II.

CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN NIHILISM.

_(a)_ MODERN GLOOMINESS.

57.

My friends, we had a hard time as youths; we even suffered from youth itself as though it were a serious disease. This is owing to the age in which we were born--an age of enormous internal decay and disintegration which, with all its weakness and even with the best of its strength, is opposed to the spirit of youth. Disintegration--that is to say, uncertainty--is peculiar to this age: nothing stands on solid ground or on a sound faith. People live for the morrow, because the day-after-to-morrow is doubtful. All our road is slippery and dangerous, while the ice which still bears us has grown unconscionably thin: we all feel the mild and gruesome breath of the thaw-wind--soon, where we are walking, no one will any longer _be able_ to stand!

58.

If this is not an age of decay and of diminishing vitality, it is at least one of indiscriminate and arbitrary experimentalising--and it is probable that out of an excess of abortive experiments there has grown this general impression, as of decay: and perhaps decay itself.

59.

_Concerning the history of modern gloominess._

The state-nomads (officials, etc.): "homeless"--.

The break-up of the family.

The "good man" as a symptom of exhaustion.

Justice as Will to Power (Rearing).

Lewdness and neurosis.

Black music: whither has real music gone?

The anarchist.

Contempt of man, loathing.

Most profound distinction: whether hunger or satiety is creative? The first creates the _Ideals of Romanticism._

Northern unnaturalness.

The need of Alcohol: the "need" of the working classes.

Philosophical Nihilism.

60.

The slow advance and rise of the middle and lower classes (including the lower kind of spirit and body), which was already well under way before the French Revolution, and would have made the same progress forward without the latter,--in short, then, the preponderance of the herd over all herdsmen and bell-wethers,--brings in its train:--

(1) Gloominess of spirit (the juxtaposition of a stoical and a frivolous _appearance_ of happiness, peculiar to noble cultures, is on the decline; much suffering is allowed to be _seen_ and _heard_ which formerly was borne in concealment);

(2) Moral hypocrisy (a way of _distinguishing_ oneself through morality, but by means of the values of the herd: pity, solicitude, moderation; and not by means of those virtues which are recognised and honoured outside the herd's sphere of power);

(3) A _really_ large amount of sympathy with both pain and joy (a feeling of pleasure resulting from being herded together, which is peculiar to all gregarious animals--"public spirit," "patriotism," everything, in fact, which is apart from the individual).

61.

Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours to mitigate distress, to honour it, and to wage war in advance with unpleasant possibilities, is an age of the _poor._ Our "_rich people_"--_they_ are the poorest! The real _purpose_ of all wealth has been forgotten.

62.

_Criticism of modern man_:--"the good man," but corrupted and misled by bad institutions (tyrants and priests);--reason elevated to a position of authority;--history is regarded as the surmounting of errors;--the future is regarded as progress;--the Christian state ("God of the armies");--Christian sexual intercourse (as marriage);--the realm of "justice" (the cult of "mankind");--"freedom."

The _romantic_ attitudes of the modern man;--the noble man (Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand);--taking the part of the oppressed and the bungled and the botched: motto for historians and romancers;--the Stoics of duty;--disinterestedness regarded as art and as knowledge;--altruism as the most mendacious form of egoism (utilitarianism), the most sentimental form of egoism.

All this savours of the eighteenth century. But it had other qualities which were not inherited, namely, a certain _insouciance,_ cheerfulness, elegance, spiritual clearness. The spiritual tempo has altered; the pleasure which was begotten by spiritual refinement and clearness has given room to the pleasure of colour, harmony, mass, reality, etc. etc. Sensuality in spiritual things. In short, it is the eighteenth century of Rousseau.

63.

Taken all in all, a considerable amount of _humanity_ has been attained by our men of to-day. That we feel this is in itself a proof of the fact that we have become so sensitive in regard to small cases of distress, that we somewhat unjustly overlook what has been achieved.

Here we must make allowances for the fact that a great deal of decadence is rife, and that, through such eyes, our world _must appear_ bad and wretched. But these eyes have always seen in the same way, in all ages.

