No More Learning

\
healthy, had itself discovered and prescribed against
a temporary attack of the most dangerous form of
romantics. After a convalescence of six years I may
well be permitted to collect these same writings
and publish them as a second volume of Human,
Ail-too Human. Perhaps, if surveyed together, they
will more clearly and effectively teach their lesson—
a lesson of health that may be recommended as a
disciplina voluntatis to the more intellectual natures
of the rising generation. Here speaks a pessimist
who has often leaped out of his skin but has always
returned into it, thus, a pessimist with goodwill to-
wards pessimism—at all events a romanticist no
longer. And has not a pessimist, who possesses this
serpentine knack of changing his skin, the right to
read a lecture to our pessimists of to-day, who are
one and all still in the toils of romanticism? Or at
least to show them how it is—done?
- f/v It was then, in fact, high time to bid farewell, and
\ I soon received proof. Richard Wagner, who seemed
all-conquering, but was in reality only a decayed and
despairing romantic, suddenly collapsed, helpless
and broken, before the Christian Cross. . . . Was
there not a single German with eyes in his head and
sympathy in his heart for this appalling spectacle?
Was I the only one whom he caused—suffering?
In any case, the unexpected event illumined for me
in one lightning flash theplace that I had abandoned,
and also the horror that is felt by every one who is
unconscious of a great danger until he has passed


## p. 5 (#23) ###############################################

PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer- 7
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace


## p. 6 (#24) ###############################################

PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to " myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. "Disease " is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left—we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
J
5-
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of


## p. 7 (#25) ###############################################

PREFACE. 7
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer-
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his " good taste "? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, " a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism," and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into "general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist—do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace


## p. 7 (#26) ###############################################

PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to “myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. “Disease "is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left-we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
✓ 5.
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of



## p. 7 (#27) ###############################################

PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer--
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace


## p. 8 (#28) ###############################################

8 FREFACE.
him from his entire "past," his troubles, friends,
letters, duties, stupid mistakes and painful memories,
and teaches him to stretch out hands and senses to-
wards new nourishment, a new sun, a new future:
so I, as physician and invalid in one, forced myself
into an utterly different and untried zone of the
soul, and particularly into an absorbing journey
to a strange land, a strange atmosphere, into a
curiosity for all that was strange. A long process
of roaming, seeking, changing followed, a distaste for
fixity of any kind—a dislike for clumsy affirmation
and negation: and at the same time a dietary and
discipline which aimed at making it as easy as pos-
sible for the soul to fly high, and above all con-
stantly to fly away. In fact a minimum of life, an
unfettering from all coarser forms of sensuality, an
independence in the midst of all marks of outward
disfavour, together with the pride in being able to
live in the midst of all this disfavour: a little cyni-
cism perhaps, a little of the "tub of Diogenes," a
good deal of whimsical happiness, whimsical gaiety,
much calm, light, subtle folly, hidden enthusiasm—
all this produced in the end a great spiritual
strengthening, a growing joy and exuberance of
health. Life itself rewards us for our tenacious will
to life, for such a long war as I waged against the
pessimistic weariness of life, even for every observ-
ant glance of our gratitude, glances that do not
miss the smallest, most delicate, most fugitive
gifts. . . . In the end we receive Life's great gifts,
perhaps the greatest it can bestow—we regain our
task.


## p. 9 (#29) ###############################################

PREFACE. 9
6.
Should my experience—the history of an illness
and a convalescence, for it resulted in a convalescence ,'
—be only my personal experience? and merely just
my "Human, All-too-human"? To-day I would
fain believe the reverse, for I am becoming more and
more confident that my books of travel were not
penned for my sole benefit, as appeared for a time to
be the case. May I, after six years of growing assur-
ance, send them once more on a journey for an ex-
periment? —May I commend them particularly to
the ears and hearts of those who are afflicted with
some sort of a "past," and have enough intellect left
to suffer even intellectually from their past? But
above all would I commend them to you whose
burden is heaviest, you choice spirits, most encom-
passed with perils, most intellectual, most courage-
ous, who must be the conscience of the modern soul
and as such be versed in its science: * in whom is
concentrated all of disease, poison or danger that
can exist to-day: whose lot decrees that you must
be more sick than any individual because you are not
"mere individuals ": whose consolation it is to know
and, ah! to walk the path to a new health, a health
of to-morrow and the day after: you men of destiny,
triumphant, conquerors of time, the healthiest and
the strongest, you good Europeans!
7-
To express finally in a single formula my op-
* It has been attempted to render the play on " Gewissen"
and "Wissen. "—Tr.


