No More Learning

That disgusts me.
Let us now be on our guard against believing that
the universe is a machine; it is assuredly not con-
structed with a view to one end; we invest it with
far too high an honour with the word "machine. "
Let us be on our guard against supposing that
anything so methodical as the cyclic motions of
our neighbouring stars obtains generally and
throughout the universe; indeed a glance at the


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152 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
Milky Way induces doubt as to whether there are
not many cruder and more contradictory motions
there, and even stars with continuous, rectilinearly
gravitating orbits, and the like. The astral arrange-
ment in which we live is an exception; this
arrangement, and the relatively long durability
which is determined by it, has again made possible
the exception of exceptions, the formation of
organic life. The general character of the world,
on the other hand, is to all eternity chaos; not by
the absence of necessity, but in the sense of the
absence of order, structure, form, beauty, wisdom,
and whatever else our aesthetic humanities are
called. Judged by our reason, the unlucky casts
are far oftenest the rule, the exceptions are not the
secret purpose; and the whole musical box repeats
eternally its air, which can never be called a melody,
—and finally the very expression, " unlucky cast"
is already an anthropomorphising which involves
blame. But how could we presume to blame or
praise the universe! Let us be on our guard
against ascribing to it heartlessness and unreason,
or their opposites; it is neither perfect, nor beauti-
ful, nor noble; nor does it seek to be anything of
the kind, it does not at all attempt to imitate
man! It is altogether unaffected by our aesthetic
and moral judgments! Neither has it any self-
preservative instinct, nor instinct at all; it also
knows no law. Let us be on our guard against
saying that there arc laws in nature. There are
only necessities: there is no one who commands,
no one who obeys, no one who transgresses.
When you know that there is no design, you know


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 153
also that there is no chance: for it is only
where there is a world of design that the word
"chance" has a meaning. Let us be on our guard
against saying that death is contrary to life. The
living being is only a species of dead being, and
a very rare species. — Let us be on our guard
against thinking that the world eternally creates
the new. There are no eternally enduring
substances; matter is just another such error as
the God of the Eleatics. But when shall we be at
an end with our foresight and precaution! When
will all these shadows of God cease to obscure us?
When shall we have nature entirely undeified!
When shall we be permitted to naturalise our-
selves by means of the pure, newly discovered,
newly redeemed nature?
no.
Origin of Knowledge. —Throughout immense
stretches of time the intellect has produced nothing
but errors; some of them proved to be useful and
preservative of the species: he who fell in with
them, or inherited them, waged the battle for him-
self and his offspring with better success. Those
erroneous articles of faith which were successively
transmitted by inheritance, and have finally become
almost the property and stock of the human
species, are, for example, the following :—that there
are enduring things, that there are equal things,
that there are things, substances, and bodies, that
a thing is what it appears, that our will is free,
that what is good for me is also good abso-
lutely. It was only very late that the deniers and


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154 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
doubters of such propositions came forward,—
it was only very late that truth made its appear-
ance as the most impotent form of knowledge. It
seemed as if it were impossible to get along with
truth, our organism was adapted for the very
opposite; all its higher functions, the perceptions
of the senses, and in general every kind of sensation
co-operated with those primevally embodied, funda-
mental errors. Moreover, those propositions became
the very standards of knowledge according to which
the "true" and the "false" were determined—
throughout the whole domain of pure logic. The
strength of conceptions does not, therefore, depend
on their degree of truth, but on their antiquity,
their embodiment, their character as conditions of
life. Where life and knowledge seemed to con-
flict, there has never been serious contention;
denial and doubt have there been regarded
as madness. The exceptional thinkers like the
Eleatics, who, in spite of this, advanced and main-
tained the antitheses of the natural errors, believed
that it was possible also to live these counterparts:
it was they who devised the sage as the man
of immutability, impersonality and universality of
intuition, as one and all at the same time, with
a special faculty for that reverse kind of knowledge;
they were of the belief that their knowledge was
at the same time the principle of life. To be able
to affirm all this, however, they had to deceive them-
selves concerning their own condition: they had
to attribute to themselves impersonality and un-
changing permanence, they had to mistake the
nature of the philosophic individual, deny the force