(1) A certain hypersensitiveness, even in morality.

(2) The quantum of bitterness and gloominess, which pessimism bears with it in its judgments--both together have helped to bring about the preponderance of the other and _opposite_ point of view, that things are not well with our morality.

The fact of credit, of the commerce of the world, and the means of traffic--are expressions of an extraordinarily mild _trustfulness_ in men.... To that may also be added--

(3) The deliverance of science from moral and religious prejudices: a very good sign, though for the most part misunderstood.

In my own way, I am attempting a justification of history.

64.

_The second appearance of Buddhism._--Its precursory signs: the increase of pity. Spiritual exhaustion. The reduction of all problems to the question of pleasure and pain. The glory of war which calls forth a counter-stroke. Just as the sharp demarcation of nations generates a counter-movement in the form of the most hearty "Fraternity." The fact that it is impossible for religion to carry on its work any longer with dogma and fables.

The _catastrophe of Nihilism_ will put an end to all this Buddhistic culture.

65.

That which is most sorely afflicted to-day is the instinct and will of _tradition_: all institutions which owe their origin to this instinct, are opposed to the tastes of the age.... At bottom, nothing is thought or done which is not calculated to tear up this spirit of tradition by the roots. Tradition is looked upon as a fatality; it is studied and acknowledged (in the form of "heredity"), but people will not have anything to do with it. The extension of one will over long periods of time, the selection of conditions and valuations which make it possible to dispose of centuries in advance--this, precisely, is what is most utterly anti-modern. From which it follows, that disorganising principles give our age its specific character.

66.

"Be simple"--a demand which, when made to us complicated and incomprehensible triers of the heart and reins, is a simple absurdity.... Be natural: but even if we are unnatural--what then?

67.

The means employed in former times in order to arrive at _similarly constituted_ and lasting types, throughout long generations: entailed property and the respect of parents (the origin of the faith in gods and heroes as ancestors).

Now, the _subdivision of property_ belongs to the opposite tendency. The centralisation of an enormous number of, different interests in one soul: which, _to that end,_ must be very strong and mutable.

68.

Why does everything become _mummery._--The modern man is lacking in unfailing instinct (instinct being understood here to mean that which is the outcome of a _long period of activity in the same occupation_ on the part of one family of men); the incapability of producing anything perfect, is simply the result of this lack of instinct: one individual alone cannot make up for the schooling his ancestors should have transmitted to him.

What a morality or book of law creates: that deep instinct which renders _automatism_ and perfection possible in life and in work.

But now we have reached the opposite point; yes, we wanted to reach it--the most extreme consciousness, through introspection on the part of man and of history: and thus we are practically most distant from perfection in Being, doing, and willing: our desires--even our will to knowledge--shows how prodigiously decadent we are. We are striving after the very reverse of what _strong races_ and _strong natures_ will have--understanding is an _end_....

That Science is possible in the way in which it is practised to-day, proves that all elementary instincts, _the instincts which ward off danger and protect life,_ are no longer active. We no longer save, we are merely spending the capital of our forefathers, even in the way in which we _pursue knowledge_.

69.

_Nihilistic trait_.

_(a)_ In the _natural sciences_ ("purposelessness"), causality, mechanism, "conformity to law," an interval, a remnant.

_(b)_ Likewise in _politics_: the individual lacks the belief in his own right, innocence; falsehood rules supreme, as also the worship of the moment.

_(d)_ Likewise in _political economy_: the abolition of slavery: the lack of a redeeming class, and of _one who justifies_--the rise of anarchy. "Education"?

_(d)_ Likewise in _history_: fatalism, Darwinism; the last attempts at reconciling reason and Godliness fail. Sentimentality in regard to the past: biographies can no longer be endured! (Phenomenalism even here: character regarded as a mask; there are no facts.)

_(e)_ Likewise in _Art_: romanticism and its _counter-stroke_ (repugnance towards romantic ideals and lies). The latter, morally, as a sense of greatest truthfulness, but pessimistic. Pure "artists" (indifference as to the "subject"). (The psychology of the father-confessor and puritanical psychology--two forms of psychological romanticism: but also their counter-stroke, the attempt to maintain a purely artistic attitude towards "men"--but even in this respect no one dares to make the _opposite_ valuation.)

70.

_Against_ the teaching of the influence of _environment_ and external causes: the power coming from inside is infinitely _superior_; much that appears like influence acting from without is merely the subjection of environment to this inner power.

Precisely the same environment may be used and interpreted in opposite ways: there are no facts. A genius is _not_ explained by such theories concerning origins.

71.

"_Modernity_" regarded in the light of nutrition and digestion.

Sensitiveness is infinitely more acute (beneath moral vestments: the increase of pity), the abundance of different impressions is greater than ever. The _cosmopolitanism_ of articles of diet, of literature, newspapers, forms, tastes, and even landscapes. The speed of this affluence is _prestissimo_; impressions are wiped out, and people instinctively guard against assimilating anything or against taking anything _seriously_ and "digesting" it; the result is a weakening of the powers of digestion. There begin a sort of _adaptation_ to this accumulation of impressions. Man unlearns the art of _doing,_ and _all he does is to react_ to stimuli coming from his environment. _He spends his strength,_ partly in the process of _assimilation,_ partly in _defending himself,_ and again partly in _responding to stimuli. Profound enfeeblement of spontaneity_:--the historian, the critic, the analyst, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader,--all reactive talents,--_all_ science!

Artificial _modification_ of one's own nature in order to make it resemble a "mirror"; one is interested, but only epidermally: this is systematic coolness, equilibrium, a steady _low_ temperature, just beneath the thin surface on which warmth, movement, "storm," and undulations play.

Opposition of _external_ mobility to a certain _dead heaviness and fatigue_.

72.

Where must our modern world be classed--under exhaustion or under increasing strength? Its multiformity and lack of repose are brought about by the highest form of _consciousness._

73.

Overwork, curiosity and sympathy--our _modern vices._

74.

A contribution to the characterisation of "_Modernity._"--Exaggerated development of intermediate forms; the decay of types; the break-up of tradition, schools; the predominance of the instincts (philosophically prepared: the unconscious has the greater value) after the appearance of the _enfeeblement of will power_ and of the will to an end _and_ to the means thereto.

75.

A capable artisan or scholar cuts a good figure if he have his pride in his art, and looks pleasantly and contentedly upon life. On the other hand, there is no sight more wretched than that of a cobbler or a schoolmaster who, with the air of a martyr, gives one to understand that he was really born for something better. There is nothing better than what is good! and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and to use it. This is _virtù_ in the Italian style of the Renaissance.

Nowadays, when the state has a nonsensically oversized belly, in all fields and branches of work there are "representatives" over and above the real workman: for instance, in addition to the scholars, there are the journalists; in addition to the suffering masses, there is a crowd of jabbering and bragging ne'er-do-wells who "represent" that suffering--not to speak of the professional politicians who, though quite satisfied with their lot, stand up in Parliament and, with strong lungs, "represent" grievances. Our modern life is extremely _expensive,_ thanks to the host of middlemen that infest it; whereas in the city of antiquity, and in many a city of Spain and Italy to-day, where there is an echo of the ancient spirit, the man himself comes forward and will have nothing to do with a representative or an intermediary in the modern style--except perhaps to kick him hence!

76.

The pre-eminence of the _merchant_ and the _middleman,_ even in the most intellectual spheres: the journalist, the "representative," the historian (as an intermediary between the past and the present), the exotic and cosmopolitan, the middleman between natural science and philosophy, the semi-theologians.

77.

The men I have regarded with the most loathing, heretofore, are the parasites of intellect: they are to be found everywhere, already, in our modern Europe, and as a matter of fact their conscience is as light as it possibly can be. They may be a little turbid, and savour somewhat of Pessimism, but in the main they are voracious, dirty, dirtying, stealthy, insinuating, light-fingered gentry, scabby--and as innocent as all small sinners and microbes are. They live at the expense of those who have intellect and who distribute it liberally: they know that it is peculiar to the rich mind to live in a disinterested fashion, without taking too much petty thought for the morrow, and to distribute its wealth prodigally. For intellect is a bad domestic economist, and pays no heed whatever to the fact that everything lives on it and devours it.

