*
* If this aphorism seems obscure, the reader may take
Tolstoi as an example of the first class and Nietzsche as an
example of the second.
* If this aphorism seems obscure, the reader may take
Tolstoi as an example of the first class and Nietzsche as an
example of the second.
Nietzsche - v09 - The Dawn of Day
209 (#269) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 209
which must follow upon all this! Fie upon the
dreams that such repasts bring! Fie upon the arts
and books which must be the desert of such meals!
Despite all the efforts of such people their acts will
taste of pepper and ill-temper, or general weariness!
(The wealthy classes in England stand in great
need of their Christianity in order to be able to
endure their bad digestions and their headaches. )
Finally, to mention not only the disgusting but also
the more pleasant side of the matter, these people
are by no means mere gluttons: our century and its
spirit of activity has more power over the limbs than
the belly. What then is the meaning of these ban-
quets? They represent! What in Heaven's name
do they represent? Rank ? —no, money! There is
no rank now! We are all "individuals"! but money
now stands for power, glory, pre-eminence, dignity,
and influence; money at the present time acts as
a greater or lesser moral prejudice for a man in
proportion to the amount he may possess. No-
body wishes to hide it under a bushel or display
it in heaps on a table: hence money must have
some representative which can be put on the table
—so behold our banquets!
204
U
Dakje and the God of Gold. — Whence
arises this excessive impatience in our day which
turns men into criminals even in circumstances
which would be more likely to bring about the
contrary tendency? What induces one man to use
false weights, another to set his house on fire after
o
## p. 210 (#270) ############################################
2IO THE DAWN OF DAY.
having insured it for more than its value, a third
to take part in counterfeiting, while three-fourths
of our upper classes indulge in legalised fraud, and
suffer from the pangs of conscience that follow
speculation and dealings on the Stock Exchange:
what gives rise to all this? It is not real want,
—for their existence is by no means precarious;
perhaps they have even enough to eat and drink
without worrying,—but they are urged on day and
night by a terrible impatience at seeing their wealth
pile up so slowly, and by an equally terrible long-
ing and love for these heaps of gold. In this im-
patience and love, however, we see re-appear once
more that fanaticism of the desire for power which
was stimulated in former times by the belief that we
were in the possession of truth, a fanaticism which
bore such beautiful names that we could dare to be
inhuman with a good conscience (burning Jews,
heretics, and good books, and exterminating entire
cultures superior to ours, such as those of Peru
and Mexico). The means of this desire for power
are changed in our day, but the same volcano is
still smouldering, impatience and intemperate love
call for their victims, and what was once done
"for the love of God" is now done for the love of
money, i. e. for the love of that which at present
affords us the highest feeling of power and a good
conscience.
205.
The People of Israel. —One of the spectacles
which the next century will invite us to witness is
## p. 211 (#271) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 211
the decision regarding the fateof the European Jews.
It is quite obvious now that they have cast their
die and crossed their Rubicon: the only thing that
remains for them is either to become masters of
Europe or to lose Europe, as they once centuries ago
lost Egypt, where they were confronted with similar
alternatives. In Europe, however, they have gone
through a schooling of eighteen centuries such as
no other nation has ever undergone, and the ex-
periences of this dreadful time of probation have
benefited not only the Jewish community but, even
to a greater extent, the individual. As a conse-
quence of this, the resourcefulness of the modern
Jews, both in mind and soul, is extraordinary.
Amongst all the inhabitants of Europe it is the
Jews least of all who try to escape from any deep
distress by recourse to drink or to suicide, as other
less gifted people are so prone to do. Every Jew
can find in the history of his own family and of his
ancestors a long record of instances of the greatest
coolness and perseverance amid difficulties and
dreadful situations, an artful cunning in fighting
with misfortune and hazard. And above all it is
their bravery under the cloak of wretched submis-
sion, their heroic spemere se sperni that surpasses
the virtues of all the saints.
People wished to make them contemptible by
treating them contemptibly for nearly twenty cen-
turies, and refusing them access to all honourable
positions and dignities, and by pushing them further
down into the meaner trades—and under this
process indeed they have not become any cleaner.
But contemptible? They have never ceased for a
## p. 212 (#272) ############################################
212 THE DAWN OF DAY.
moment from believing themselves qualified for the
very highest functions, nor have the virtues of the
suffering ever ceased to adorn them. Their manner
of honouring their parents and children, the ration-
ality of their marriages and marriage customs, dis-
tinguishes them amongst all Europeans. Besides
this, they have been able to create for themselves a
sense of power and eternal vengeance from the very
trades that were left to them (or to which they were
abandoned). Even in palliation of their usury we
cannot help saying that, without this occasional
pleasant and useful torture inflicted on their
scorners, they would have experienced difficulty in
preserving their self-respect for so long. For our
self-respect depends upon our ability to make
reprisals in both good and evil things. Neverthe-
less, their revenge never urges them on too far, for
they all have that liberty of mind, and even of soul,
produced in men by frequent changes of place,
climate, and customs of neighbours and oppressors,
they possess by far the greatest experience in all
human intercourse, and even in their passions they
exercise the caution which this experience has
developed in them. They are so certain of their
intellectual versatility and shrewdness that they
never, even when reduced to the direst straits, have
to earn their bread by manual labour as common
workmen, porters, or farm hands. In their manners
we can still see that they have never been inspired
by chivalric and noble feelings, or that their bodies
have ever been girt with fine weapons: a certain ob-
trusiveness alternates with a submissiveness which
is often tender and almost always painful.
## p. 213 (#273) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 213
Now, however, that they unavoidably inter-marry
more and more year after year with the noblest
blood of Europe, they will soon have a considerable
heritage of good intellectual and physical manners,
so that in another hundred years they will have a
sufficiently noble aspect not to render themselves,
as masters, ridiculous to those whom they will have
subdued. And this is important! and therefore a
settlement of the question is still premature. They
themselves know very well that the conquest of
Europe or any act of violence is not to be thought
of; but theyalso know that some dayorother Europe
may, like a ripe fruit, fall into their hands, if they
do not clutch at it too eagerly. In the meantime,
it is necessary for them to distinguish themselves
in all departments of European distinction and
to stand in the front rank: until they shall have
advanced so far as to determine themselves what
distinction shall mean. Then they will be called
the pioneers and guides of the Europeans whose
modesty they will no longer offend.
And then where shall an outlet be found for this
abundant wealth of great impressions accumulated
during such an extended period and representing
Jewish history for every Jewish family, this wealth of
passions, virtues, resolutions, resignations, struggles,
and conquests of all kinds—where can it find an
outlet but in great intellectual men and works! On
the day when the Jews will be able to exhibit to us
as their own work such jewels and golden vessels
as no European nation, with its shorter and less
profound experience, can or could produce, when
Israel shall have changed its eternal vengeance into
## p. 214 (#274) ############################################
214 THE DAWN OF DAY.
an eternal benediction for Europe: then that seventh
day will once more appear when old Jehovah may
rejoice in Himself, in His creation, in His chosen
people—and all, all of us, will rejoice with Him!
206.
The Impossible Class. —Poverty,cheerfulness,
and independence—it is possible to find these three
qualities combined in one individual; poverty,
cheerfulness, and slavery—this is likewise a possible
combination: and I can say nothing better to the
workmen who serve as factory slaves; presuming
that it does not appear to them altogether to be
a shameful thing to be utilised as they are, as the
screws of a machine and the stopgaps, as it were,
of the human spirit of invention. Fie on the
thought that merely by means of higher wages the
essential part of their misery, i. e. their impersonal
enslavement, might be removed! Fie, that we
should allow ourselves to be convinced that, by an
increase of this impersonality within the mechanical
working of a new society, the disgrace of slavery
could be changed into a virtue! Fie, that there
should be a regular price at which a man should
cease to be a personality and become a screw
instead! Are you accomplices in the present
madness of nations which desire above all to
produce as much as possible, and to be as rich as
possible? Would it not be your duty to present
a counter-claim to them, and to show them what
large sums of internal value are wasted in the
pursuit of such an external object?
## p. 215 (#275) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 215
But where is your internal value when you no
longer know what it is to breathe freely; when you
have scarcely any command over your own selves,
and often feel disgusted with yourselves as with some
stale food; when you zealously study the newspapers
and look enviously at your wealthy neighbour, made
covetous by the rapid rise and fall of power, money,
and opinions: when you no longer believe in a phil-
osophy in rags, or in the freedom of spirit of a man
who has few needs; when a voluntary and idyllic
poverty without profession or marriage, such as
should suit the more intellectual ones among you,
has become for you an object of derision? On
the other hand, the piping of the Socialistic rat-
catchers who wish to inspire you with foolish hopes
is continually sounding in your ears: they tell you
to be ready and nothing further, ready from this
day to the next, so that you wait and wait for
something to come from outside, though living in
all other respects as you lived before—until this
waiting is at length changed into hunger and thirst
and fever and madness, r. nd the day of the bestia
triumphans at last dawns in all its glory. Every
one of you should on the contrary say to himself:
"It would be better to emigrate and endeavour to
become a master in new and savage countries, and
especially to become master over myself, changing
my place of abode whenever the least sign of slavery
threatens me, endeavouring to avoid neither ad-
venture nor war, and, if things come to the worst,
holding myself ready to die : anything rather than
continuing in this state of disgraceful thraldom, this
bitterness, malice and rebelliousness! " This would
## p. 216 (#276) ############################################
2i6 THE DAWN OF DAY.
be the proper spirit: the workmen in Europe ought
to make it clear that their position as a class has
become a human impossibility, and not merely, as
they at present maintain, the result of some hard
and aimless arrangement of society. They should
bring about an age of great swarming forth from the
European beehive such as has never yet been seen,
protesting by this voluntary and huge migration
against machines and capital and the alternatives
that now threaten them either of becoming slaves
of the State or slaves of some revolutionary
party.
May Europe be freed from one-fourth of her
inhabitants! Both she and they will experience a
sensation of relief. It is only far in the distance, in
the undertaking of vast colonisations, that we shall
be able to observe how much rationality, fairness,
and healthy suspicion mother Europe has incor-
porated in her sons—these sons who could no
longer endure life in the home of the dull old woman,
always running the danger of becoming as bad-
tempered, irritable, and pleasure-seeking as she
herself. The European virtues will travel along
with these workmen far beyond the boundaries of
Europe; and those very qualities which on their
native soil had begun to degenerate into a danger-
ous discontent and criminal inclinations will, when
abroad, be transformed into a beautiful, savage
naturalness and will be called heroism; so that at
last a purer air would again be wafted over this
old, over-populated, and brooding Europe of ours.
What would it matter if there was a scarcity of
"hands "? Perhaps people would then recollect
## p. 217 (#277) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 217
that they had accustomed themselves to many wants
merely because it was easy to gratify them—it
would be sufficient to unlearn some of these wants!
Perhaps also Chinamen would be called in, and
these would bring with them their modes of living
and thinking, which would be found very suitable
for industrious ants. They would also perhaps
help to imbue this fretful and restless Europe with
some of their Asiatic calmness and contemplation,
and—what is perhaps most needful of all—their
Asiatic stability.
207.
The Attitude of the Germans to
Morality. —A German is capable of great things,
but he is unlikely to accomplish them, for he obeys
whenever he can, as suits a naturally lazy intellect.
If he is ever in the dangerous situation of having
to stand alone and cast aside his sloth, when he
finds it no longer possible to disappear like a cipher
in a number (in which respect he is far inferior to
a Frenchman or an Englishman), he shows his true
strength: then he becomes dangerous, evil, deep, and
audacious, and exhibits to the light of day that
wealth of latent energy which he had previously
carried hidden in himself, and in which no one, not
even himself, had ever believed. When in such a
case a German obeys himself—it is very exceptional
for him to do so—he does so with the same heavi-
ness, inflexibility, and endurance with which he
obeys his prince and performs his official duties:
so that, as I have said, he is then capable of great
## p. 218 (#278) ############################################
218 THE DAWN OF DAY.
things which bear no relation to the "weak dis-
position" he attributes to himself.
As a rule, however, he is afraid of depending
upon himself alone, he is afraid of taking the in-
itiative: that is why Germany uses up so many
officials and so much ink. Light-hearted ness is a
stranger to the German; he is too timid for it:
but in entirely new situations which rouse him from
his torpor he exhibits an almost frivolous spirit—
he then delights in the novelty of his new position
as if it were some intoxicating drink, and he is,
as we know, quite a connoisseur in intoxication.
It thus happens that the German of the present
day is almost always frivolous in politics, though
even here he has the advantage and prejudice
of thoroughness and seriousness; and, although he
may take full advantage of these qualities in nego-
tiations with other political powers, he nevertheless
rejoices inwardly at being able for once in his life
to feel enthusiastic and capricious, to show his
fondness for innovations, and to change persons,
parties, and hopes as if they were masks. Those
learned German scholars, who hitherto have been
considered as the most German of Germans, were
and perhaps still are as good as the German soldiers
on account of their profound and almost childish
inclination to obey in all external things, and on
account of being often compelled to stand alone in
science and to answer for many things: if they
can only preserve their proud, simple, and patient
disposition, and their freedom from political madness
at those times when the wind changes, we may
yet expect great things from them—such as they
## p. 219 (#279) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 219
are or such as they were, they are the embryonic
stage of something higher.
So far the advantages and disadvantages of the
Germans, including even their learned men, have
been that they were more given to superstition and
showed greater eagerness to believe than any of the
other nations; their vices are, and always have
been, their drunkenness and suicidal inclinations
(the latter a proof of the clumsiness of their intellect,
which is easily tempted to throw away the reins).
Their danger is to be sought in everything that
binds down the faculties of reason and unchains
the passions (as, for example, the excessive use of
music and spirits), for the German passion acts
contrarily to its own advantage, and is as self-
destructive as the passions of the drunkard. Indeed,
German enthusiasm is worth less than that of other
nations, for it is barren. When a German ever did
anything great it was done at a time of danger, or
when his courage was high, with his teeth firmly
set and his prudence on the alert, and often enough
in a fit of generosity. —Intercourse with these
Germans is indeed advisable, for almost every one
of them has something to give, if we can only
understand how to make him find it, or rather
recover it (for he is very untidy in storing away
his knowledge).
Well: when people of thistype occupy themselves
with morals, what precisely will be the morality
that will satisfy them? In the first place, they will
wish to see idealised in their morals their sincere
instinct for obedience. "Man must have something
which he can implicitly obey "—this is a German
## p. 220 (#280) ############################################
220 THE DAWN OF DAY.
sentiment, a German deduction; it is the basis of
all German moral teaching. How different is the
impression, however, when we compare this with
the entire morality of the ancient world! All those
Greek thinkers, however varied they may appear to
us, seem to resemble, as moralists, the gymnastic
teacher who encourages his pupils by saying,
"Come, follow me! Submit to my discipline!
Then perhapsyou may carry off the prize fromall the
other Greeks. " Personal distinction: such was the
virtue of antiquity. Submission, obedience, whether
public or private: such is German virtue. Long
before Kant set forth his doctrine of the Categorical
Imperative, Luther, actuated by the same impulse,
said that there surely must be a being in whom man
could trust implicitly—it was his proof of the exist-
ence of God; it was his wish, coarser and more
popular than that of Kant, that people should im-
plicitly obey a person and not an idea, and Kant
also finally took his roundabout route through
morals merely that he might secure obedience for
the person. This is indeed the worship of the
German, the more so as there is now less worship
left in his religion.
The Greeks and Romans had other opinions on
these matters, and would have laughed at such
"there must be a being ": it is part of the boldness
of their Southern nature to take up a stand against
"implicit belief," and to retain in their inmost
heart a trace of scepticism against all and every
one, whether God, man, or idea. The thinker of
antiquity went even further, and said nil admirari:
in this phrase he saw reflected all philosophy. A
## p. 220 (#281) ############################################
THE BA*5 ~2 ZA-
ris as to say
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## p. 220 (#282) ############################################
218
THE DAWN OF DAY.
things <
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en. Jo'i-ever. when we compare this
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» » ressnbJe. as moralists, the gynu
encourages his pupils by sa
1-w me. ' Submit to my discif
~*Tse <a2wayru mv carry off the prize froma
-Jtr . awss* ^rsonaJ distinction: such n
^«sr- . xc. rr-. Submission, obedience■ «fct
■av~. ■„ * an org: sach is German virtue. I
r id iitft his doctrine of the Catego
L-Kac actuated by the same imp
26nr t-arcsy aiust be a being in whom1
■<*. -i>» SBr-icfcy—it was his proof of thee. '
■*. _- ■ _\w c *x? Sis wish, coarser and a
. . _: -si- ^ac :t Kant that people should
- ifc* i :w*rn ami not an idea, and K
-. • x *us roundabout route throt
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t s. ^. . . r>> s- indeed the worship of I
-e s««r so ^ rfrere b now less worsl
%, . . -v> «x . vjmaos had other opinions (
« ■». r >* i-c t-^ald bare laughed at sue
: v i*^ t i -»:■;*. ft £s part of the boldne;
- . >,^ -■•«? - MQtR to take up a stand again,
x v. -uni 3? retain in their inmos
- »cr - * >«xjjdc=3n against all and everj
. v . •*,, J<v. ism. jt idea. The thinker o:
-, »t-v -r«et itrtner. and said nilodmiran
. «»»B5. * ^** reffected adi philosophy. A
## p. 221 (#283) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 221
German, Schopenhauer, goes so far in the contrary
direction as to say: admirari id est philosophari.
But what if, as happens now and then, the German
should attain to that state of mind which would
enable him to perform great things? if the hour of
exception comes, the hour of disobedience? I do
not think Schopenhauer is right in saying that the
single advantage the Germans have over other
nations is that there are more atheists among them
than elsewhere; but I do know this: whenever the
German reaches the state in which he is capable of
great things, he invariably raises himself above
morals! And why should he not? Now he has
something new to do, viz. to command—either him-
self or others 1 But this German morality of his has
not taught him how to command! Commanding
has been forgotten in it.
## p. 222 (#284) ############################################
## p. 223 (#285) ############################################
BOOK IV.
208.
A Question of Conscience. —" Now, in summa,
tell me what this new thing is that you want. "—
"We no longer wish causes to be sinners and effects
to be executioners. "
209.
The Utility of the strictest Theories.
—People are indulgent towards a man's moral
weaknesses, and in this connection they use a coarse
sieve, provided that he always professes to hold the
most strict moral theories. On the other hand, the
lives of free-thinking moralists have always been
examined closely through a microscope, in the tacit
belief that an error in their lives would be the best
argument against their disagreeable knowledge.
*
* If this aphorism seems obscure, the reader may take
Tolstoi as an example of the first class and Nietzsche as an
example of the second. Tolstoi's inconsistencies are gener-
ally glossed over, because he professed the customary moral
theories of the age, while Nietzsche has had to endure the
most searching criticism because he did not. In Nietzsche's
case, however, the scrutiny has been in vain ; for, having no
unworkable Christian theories to uphold, unlike Tolstoi,
## p. 224 (#286) ############################################
224 THE DAWN OF DAY.
2IO.
The "Thing in Itself. "—We used to ask
formerly: What is the ridiculous ? —as if there were
something above and beyond ourselves that pos-
sessed the quality of provoking laughter, and we ex-
hausted ourselves in trying to guess what it was (a
theologian even held that it might be " the naivetd
of sin "). At the present time we ask: What is
laughter? how does it arise? We have considered
the point, and finally reached the conclusion that
there is nothing which is good, beautiful, sublime, or
evil in itself; but rather that there are conditions
of soul which lead us to attribute such qualities to
things outside ourselves and in us. We have taken
back their predicates from things; or we have at
all events recollected that we have merely lent the
things these predicates. Let us be careful that this
insight does not cause us to lose the faculty of lend-
ing, and that we do not become at the same time
wealthier and more avaricious.
211.
To those who Dream of Immortality. —
So you desire the everlasting perpetuity of this
beautiful consciousness of yourselves? Is it not
Nietzsche's life is not a series of compromises. The career
of the great pagan philosopher was, in essence, much more
saintly than that of the great Christian. How different from
Tolstoi, too, was that noble Christian, Pascal, who, from the
inevitable clash of his creed and his nature, died at thirty-
eight, while his weaker epigone lived in the fulness of his
fame until he was over eighty ! —Tr.
## p. 225 (#287) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 225
shameful? Do you forget all those other things
which would in their turn have to support you for
all eternity, just as they have borne with you up
to the present with more than Christian patience?
Or do you think that you can inspire them with
an eternally pleasant feeling towards yourself? A
single immortal man on earth would imbue every-
one around him with such a disgust for him that
a general epidemic of murder and suicide would be
brought about. And yet, ye petty dwellers on earth,
with your narrow conceptions of a few thousand
little minutes of time, ye would wish to be an ever-
lasting burden on this everlasting universal exist-
ence! Could anything be more impertinent? After
all, however, let us be indulgent towards a being
of seventy years: he has not been able to exercise
his imagination in conceiving his own "eternal
tediousness "—he had not time enough for that!
212.
Wherein we know Ourselves. —As soon as
one animal sees another it mentally compares itself
with it; and men of uncivilised ages did the same.
The consequence is that almost all men come to
know themselves only as regards their defensive
and offensive faculties.
213.
Men whose Lives have been Failures. —
Some men are built of such stuff that society is at
liberty to do what it likes with them—they will do
well in any case, and will not have to complain of
P
## p. 226 (#288) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs, in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! - You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something : you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. —“ Enthusiastic
sacrifice," "self-immolation ”—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#289) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, "mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you--it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
Evil PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#290) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,—in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! - You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter!
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. _"Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#291) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you-it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
EVIL PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#292) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs, in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! - You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. -" Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#293) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
EviL PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#294) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,—in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! -- You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. _“ Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation ”—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#295) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
Evil PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#296) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material-it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,-in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE! – You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. —“Enthusiastic
sacrifice," "self-immolation ” —these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#297) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, "mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
Evil PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#298) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,-in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE! — You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. -"Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#299) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic-and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such, Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
EviL PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#300) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs, in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! — You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. —“Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#301) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you-it must displease you ! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
THE DAWN OF DAY. 209
which must follow upon all this! Fie upon the
dreams that such repasts bring! Fie upon the arts
and books which must be the desert of such meals!
Despite all the efforts of such people their acts will
taste of pepper and ill-temper, or general weariness!
(The wealthy classes in England stand in great
need of their Christianity in order to be able to
endure their bad digestions and their headaches. )
Finally, to mention not only the disgusting but also
the more pleasant side of the matter, these people
are by no means mere gluttons: our century and its
spirit of activity has more power over the limbs than
the belly. What then is the meaning of these ban-
quets? They represent! What in Heaven's name
do they represent? Rank ? —no, money! There is
no rank now! We are all "individuals"! but money
now stands for power, glory, pre-eminence, dignity,
and influence; money at the present time acts as
a greater or lesser moral prejudice for a man in
proportion to the amount he may possess. No-
body wishes to hide it under a bushel or display
it in heaps on a table: hence money must have
some representative which can be put on the table
—so behold our banquets!
204
U
Dakje and the God of Gold. — Whence
arises this excessive impatience in our day which
turns men into criminals even in circumstances
which would be more likely to bring about the
contrary tendency? What induces one man to use
false weights, another to set his house on fire after
o
## p. 210 (#270) ############################################
2IO THE DAWN OF DAY.
having insured it for more than its value, a third
to take part in counterfeiting, while three-fourths
of our upper classes indulge in legalised fraud, and
suffer from the pangs of conscience that follow
speculation and dealings on the Stock Exchange:
what gives rise to all this? It is not real want,
—for their existence is by no means precarious;
perhaps they have even enough to eat and drink
without worrying,—but they are urged on day and
night by a terrible impatience at seeing their wealth
pile up so slowly, and by an equally terrible long-
ing and love for these heaps of gold. In this im-
patience and love, however, we see re-appear once
more that fanaticism of the desire for power which
was stimulated in former times by the belief that we
were in the possession of truth, a fanaticism which
bore such beautiful names that we could dare to be
inhuman with a good conscience (burning Jews,
heretics, and good books, and exterminating entire
cultures superior to ours, such as those of Peru
and Mexico). The means of this desire for power
are changed in our day, but the same volcano is
still smouldering, impatience and intemperate love
call for their victims, and what was once done
"for the love of God" is now done for the love of
money, i. e. for the love of that which at present
affords us the highest feeling of power and a good
conscience.
205.
The People of Israel. —One of the spectacles
which the next century will invite us to witness is
## p. 211 (#271) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 211
the decision regarding the fateof the European Jews.
It is quite obvious now that they have cast their
die and crossed their Rubicon: the only thing that
remains for them is either to become masters of
Europe or to lose Europe, as they once centuries ago
lost Egypt, where they were confronted with similar
alternatives. In Europe, however, they have gone
through a schooling of eighteen centuries such as
no other nation has ever undergone, and the ex-
periences of this dreadful time of probation have
benefited not only the Jewish community but, even
to a greater extent, the individual. As a conse-
quence of this, the resourcefulness of the modern
Jews, both in mind and soul, is extraordinary.
Amongst all the inhabitants of Europe it is the
Jews least of all who try to escape from any deep
distress by recourse to drink or to suicide, as other
less gifted people are so prone to do. Every Jew
can find in the history of his own family and of his
ancestors a long record of instances of the greatest
coolness and perseverance amid difficulties and
dreadful situations, an artful cunning in fighting
with misfortune and hazard. And above all it is
their bravery under the cloak of wretched submis-
sion, their heroic spemere se sperni that surpasses
the virtues of all the saints.
People wished to make them contemptible by
treating them contemptibly for nearly twenty cen-
turies, and refusing them access to all honourable
positions and dignities, and by pushing them further
down into the meaner trades—and under this
process indeed they have not become any cleaner.
But contemptible? They have never ceased for a
## p. 212 (#272) ############################################
212 THE DAWN OF DAY.
moment from believing themselves qualified for the
very highest functions, nor have the virtues of the
suffering ever ceased to adorn them. Their manner
of honouring their parents and children, the ration-
ality of their marriages and marriage customs, dis-
tinguishes them amongst all Europeans. Besides
this, they have been able to create for themselves a
sense of power and eternal vengeance from the very
trades that were left to them (or to which they were
abandoned). Even in palliation of their usury we
cannot help saying that, without this occasional
pleasant and useful torture inflicted on their
scorners, they would have experienced difficulty in
preserving their self-respect for so long. For our
self-respect depends upon our ability to make
reprisals in both good and evil things. Neverthe-
less, their revenge never urges them on too far, for
they all have that liberty of mind, and even of soul,
produced in men by frequent changes of place,
climate, and customs of neighbours and oppressors,
they possess by far the greatest experience in all
human intercourse, and even in their passions they
exercise the caution which this experience has
developed in them. They are so certain of their
intellectual versatility and shrewdness that they
never, even when reduced to the direst straits, have
to earn their bread by manual labour as common
workmen, porters, or farm hands. In their manners
we can still see that they have never been inspired
by chivalric and noble feelings, or that their bodies
have ever been girt with fine weapons: a certain ob-
trusiveness alternates with a submissiveness which
is often tender and almost always painful.
## p. 213 (#273) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 213
Now, however, that they unavoidably inter-marry
more and more year after year with the noblest
blood of Europe, they will soon have a considerable
heritage of good intellectual and physical manners,
so that in another hundred years they will have a
sufficiently noble aspect not to render themselves,
as masters, ridiculous to those whom they will have
subdued. And this is important! and therefore a
settlement of the question is still premature. They
themselves know very well that the conquest of
Europe or any act of violence is not to be thought
of; but theyalso know that some dayorother Europe
may, like a ripe fruit, fall into their hands, if they
do not clutch at it too eagerly. In the meantime,
it is necessary for them to distinguish themselves
in all departments of European distinction and
to stand in the front rank: until they shall have
advanced so far as to determine themselves what
distinction shall mean. Then they will be called
the pioneers and guides of the Europeans whose
modesty they will no longer offend.
And then where shall an outlet be found for this
abundant wealth of great impressions accumulated
during such an extended period and representing
Jewish history for every Jewish family, this wealth of
passions, virtues, resolutions, resignations, struggles,
and conquests of all kinds—where can it find an
outlet but in great intellectual men and works! On
the day when the Jews will be able to exhibit to us
as their own work such jewels and golden vessels
as no European nation, with its shorter and less
profound experience, can or could produce, when
Israel shall have changed its eternal vengeance into
## p. 214 (#274) ############################################
214 THE DAWN OF DAY.
an eternal benediction for Europe: then that seventh
day will once more appear when old Jehovah may
rejoice in Himself, in His creation, in His chosen
people—and all, all of us, will rejoice with Him!
206.