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 155
of the impulses in cognition, and conceive of reason
generally as an entirely free and self-originating
activity; they kept their eyes shut to the fact that
they also had reached their doctrines in contradiction
to valid methods, or through their longing for repose
or for exclusive possession or for domination. The
subtler development of sincerity and of scepticism
finally made these men impossible; their life also
and their judgments turned out to be dependent
on the primeval impulses and fundamental errors
of all sentient being. —The subtler sincerity and
scepticism arose whenever two antithetical maxims
appeared to be applicable to life, because both of
them were compatible with the fundamental errors;
where, therefore, there could be contention con-
cerning a higher or lower degree of utility for life;
and likewise where new maxims proved to be, not
in fact useful, but at least not injurious, as ex-
pressions of an intellectual impulse to play a game
that was, like all games, innocent and happy.
The human brain was gradually filled with such
judgments and convictions; and in this tangled
skein there arose ferment, strife and lust for power.
Not only utility and delight, but every kind of
impulse took part in the struggle for " truths ": the
intellectual struggle became a business, an attrac-
tion, a calling, a duty, an honour—: cognizing and
striving for the true finally arranged themselves as
needs among other needs. From that moment,
not only belief and conviction, but also examination,
denial, distrust and contradiction became forces;
all "evil "instincts were subordinated to know-
ledge, were placed in its service, and acquired the


## p. 156 (#196) ############################################

156 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
prestige of the permitted, the honoured, the useful,
and finally the appearance and innocence of the
good. Knowledge, thus became a portion of life
itself, and as life it became a continually growing
power: until finally the cognitions and those
primeval, fundamental errors clashed with each
other, both as life, both as power, both in the
same man. The thinker is now the being in
whom the impulse to truth and those life-
preserving errors wage their first conflict, now
that the impulse to truth has also proved itself
to be a life-preserving power. In comparison with
the importance of this conflict everything else is
indifferent; the final question concerning the con-
ditions of life is here raised, and the first attempt
is here made to answer it by experiment. How
far is truth susceptible of embodiment? —that is
the question, that is the experiment.
III.
Origin of the Logical. —Where has logic origin-
ated in men's heads? Undoubtedly out of the
illogical, the domain of which must originally
have been immense. But numberless beings who
reasoned otherwise than we do at present, perished;
albeit that they may have come nearer to truth
than we! Whoever, for example, could not discern
the " like " often enough with regard to food, and
with regard to animals dangerous to him, whoever,
therefore, deduced too slowly, or was too circum-
spect in his deductions, had smaller probability of
survival than he who in all similar things immedi-
ately divined the equality. The preponderating


## p. 157 (#197) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 157
inclination, however, to deal with the similar as
the equal—an illogical inclination, for there is no-
thing equal in itself—first created the whole basis
of logic. It was just so (in order that the con-
ception of substance might originate, this being
indispensable to logic, although in the strictest
sense nothing actual corresponds to it) that for a
long period the changing process in things had to
be overlooked, and remain unperceived ; the beings
not seeing correctly had an advantage over those
who saw everything "in flux. " In itself every
high degree of circumspection in conclusions, every
sceptical inclination, is a great danger to life. No
living being would have been preserved unless the
contrary inclination—to affirm rather than suspend
judgment, to mistake and fabricate rather than wait,
to assent rather than deny, to decide rather than
be in the right—had been cultivated with extra-
ordinary assiduity. —The course of logical thought
and reasoning in our modern brain corresponds to
a process and struggle of impulses, which singly
and in themselves are all very illogical and un-
just; we experience usually only the result of the
struggle, so rapidly and secretly does this primitive
mechanism now operate in us.
112.
Cause and Effect. —We say it is "explanation ";
but it is only in "description" that we are in
advance of the older stages of knowledge and
science. We describe better,—we explain just as
little as our predecessors. We have discovered a
manifold succession where the naive man and


## p. 157 (#198) ############################################

156 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
prestige of the permitted, the honoured, the useful,
and finally the appearance and innocence of the
good. Knowledge, thus became a portion of life
itself, and as life it became a continually growing
power: until finally the cognitions and those
primeval, fundamental errors clashed with each
other, both as life, both as power, both in the
same man. The thinker is now the being in
whom the impulse to truth and those life-
preserving errors wage their first conflict, now
that the impulse to truth has also proved itself
to be a life-preserving power. In comparison with
the importance of this conflict everything else is
indifferent; the final question concerning the con-
ditions of life is here raised, and the first attempt
is here made to answer it by experiment. How
far is truth susceptible of embodiment ? —that is
the question, that is the experiment.
in.
Origin of the Logical. —Where has logic origin-
ated in men's heads? Undoubtedly out of the
illogical, the domain of which must originally
have been immense. But numberless beings who
reasoned otherwise than we do at present, perished;
albeit that they may have come nearer to truth
than we! Whoever, for example, could not discern
the " like " often enough with regard to food, and
with regard to animals dangerous to him, whoever,
therefore, deduced too slowly, or was too circum-
spect in his deductions, had smaller probability of
survival than he who in all similar things immedi-
ately divined the equality. The preponderating


## p. 157 (#199) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 157
inclination, however, to deal with the similar as
the equal—an illogical inclination, for there is no-
thing equal in itself—first created the whole basis
of logic. It was just so (in order that the con-
ception of substance might originate, this being
indispensable to logic, although in the strictest
sense nothing actual corresponds to it) that for a
long period the changing process in things had to
be overlooked, and remain unperceived; the beings
not seeing correctly had an advantage over those
who saw everything "in flux. " In itself every
high degree of circumspection in conclusions, every
sceptical inclination, is a great danger to life. No
living being would have been preserved unless the
contrary inclination—to affirm rather than suspend
judgment, to mistake and fabricate rather than wait,
to assent rather than deny, to decide rather than
be in the right—had been cultivated with extra-
ordinary assiduity. —The course of logical thought
and reasoning in our modern brain corresponds to
a process and struggle of impulses, which singly
and in themselves are all very illogical and un-
just; we experience usually only the result of the
struggle, so rapidly and secretly does this primitive
mechanism now operate in us.
112.
Cause and Effect. —We say it is " explanation ";
but it is only in "description" that we are in
advance of the older stages of knowledge and
science. We describe better,—we explain just as
little as our predecessors. We have discovered a
manifold succession where the naive man and


## p. 158 (#200) ############################################

158 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
investigator of older cultures saw only two things,
"cause" and " effect," as it was said; we have per-
fected the conception of becoming, but have not
got a knowledge of what is above and behind the
conception. The series of " causes " stands before
us much more complete in every case ; we conclude
that this and that must first precede in order that
that other may follow—but we have not grasped
anything thereby. The peculiarity, for example, in
every chemical process seems a " miracle," the same
as before, just like all locomotion; nobody has
"explained " impulse. How could we ever explain!
We operate only with things which do not exist,
with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible times,
divisible spaces—how can explanation ever be
possible when we first make everything a conception,
our conception! It is sufficient to regard science
as the exactest humanising of things that is
possible; we always learn to describe ourselves
more accurately by describing things and their
successions. Cause and effect: there is probably
never any such duality; in fact there is a continuum
before us, from which we isolate a few portions ;—
just as we always observe a motion as isolated
points, and therefore do not properly see it, but
infer it. The abruptness with which many effects
take place leads us into error; it is however only
an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude
of processes in that abrupt moment which escape
us. An intellect which could see cause and effect
as a continuum, which could see the flux of events
not according to our mode of perception, as things
arbitrarily separated and broken—would throw aside


## p. 159 (#201) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 159
the conception of cause and effect, and would deny
all conditionality.
The Theory of Poisons. —So many things have
to be united in order that scientific thinking may
arise, and all the necessary powers must have
been devised, exercised, and fostered singly! In
their isolation, however, they have very often had
quite a different effect than at present, when they
are confined within the limits of scientific thinking
and kept mutually in check :—they have operated
as poisons; for example, the doubting impulse, the
denying impulse, the waiting impulse, the collect-
ing impulse, the disintegrating impulse. Many
hecatombs of men were sacrificed ere these impulses
learned to understand their juxtaposition and
regard themselves as functions of one organising
force in one man! And how far are we still from
the point at which the artistic powers and the prac-
tical wisdom of life shall co-operate with scientific
thinking, so that a higher organic system may be
formed, in relation to which the scholar, the physi-
cian, the artist, and the lawgiver, as we know them
at present, will seem sorry antiquities!
114.
The Extent of the Moral. —We construct a new
picture, which we see immediately with the aid
of all the old experiences which we have had,
always according to the degree of our honesty and
justice. The only events are moral events, even in
the domain of sense-perception.


## p. 159 (#202) ############################################

158 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
investigator of older cultures saw only two things,
"cause" and "effect," as it was said; we have per-
fected the conception of becoming, but have not
got a knowledge of what is above and behind the
conception. The series of " causes" stands before
us much more complete in every case ; we conclude
that this and that must first precede in order that
that other may follow—but we have not grasped
anything thereby. The peculiarity, for example, in
every chemical process seems a " miracle," the same
as before, just like all locomotion; nobody has
"explained " impulse. How could we ever explain!
We operate only with things which do not exist,
with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible times,
divisible spaces—how can explanation ever be
possible when we first make everything a conception,
our conception! It is sufficient to regard science
as the exactest humanising of things that is
possible; we always learn to describe ourselves
more accurately by describing things and their
successions. Cause and effect: there is probably
never any such duality; in fact there is a continuum
before us, from which we isolate a few portions ;—
just as we always observe a motion as isolated
points, and therefore do not properly see it, but
infer it. The abruptness with which many effects
take place leads us into error; it is however only
an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude
of processes in that abrupt moment which escape
us. An intellect which could see cause and effect
as a continuum, which could see the flux of events
not according to our mode of perception, as things
arbitrarily separated and broken—would throw aside
r
1


## p. 159 (#203) ############################################

\
■
THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 159
the conception of cause and effect, and would deny
all conditionality.
"3-
The Theory of Poisons. —So many things have
to be united in order that scientific thinking may
arise, and all the necessary powers must have
been devised, exercised, and fostered singly! In
their isolation, however, they have very often had
quite a different effect than at present, when they
are confined within the limits of scientific thinking
and kept mutually in check :—they have operated
as poisons; for example, the doubting impulse, the
denying impulse, the waiting impulse, the collect-
ing impulse, the disintegrating impulse. Many
hecatombs of men were sacrificed ere these impulses
learned to understand their juxtaposition and
regard themselves as functions of one organising
force in one man! And how far are we still from
the point at which the artistic powers and the prac-
tical wisdom of life shall co-operate with scientific
thinking, so that a higher organic system may be
formed, in relation to which the scholar, the physi-
cian, the artist, and the lawgiver, as we know them
at present, will seem sorry antiquities!
114.
The Extent of the Moral. —We construct a new
picture, which we see immediately with the aid
of all the old experiences which we have had,
always according to the degree of our honesty and
justice. The only events are moral events, even in
the domain of sense-perception.


## p. 160 (#204) ############################################

IOO THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
/'
115.
The Four Errors. —Man has been reared by his
errors: firstly, he saw himself always imperfect;
secondly, he attributed to himself imaginary
qualities; thirdly, he felt himself in a false position
in relation to the animals and nature; fourthly, he
always devised new tables of values, and accepted
them for a time as eternal and unconditioned, so
that at one time this, and at another time that
human impulse or state stood first, and was en-
nobled in consequence. When one has deducted
the effect of these four errors, one has also deducted
humanity, humaneness, and "human dignity. "
116.
Herd-Instinct. — Wherever we meet with a
morality we find a valuation and order of rank
of the human impulses and activities. These
valuations and orders of rank are always the
expression of the needs of a community or herd:
that which is in the first place to its advantage—
and in the second place and third place—is also
the authoritative standard for the worth of every
individual. By morality the individual is taught
to become a function of the herd, and to ascribe to
himself value only as a function. As the condi-
tions for the maintenance of one community have
been very different from those of another com-
munity, there have been very different moralities;
and in respect to the future essential transforma-
tions of herds and communities, states and societies,
one can prophesy that there will still be very diver-


## p. 161 (#205) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III l6l
gent moralities. Morality is the herd-instinct in
the individual.
117.
The Herd's Sting of Conscience. —In the longest
and remotest ages of the human race there was
quite a different sting of conscience from that of
the present day. At present one only feels respon-
sible for what one intends and for what one does,
and we have our pride in ourselves. All our pro-
fessors of jurisprudence start with this sentiment
of individual independence and pleasure, as if the
source of right had taken its rise here from the
beginning. But throughout the longest period in
the life of mankind there was nothing more terrible
to a person than to feel himself independent. To
be alone, to feel independent, neither to obey nor
to rule, to represent an individual—that was no
pleasure to a person then, but a punishment; he
was condemned "to be an individual. " Freedom
of thought was regarded as discomfort personified.
While we feel law and regulation as constraint and
loss, people formerly regarded egoism as a painful
thing, and a veritable evil. For a person to
be himself, to value himself according to his own
measure and weight—that was then quite distaste-
ful. The inclination to such a thing would have
been regarded as madness; for all miseries and
terrors were associated with being alone. At that
time the "free will" had bad conscience in close
proximity to it; and the less independently a
person acted, the more the herd-instinct, and not
his personal character, expressed itself in his
11


## p. 162 (#206) ############################################

162 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
conduct, so much the more moral did he esteem
himself. All that did injury to the herd, whether
the individual had intended it or not, then caused
him a sting of conscience—and his neighbour like-
wise, indeed the whole herd ! —It is in this respect
that we have most changed our mode of thinking.
118.
Benevolence. —Is it virtuous when a cell trans-
forms itself into the function of a stronger cell? It
must do so. And is it wicked when the stronger one
assimilates the other? It must do so likewise: it
is necessary, for it has to have abundant indemnity
and seeks to regenerate itself. One has there-
fore to distinguish the instinct of appropriation,
and the instinct of submission, in benevolence,
according as the stronger or the weaker feels
benevolent. Gladness and covetousness are united
in the stronger person, who wants to trans-
form something to his function: gladness and
desire-to-be-coveted in the weaker person, who
would like to become a function. —The former
case is essentially pity, a pleasant excitation of
the instinct of appropriation at the sight of the
weaker: it is to be remembered, however, that
"strong" and "weak " are relative conceptions.
119.
No Altruism ! —I see in many men an excessive
impulse and delight in wanting to be a function;
they strive after it, and have the keenest scent
for all those positions in which precisely they
themselves can be functions. Among such persons


## p. 163 (#207) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 163
are those women who transform themselves into
just that function of a man that is but weakly
developed in him, and then become his purse, or
his politics, or his social intercourse. Such beings
maintain themselves best when they insert them-
selves in an alien organism; if they do not
succeed they become vexed, irritated, and eat
themselves up.
120.
Health of the Soul. —The favourite medico-moral
formula (whose originator was Ariston of Chios),
"Virtue is the health of the soul," would, at least
in order to be used, have to be altered to this:
"Thy virtue is the health of thy soul. " For there
is no such thing as health in itself, and all attempts
to define a thing in that way have lamentably
failed. It is necessary to know thy aim, thy
horizon, thy powers, thy impulses, thy errors, and
especially the ideals and fantasies of thy soul, in
order to determine what health implies even for thy
body. There are consequently innumerable kinds of
physical health; and the more one again permits
the unique and unparalleled to raise its head, the
more one unlearns the dogma of the "Equality of
men," so much the more also must the conception
of a normal health, together with a normal diet and
a normal course of disease, be abrogated by our
physicians. And then only would it be time to
turn our thoughts to the health and disease of
the soul and make the special virtue of everyone
consist in its health; but, to be sure, what appeared
as health in one person might appear as the con-


## p. 164 (#208) ############################################

164 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
trary of health in another. In the end the great
question might still remain open : whether we could
do without sickness, even for the development of
our virtue, and whether our thirst for knowledge
and self-knowledge would not especially need the
sickly soul as well as the sound one; in short,
whether the mere will to health is not a prejudice,
a cowardice, and perhaps an instance of the subtlest
barbarism and unprogressiveness.
121.
Life no Argument. —We have arranged for our-
selves a world in which we can live—by the
postulating of bodies, lines, surfacesK causes and
effects, motion and rest, form and content: without
these articles of faith no one could manage to live
at present! But for all that they are still unproved.
Life is no argument; error might be among the
conditions of life.
122.
The Element of Moral Scepticism in Christianity.
—Christianity also has made a great contribution
to enlightenment, and has taught moral scepticism
in a very impressive and effective manner—
accusing and embittering, but with untiring
patience and subtlety; it annihilated in every
individual the belief in his virtues: it made the
great virtuous ones, of whom antiquity had no lack,
vanish for ever from the earth, those popular men,
who, in the belief in their perfection, walked about
with the dignity of a hero of the bull-fight. When,
trained in this Christian school of scepticism, we


## p. 165 (#209) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III l6$
now read the moral books of the ancients, for
example those of Seneca and Epictetus, we feel
a pleasurable superiority, and are full of secret
insight and penetration,—it seems to us as if a child
talked before an old man, or a pretty, gushing girl
before La Rochefoucauld :—we know better what
virtue is! After all, however, we have applied the
same scepticism to all religious states and processes,
such as sin, repentance, grace, sanctification, &c, and
have allowed the worm to burrow so well, that we
have now the same feeling of subtle superiority and
insight even in reading all Christian books:—we
know also the religious feelings better! And it is
time to know them well and describe them well,
for the pious ones of the old belief die out also;
let us save their likeness and type, at least for the
sake of knowledge.
123.
Knowledge more than a Means. —Also without
this passion—I refer to the passion for knowledge
—science would be furthered: science has hitherto
increased and grown up without it. The good
faith in science, the prejudice in its favour, by
which States are at present dominated (it was even
the Church formerly), rests fundamentally on the
fact that the absolute inclination and impulse has
so rarely revealed itself in it, and that science
is regarded not as a passion, but as a condition
and an "ethos. " Indeed, amour-plaisir of know-
ledge (curiosity) often enough suffices, amour-vanitc
suffices, and habituation to it, with the afterthought
of obtaining honour and bread; it even suffices


## p. 166 (#210) ############################################

166 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
for many that they do not know what to do with
a surplus of leisure, except to continue reading,
collecting, arranging, observing and narrating; their
"scientific impulse" is their ennui. Pope Leo X.
once (in the brief to Beroaldus) sang the praise of
science; he designated it as the finest ornament
and the greatest pride of our life, a noble employ-
ment in happiness and in misfortune ; " without it,"
he says finally, "all human undertakings would be
without a firm basis,—even with it they are still
sufficiently mutable and insecure!
" But this rather
sceptical Pope, like all other ecclesiastical pane-
gyrists of science, suppressed his ultimate judg-
ment concerning it. If one may deduce from his
words what is remarkable enough for such a lover
of art, that he places science above art, it is after
all, however, only from politeness that he omits to
speak of that which he places high above all science:
the "revealed truth," and the "eternal salvation of
the soul,"—what are ornament, pride, entertainment
and security of life to him, in comparison thereto?
"Science is something of secondary rank, nothing
ultimate or unconditioned, no object of passion "—
this judgment was kept back in Leo's soul: the
truly Christian judgment concerning science! In
antiquity its dignity and appreciation were lessened
by the fact that, even among its most eager
disciples, the striving after virtue stood foremost,
and that people thought they had given the highest
praise to knowledge when they celebrated it as the
best means to virtue. It is something new in
history that knowledge claims to be more than
a means.


## p. 167 (#211) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 167
124.
In the Horizon of the Infinite. —We have left the
land and have gone aboard ship! We have broken
down the bridge behind us,—nay, more, the land
behind us! Well, little ship! look out! Beside
thee is the ocean; it is true it does not always
roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and
gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come
when thou wilt feel that it is infinite, and that
there is nothing more frightful than infinity. Oh,
the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes
against the walls of this cage! Alas, if home-
sickness for the land should attack thee, as if there
had been more freedom there,—and there is no
"land " any longer!
125.
The Madman. — Have you ever heard of the
madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern
and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly:
"I seek God! I seek God ! "—As there were many
people standing about who did not believe in God,
he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is
he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a
child? said another. Or does he keep himself
hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-
voyage? Has he emigrated ? — the people cried
out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man
jumped into their midst and transfixed them with
his glances. "Where is God gone? " he called out.
"I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you
and I! We are all his murderers! But how have
we done it? How were we able to drink up the


## p. 168 (#212) ############################################

168 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the
whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened
this earth from its sun? Whither does it now
move? Whither do we move? Away from all
suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Back-
wards, sideways, forewards, in all directions? Is
there still an above and below? Do we not stray,
as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty
space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder?
Does not night come on continually, darker and
darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in
the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the
grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not
smell the divine putrefaction ? — for even Gods
putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And
we have killed him! How shall we console our-
selves, the most murderous of all murderers? The
holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto
possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who
will wipe the blood from us? With what water
could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what
sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the
magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we
not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem
worthy of it? There never was a greater event,—
and on account of it, all who are born after us
belong to a higher history than any history
hitherto! " — Here the madman was silent and
looked again at his hearers; they also were silent
and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw
his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in
pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early,"
he then said, " I am not yet at the right time. This


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 169
prodigious event is still on its way, and is travelling,
—it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning
and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs
time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to
be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further
from them than the furthest star,—and yet they have
done it! "—It is further stated that the madman
made his way into different churches on the same
day, and there intoned his Requiem aeternam deo.
When led out and called to account, he always gave
the reply: "What are these churches now, if they
are not the tombs and monuments of God ? "—
126.
Mystical Explanations. —Mystical explanations
are regarded as profound; the truth is that they do
not even go the length of being superficial.
127.
After-Effect of the most Ancient Religiousness. —
The thoughtless man thinks that the Will is the
only thing that operates, that willing is something
simple, manifestly given, underived, and comprehen-
sible in itself. He is convinced that when he does
anything, for example, when he delivers a blow,
it is he who strikes, and he has struck because
he willed to strike. He does not notice any-
thing of a problem therein, but the feeling of
willing suffices to him, not only for the acceptance
of cause and effect, but also for the belief that he
understands their relationship. Of the mechanism
of the occurrence and of the manifold subtle opera-


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170 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
tions that must be performed in order that the
blow may result, and likewise of the incapacity
of the Will in itself to effect even the smallest part
of those operations—he knows nothing. The Will
is to him a magically operating force; the belief
in the Will as the cause of effects is the belief in
magicallyoperating forces. In fact, whenever he saw
anything happen, man originally believed in a Will
as cause, and in personally willing beings operating
in the background,—the conception of mechanism
was very remote from him. Because, however, man
for immense periods of time believed only in
persons (and not in matter, forces, things, &c),
the belief in cause and effect has become a funda-
mental belief with him, which he applies every-
where when anything happens,—and even still uses
instinctively as a piece of atavism of remotest origin.
The propositions, " No effect without a cause," and
"Every effect again implies a cause," appear as
generalisations of several less general propositions:
—"Where there is operation there has been willing"
"Operating is only possible on willing beings. "
"There is never a pure, resultless experience of
activity, but every experience involves stimulation
of the Will" (to activity, defence, revenge or retalia-
tion). But in the primitive period of the human
race, the latter and the former propositions were
identical, the first were not generalisations of the
second, but the second were explanations of the
first. —Schopenhauer, with his assumption that all
that exists is something volitional, has set a primi-
tive mythology on the throne; he seems never to
have attempted an analysis of the Will, because


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THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 171
he believed like everybody in the simplicity and
immediateness of all volition:—while volition is
in fact such a cleverly practised mechanical process
that it almost escapes the observing eye. I set the
following propositions against those of Schopen-
hauer :—Firstly, in order that Will may arise, an
idea of pleasure and pain is necessary. Secondly,
that a vigorous excitation may be felt as pleasure
or pain, is the affair of the interpreting intellect,
which, to be sure, operates thereby for the most part
unconsciously to us, and one and the same excita-
tion may be interpreted as pleasure or pain. Thirdly,
it is only in an intellectual being that there is
pleasure, displeasure and Will; the immense
majority of organisms have nothing of the kind.
128.
The Value of Prayer. —Prayer has been devised
for such men as have never any thoughts of their
own, and to whom an elevation of the soul is un-
known, or passes unnoticed; what shall these
people do in holy places and in all important situa-
tions in life which require repose and some kind of
dignity? In order at least that they may not dis-
turb, the wisdom of all the founders of religions, the
small as well as the great, has commended to them
the formula of prayer, as a long mechanical labour
of the lips, united with an effort of the memory,
and with a uniform, prescribed attitude of hands
and feet—and eyes! They may then, like the
Tibetans, chew the cud of their "om mane padme
hum" innumerable times, or, as in Benares, count the
name of God Ram-Ram-Ram (and so on, with or


## p. 172 (#216) ############################################

172 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
without grace) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu
with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with
his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the
prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is
that they are settled down for a time at this
work, and present a tolerable appearance; their
mode of prayer is devised for the advantage of
the pious who have thought and elevation of their
own. But even these have their weary hours when
a series of venerable words and sounds and a
mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But sup-
posing that these rare men—in every religion the
religious man is an exception—know how to help
themselves, the poor in spirit do not know, and
to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean
to take their religion from them, a fact which
Protestantism brings more and more to light. All
that religion wants with such persons is that they
should keep still with their eyes, hands, legs, and
all their organs: they thereby become temporarily
beautified and—more human-looking!
129.
The Conditions for God. —" God himself cannot
subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with
good reason; but "God can still less subsist with-
out unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!
130.
A Dangerous Resolution. —The Christian resolu-
tion to find the world ugly and bad has made the
world ugly and bad.


## p. 173 (#217) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 173
131-
Christianity and Suicide. —Christianity made use
of the excessive longing for suicide at the time of
its origin as a lever for its power: it left only two
forms of suicide, invested them with the highest
dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all
others in a dreadful manner. But martyrdom and
the slow self-annihilation of the ascetic were
permitted.
132.
Against Christianity. —It is now no longer our
reason, but our taste that decides against
Christianity.
133.
Axioms. —An unavoidable hypothesis on which
mankind must always fall back again, is, in the
long run, more powerful than the most firmly
believed belief in something untrue (like the
Christian belief). In the long run: that means
a hundred thousand years from now.
134-
Pessimists as Victims. —When a profound dislike
of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect
of a great error in diet of which a people has been
long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism
(not its origin) is thus to a considerable extent
dependent on the excessive and almost exclusive
rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal
enervation that results therefrom. Perhaps the
modern, European discontentedness is to be looked


## p. 173 (#218) ############################################

172 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, HI
without grace) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu
with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with
his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the
prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is
that they are settled down for a time at this
work, and present a tolerable appearance; their
mode of prayer is devised for the advantage of
the pious who have thought and elevation of their
own. But even these have their weary hours when
a series of venerable words and sounds and a
mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But sup.
posing that these rare men—in every religion the
religious man is an exception—know how to help
themselves, the poor in spirit do not know, and
to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean
to take their religion from them, a fact which
Protestantism brings more and more to light . All
that religion wants with such persons is that they
should keep still with their eyes, hands, legs, and
all their organs: they thereby become temporarily
beautified and—more human-looking!
129.
The Conditions for God. —" God himself cannot
subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with
good reason; but "God can still less subsist with-
out unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!
130.
A Dangerous Resolution. —The Christian resolu-
tion to find the world ugly and bad has made the
world ugly and bad.


## p. 173 (#219) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 173
131-
Christianity and Suicide. —Christianity made use
of the excessive longing for suicide at the time of
its origin as a lever for its power: it left only two
forms of suicide, invested them with the highest
dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all
others in a dreadful manner. But martyrdom and
the slow self-annihilation of the ascetic were
permitted.
132.
Against Christianity. —It is now no longer our
reason, but our taste that decides against
Christianity.
133-
Axioms. —An unavoidable hypothesis on which
mankind must always fall back again, is, in the
long run, more pozverful than the most firmly
believed belief in something untrue (like the
Christian belief). In the long run: that means
a hundred thousand years from now.
134-
Pessimists as Victims. —When a profound dislike
of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect
of a great error in diet of which a people has been
long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism
[not its origin) is thus to a considerable extent
dependent on the excessive and almost exclusive
rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal
enervation that results therefrom. Perhaps the
modern, European discontentedness is to be looked


## p. 173 (#220) ############################################

172 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, HI
without grace) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu
with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with
his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the
prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is
that they are settled down for a time at this
work, and present a tolerable appearance; their
mode of prayer is devised for the advantage of
the pious who have thought and elevation of their
own. But even these have their weary hours when
a series of venerable words and sounds and a
mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But sup-
posing that these rare men—in every religion the
religious man is an exception—know how to help
themselves, the poor in spirit do not know, and
to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean
to take their religion from them, a fact which
Protestantism brings more and more to light . All
that religion wants with such persons is that they
should keep still with their eyes, hands, legs, and
all their organs: they thereby become temporarily
beautified and—more human-looking!
129.
The Conditions for God. —" God himself cannot
subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with
good reason; but " God can still less subsist with-
out unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!
130.
A Dangerous Resolution. —The Christian resolu-
tion to find the world ugly and bad has made the
world ugly and bad.


## p. 173 (#221) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 173
131.
Christianity and Suicide. —Christianity made use
of the excessive longing for suicide at the time of
its origin as a lever for its power: it left only two
forms of suicide, invested them with the highest
dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all
others in a dreadful manner. But martyrdom and
the slow self-annihilation of the ascetic were
permitted.
132.
Against Christianity. —It is now no longer our
reason, but our taste that decides against
Christianity.
133-
Axioms. —An unavoidable hypothesis on which
mankind must always fall back again, is, in the
long run, more powerful than the most firmly
believed belief in something untrue (like the
Christian belief). In the long run: that means
a hundred thousand years from now.
134-
Pessimists as Victims. —When a profound dislike
of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect
of a great error in diet of which a people has been
long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism
{not its origin) is thus to a considerable extent
dependent on the excessive and almost exclusive
rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal
enervation that results therefrom. Perhaps the
modern, European discontentedness is to be looked


## p. 173 (#222) ############################################

172 THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III
without grace) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu
with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with
his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the
prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is
that they are settled down for a time at this
work, and present a tolerable appearance; their
mode of prayer is devised for the advantage of
the pious who have thought and elevation of their
own. But even these have their weary hours when
a series of venerable words and sounds and a
mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But sup-
posing that these rare men—in every religion the
religious man is an exception—know how to help
themselves, the poor in spirit do not know, and
to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean
to take their religion from them, a fact which
Protestantism brings more and more to light . All
that religion wants with such persons is that they
should keep still with their eyes, hands, legs, and
all their organs: they thereby become temporarily
beautified and—more human-looking!
129.
T/i e Conditions for God. —" God himself cannot
subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with
good reason; but " God can still less subsist with-
out unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!
130.
A Dangerous Resolution. —The Christian resolu-
tion to find the world ugly and bad has made the
world ugly and bad.


## p. 173 (#223) ############################################

THE JOYFUL WISDOM, III 173
131-
Christianity and Suicide. —Christianity made use
of the excessive longing for suicide at the time of
its origin as a lever for its power: it left only two
forms of suicide, invested them with the highest
dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all
others in a dreadful manner. But martyrdom and
the slow self-annihilation of the ascetic were
permitted.
132.
Against Christianity. —It is now no longer our
reason, but our taste that decides against
Christianity.
133.
Axioms. —An unavoidable hypothesis on which
mankind must always fall back again, is, in the
long run, more powerful than the most firmly
believed belief in something untrue (like the
Christian belief). In the long run: that means
a hundred thousand years from now.
134.
Pessimists as Victims. —When a profound dislike
of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect
of a great error in diet of which a people has been
long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism
{not its origin) is thus to a considerable extent
dependent on the excessive and almost exclusive
rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal
enervation that results therefrom.