## p. 10 (#30) ##############################################

IO PREFACE.
position to the romantic pessimism of the abstinent,
the unfortunate, the conquered: there is a will to
the tragic and to pessimism, which is a sign as
much of the severity as of the strength of the in-
tellect (taste, emotion, conscience). With this will
in our hearts we do not fear, but we investigate our-
selves the terrible and the problematical elements
characteristic of all existence. Behind such a will
stand courage and pride and the desire for a really
great enemy. That was my pessimistic outlook
from the first—a new outlook, methinks, an outlook
that even at this day is new and strange? To this
moment I hold to it firmly and (if it will be believed)
not only for myself but occasionally against my-
self. . . . You would prefer to have that proved
first? Well, what else does all this long preface—
prove? '
Sils-Maria, Upper Engadine,
September, 1886.


## p. 11 (#31) ##############################################

HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN,
PART 1.
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND
OPINIONS.


## p. 12 (#32) ##############################################



## p. 13 (#33) ##############################################

I.
To the Disillusioned in Philosophy. —If you
hitherto believed in the highest value of life and
now find yourselves disillusioned, must you im-
mediately get rid of life at the lowest possible
price?
2.
Overnice. —One can even become overnice as
regards the clearness of concepts. How disgusted
one is then at having truck with the half-clear, the
hazy, the aspiring, the doubting! How ridiculous
and yet not mirth-provoking is their eternal flutter-
ing and straining without ever being able to fly or
to grasp!
The Wooers of Reality. —He who realises
at last how long and how thoroughly he has been
befooled, embraces out of spite even the ugliest
reality. So that in the long run of the world's
history the best men have always been wooers of
reality, for the best have always been longest and
most thoroughly deceived.


## p. 14 (#34) ##############################################

14 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
4-
Advance of Freethinking. —The difference
between past and present freethinking cannot better
be characterised than by that aphorism for the recog-
nition and expression of which all the fearlessness of
the eighteenth century was needed, and which even
then, if measured by our modern view, sinks into an
unconscious na'ivete\ I mean Voltaire's aphorism,
"croyez-moi, mon ami, l'erreur aussi a son merite. "
5-
A Hereditary Sin of Philosophers. —Philo-
sophers have at all times appropriated and corrupted
the maxims of censors of men (moralists), by taking
them over without qualification and trying to prove
as necessary what the moralists only meant as a
rough indication or as a truth suited to their fellow-
countrymen or fellow-townsmen for a single decade.
Moreover, the philosophers thought that they were
thereby raising themselves above the moralists!
Thus it will be found that the celebrated teachings
of Schopenhauer as to the supremacy of the will
over the intellect, of the immutability of character,
the negativity of pleasure—all errors, in the sense
in which he understands them—rest upon principles
of popular wisdom enunciated by the moralists.
Take the very word "will," which Schopenhauer
twisted so as to become a common denotation of
several human conditions and with which he filled
a gap in the language (to his own great advantage,
in so far as he was a moralist, for he became free to


## p. 15 (#35) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 15
speak of the will as Pascal had spoken of it). In
the hands of its creator, Schopenhauer's "will,"
through the philosophic craze for generalisation,
already turned out to be a bane to knowledge. For
this will was made into a poetic metaphor, when it
was held that all things in nature possess will.
Finally, that it might be applied to all kinds of
disordered mysticism, the word was misused by a
fraudulent convention. So now all our fashionable
philosophers repeat it and seem to be perfectly
certain that all things have a will and are in fact
One Will. According to the description generally
given of this All-One-Will, this is much as if one
should positively try to have the stupid Devil for
one's God.
Against Visionaries. —The visionary denies
the truth to himself, the liar only to others.
Enmity TO Light. —If we make it clear to any
one that, strictly, he can never speak of truth, but
only of probability and of its degrees, we generally
discover, from the undisguised joy of our pupil,
how greatly men prefer the uncertainty of their in-
tellectual horizon, and how in their heart of hearts
they hate truth because of its definiteness. —Is this
due to a secret fear felt by all that the light of truth
may at some time be turned too brightly upon them-
selves? To their wish to be of some consequence,
and accordingly their concealment from the world of


## p. 16 (#36) ##############################################

16 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
what they are? Or is it to be traced to their horror
of the ail-too brilliant light, to which their crepus-
cular, easily dazzled, bat-like souls are not accus-
tomed, so that hate it they must?
8.
Christian Scepticism. —Pilate, with his ques-
tion, "What is . Truth ? " is now gleefully brought on
the scene as an advocate of Christ, in order to cast
suspicion on all that is known or knowable as being
mere appearance, and to erect the Cross on the ap-
palling background of the Impossibility of Know-
ledge.
9-
"Natural Law," a Phrase of Superstition.
—When you talk so delightedly of Nature acting
according to law, you must either assume that all
things in Nature follow their law from a voluntary
obedience imposed by themselves—in which case
you admire the morality of Nature: or you are en-
chanted with the idea of a creative mechanician,
who has made a most cunning watch with human
beings as accessory ornaments. —Necessity, through
the expression, " conformity to law," then becomes
more human and a coign of refuge in the last in-
stance for mythological reveries.
10.
Fallen Forfeit to History. —All misty
philosophers and obscurers of the world, in other
words all metaphysicians of coarse or refined texture


## p. 17 (#37) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 17
are seized with eyeache, earache, and toothache
when they begin to suspect that there is truth in
the saying: "All philosophy has from now fallen
forfeit to history. " In view of their aches and pains
we may pardon them for throwing stones and filth
at him who talks like this, but this teaching may
itself thereby become dirty and disreputable for a
time and lose in effect.
ii.
The Pessimist of the Intellect. —He whose
intellect is really free will think freely about the in-
tellect itself, and will not shut his eyes to certain
terrible aspects of its source and tendency. For
this reason others will perhaps designate him the
bitterest opponent of free thought and give him that
dreadful, abusive name of "pessimist of the in-
tellect ": accustomed as they are to typify a man
not by his strong point, his pre-eminent virtue, but
by the quality that is most foreign to his nature.
12.
The Metaphysicians' Knapsack. — To all
who talk so boastfully of the scientific basis of
their metaphysics it is best to make no reply.
It is enough to tug at the bundle that they
rather shyly keep hidden behind their backs.
If one succeeds in lifting it, the results of that
"scientific basis" come to light, to their great
confusion: a dear little "God," a genteel immor-
tality, perhaps a little spiritualism, and in any case
VOl. n. B


## p. 18 (#38) ##############################################

18 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
a complicated mass of poor-sinners'-misery and
pharisee-arrogance.
13-
Occasional Harmfulness of Knowledge. —
The utility involved in the unchecked investigation of
knowledge is so constantly proved in a hundred
different ways that one must remember to include in
the bargain the subtler and rarer damage which
individuals must suffer on that account. Thechemist
cannot avoid occasionally being poisoned or burnt
at his experiments. What applies to the chemist,
is true of the whole of our culture. This, it may be
added, clearly shows that knowledge should provide
itself with healing balsam against burns and should
always have antidotes ready against poisons.
14.
The Craving of the Philistine. —The Philis-
tine thinks that his most urgent need is a purple
patch or turban of metaphysics, nor will he let it
slip. Yet he would look less ridiculous without
this adornment.
IS-
ENTHUSIASTS. —With all that enthusiasts say in
favour of their gospel or their master they are de-
fending themselves, however much they comport
themselves as the judges and not the accused:
because they are involuntarily reminded almost at
every moment that they are exceptions and have
to assert their legitimacy.


## p. 19 (#39) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 19
16.
The Good Seduces to Life. —All good things,
even all good books that are written against life,
are strong means of attraction to life.
The Happiness of the Historian. —" When
we hear the hair-splitting metaphysicians and pro-
phets of the after-world speak, we others feel indeed
that we are the 'poor in spirit,' but that ours is
the heavenly kingdom of change, with spring and
autumn, summer and winter, and theirs the after-
world, with its grey, everlasting frosts and shadows. "
Thus soliloquised a man as he walked in the
morning sunshine, a man who in his pursuit of
history has constantly changed not only his mind
but his heart. In contrast to the metaphysicians,
he is happy to harbour in himself not an " immortal
soul" but many mortal souls.
18.
Three Varieties of Thinkers. —There are
streaming, flowing, trickling mineral springs, and
three corresponding varieties of thinkers. The lay-
man values them by the volume of the water,
the expert by the contents of the water—in other
words, by the elements in them that are not water.
19.
The Picture of Life. —The task of painting
the picture of life, often as it has been attempted


## p. 20 (#40) ##############################################

20 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
by poets and philosophers, is nevertheless irrational.
Even in the hands of the greatest artist-thinkers,
pictures and miniatures of one life only—their own
—have come into being, and indeed no other result
is possible. While in the process of developing, a
thing that develops, cannot mirror itself as fixed
and permanent, as a definite object.
20.
Truth will have no Gods before it.
—The
belief in truth begins with the doubt of all truths in
which one has previously believed.
21.
Where Silence is Required. —If we speak of
freethinking as of a highly dangerous journey over
glaciers and frozen seas, we find that those who do
not care to travel on this track are offended, as if
they had been reproached with cowardice and
weak knees. The difficult, which we find to be be-
yond our powers, must not even be mentioned in
our presence.
22.
Historia in Nuce. —The most serious parody
I ever heard was this: "In the beginning was the
nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the
nonsense was God. " *
* Cf. John i. 1. —Tr.


## p. 21 (#41) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 21
23-
Incurable. —The idealist is incorrigible: if he
be thrown out of his Heaven, he makes himself a
suitable ideal out of Hell. Disillusion him, and lo!
he will embrace disillusionment with no less ardour
than he recently embraced hope. In so far as his
impulse belongs to the great incurable impulses of
human nature, he can bring about tragic destinies
and later become a subject for tragedy himself, for
such tragedies as deal with the incurable, implac-
able, inevitable in the lot and character of man.
24.
Applause Itself as the Continuation of
the Play. —Sparkling eyes and an amiable smile
are the tributes of applause paid to all the great
comedy of world and existence—but this applause
is a comedy within a comedy, meant to tempt the
other spectators to a plaudite amici.
25-
Courage for Tedium. —He who has not the
courage to allow himself and his work to be con-
sidered tedious, is certainly no intellect of the first
rank, whether in the arts or in the sciences. —A
scoffer, who happened for once in a way to be a
thinker, might add, with a glance at the world and
at history: "God did not possess this courage, for
he wanted to make and he made all things so in-
teresting. "


## p. 22 (#42) ##############################################

22 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
26.
•
From the Most 'Intimate Experience of
THE Thinker. —Nothing is harder for a man than
to conceive of an object impersonally, I mean to
see in it an object and npt a person. One may-
even ask whether it js possible for him to dis-
pense for a single moment with the machinery of
his instinct to create and construct a personality.
After all, he associates with his thoughts, however
abstract they may be, as with individuals, against
whom he must fight or to whom he must attach
himself, whom he must protect, support and nourish.
Let us watch or listen to ourselves at the moment
when we hear or discover a new idea. Perhaps it
displeases us because it is so defiant and so auto-
cratic, and we unconsciously ask ourselves whether
we cannot place a contradiction of it by its side as
an enemy, or fasten on to it a "perhaps" or a
"sometimes": the mere little word "probably"
gives us a feeling of satisfaction, for it shatters the
oppressive tyranny of the unconditional. If, on the
other hand, the new idea enters in gentle shape,
sweetly patient and humble, and falling at once
into the arms of contradiction, We put our autocracy
to the test in another way. Can we not come to
the aid of this weak creature, stroke it and feed it,
give it strength and fulness, and truth and even
unconditionality? Is it possible for us to show
ourselves parental or chivalrous or compassionate
towards our idea? —Then again, we see here a
judgment and there a judgment, sundered from
each other, never looking at or making any move-
.
e


## p. 23 (#43) ##############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 23
ment towards each other. So we are tickled by
the thought, whether it be not here feasible to make
a match, to draw a conclusion, with the anticipation
that if a consequence follows this conclusion it is
not only the two judgments united in wedlock but
the matchmakers that will gain rronour. If, how-
ever, we cannot acquire a hold upon that thought
either on the path of defiance and ill-will or on that
of good-will (if we hold it to be true)—then we
submit to it and do homage to it as a leader and a
prince, give it a chair of honour, and speak not of
it without a flourish of trumpets: for we are bright
in its brightness. Woe to him who tries to dim
this brightness! Perhaps we ourselves one day
grow suspicious of our idea. Then we, the inde-
fatigable " king-makers " of the history of the intel-
lect, cast it down from its throne and immediately
exalt its adversary. Surely if this be considered
and thought out a little further, no one will speak of
an "absolute impulse to knowledge "!
Why, then, does man prefer the true to the un-
true, in this secret combat with thought-person-
alities, in this generally clandestine match-making of
thoughts, constitution-founding of thoughts, child-
rearing of thoughts, nursing and almsgiving of
thoughts? For the same reason that he practises
honesty in intercourse with real persons : now from
habit, heredity, and training, originally because the
true, like the fair and the just, is more expedient and
more reputable than the untrue. For in the realm of
thought it is difficult to assume a power and glory •
that are built on error or on falsehood. The feeling
that such an edifice might at some time collapse is
•


## p. 24 (#44) ##############################################

24 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
humiliating to the self-esteem of the architect—he is
ashamed of the fragility of the material, and, as he
considers himself more important than the rest of
the world, he would fain construct nothing that is
less durable than the rest of the world. In his long-
ing for truth he embraces the belief in a personal
immortality, the most arrogant and defiant idea
that exists, closely allied as it is to the underly-
ing thought, pereat mundus, dum ego salvus sim!
His work has become his "ego," he transforms
himself into the Imperishable with its universal
challenge. It is his immeasurable pride that will
only employ the best and hardest stones for the
work—truths,1 or what he holds for such. Arro-
gance has always been justly called the "vice of
the sage "; yet without this vice, fruitful in impul-
ses, Truth and her status on earth would be in
a parlous plight. In our propensity to fear our
thoughts, concepts and words, and yet to honour
ourselves in them, unconsciously to ascribe to
them the power of rewarding, despising, praising,
and blaming us, and so to associate with them as
with free intellectual personalities, as with inde-
pendent powers, as with our equals—herein lie the
roots of the remarkable phenomenon which I have
called "intellectual conscience. " Thus something
of the highest moral species has bloomed from a
black root.
27. I
The Obscurantists. —The essential feature of
the black art of obscurantism is not its intention
of clouding the brain, but its attempt to darken


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 25
the picture of the world and cloud our idea of
existence. It often employs the method of thwart-
ing all illumination of the intellect, but at times
it uses the very opposite means, seeking by the
highest refinement of the intellect to induce a
satiety of the intellect's fruits. Hair-splitting meta-
physicians, who pave the way for scepticism and
by their excessive acumen provoke a distrust of
acumen, are excellent instruments of the more
subtle form of obscurantism. —Is it possible that
even Kant may be applied to this purpose? Did
he even intend something of the sort, for a time at
least, to judge from his own notorious exposition:
"to clear the way for belief by setting limitations
to knowledge"? —Certainly he did not succeed, nor
did his followers, on the wolf and fox tracks of this
highly refined and dangerous form of obscurant-
ism—the most dangerous of all, for the black art
here appears in the garb of light.
28.
By what Kind of Philosophy Art is
Corrupted. —When the mists of a metaphysical-
mystical philosophy succeed in making all aesthetic
phenomena opaque, it follows that these phenomena
cannot be comparatively valued, inasmuch as each
becomes individually inexplicable. But when once
they cannot be compared for the sake of valuation,
there arises an entire absence-of-criticism, a blind
indulgence. From this source springs a continual
diminution of the enjoyment of art (which is only
distinguished from the crude satisfaction of a need


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26 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
by the highest refinement of taste and appreciation).
The more taste diminishes, the more does the desire
for art change and revert to a vulgar hunger, which
the artist henceforth seeks to appease by ever coarser
fare.
29.
On GETHSEMANE. —The most painful thing a
thinker can say to artists is: "Could ye not watch
with me one hour? "
30.
At the Loom. —There are many (artists and
women, for instance) who work against the few
that take a pleasure in untying the knot of things
and unravelling their woof. The former always
want to weave the woof together again and en-
tangle it and so turn the conceived into the un-
conceivedand if possible inconceivable. Whatever
the result may be, the woof and knot always look
rather untidy, because too many hands are working
and tugging at them.
3'-
In the Desert of Science. —As the man of
science proceeds on his modest and toilsome
wanderings, which must often enough be journeys
in the desert, he is confronted with those brilliant
mirages known as "philosophic systems. " With
magic powers of deception they show him that
the solution of all riddles and the most refreshing
draught of true water of life are close at hand. His
weary heart rejoices, and he well-nigh touches with


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 27
his lips the goal of all scientific endurance and
hardship, so that almost unconsciously he presses
forward. Other natures stand still, as if spellbound
by the beautiful illusion: the desert swallows them
up, they become lost to science. Other natures,
again, that have often experienced these subjective
consolations, become very disheartened and curse
the salty taste which these mirages leave behind in
the mouth and from which springs a raging thirst
—without one's having come one step nearer to any
sort of a spring.
32.
The So-called " Real Reality. "—When the
poet depicts the various callings—such as those of
the warrior, the silk-weaver, the sailor—he feigns to
know all these things thoroughly, to be an expert.
Even in the exposition of human actions and des-
tinies he behaves as if he had been present at the
spinning of the whole web of existence. In so far
he is an impostor. He practises his frauds on pure
ignoramuses, and that is why he succeeds. They
praise him for his deep, genuine knowledge, and
lead him finally into the delusion that he really
knows as much as the individual experts and
creators, yes, even as the great world-spinners
themselves. In the end, the impostor becomes
honest, and actually believes in his own sincerity.
Emotional people say to his very face that he has
the "higher" truth and sincerity—for they are
weary of reality for the time being, and accept the
poetic dream as a pleasant relaxation and a night's
rest for head and heart. The visions of the dream


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28 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
now appear to them of more value, because, as has
been said, they find them more beneficial, and man-
kind has always held that what is apparently of
more value is more true, more real. All that is
generally called reality, the poets, conscious of this
power, proceed with intention to disparage and to
distort into the uncertain, the illusory, the spurious,
the impure, the sinful, sorrowful, and deceitful. They
make use of all doubts about the limits of knowledge,
of all sceptical excesses, in order to spread over every-
thing the rumpled veil of uncertainty. For they
desire that when this darkening process is complete
their wizardry and soul-magic may be accepted
without hesitation as the path to "true truth " and
"real reality. "
v 33-
The Wish to be Just and the Wish to be
A JUDgE. —Schopenhauer, whose profound under-
standing of what is human and all-too-human and
original sense for facts was not a little impaired by
the bright leopard-skin of his metaphysic (the skin
must first be pulled off him if one wants to find the
real moralist genius beneath)—Schopenhauermakes
this admirable distinction, wherein he comes far
nearer the mark than he would himself dare to ad-
mit: "Insight into the stern necessity of human
actions is the boundary line that divides philoso-
phic from other brains. " He worked against that
wonderful insight of which he was sometimes
capable by the prejudice that he had in common
with the moral man (not the moralist), a prejudice
that he expresses quite guilelessly and devoutly as


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 29
follows: "The ultimate and true explanation of the
inner being of the entirety of things must of neces-
sity be closely connected with that about the ethical
significance of human actions. " This connection is
not "necessary" at all: such a connection must .
rather be rejected by that principle of the stern (
necessity of human actions, that is, the unconditioned (
non-freedom and non-responsibility of the will.
Philosophic brains will accordingly be distinguished
from others by their disbelief in the metaphysical
significance of morality. This must create between
the two kinds of brain a gulf of a depth and un-
bridgeableness of which the much-deplored gulf
between "cultured " and " uncultured " scarcely gives
a conception. It is true that many back doors, which
the "philosophic brains," like Schopenhauer's own,
have left for themselves, must be recognised as
useless. None leads into the open, into the fresh
air of the free will, but every door through which
people had slipped hitherto showed behind it once
more the gleaming brass wall of fate. For we are
in a prison, and can only dream of freedom, not>
make ourselves free. That the recognition of this
fact cannot be resisted much longer is shown by
the despairing and incredible postures and grimaces
of those who still press against it and continue their
wrestling-bout with it. Their attitude at present
is something like this: "So no one is responsible
for his actions? And all is full of guilt and the
consciousness of guilt? But some one must be the
sinner. If it is no longer possible or permissible
to accuse and sentence the individual, the one poor
wave in the inevitable rough-and-tumble of the


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30 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
waves of development—well, then, let this stormy
sea, this development itself, be the sinner. Here is
freewill: this totality can be accused and sentenced,
can atone and expiate. So let God be the sinner and
man his redeemer. Let the world's history" be guilt,
expiation, and self-murder. Let the evil-doer be his
own judge, the judge his own hangman. " This
Christianity strained to its limits—for what else is
it ? —is the last thrust in the fencing-match between
the teaching of unconditioned morality and the
teaching of unconditioned non-freedom. It would
be quite horrible if it were anything more than a
logical pose, a hideous grimace of the underlying
thought, perhaps the death-convulsion of the heart
that seeks a remedy in its despair, the heart to which
delirium whispers: "Behold, thou art the lamb
which taketh away the sin of God. " This error lies
not only in the feeling," I am responsible," but just as
much in the contradiction, " I am not responsible,
but some one must be. " That is simply not true.
Hence the philosopher must say, like Christ," Judge
not," and the final distinction between the philo-
sophic brains and the others would be that the
former wish to be just and the latter wish to be
judges.
34-
Sacrifice. —You hold that sacrifice is the hall-
mark of moral action ? —Just consider whether in
every action that is done with deliberation, in the
best as in the worst, there be not a sacrifice.


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 31
35-
Against the "Triers of the Reins" of
MORALITy. —One must know the best and the
worst that a man is capable of in theory and in
practice before one can judge how strong his moral
nature is and can be. But this is an experiment
that one can never carry out.
36.
Serpent's Tooth. —Whetherwe have a serpent's
tooth or not we cannot know before some one has
set his heel upon our necks. A wife or a mother
could say: until some one has put his heel upon the
neck of our darling, our child. —Our character is
determined more by the absence of certain ex-
periences than by the experiences we have under-
gone.
37-
Deception in Love. —We forget and purposely
banish from our minds a good deal of our past.
In other words, we wish our picture, that beams at
us from the past, to belie us, to flatter our vanity—
we are constantly engaged in this self-deception.
And you who talk and boast so much of "self-
oblivion in love," of the "absorption of the ego in
the other person "—you hold that this is something
different? So you break the mirror, throw your-
selves into another personality that you admire,
and enjoy the new portrait of your ego, though
calling it by the other person's name—and this


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

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

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

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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 35
he is not the cleverest of men, although he has
reached the very goal towards which the cleverest
man is striving with all his cleverness.
49.