The Impossible Class. —Poverty,cheerfulness,
and independence—it is possible to find these three
qualities combined in one individual; poverty,
cheerfulness, and slavery—this is likewise a possible
combination: and I can say nothing better to the
workmen who serve as factory slaves; presuming
that it does not appear to them altogether to be
a shameful thing to be utilised as they are, as the
screws of a machine and the stopgaps, as it were,
of the human spirit of invention. Fie on the
thought that merely by means of higher wages the
essential part of their misery, i. e. their impersonal
enslavement, might be removed! Fie, that we
should allow ourselves to be convinced that, by an
increase of this impersonality within the mechanical
working of a new society, the disgrace of slavery
could be changed into a virtue! Fie, that there
should be a regular price at which a man should
cease to be a personality and become a screw
instead! Are you accomplices in the present
madness of nations which desire above all to
produce as much as possible, and to be as rich as
possible? Would it not be your duty to present
a counter-claim to them, and to show them what
large sums of internal value are wasted in the
pursuit of such an external object?
## p. 215 (#275) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 215
But where is your internal value when you no
longer know what it is to breathe freely; when you
have scarcely any command over your own selves,
and often feel disgusted with yourselves as with some
stale food; when you zealously study the newspapers
and look enviously at your wealthy neighbour, made
covetous by the rapid rise and fall of power, money,
and opinions: when you no longer believe in a phil-
osophy in rags, or in the freedom of spirit of a man
who has few needs; when a voluntary and idyllic
poverty without profession or marriage, such as
should suit the more intellectual ones among you,
has become for you an object of derision? On
the other hand, the piping of the Socialistic rat-
catchers who wish to inspire you with foolish hopes
is continually sounding in your ears: they tell you
to be ready and nothing further, ready from this
day to the next, so that you wait and wait for
something to come from outside, though living in
all other respects as you lived before—until this
waiting is at length changed into hunger and thirst
and fever and madness, r. nd the day of the bestia
triumphans at last dawns in all its glory. Every
one of you should on the contrary say to himself:
"It would be better to emigrate and endeavour to
become a master in new and savage countries, and
especially to become master over myself, changing
my place of abode whenever the least sign of slavery
threatens me, endeavouring to avoid neither ad-
venture nor war, and, if things come to the worst,
holding myself ready to die : anything rather than
continuing in this state of disgraceful thraldom, this
bitterness, malice and rebelliousness! " This would
## p. 216 (#276) ############################################
2i6 THE DAWN OF DAY.
be the proper spirit: the workmen in Europe ought
to make it clear that their position as a class has
become a human impossibility, and not merely, as
they at present maintain, the result of some hard
and aimless arrangement of society. They should
bring about an age of great swarming forth from the
European beehive such as has never yet been seen,
protesting by this voluntary and huge migration
against machines and capital and the alternatives
that now threaten them either of becoming slaves
of the State or slaves of some revolutionary
party.
May Europe be freed from one-fourth of her
inhabitants! Both she and they will experience a
sensation of relief. It is only far in the distance, in
the undertaking of vast colonisations, that we shall
be able to observe how much rationality, fairness,
and healthy suspicion mother Europe has incor-
porated in her sons—these sons who could no
longer endure life in the home of the dull old woman,
always running the danger of becoming as bad-
tempered, irritable, and pleasure-seeking as she
herself. The European virtues will travel along
with these workmen far beyond the boundaries of
Europe; and those very qualities which on their
native soil had begun to degenerate into a danger-
ous discontent and criminal inclinations will, when
abroad, be transformed into a beautiful, savage
naturalness and will be called heroism; so that at
last a purer air would again be wafted over this
old, over-populated, and brooding Europe of ours.
What would it matter if there was a scarcity of
"hands "? Perhaps people would then recollect
## p. 217 (#277) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 217
that they had accustomed themselves to many wants
merely because it was easy to gratify them—it
would be sufficient to unlearn some of these wants!
Perhaps also Chinamen would be called in, and
these would bring with them their modes of living
and thinking, which would be found very suitable
for industrious ants. They would also perhaps
help to imbue this fretful and restless Europe with
some of their Asiatic calmness and contemplation,
and—what is perhaps most needful of all—their
Asiatic stability.
207.
The Attitude of the Germans to
Morality. —A German is capable of great things,
but he is unlikely to accomplish them, for he obeys
whenever he can, as suits a naturally lazy intellect.
If he is ever in the dangerous situation of having
to stand alone and cast aside his sloth, when he
finds it no longer possible to disappear like a cipher
in a number (in which respect he is far inferior to
a Frenchman or an Englishman), he shows his true
strength: then he becomes dangerous, evil, deep, and
audacious, and exhibits to the light of day that
wealth of latent energy which he had previously
carried hidden in himself, and in which no one, not
even himself, had ever believed. When in such a
case a German obeys himself—it is very exceptional
for him to do so—he does so with the same heavi-
ness, inflexibility, and endurance with which he
obeys his prince and performs his official duties:
so that, as I have said, he is then capable of great
## p. 218 (#278) ############################################
218 THE DAWN OF DAY.
things which bear no relation to the "weak dis-
position" he attributes to himself.
As a rule, however, he is afraid of depending
upon himself alone, he is afraid of taking the in-
itiative: that is why Germany uses up so many
officials and so much ink. Light-hearted ness is a
stranger to the German; he is too timid for it:
but in entirely new situations which rouse him from
his torpor he exhibits an almost frivolous spirit—
he then delights in the novelty of his new position
as if it were some intoxicating drink, and he is,
as we know, quite a connoisseur in intoxication.
It thus happens that the German of the present
day is almost always frivolous in politics, though
even here he has the advantage and prejudice
of thoroughness and seriousness; and, although he
may take full advantage of these qualities in nego-
tiations with other political powers, he nevertheless
rejoices inwardly at being able for once in his life
to feel enthusiastic and capricious, to show his
fondness for innovations, and to change persons,
parties, and hopes as if they were masks. Those
learned German scholars, who hitherto have been
considered as the most German of Germans, were
and perhaps still are as good as the German soldiers
on account of their profound and almost childish
inclination to obey in all external things, and on
account of being often compelled to stand alone in
science and to answer for many things: if they
can only preserve their proud, simple, and patient
disposition, and their freedom from political madness
at those times when the wind changes, we may
yet expect great things from them—such as they
## p. 219 (#279) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 219
are or such as they were, they are the embryonic
stage of something higher.
