necessary. —No-
thing would be more perverse than to wait for
the truths that science will finally establish con-
cerning the first and last things, and until then to
think (and especially to believe) in the traditional
way, as one is so often advised to do. The impulse
that bids us seek nothing but certainties in this
domain is a religious offshoot, nothing better—a
hidden and only apparently sceptical variety of the
"metaphysical need," the underlying idea being
that for a long time no view of these ultimate
certainties will be obtainable, and that until then
the "believer" has the right not to trouble himself
about the whole subject. We have no need of
these certainties about the farthermost horizons in
order to live a full and efficient human life, any
more than the ant needs them in order to be a good
ant. Rather must we ascertain the origin of that
troublesome significance that we have attached to
these things for so long. For this we require the
history of ethical and religious sentiments, since it
is only under the influence of such sentiments that
these most acute problems of knowledge have be-
come so weighty and terrifying. Into the outer-
most regions to which the mental eye can penetrate
(without ever penetrating into them), we have
smuggled such concepts as guilt and punishment
(everlasting punishment, too! ). The darker those
regions, the more careless we have been. For ages
men have let their imaginations run riot where they


## p. 196 (#218) ############################################

196 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
could establish nothing, and have induced posterity
to accept these fantasies as something serious and
true, with this abominable lie as their final trump-
card: that faith is worth more than knowledge.
What we need now in regard to these ultimate things
is not knowledge as against faith, but indifference
as against faith and pretended knowledge in these
matters! —Everything must lie nearer to us than
what has hitherto been preached to us as the most
important thing, I mean the questions: "What end
does man serve? " "What is his fate after death? "
"How does he make his peace with God? " and all
the rest of that bag of tricks. The problems of the
dogmatic philosophers, be theyidealists,materialists,
or realists, concern us as little as do these religious
questions. They all have the same object in view
—to force us to a decision in matters where neither
faith nor knowledge is needed. It is better even
for the most ardent lover of knowledge that the
territory open to investigation and to reason should
be encircled by a belt of fog-laden, treacherous
marshland, a strip of ever watery, impenetrable, and
indeterminable country. It is just by the com-
parison with the realm of darkness on the edge of
the world of knowledge that the bright, accessible
region of that world rises in value. —We must once
more become good friends of the "everyday matters,"
and not, as hitherto, despise them and look beyond
them at clouds and monsters of the night. In forests
and caverns, in marshy tracts and under dull skies,
on the lowest rungs of the ladder of culture, man
has lived for aeons, and lived in poverty. There
he has learnt to despise the present, his neighbours,


## p. 197 (#219) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 197
his life, and himself, and we, the inhabitants of the
brighter fields of Nature and mind, still inherit in
our blood some taint of this contempt for everyday
matters.
17.
Profound Interpretations. —He who has in-
terpreted a passage in an author " more profoundly"
than was intended, has not interpreted the author
but has obscured him. Our metaphysicians are in
the same relation, or even in a worse relation, to the
text of Nature. For, to apply their profound in-
terpretations, they often alter the text to suit their
purpose—or, in other words, corrupt the text. A
curious example of the corruption and obscuration
of an author's text is furnished by the ideas of
Schopenhauer on the pregnancy of women. "The
sign of a continuous will to life in time," he says,
"is copulation; the sign of the light of knowledge
which is associated anew with this will and holds
the possibility of a deliverance, and that too in the
highest degree of clearness, is the renewed incar-
nation of the will to life. This incarnation is be-
tokened by pregnancy, which is therefore frank and
open, and even proud, whereas copulation hides itself
like a criminal. " He declares that every woman, if
surprised in the sexual act, would be likely to die
of shame, but "displays her pregnancy without a
trace of shame, nay even with a sort of pride. " Now,
firstly, this condition cannot easily be displayed
more aggressively than it displays itself, and when


## p. 198 (#220) ############################################

I98 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
Schopenhauer gives prominence only to the inten-
tional character of the display, he is fashioning his
text to suit the interpretation. Moreover, his state-
ment of the universality of the phenomenon is not
true. He speaks of "every woman. " Many women,
especially the younger, often appear painfully
ashamed of their condition, even in the presence of
their nearest kinsfolk. And when women of riper
years, especially in the humbler classes, do actually
appear proud of their condition, it is because they
would give us to understand that they are still
desirable to their husbands. That a neighbour on
seeing them or a passing stranger should say or
think " Can it be possible ? "—that is an alms always
acceptable to the vanity of women of low mental
capacity. In the reverse instance, to conclude from
Schopenhauer's proposition, the cleverest and most
intelligent women would tend more than any to
exult openly in their condition. For they have the
best prospect of giving birth to an intellectual
prodigy, in whom "the will" can once more
"negative" itself for the universal good. Stupid
women, on the other hand, would have every reason
to hide their pregnancy more modestly than any-
thing they hide. —It cannot be said that this view
corresponds to reality. Granted, however, that
Schopenhauer was right on the general principle
that women show more self-satisfaction when preg-
nant than at any other time, a better explanation
than this lies to hand. One might imagine the
clucking of a hen even before she lays an egg, say-
ing, " Look! look! I shall lay an egg! I shall lay
an egg! "


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW.