No More Learning

We have here something to learn from physicians,
when, for example, they dilute what is bitter, or
put wine and sugar into their mixing-bowl; but we
have still more to learn from artists, who in fact,
are continually concerned in devising such in-
ventions and artifices. To withdraw from things
until one no longer sees much of them, until one
has even to see things into them, in order to see
them at all—or to view them from the side, and
as in a frame — or to place them so that they
partly disguise themselves and only permit of
perspective views—or to look at them through
coloured glasses, or in the light of the sunset-or
to furnish them with a surface or skin which is not
fully transparent: we should learn all that from
artists, and moreover be wiser than they. For
this fine power of theirs usually ceases with them
where art ceases and life begins; we, however, want
to be the poets of our life, and first of all in the
smallest and most commonplace matters.
300.
Prelude to Science. -Do you believe then that
the sciences would have arisen and grown up if
the sorcerers, alchemists, astrologers and witches
had not been their forerunners; those who, with
their promisings and foreshadowings, had first to


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222 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
288.
Lofty Moods. — It seems to me that most men do
not believe in lofty moods, unless it be for the
moment, or at the most for a quarter of an hour,—
except the few who know by experience a longer
duration of high feeling. But to be absolutely
a man with a single lofty feeling, the incarnation of
a single lofty mood—that has hitherto been only a
dream and an enchanting possibility: history does
not yet give us any trustworthy example of it.
Nevertheless it could some day produce such men
also—when a multitude of favourable conditions
have been created and established, which at
present even the happiest chance is unable to
throw together. Perhaps that very state which has
hitherto entered into our soul as an exception, felt
with horror now and then, may be the usual con-
dition of those future souls: a continuous movement
between high and low, and the feeling of high and
low, a constant state of mounting as on steps, and
at the same time reposing as on clouds.
289.
Aboard Ship ! —When one considers how a full
philosophical justification of his mode of living
and thinking operates upon every individual—
namely, as a warming, blessing, and fructifying
sun, specially shining on him; how it makes him
independent of praise and blame, self-sufficient,
rich and generous in the bestowal of happiness
and kindness; how it unceasingly transforms the
evil to the good, brings all the energies to bloom


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 223
and maturity, and altogether hinders the growth
of the greater and lesser weeds of chagrin and dis-
content :—one at last cries out importunately: Oh,
that many such new suns were created! The evil
man, also, the unfortunate man, and the excep-
tional man, shall each have his philosophy, his
rights, and his sunshine! It is not sympathy with
them that is necessary! —we must unlearn this
arrogant fancy, notwithstanding that humanity
has so long learned it and used it exclusively—we
have not to set up any confessor, exorcist, or
pardoner for them! It is a new justice, however,
that is necessary! And a new solution! And
new philosophers! The moral earth also is round!
The moral earth also has its antipodes! The anti-
podes also have their right to exist! there is
still another world to discover—and more than
one! Aboard ship! ye philosophers!
290.
One Thing is Needful. —To "give style" to one's u
character—that is a grand and a rare art! He
who surveys all that his nature presents in its
strength and in its weakness, and then fashions it
into an ingenious plan, until everything appears
artistic and rational, and even the weaknesses
enchant the eye—exercises that admirable art.
Here there has been a great amount of second
nature added, there a portion of first nature has
been taken away:—in both cases with long exer-
cise and daily labour at the task. Here the ugly,
which does not permit of being taken away, has
been concealed, there it has been re-interpreted


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224 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
into the sublime. Much of the vague, which re-
fuses to take form, has been reserved and utilised
for the perspectives :—it is meant to give a hint
of the remote and immeasurable. In the end,
when the work has been completed, it is revealed
how it was the constraint of the same taste that
organised and fashioned it in whole or in part:
whether the taste was good or bad is of less
importance than one thinks,—it is sufficient that
it was a taste! —It will be the strong imperious
natures which experience their most refined joy
in such constraint, in such confinement and per-
fection under their own law; the passion of their
violent volition lessens at the sight of all disciplined
nature, all conquered and ministering nature: even
when they have palaces to build and gardens to
lay out, it is not to their taste to allow nature to
be free. —It is the reverse with weak characters
who have not power over themselves, and hate
the restriction of style: they feel that if this
repugnant constraint were laid upon them, they
would necessarily become vulgarised under it:
they become slaves as soon as they serve, they
hate service. Such intellects—they may be intel-
lects of the first rank—are always concerned with
fashioning or interpreting themselves and their
surroundings as free nature—wild, arbitrary, fan-
tastic, confused and surprising: and it is well for
them to do so, because only in this manner can
they please themselves! For one thing is needful:
namely, that man should attain to satisfaction with
himself—be it but through this or that fable and
artifice: it is only then that man's aspect is at all


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SANCTUS JANUAlUUS 22$
endurable! He who is dissatisfied with himself is
ever ready to avenge himself on that account: we
others will be his victims, if only in having always
to endure his ugly aspect. For the aspect of the
ugly makes one mean and sad.
291.
Genoa. —I have looked upon this city, its villas
and pleasure-grounds, and the wide circuit of its
inhabited heights and slopes, for a considerable
time: in the end I must say that I see countenances
out of past generations,—this district is strewn with
the images of bold and autocratic men. They have
lived and have wanted to live on—they say so
with their houses, built and decorated for centuries,
and not for the passing hour: they were well
disposed to life, however ill-disposed they may
often have been towards themselves. I always see
the builder, how he casts his eye on all that is
built around him far and near, and likewise on
the city, the sea, and the chain of mountains; how
he expresses power and conquest in his gaze:
all this he wishes to fit into his plan, and in the
end make it his property, by its becoming a
portion of the same. The whole district is over-
grown with this superb, insatiable egoism of the
desire to possess and exploit; and as these men
when abroad recognised no frontiers, and in their
thirst for the new placed a new world beside the
old, so also at home everyone rose up against
everyone else, and devised some mode of expressing
his superiority, and of placing between himself and
his neighbour his personal illimitableness. Everyone
IS


## p. 226 (#308) ############################################

226 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
won for himself his home once more by over-
powering it with his architectural thoughts, and
by transforming it into a delightful sight for his
race. When we consider the mode of building
cities in the north, the law and the general delight
in legality and obedience, impose upon us: we
thereby divine the propensity to equality and
submission which must have ruled in those builders.
Here, however, on turning every corner you find
a man by himself, who knows the sea, knows ad-
venture, and knows the Orient, a man who is averse
to law and to neighbour, as if it bored him to
have to do with them, a man who scans all that
is already old and established, with envious glances:
with a wonderful craftiness of fantasy, he would
like, at least in thought, to establish all this anew,
to lay his hand upon it, and introduce his meaning
into it—if only for the passing hour of a sunny
afternoon, when for once his insatiable and melan-
choly soul feels satiety, and when only what is his
own, and nothing strange, may show itself to
his eye.
292.
To the Preachers of Morality. —I do not mean
to moralise, but to those who do, I would give this
advice: if you mean ultimately to deprive the best
things and the best conditions of all honour and
worth, continue to speak of them in the same
way as heretofore! Put them at the head of your
morality, and speak from morning till night of the
happiness of virtue, of repose of soul, of righteous-
ness, and of reward and punishment in the nature
of things: according as you go on in this manner,


## p. 227 (#309) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS 227
all these good things will finally acquire a popu-
larity and a street-cry for themselves: but then
all the gold on them will also be worn off, and
more besides: all the gold in them will have
changed into lead. Truly, you understand the
reverse art of alchemy, the depreciating of the
most valuable things! Try, just for once, another
recipe, in order not to realise as hitherto the
opposite of what you mean to attain: deny those
good things, withdraw from them the applause of
the populace and discourage the spread of them,
make them once more the concealed chastities of
solitary souls, say that morality is something for-
bidden! Perhaps you will thus win over for those
things the sort of men who are only of any ac-
count, I mean the heroic. But then there must be
something formidable in them, and not as hitherto
something disgusting! Might one not be in-
clined to say at present with reference to morality
what Master Eckardt says: '* I pray God to deliver
me from God! "
293-
Our Atmosphere. —We know it well: to him who
only casts a glance now and then at science, as
in taking a walk (in the manner of women, and
alas! also like many artists), the strictness in its
service, its inexorability in small matters as well
as in great, its rapidity in weighing, judging and
condemning, produce something of a feeling of
giddiness and fright. It is especially terrifying to
him that the hardest is here demanded, that the
best is done without the reward of praise or dis-
tinction; it is rather as among soldiers—almost


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228 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
nothing but blame and sharp reprimand is heard;
for doing well prevails here as the rule, doing ill
as the exception; the rule, however, has, here as
everywhere, a silent tongue. It is the same with
this "severity of science" as with the manners and
politeness of the best society: it frightens the
uninitiated. He, however, who is accustomed to it,
does not like to live anywhere but in this clear,
transparent, powerful, and highly electrified at-
mosphere, this manly atmosphere. Anywhere else
it is not pure and airy enough for him: he suspects
that there his best art would neither be properly
advantageous to anyone else, nor a delight to
himself, that through misunderstandings half of
his life would slip through his fingers, that much
foresight, much concealment, and reticence would
constantly be necessary,—nothing but great and
useless losses of power! In this keen and clear
element, however, he has his entire power: here he
can fly! Why should he again go down into those
muddy waters where he has to swim and wade and
soil his wings! —No! There it is too hard for us
to live! we cannot help it that we are born for the
atmosphere, the pure atmosphere, we rivals of the
ray of light; and that we should like best to ride
like it on the atoms of ether, not away from the
sun, but towards the sun! That, however, we
cannot do:—so we want to do the only thing that
is in our power: namely, to bring light to the earth,
we want to be " the light of the earth! " And for
that purpose we have our wings and our swiftness
and our severity, on that account we are manly, and
even terrible like the fire. Let those fear us, who


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 229
do not know how to warm and brighten themselves
by our influence!
294.
Against the Disparagers of Nature. —They are
disagreeable to me, those men in whom every
natural inclination forthwith becomes a disease,
something disfiguring, or even disgraceful. They
have seduced us to the opinion that the inclinations
and impulses of men are evil; they are the cause
of our great injustice to our own nature, and to all
nature! There are enough of men who may yield
to their impulses gracefully and carelessly: but
they do not do so, for fear of that imaginary "evil
thing" in nature! That is the cause why there is
so little nobility to be found among men: the
indication of which will always be to have no fear
of oneself, to expect nothing disgraceful from
oneself, to fly without hesitation whithersoever we
are impelled—we free-born birds! Wherever we
come, there will always be freedom and sunshine
around us.
295.
Short-lived Habits. —I love short-lived habits,
and regard them as an invaluable means for
getting a knowledge of many things and various
conditions, to the very bottom of their sweetness
and bitterness; my nature is altogether arranged
for short-lived habits, even in the needs of its
bodily health, and in general, as far as I can see,
from the lowest up to the highest matters. I
always think that this will at last satisfy me
permanently (the short-lived habit has also that


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230 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
characteristic belief of passion, the belief in ever-
lasting duration; I am to be envied for having
found it and recognised it), and then it nourishes
me at noon and at eve, and spreads a profound
satisfaction around me and in me, so that I have
no longing for anything else, not needing to
compare, or despise, or hate. But one day the
habit has had its time: the good thing separates
from me, not as something which then inspires
disgust in me—but peaceably and as though satis-
fied with me, as I am with it; as if we had to be
mutually thankful, and thus shook hands for
farewell. And already the new habit waits at the
door, and similarly also my belief—indestructible
fool and sage that I am ! —that this new habit will
be the right one, the ultimate right one. So it is
with me as regards foods, thoughts, men, cities,
poems, music, doctrines, arrangements of the day,
and modes of life. —On the other hand, I hate
permanent habits, and feel as if a tyrant came
into my neighbourhood, and as if my life's breath
condensed, when events take such a form that per-
manent habits seem necessarily to grow out of them:
for example, through an official position, through
constant companionship with the same persons,
through a settled abode, or through a uniform state
of health. Indeed, from the bottom of my soul I
am gratefully disposed to all my misery and sick-
ness,and towhatever is imperfect in me, because such
things leave me a hundred back-doors through which
I can escape from permanent habits. The most
unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible
thing, would be a life without habits, a life which


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 231
continually required improvisation : — that would
be my banishment and my Siberia.
296.
A Fixed Reputation. —A fixed reputation was
formerly a matter of the very greatest utility; and
wherever society continues to be ruled by the
herd - instinct, it is still most suitable for every
individual to give to his character and business
the appearance of unalterableness,—even when they
are not so in reality. "One can rely on him, he
remains the same"—that is the praise which has
most significance in all dangerous conditions of
society. Society feels with satisfaction that it
has a reliable tool ready at all times in the
virtue of this one, in the ambition of that one, and
in the reflection and passion of a third one,—it
honours this tool-like nature, this self-constancy,
this unchangeableness in opinions, efforts, and
even in faults, with the highest honours. Such
a valuation, which prevails and has prevailed
everywhere simultaneously with the morality of
custom, educates "characters," and brings all
changing, re-learning, and self-transforming into
disrepute. Be the advantage of this mode of
thinking ever so great otherwise, it is in any case
the mode of judging which is most injurious to
knowledge: for precisely the good-will of the know-
ing one ever to declare himself unhesitatingly as
opposed to his former opinions, and in general to
be distrustful of all that wants to be fixed in him
—is here condemned and brought into disrepute.
The disposition of the thinker, as incompatible with


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232 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
a " fixed reputation," is regarded as dishonourable,
while the petrifaction of opinions has all the honour
to itself:—we have at present still to live under the
interdict of such rules! How difficult it is to live
when one feels that the judgment of many millen-
niums is around one and against one. It is prob-
able that for many millenniums knowledge was
afflicted with a bad conscience, and that there must
have been much self-contempt and secret misery in
the history of the greatest intellects.
297.
Ability to Contradict. —Everyone knows at present
that the ability to endure contradiction is a high
indication of culture. Some people even know
that the higher man courts opposition, and provokes
it, so as to get a cue to his hitherto unknown parti-
ality. But the ability to contradict, the attainment
of good conscience in hostility to the accustomed,
the traditional and the hallowed,—that is more than
both the above-named abilities, and is the really
great, new and astonishing thing in our culture, the
step of all steps of the emancipated intellect: who
knows that ? —
298.
A Sigh. —I caught this notion on the way, and
rapidly took the readiest, poor words to hold it fast,
so that it might not again fly away. And now it
has died in these dry words, and hangs and flaps
about in them—and I hardly know now, when I
look upon it, how I could have had such happiness
when I caught this bird.


## p. 233 (#315) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS 233
299.
What one should Learn from Artists. —What
means have we for making things beautiful, at-
tractive, and desirable, when they are not so? —
and I suppose they are never so in themselves!
We have here something to learn from physicians,
when, for example, they dilute what is bitter, or
put wine and sugar into their mixing-bowl; but we
have still more to learn from artists, who in fact,
are continually concerned in devising such in-
ventions and artifices. To withdraw from things
until one no longer sees much of them, until one
has even to see things into them, in order to see
them at all—or to view them from the side, and
as in a frame"—or to place them so that they
partly disguise themselves and only permit of
perspective views—or to look at them through
coloured glasses, or in the light of the sunset—or
to furnish them with a surface or skin which is not
fully transparent: we should learn all that from
artists, and moreover be wiser than they. For
this fine power of theirs usually ceases with them
where art ceases and life begins; we, however, want
to be the poets of our life, and first of all in the
smallest and most commonplace matters.
300.
Prelude to Science. —Do you believe then that
the sciences would have arisen and grown up if
the sorcerers, alchemists, astrologers and witches
had not been their forerunners; those who, with
their promisings and foreshadowings, had first to


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234 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
create a thirst, a hunger, and a taste for hidden and
forbidden powers? Yea, that infinitely more had
to be promised than could ever be fulfilled, in order
that something might be fulfilled in the domain of
knowledge? Perhaps the whole of religion, also,
may appear to some distant age as an exercise and
a prelude, in like manner as the prelude and pre-
paration of science here exhibit themselves, though
not at all practised and regarded as such. Perhaps
religion may have been the peculiar means for
enabling individual men to enjoy but once the
entire self-satisfaction of a God and all his self-
redeeming power. Indeed ! —one may ask—would
man have learned at all to get on the tracks of
hunger and thirst for himself, and to extract satiety
and fullness out of himself, without that religious
schooling and preliminary history? Had Prome-
theus first to fancy that he had stolen the light, and
that he did penance for the theft,—in order finally
to discover that he had created the light, in that he
had longed for the light, and that not only man, but
also God had been the work of his hands and the
clay in his hands? All mere creations of the
creator? —just as the illusion, the theft, the Caucasus,
the vulture, and the whole tragic Prometheia of all
thinkers?
301.
Illusion of the Contemplative. —Higher men are
distinguished from lower, by seeing and hearing
immensely more, and in a thoughtful manner—and
it is precisely this that distinguishes man from
the animal, and the higher animal from the
lower. The world always becomes fuller for him


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 235
who grows up into the full stature of humanity;
there are always more interesting fishing-hooks,
thrown out to him; the number of his stimuli is
continually on the increase, and similarly the
varieties of his pleasure and pain,—the higher man
becomes always at the same time happier and
unhappier. An illusion, however, is his constant
accompaniment all along: he thinks he is placed
as a spectator and auditor before the great
pantomime and concert of life; he calls his nature
a contemplative nature, and thereby overlooks the
fact that he himself is also a real creator, and
continuous poet of life,—that he no doubt differs
greatly from the actor in this drama, the so-called
practical man, but differs still more from a mere
onlooker or spectator before the stage. There is
certainly vis contemplativa, and re-examination of
his work peculiar to him as poet, but at the same
time, and first and foremost, he has the vis creativa,
which the practical man or doer lacks, whatever
appearance and current belief may say to the
contrary. It is we, we who think and feel,
that actually and unceasingly make something
which does not yet exist: the whole eternally
increasing world of valuations, colours, weights,
perspectives, gradations, affirmations and negations.
This composition of ours is continually learnt,
practised, and translated into flesh and actuality,
and even into the commonplace, by the so-called
practical men (our actors, as we have said). What-
ever has value in the present world, has it not in
itself, by its nature,—nature is always worthless :—
but a value was once given to it, bestowed upon it,


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236 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
and it was we who gave and bestowed! We only
have created the world which is of any account
to man ! —But it is precisely this knowledge that
we lack, and when we get hold of it for a moment
we have forgotten it the next: we misunderstand
our highest power, we contemplative men, and
estimate ourselves at too low a rate, — we are
neither as proud nor as happy as we might be.
302.
The Danger of the Happiest Ones. —To have fine
senses and a fine taste; to be accustomed to the
select and the intellectually best as our proper and
readiest fare; to be blessed with a strong, bold,
and daring soul; to go through life with a quiet
eye and a firm step, ever ready for the worst as for
a festival, and full of longing for undiscovered
worlds and seas, men and Gods; to listen to all
joyous music, as if there, perhaps, brave men,
soldiers and seafarers, took a brief repose and
enjoyment, and in the profoundest pleasure of the
moment were overcome with tears and the whole
purple melancholy of happiness: who would not
like all this to be his possession, his condition! It
was the happiness of Homer! The condition of
him who invented the Gods for the Greeks,—nay,
who invented his Gods for himself! But let us not
conceal the fact that with this happiness of Homer
in one's soul, one is more liable to suffering than
any other creature under the sun! And only at
this price do we purchase the most precious pearl
that the waves of existence have hitherto washed
ashore! As its possessor one always becomes more


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 237
sensitive to pain, and at last too sensitive: a
little displeasure and loathing sufficed in the end
to make Homer disgusted with life. He was
unable to solve a foolish little riddle which some
young fishers proposed to him! Yes, the little
riddles are the dangers of the happiest ones ! —
303-
Two Happy Ones. —Certainly this man, notwith-
standing his youth, understands the improvisation
of life, and astonishes even the acutest observers.
For it seems that he never makes a mistake,
although he constantly plays the most hazardous
games. One is reminded of the improvising masters
of the musical art, to whom even the listeners
would fain ascribe a divine infallibility of the
hand, notwithstanding that they now and then
make a mistake, as every mortal is liable to do.
But they are skilled and inventive, and always
ready in a moment to arrange into the structure
of the score the most accidental tone (where the
jerk of a finger or a humour brings it about), and
to animate the accident with a fine meaning and
a soul. —Here is quite a different man: everything
that he intends and plans fails with him in the long
run. That on which he has now and again set his
heart has already brought him several times to the
abyss, and to the very verge of ruin; and if he has
as yet got out of the scrape, it certainly has not
been merely with a "black eye. " Do you think
he is unhappy over it? He resolved long ago
not to regard his own wishes and plans as of so
much importance. "If this does not succeed with


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238 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
me," he says to himself, "perhaps that will succeed;
and on the whole I do not know but that I am
under more obligation to thank my failures than
any of my successes. Am I made to be headstrong,
and to wear the bull's horns? That which con-
stitutes the worth and the sum of life for me, lies
somewhere else; I know more of life, because I
have been so often on the point of losing it; and
just on that account I have more of life than any
of you! "
304-
In Doing we Leave Undone. —In the main all
those moral systems are distasteful to me which say:
"Do not do this! Renounce! Overcome thyself! "
On the other hand I am favourable to those moral
systems which stimulate me to do something, and
to do it again from morning till evening, and dream
of it at night, and think of nothing else but to do
it well, as well as it is possible for me alone!
From him who so lives there fall off one after the
other the things that do not pertain to such a life:
without hatred or antipathy, he sees this take leave
of him to-day, and that to-morrow, like the yellow
leaves which every livelier breeze strips from the
tree: or he does not see at all that they take leave
of him, so firmly is his eye fixed upon his goal,
and generally forward, not sideways, backward,
nor downward. "Our doing must determine what
we leave undone; in that we do, we leave undone"
—so it pleases me, so runs my placitum. But I
do not mean to strive with open eyes for my
impoverishment; I do not like any of the negative


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 239
virtues whose very essence is negation and self-
renunciation.
305-
Self-control. — Those moral teachers who first
and foremost order man to get himself into his
own power, induce thereby a curious infirmity in
him,—namely, a constant sensitiveness with refer-
ence to all natural strivings and inclinations, and
as it were, a sort of itching. Whatever may hence-
forth drive him, draw him, allure or impel him,
whether internally or externally—it always seems
to this sensitive being, as if his self-control were
in danger: he is no longer at liberty to trust
himself to any instinct, to any free flight, but
stands constantly with defensive mien, armed
against himself, with sharp distrustful eye, the
eternal watcher of his stronghold, to which office
he has appointed himself. Yes, he can be great in
that position! But how unendurable he has now
become to others, how difficult even for himself
to bear, how impoverished and cut off from the
finest accidents of his soul! Yea, even from all
further instruction! For we must be able to lose
ourselves at times, if we want to learn something
of what we have not in ourselves.
306.
Stoic and Epicurean. —The Epicurean selects the
situations, the persons, and even the events which
suit his extremely sensitive, intellectual constitu-
tion; he renounces the rest—that is to say, by far
the greater part of experience—because it would be


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240
THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
too strong and too heavy fare for him. The Stoic,
on the contrary, accustoms himself to swallow
stones and vermin, glass-splinters and scorpions,
without feeling any disgust: his stomach is meant
to become indifferent in the end to all that the
accidents of existence cast into it:-he reminds
one of the Arabic sect of the Assaua, with which
the French became acquainted in Algiers; and
like those insensible persons, he also likes well
to have an invited public at the exhibition of his
insensibility, the very thing the Epicurean willingly
dispenses with :-he has of course his "garden”!
Stoicism may be quite advisable for men with
whom fate improvises, for those who live in violent
times and are dependent on abrupt and change-
able individuals.
He, however, who anticipates
that fate will permit him to spin "a long thread,”
does well to make his arrangements in Epicurean
fashion; all men devoted to intellectual labour
have done it hitherto! For it would be a supreme
loss to them to forfeit their fine sensibility, and
acquire the hard, stoical hide with hedgehog
prickles in exchange.
307.
In Favour of Criticism. --Something now appears
to thee as an error which thou formerly lovedst as
a truth, or as a probability: thou pushest it from
thee and imaginest that thy reason has there
gained a victory. But perhaps that error was
then, when thou wast still another person—thou
art always another person,—just as necessary to
thee as all thy present “ truths,” like a skin, as it


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 239
virtues whose very essence is negation and self-
renunciation.
305-
Self-control. — Those moral teachers who first
and foremost order man to get himself into his
own power, induce thereby a curious infirmity in
him,—namely, a constant sensitiveness with refer-
ence to all natural strivings and inclinations, and
as it were, a sort of itching. Whatever may hence-
forth drive him, draw him, allure or impel him,
whether internally or externally—it always seems
to this sensitive being, as if his self-control were
in danger: he is no longer at liberty to trust
himself to any instinct, to any free flight, but
stands constantly with defensive mien, armed
against himself, with sharp distrustful eye, the
eternal watcher of his stronghold, to which office
he has appointed himself. Yes, he can be great in
that position! But how unendurable he has now
become to others, how difficult even for himself
to bear, how impoverished and cut off from the
finest accidents of his soul! Yea, even from all
further instruction! For we must be able to lose
ourselves at times, if we want to learn something
of what we have not in ourselves.
306.
Stoic and Epicurean. —The Epicurean selects the
situations, the persons, and even the events which
suit his extremely sensitive, intellectual constitu-
tion; he renounces the rest—that is to say, by far
the greater part of experience—because it would be


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240 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
too strong and too heavy fare for him. The Stoic,
on the contrary, accustoms himself to swallow
stones and vermin, glass-splinters and scorpions,
without feeling any disgust: his stomach is meant
to become indifferent in the end to all that the
accidents of existence cast into it:—he reminds
one of the Arabic sect of the Assaua, with which
the French became acquainted in Algiers; and
like those insensible persons, he also likes well
to have an invited public at the exhibition of his
insensibility, the very thing the Epicurean willingly
dispenses with :—he has of course his "garden "!
Stoicism may be quite advisable for men with
whom fate improvises, for those who live in violent
times and are dependent on abrupt and change-
able individuals. He, however, who anticipates
that fate will permit him to spin " a long thread,"
does well to make his arrangements in Epicurean
fashion; all men devoted to intellectual labour
have done it hitherto! For it would be a supreme
loss to them to forfeit their fine sensibility, and
acquire the hard, stoical hide with hedgehog
prickles in exchange.
307-
In Favour of Criticism. —Something now appears
to thee as an error which thou formerly lovedst as
a truth, or as a probability: thou pushest it from
thee and imaginest that thy reason has there
gained a victory. But perhaps that error was
then, when thou wast still another person—thou
art always another person,—just as necessary to
thee as all thy present " truths," like a skin, as it


## p. 241 (#325) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS 24I
were, which concealed and veiled from thee much
which thou still mayst not see. Thy new life, and
not thy reason, has slain that opinion for thee:
thou dost not require it any longer, and now it
breaks down of its own accord, and the irra-
tionality crawls out of it as a worm into the
light. When we make use of criticism it is not
something arbitrary and impersonal,—it is, at least
very often, a proof that there are lively, active
forces in us, which cast a skin. We deny, and
must deny, because something in us wants to live
and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do
not as yet know, do not as yet see! —So much in
favour of criticism.
308.
The History of each Day. —What is it that con-
stitutes the history of each day for thee? Look
at thy habits of which it consists: are they the
product of numberless little acts of cowardice and
laziness, or of thy bravery and inventive reason?
Although the two cases are so different, it is
possible that men might bestow the same praise
upon thee, and that thou mightst also be equally
useful to them in the one case as in the other.
But praise and utility and respectability may
suffice for him whose only desire is to have a good
conscience,—not however for thee, the " trier of the
reins," who hast a consciousness of the conscience!
309-
Out of the Seventh Solitude. —One day the
wanderer shut a door behind him, stood still, and
16


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240 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
too strong and too heavy fare for him. The Stoic,
on the contrary, accustoms himself to swallow
stones and vermin, glass-splinters and scorpions,
without feeling any disgust: his stomach is meant
to become indifferent in the end to all that the
accidents of existence cast into it:—he reminds
one of the Arabic sect of the Assaua, with which
the French became acquainted in Algiers; and
like those insensible persons, he also likes well
to have an invited public at the exhibition of his
insensibility, the very thing the Epicurean willingly
dispenses with :—he has of course his "garden "!
Stoicism may be quite advisable for men with
whom fate improvises, for those who live in violent
times and are dependent on abrupt and change-
able individuals. He, however, who anticipates
that fate will permit him to spin " a long thread,"
does well to make his arrangements in Epicurean
fashion; all men devoted to intellectual labour
have done it hitherto! For it would be a supreme
loss to them to forfeit their fine sensibility, and
acquire the hard, stoical hide with hedgehog
prickles in exchange.
In Favour of Criticism. —Something now appears
to thee as an error which thou formerly lovedst as
a truth, or as a probability: thou pushest it from
thee and imaginest that thy reason has there
gained a victory. But perhaps that error was
then, when thou wast still another person—thou
art always another person,—just as necessary to
thee as all thy present " truths," like a skin, as it


## p. 241 (#327) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS 241
were, which concealed and veiled from thee much
which thou still mayst not see. Thy new life, and
not thy reason, has slain that opinion for thee:
thou dost not require it any longer, and now it
breaks down of its own accord, and the irra-
tionality crawls out of it as a worm into the
light. When we make use of criticism it is not
something arbitrary and impersonal,—it is, at least
very often, a proof that there are lively, active
forces in us, which cast a skin. We deny, and
must deny, because something in us wants to live
and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do
not as yet know, do not as yet see! —So much in
favour of criticism.
308.
The History of each Day. —What is it that con-
stitutes the history of each day for thee? Look
at thy habits of which it consists: are they the
product of numberless little acts of cowardice and
laziness, or of thy bravery and inventive reason?
Although the two cases are so different, it is
possible that men might bestow the same praise
upon thee, and that thou mightst also be equally
useful to them in the one case as in the other.
But praise and utility and respectability may
suffice for him whose only desire is to have a good
conscience,—not however for thee, the " trier of the
reins," who hast a consciousness of the conscience!
3°9-
Out of the Seventh Solitude. —One day the
wanderer shut a door behind him, stood still, and
16


## p. 241 (#328) ############################################

246
THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
(as one can observe very well even in Europe,
and not only in menageries, but at Gibraltar). But
it never occurs to us that it is their sufferings—that
are their prophets! When strong positive elec-
tricity, under the influence of an approaching
cloud not at all visible, is suddenly converted
into negative electricity, and an alteration of the
weather is imminent, these animals then behave
as if an enemy were approaching them, and pre-
pare for defence, or Alight: they generally hide
themselves,- they do not think of the bad weather
as weather, but as an enemy whose hand they
already feel !
317.
Retrospect. -We seldom become conscious of the
real pathos of any period of life as such, as long
as we continue in it, but always think it is
the only possible and reasonable thing for us
henceforth, and that it is altogether ethos and not
pathos *—to speak and distinguish like the Greeks.
A few notes of music to-day recalled a winter and
a house, and a life of utter solitude to my mind,
and at the same time the sentiments in which I
then lived: I thought I should be able to live
in such a state always. But now I understand
that it was entirely pathos and passion, something
comparable to this painfully bold and truly com-
forting music,—it is not one's lot to have these
* The distinction between ethos and pathos in Aristotle
is, broadly, that between internal character and external
circumstance. -P. V. C.


## p. 241 (#329) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS 241
were, which concealed and veiled from thee much
which thou still mayst not see. Thy new life, and
not thy reason, has slain that opinion for thee:
thou dost not require it any longer, and now it
breaks down of its own accord, and the irra-
tionality crawls out of it as a worm into the
light. When we make use of criticism it is not
something arbitrary and impersonal,—it is, at least
very often, a proof that there are lively, active
forces in us, which cast a skin. We deny, and
must deny, because something in us wants to live
and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do
not as yet know, do not as yet see! —So much in
favour of criticism.
308.
The History of each Day. —What is it that con-
stitutes the history of each day for thee? Look
at thy habits of which it consists: are they the
product of numberless little acts of cowardice and
laziness, or of thy bravery and inventive reason?
Although the two cases are so different, it is
possible that men might bestow the same praise
upon thee, and that thou mightst also be equally
useful to them in the one case as in the other.
But praise and utility and respectability may
suffice for him whose only desire is to have a good
conscience,—not however for thee, the " trier of the
reins," who hast a consciousness of the conscience!
309.
Out of the Seventh Solitude. —One day the
wanderer shut a door behind him, stood still, and
16


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240 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
too strong and too heavy fare for him. The Stoic,
on the contrary, accustoms himself to swallow
stones and vermin, glass-splinters and scorpions,
without feeling any disgust: his stomach is meant
to become indifferent in the end to all that the
accidents of existence cast into it:—he reminds
one of the Arabic sect of the Assaua, with which
the French became acquainted in Algiers; and
like those insensible persons, he also likes well
to have an invited public at the exhibition of his
insensibility, the very thing the Epicurean willingly
dispenses with :—he has of course his "garden "!
Stoicism may be quite advisable for men with
whom fate improvises, for those who live in violent
times and are dependent on abrupt and change-
able individuals. He, however, who anticipates
that fate will permit him to spin " a long thread,"
does well to make his arrangements in Epicurean
fashion; all men devoted to intellectual labour
have done it hitherto! For it would be a supreme
loss to them to forfeit their fine sensibility, and
acquire the hard, stoical hide with hedgehog
prickles in exchange.
307-
In Favour of Criticism. —Something now appears
to thee as an error which thou formerly lovedst as
a truth, or as a probability: thou pushest it from
thee and imaginest that thy reason has there
gained a victory. But perhaps that error was
then, when thou wast still another person—thou
art always another person,—just as necessary to
thee as all thy present " truths," like a skin, as it


## p. 241 (#331) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS 24I
were, which concealed and veiled from thee much
which thou still mayst not see. Thy new life, and
not thy reason, has slain that opinion for thee:
thou dost not require it any longer, and now it
breaks down of its own accord, and the irra-
tionality crawls out of it as a worm into the
light. When we make use of criticism it is not
something arbitrary and impersonal,—it is, at least
very often, a proof that there are lively, active
forces in us, which cast a skin. We deny, and
must deny, because something in us wants to live
and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do
not as yet know, do not as yet see! —So much in
favour of criticism.
308.
The History of each Day. —What is it that con-
stitutes the history of each day for thee? Look
at thy habits of which it consists: are they the
product of numberless little acts of cowardice and
laziness, or of thy bravery and inventive reason?
Although the two cases are so different, it is
possible that men might bestow the same praise
upon thee, and that thou mightst also be equally
useful to them in the one case as in the other.
But praise and utility and respectability may
suffice for him whose only desire is to have a good
conscience,—not however for thee, the " trier of the
reins," who hast a consciousness of the conscience!
3°9-
Out of the Seventh Solitude. —One day the
wanderer shut a door behind him, stood still, and
16


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250
THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
for a time on the side of our adversaries. We are
thereby predestined to a great victory.
324
In Media Vitu. -. No! Life has not deceived
me! On the contrary, from year to year I find it
richer, more desirable and more mysterious—from
the day on which the great liberator broke my
fetters, the thought that life may be an experiment
of the thinker—and not a duty, not a fatality, not
a deceit ! -And knowledge itself may be for others
something different; for example, a bed of ease,
or the path to a bed of ease, or an entertainment,
or a course of idling for me it is a world of
dangers and victories, in which even the heroic
sentiments have their arena and dancing-floor.
“ Life as a means to knowledge"—with this prin-
ciple in one's heart, one can not only be brave,
but can even live joyfully and laugh joyfully! And
who could know how to laugh well and live well,
who did not first understand the full meaning of
war and victory?
325.
What Belongs to Greatness. —Who can attain to
anything great if he does not feel the force and
will in himself to inflict great pain? The ability
to suffer is a small matter : in that line, weak
women and even slaves often attain masterliness.
But not to perish from internal distress and doubt
when one inflicts great anguish and hears the cry
of this anguish—that is great, that belongs to
greatness.


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS
251
326.
Physicians of the Soul and Pain. —All preachers
of morality, as also all theologians, have a bad
habit in common: all of them try to persuade
man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final,
radical cure is necessary. And because mankind as
a whole has for centuries listened too eagerly to
those teachers, something of the superstition that
the human race is in a very bad way has actually
come over men: so that they are now far too ready
to sigh; they find nothing more in life and make
melancholy faces at each other, as if life were
indeed very hard to endure. In truth, they are
inordinately assured of their life and in love with
it, and full of untold intrigues and subtleties for
suppressing everything disagreeable and for ex-
tracting the thorn from pain and misfortune. It
seems to me that people always speak with ex-
aggeration about pain and misfortune, as if it were
a matter of good behaviour to exaggerate here:
on the other hand people are intentionally silent
in regard to the number of expedients for alleviat-
ing pain ; as for instance, the deadening of it, or
feverish furry of thought, or a peaceful position,
or good and bad reminiscences, intentions, hopes,
—also many kinds of pride and fellow-feeling which
have almost the effect of anæsthetics : while in the
greatest degree of pain fainting takes place of itself.
We understand very well how to pour sweetness
on our bitterness, especially on the bitterness of
our soul; we find a remedy in our bravery and
sublimity, as well as in the nobler delirium of sub-


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252
THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
mission and resignation. A loss scarcely remains
a loss for an hour : in some way or other a gift from
heaven has always fallen into our lap at the same
moment-a new form of strength, for example:
be it but a new opportunity for the exercise of
strength! What have the preachers of morality
not dreamt concerning the inner “misery” of evil
men! What lies have they not told us about the
misfortunes of impassioned men! Yes, lying is here
the right word: they were only too well aware of
the overflowing happiness of this kind of man, but
they kept silent as death about it; because it was
a refutation of their theory, according to which
happiness only originates through the annihilation
of the passions and the silencing of the will! And
finally, as regards the recipe of all those physicians
of the soul and their recommendation of a severe
radical cure, we may be allowed to ask: Is our
life really painful and burdensome enough for us
to exchange it with advantage for a Stoical mode
of life, and Stoical petrification? We do not feel
sufficiently miserable to have to feel ill in the
Stoical fashion !
327.
Taking Things Seriously. —The intellect is with
most people an awkward, obscure and creaking
machine, which is difficult to set in motion : they
call it “taking a thing seriously” when they work
with this machine, and want to think well—oh,
how burdensome must good thinking be to them!
That delightful animal, man, seems to lose his good-
humour whenever he thinks well; he becomes
“ serious"! And “where there is laughing and


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SANCTUS JANUARIUS 245
pictures. There are enough of sublime things
without its being necessary to seek sublimity where
it is linked with cruelty; moreover my ambition
would not be gratified in the least if I aspired to
be a sublime executioner.
314.
New Domestic Animals. —I want to have my
lion and my eagle about me, that I may always
have hints and premonitions concerning the amount
of my strength or weakness. Must I look down on
them to-day, and be afraid of them? And will
the hour come once more when they will look up
to me, and tremble ? —
315.
The Last Hour. —Storms are my danger. Shall
I have my storm in which I shall perish, just as
Oliver Cromwell perished in his storm? Or shall
I go out as a light does, not first blown out by
the wind, but grown tired and weary of itself—a
burnt-out light? Or finally, shall I blow myself
out, so as not to burn out?
316.
Prophetic Men. —Ye cannot divine how sorely
prophetic men suffer: ye think only that a fine
"gift" has been given to them, and would fain have it
yourselves,—but I will express my meaning by a
simile. How much may not the animals suffer from
the electricity of the atmosphere and the clouds!
Some of them, as we see, have a prophetic faculty
with regard to the weather, for example, apes


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246 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
(as one can observe very well even in Europe,—
and not only in menageries, but at Gibraltar). But
it never occurs to us that it is their sufferings—that
are their prophets! When strong positive elec-
tricity, under the influence of an approaching
cloud not at all visible, is suddenly converted
into negative electricity, and an alteration of the
weather is imminent, these animals then behave
as if an enemy were approaching them, and pre-
pare for defence, or flight: they generally hide
themselves,—they do not think of the bad weather
as weather, but as an enemy whose hand they
already feel!
317-
Retrospect. —We seldom become conscious of the
real pathos of any period of life as such, as long
as we continue in it, but always think it is
the only possible and reasonable thing for us
henceforth, and that it is altogether ethos and not
pathos *—to speak and distinguish like the Greeks.
A few notes of music to-day recalled a winter and
a house, and a life of utter solitude to my mind,
and at the same time the sentiments in which I
then lived: I thought I should be able to live
in such a state always. But now I understand
that it was entirely pathos and passion, something
comparable to this painfully bold and truly com-
forting music,—it is not one's lot to have these
* The distinction between ethos and pathos in Aristotle
is, broadly, that between internal character and external
circumstance. —P. V. C.


## p. 247 (#337) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS 247
sensations for years, still less for eternities: other-
wise one would become too "ethereal" for this
planet.
318.
Wisdom in Pain. —In pain there is as much
wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of
the best self-preservatives of a species. Were it not
so, pain would long ago have been done away with;
that it is hurtful is no argument against it, for
to be hurtful is its very essence. In pain I hear
the commanding call of the ship's captain: "Take
in sail! " "Man," the bold seafarer, must have
learned to set his sails in a thousand different ways,
otherwise he could not have sailed long, for the
ocean would soon have swallowed him up. We
must also know how to live with reduced energy:
as soon as pain gives its precautionary signal, it is
time to reduce the speed—some great danger,
some storm, is approaching, and wc do well to
"catch" as little wind as possible. —It is true that
there are men who, on the approach of severe pain,
hear the very opposite call of command, and never
appear more proud, more martial, or more happy,
than when the storm is brewing; indeed, pain
itself provides them with their supreme moments!
These are the heroic men, the great pain-bringers
of mankind: those few and rare ones who need
just the same apology as pain generally,—and
verily, it should not be denied them! They are
forces of the greatest importance for preserving and
advancing the species, were it only because they are
opposed to smug ease, and do not conceal their
disgust at this kind of happiness.


## p. 248 (#338) ############################################

248 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, IV
319-
As Interpreters of our Experiences. —One form of
honesty has always been lacking among founders
of religions and their kin :—they have never made
their experiences a matter of the intellectual con-
science. "What did I really experience? What
then took place in me and around me? Was my
understanding clear enough? Was my will
directly opposed to all deception of the senses,
and courageous in its defence against fan-
tastic notions ? " — None of them ever asked
these questions, nor to this day do any of the
good religious people ask them. They have rather
a thirst for things which are contrary to reason,
and they don't want to have too much difficulty
in satisfying this thirst,—so they experience
"miracles" and "regenerations," and hear the
voices of angels! But we who are different, who
are thirsty for reason, want to look as carefully into
our experiences, as in the case of a scientific ex-
periment, hour by hour, day by day! We our-
selves want to be our own experiments, and our
own subjects of experiment.
320.
On Meeting Again. —A: Do I quite understand
you? You are in search of something? Where,
in the midst of the present, actual world, is your
niche and star? Where can you lay yourself in
the sun, so that you also may have a surplus of
well-being, that your existence may justify itself?
Let everyone do that for himself—you seem to say,


## p. 249 (#339) ############################################

SANCTUS JANUARIUS
257
333.
What does Knowing Mean ?