So far the advantages and disadvantages of the
Germans, including even their learned men, have
been that they were more given to superstition and
showed greater eagerness to believe than any of the
other nations; their vices are, and always have
been, their drunkenness and suicidal inclinations
(the latter a proof of the clumsiness of their intellect,
which is easily tempted to throw away the reins).
Their danger is to be sought in everything that
binds down the faculties of reason and unchains
the passions (as, for example, the excessive use of
music and spirits), for the German passion acts
contrarily to its own advantage, and is as self-
destructive as the passions of the drunkard. Indeed,
German enthusiasm is worth less than that of other
nations, for it is barren. When a German ever did
anything great it was done at a time of danger, or
when his courage was high, with his teeth firmly
set and his prudence on the alert, and often enough
in a fit of generosity. —Intercourse with these
Germans is indeed advisable, for almost every one
of them has something to give, if we can only
understand how to make him find it, or rather
recover it (for he is very untidy in storing away
his knowledge).
Well: when people of thistype occupy themselves
with morals, what precisely will be the morality
that will satisfy them? In the first place, they will
wish to see idealised in their morals their sincere
instinct for obedience. "Man must have something
which he can implicitly obey "—this is a German
## p. 220 (#280) ############################################
220 THE DAWN OF DAY.
sentiment, a German deduction; it is the basis of
all German moral teaching. How different is the
impression, however, when we compare this with
the entire morality of the ancient world! All those
Greek thinkers, however varied they may appear to
us, seem to resemble, as moralists, the gymnastic
teacher who encourages his pupils by saying,
"Come, follow me! Submit to my discipline!
Then perhapsyou may carry off the prize fromall the
other Greeks. " Personal distinction: such was the
virtue of antiquity. Submission, obedience, whether
public or private: such is German virtue. Long
before Kant set forth his doctrine of the Categorical
Imperative, Luther, actuated by the same impulse,
said that there surely must be a being in whom man
could trust implicitly—it was his proof of the exist-
ence of God; it was his wish, coarser and more
popular than that of Kant, that people should im-
plicitly obey a person and not an idea, and Kant
also finally took his roundabout route through
morals merely that he might secure obedience for
the person. This is indeed the worship of the
German, the more so as there is now less worship
left in his religion.
The Greeks and Romans had other opinions on
these matters, and would have laughed at such
"there must be a being ": it is part of the boldness
of their Southern nature to take up a stand against
"implicit belief," and to retain in their inmost
heart a trace of scepticism against all and every
one, whether God, man, or idea. The thinker of
antiquity went even further, and said nil admirari:
in this phrase he saw reflected all philosophy. A
## p. 220 (#281) ############################################
THE BA*5 ~2 ZA-
ris as to say
bk it is recces icw inn'
adittain to tisi se "J -
si Mm to power jj&rtcr^
Erton cooes, itiar s =*
aJuikSchoperfcaiE-1 ^^r -
'i airataj: ic
abcsistJatthtK arc anc
atlsewhee; tali
JemnndB tae sac ~ vzc ^ ~■ -*-»-" '»
at firings, k isanarr sets- ^iJ*t-
snls! And whr ssntr. « iff -'
searing nor to zc-tl.
Mothers'. Bot^iE
"aught fciDT t
iabea fergatei e r. S-
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■:
i
## p. 220 (#282) ############################################
218
THE DAWN OF DAY.
things <
positioi
As .
upon h
itiativc
official
stram
but in
his to
he th'
as if
as w
It th
day
even
oft!
ma)
tiat
rej'
to
fo
P
k
c'
n
<
i
-—«ii- J Jennan deduction; it is thebi
3Kra! teaching. How different
en. Jo'i-ever. when we compare this
Doraohr of the ancient world! Ail
srxas. hewever varied they may ap?
» » ressnbJe. as moralists, the gynu
encourages his pupils by sa
1-w me. ' Submit to my discif
~*Tse <a2wayru mv carry off the prize froma
-Jtr . awss* ^rsonaJ distinction: such n
^«sr- . xc. rr-. Submission, obedience■ «fct
■av~. ■„ * an org: sach is German virtue. I
r id iitft his doctrine of the Catego
L-Kac actuated by the same imp
26nr t-arcsy aiust be a being in whom1
■<*. -i>» SBr-icfcy—it was his proof of thee. '
■*. _- ■ _\w c *x? Sis wish, coarser and a
. . _: -si- ^ac :t Kant that people should
- ifc* i :w*rn ami not an idea, and K
-. • x *us roundabout route throt
:nsr le aright secure obedience
t s. ^. . . r>> s- indeed the worship of I
-e s««r so ^ rfrere b now less worsl
%, . . -v> «x . vjmaos had other opinions (
« ■». r >* i-c t-^ald bare laughed at sue
: v i*^ t i -»:■;*. ft £s part of the boldne;
- . >,^ -■•«? - MQtR to take up a stand again,
x v. -uni 3? retain in their inmos
- »cr - * >«xjjdc=3n against all and everj
. v . •*,, J<v. ism. jt idea. The thinker o:
-, »t-v -r«et itrtner. and said nilodmiran
. «»»B5. * ^** reffected adi philosophy. A
## p. 221 (#283) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 221
German, Schopenhauer, goes so far in the contrary
direction as to say: admirari id est philosophari.
But what if, as happens now and then, the German
should attain to that state of mind which would
enable him to perform great things? if the hour of
exception comes, the hour of disobedience? I do
not think Schopenhauer is right in saying that the
single advantage the Germans have over other
nations is that there are more atheists among them
than elsewhere; but I do know this: whenever the
German reaches the state in which he is capable of
great things, he invariably raises himself above
morals! And why should he not? Now he has
something new to do, viz. to command—either him-
self or others 1 But this German morality of his has
not taught him how to command! Commanding
has been forgotten in it.
## p. 222 (#284) ############################################
## p. 223 (#285) ############################################
BOOK IV.
208.
A Question of Conscience. —" Now, in summa,
tell me what this new thing is that you want. "—
"We no longer wish causes to be sinners and effects
to be executioners. "
209.
The Utility of the strictest Theories.
—People are indulgent towards a man's moral
weaknesses, and in this connection they use a coarse
sieve, provided that he always professes to hold the
most strict moral theories. On the other hand, the
lives of free-thinking moralists have always been
examined closely through a microscope, in the tacit
belief that an error in their lives would be the best
argument against their disagreeable knowledge.
*
* If this aphorism seems obscure, the reader may take
Tolstoi as an example of the first class and Nietzsche as an
example of the second. Tolstoi's inconsistencies are gener-
ally glossed over, because he professed the customary moral
theories of the age, while Nietzsche has had to endure the
most searching criticism because he did not. In Nietzsche's
case, however, the scrutiny has been in vain ; for, having no
unworkable Christian theories to uphold, unlike Tolstoi,
## p. 224 (#286) ############################################
224 THE DAWN OF DAY.
2IO.
The "Thing in Itself. "—We used to ask
formerly: What is the ridiculous ? —as if there were
something above and beyond ourselves that pos-
sessed the quality of provoking laughter, and we ex-
hausted ourselves in trying to guess what it was (a
theologian even held that it might be " the naivetd
of sin "). At the present time we ask: What is
laughter? how does it arise? We have considered
the point, and finally reached the conclusion that
there is nothing which is good, beautiful, sublime, or
evil in itself; but rather that there are conditions
of soul which lead us to attribute such qualities to
things outside ourselves and in us. We have taken
back their predicates from things; or we have at
all events recollected that we have merely lent the
things these predicates. Let us be careful that this
insight does not cause us to lose the faculty of lend-
ing, and that we do not become at the same time
wealthier and more avaricious.
211.
To those who Dream of Immortality. —
So you desire the everlasting perpetuity of this
beautiful consciousness of yourselves? Is it not
Nietzsche's life is not a series of compromises. The career
of the great pagan philosopher was, in essence, much more
saintly than that of the great Christian. How different from
Tolstoi, too, was that noble Christian, Pascal, who, from the
inevitable clash of his creed and his nature, died at thirty-
eight, while his weaker epigone lived in the fulness of his
fame until he was over eighty ! —Tr.
## p. 225 (#287) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 225
shameful? Do you forget all those other things
which would in their turn have to support you for
all eternity, just as they have borne with you up
to the present with more than Christian patience?
Or do you think that you can inspire them with
an eternally pleasant feeling towards yourself? A
single immortal man on earth would imbue every-
one around him with such a disgust for him that
a general epidemic of murder and suicide would be
brought about. And yet, ye petty dwellers on earth,
with your narrow conceptions of a few thousand
little minutes of time, ye would wish to be an ever-
lasting burden on this everlasting universal exist-
ence! Could anything be more impertinent? After
all, however, let us be indulgent towards a being
of seventy years: he has not been able to exercise
his imagination in conceiving his own "eternal
tediousness "—he had not time enough for that!
212.
Wherein we know Ourselves. —As soon as
one animal sees another it mentally compares itself
with it; and men of uncivilised ages did the same.
The consequence is that almost all men come to
know themselves only as regards their defensive
and offensive faculties.
213.
Men whose Lives have been Failures. —
Some men are built of such stuff that society is at
liberty to do what it likes with them—they will do
well in any case, and will not have to complain of
P
## p. 226 (#288) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs, in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! - You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something : you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. —“ Enthusiastic
sacrifice," "self-immolation ”—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#289) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, "mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you--it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
Evil PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#290) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,—in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! - You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter!
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. _"Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#291) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you-it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
EVIL PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#292) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs, in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! - You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. -" Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#293) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
EviL PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#294) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,—in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! -- You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. _“ Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation ”—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#295) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
Evil PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#296) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material-it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,-in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE! – You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. —“Enthusiastic
sacrifice," "self-immolation ” —these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#297) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, "mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“ honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
Evil PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#298) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs,-in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE! — You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. -"Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#299) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic-and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you—it must displease you! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such, Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
EviL PEOPLE AND MUSIC. —Should the full
bliss of love, which consists in unlimited confidence,
## p. 227 (#300) ############################################
226
THE DAWN OF DAY.
having failed in life. Other men are formed of such
peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to
fare ill except in one single instance: when they
can live according to their own designs, in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society.
For everything that seems to the individual to
be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of
discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation,
covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and
thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually
formed round society, or, in the most favourable
cases, a thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE ! — You suffer, and call
upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when
in your suffering you are unjust towards things and
men! But what does our indulgence matter !
You, however, should take greater precautions for
your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating
yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still fur-
ther suffering on your own judgment! Your own
revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start
reviling something: you dim your own eyes in this
way, and not the eyes of others; you accustom
yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and
with a squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS. —“Enthusiastic
sacrifice," " self-immolation "—these are the catch-
words of your morality, and I willingly believe that
## p. 227 (#301) ############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
227
you, as you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know
you better than you know yourselves, if your
“honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such
a morality. You look down from the heights of this
morality upon that other sober morality which calls
for self-control, severity, and obedience ; you even
go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed
frank towards yourselves in saying that it displeases
you-it must displease you ! For, in sacrificing
and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm,
you delight in the intoxication of the thought that
you are now one with the powerful being, God or
man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves :
you revel in the feeling of his power, which is again
attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only appear to sacrifice
yourselves; for your imagination turns you into
gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor
and feeble must that other "egoistic” morality of
obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it is dis-
pleasing to you because in this instance true self-
sacrifice and self-surrender are called for, without the
victim thinking himself to be transformed into a god,
as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes
up a stand against intoxication and excess—no
wonder it causes you some displeasure !
216.