78.

MODERN MUMMERY

The motleyness of modern men and its charm Essentially a mask and a sign of boredom.

The journalist.

The political man (in the "national swindle").

Mummery in the arts:--

The lack of honesty in preparing and schooling oneself for them (Fromentin);

The Romanticists (their lack of philosophy and science and their excess in literature);

The novelists (Walter Scott, but also the monsters of the _Nibelung,_ with their inordinately nervous music);

The lyricists.

"Scientifically."

Virtuosos (Jews).

The popular ideals are overcome, but not yet _in the presence of the people_:

The saint, the sage, the prophet.

79.

_The want of discipline in the modern spirit_ concealed beneath all kinds of moral finery.--The show-words are: Toleration (for the "incapacity of saying yes or no"); _la largeur de sympathie_ (= a third of indifference, a third of curiosity, and a third of morbid susceptibility); "objectivity" (the lack of personality and of will, and the inability to "love"); "freedom" in regard to the rule (Romanticism); "truth" as opposed to falsehood and lying (Naturalism); the "scientific spirit" (the "human document": or, in plain English, the serial story which means "addition"--instead of "composition"); "passion" in the place of disorder and intemperance; "depth" in the place of confusion and the pell-mell of symbols.

80.

_Concerning the criticism of big words._--I am full of mistrust and malice towards what is called "ideal": this is my _Pessimism,_ that I have recognised to what extent "sublime sentiments" are a source of evil--that is to say, a belittling and depreciating of man.

Every time "progress" is expected to result from an ideal, disappointment invariably follows; the triumph of an ideal has always been a _retrograde movement_.

Christianity, revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth: all these big words are only valuable in a struggle, as banners: not as realities, but as _show-words,_ for something quite different (yea, even quite opposed to what they mean!).

81.

The kind of man is known who has fallen in love with the sentence "_tout comprendre à est tout pardonner"_ It is the weak and, above all, the disillusioned: if there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to contemn! It is the philosophy of disappointment, which here swathes itself so humanly in pity, and gazes out so sweetly.

They are Romanticists, whose faith has gone to pot: now they at least wish to look on and see how everything vanishes and fades. They call it _l'art pour l'art,_ "objectivity," etc.

82.

_The main symptoms of Pessimism_:--Dinners at Magny's; Russian Pessimism (Tolstoy, Dostoiewsky); æsthetic Pessimism, _l'art pour l'art,_ "description" (the romantic and the anti-romantic Pessimism); Pessimism in the theory of knowledge (Schopenhauer: phenomenalism); anarchical Pessimism; the "religion of pity," Buddhistic preparation; the Pessimism of culture (exoticness, cosmopolitanism); moral Pessimism, myself.

83.

"_Without the Christian Faith_" said Pascal, "you would yourselves be like nature and history, _un monstre et un chaos._" We fulfilled this prophecy: once the weak and optimistic eighteenth century had _embellished_ and _rationalised_ man.

_Schopenhauer_ and _Pascal._--I none essential point, Schopenhauer is the first who _takes up Pascal's_ movement again: _un monstre et un chaos,_ consequently something that must be negatived ... history, nature, and man himself!

"_Our inability to know the truth_ is the result of our _corruption,_ of our moral _decay_" says Pascal. And Schopenhauer says essentially the same. "The more profound the corruption of reason is, the more necessary is the doctrine of salvation"--or, putting it into Schopenhauerian phraseology, negation.

84.

_Schopenhauer as an epigone_ (state of affairs before the Revolution):--Pity, sensuality, art, weakness of will, Catholicism of the most intellectual desires--that is, at bottom, the good old eighteenth century.

_Schopenhauer's_ fundamental misunderstanding of the _will_ (just as though passion, instinct, and desire were the essential factors of will) is typical: the depreciation of the will to the extent of mistaking it altogether. Likewise the hatred of willing: the attempt at seeing something superior--yea, even superiority itself, and that which really matters, in non-willing, in the "subject-being _without_ aim or intention." Great symptom of _fatigue or of the weakness of will_: for this, in reality, is what treats the passions as master, and directs them as to the way and to the measure....

85.

The undignified attempt has been made to regard Wagner and Schopenhauer as types of the mentally unsound: an infinitely more essential understanding of the matter would have been gained if the exact decadent type which each of them represents had been scientifically and accurately defined.

86.

In my opinion, Henrik Ibsen has become very German. With all his robust idealism and "Will to Truth," he never dared to ring himself free from moral-illusionism which says "freedom," and will not admit, even to itself, what freedom is: the second stage in the metamorphosis of the "Will to Power" in him who lacks it. In the first stage, one demands justice at the hands of those who have power. In the second, one speaks of "freedom," that is to say, one wishes to "shake oneself free" from those who have power. In the third stage, one speaks of "equal rights"--that is to say, so long as one is not a predominant personality one wishes to prevent one's competitors from growing in power.

87.

The Decline of _Protestantism_: theoretically and historically understood as a half-measure. Undeniable predominance of Catholicism to-day: Protestant feeling is so dead that the strongest _anti-Protestant_ movements (Wagner's _Parsifal,_ for instance) are no longer regarded as such. The whole of the more elevated intellectuality in France is _Catholic_ in instinct; Bismarck recognised that there was no longer any such thing as Protestantism.

88.

Protestantism, that spiritually unclean and tiresome form of decadence, in which Christianity has known how to survive in the mediocre North, is something incomplete and complexly valuable for knowledge, in so far as it was able to bring experiences of different kinds and origins into the same heads.

89.

What has the German spirit not made out of Christianity! And, to refer to Protestantism again, how much beer is there not still in Protestant Christianity! Can a crasser, more indolent, and more lounging form of Christian belief be imagined, than that of the average German Protestant?... It is indeed a very humble Christianity. I call it the Homœopathy of Christianity! I am reminded that, to-day, there also exists a less humble sort of Protestantism; it is taught by royal chaplains and anti-Semitic speculators: but nobody has ever maintained that any "spirit" "hovers" over these waters. It is merely a less respectable form of Christian faith, not by any means a more comprehensible one.

90.

_Progress._--Let us be on our guard lest we deceive ourselves! Time flies forward apace,--we would fain believe that everything flies forward with it,--that evolution is an advancing development.... That is the appearance of things which deceives the most circumspect. But the nineteenth century shows no advance whatever on the sixteenth: and the German spirit of 1888 is an example of a backward movement when compared with that of 1788.... Mankind does not advance, it does not even exist. The aspect of the whole is much more like that of a huge experimenting workshop where some things in all ages succeed, while an incalculable number of things fail; where all order, logic, co-ordination, and responsibility is lacking. How dare we blink the fact that the rise of Christianity is a decadent movement?--that the German Reformation was a recrudescence of Christian barbarism?--that the Revolution destroyed the instinct for an organisation of society on a large scale?... Man is not an example of progress as compared with animals: the tender son of culture is an abortion compared with the Arab or the Corsican; the Chinaman is a more successful type--that is to say, richer in sustaining power than the European.

_(b)_ THE LAST CENTURIES.

91.

Gloominess and pessimistic influence necessarily follow in the wake of enlightenment. Towards 1770 a falling-off in cheerfulness was already noticeable; women, with that very feminine instinct which always defends virtue, believed that immorality was the cause of it. Galiani hit the bull's eye: he quotes Voltaire's verse:

"Un monstre gai vaut mieux Qu'un sentimental ennuyeux."

If now I maintain that I am ahead, by a century or two of enlightenment, of Voltaire and Galiani--who was much more profound, how deeply must I have sunk into gloominess! This is also true, and betimes I somewhat reluctantly manifested some caution in regard to the German and Christian narrowness and inconsistency of Schopenhauerian or, worse still, Leopardian Pessimism, and sought the most characteristic form (Asia). But, in order to endure that extreme Pessimism (which here and there peeps out of my _Birth of Tragedy),_ to live alone "without God or morality," I was compelled to invent a counter-prop for myself. Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone surfers so excruciatingly that he was _compelled_ to invent laughter. The unhappiest and most melancholy animal is, as might have been expected, the most cheerful.

92.

In regard to German culture, I have always had a feeling as of _decline._ The fact that I learned to know a declining form of culture has often made me _unfair_ towards the whole phenomenon of European culture. The Germans always follow at some distance behind: they always go to the root of things, for instance:--

Dependance upon foreigners; _Kant_--Rousseau, the sensualists, Hume, Swedenborg.

_Schopenhauer_--the Indians and Romanticism, Voltaire.

_Wagner_--the French cult of the ugly and of grand opera, _Paris,_ and the flight into _primitive barbarism_ (the marriage of brother and sister).

The law of the _laggard_ (the provinces go to Paris, Germany goes to France).

How is it that precisely _Germans discovered the Greek_ (the more an instinct is developed, the more it is _tempted_ to run for once into its opposite).

Music is the last breath of every culture.

93.

_Renaissance and Reformation._--What does the Renaissance prove? That the reign of the "individual" can be only a short one. The output is too great; there is not even the possibility of husbanding or of capitalising forces, and exhaustion sets in step by step. These are times when everything is _squandered,_ when even the strength itself with which one collects, capitalises, and heaps riches upon riches, _is squandered._ Even the opponents of such movements are driven to preposterous extremes in the dissipation of their strength: and they too are very soon exhausted, used up, and completely sapped.

In the Reformation we are face to face with a wild and plebeian counterpart of the Italian Renaissance, generated by similar impulses, except that the former, in the backward and still vulgar North, had to assume a religious form--there the concept of a higher life had not yet been divorced from that of a religious one.

Even the Reformation was a movement for individual liberty; "every one his own priest" is really no more than a formula for _libertinage._ As a matter of fact, the words "Evangelical freedom" would have sufficed--and all instincts which had reasons for remaining concealed broke out like wild hounds, the most brutal needs suddenly acquired the courage to show themselves, everything seemed justified ... men refused to specify the kind of freedom they had aimed at, they preferred to shut their eyes. But the fact that their eyes were closed and that their lips were moistened with gushing orations, did not prevent their hands from being ready to snatch at whatever there was to snatch at, that the belly became the god of the "free gospel," and that all lusts of revenge and of hatred were indulged with insatiable fury.

This lasted for a while: then exhaustion supervened, just as it had done in Southern Europe; and again here, it was a low form of exhaustion, a sort of general _ruere in servitium_.... Then the _disreputable_ century of Germany dawned.

94.

_Chivalry_--the position won by power: its gradual break-up (and

## partial transference to broader and more bourgeois spheres). In the

case of Larochefoucauld we find a knowledge of the actual impulses of a noble temperament--together with the gloomy Christian estimate of these impulses.

The _protraction of Christianity_ through the _French Revolution._ The seducer is Rousseau; he once again liberates woman, who thenceforward is always represented as ever more interesting--_suffering._ Then come the slaves and Mrs. Beecher-Stowe. Then the poor and the workmen. Then the vicious and the sick--all this is drawn into the foreground (even for the purpose of disposing people in favour of the genius, it has been customary for five hundred years to press him forward as the great sufferer!). Then comes the cursing of all voluptuousness (Baudelaire and Schopenhauer), the most decided conviction that the lust of power is the greatest vice; absolute certainty that morality and disinterestedness are identical things; that the "happiness of all" is a goal worth striving after (_i.e.,_ Christ's Kingdom of Heaven). We are on the best road to it: the Kingdom of Heaven of the poor in spirit has begun.--Intermediate stages: the bourgeois (as a result of the _nouveau riche_) and the workman (as a result of the machine).

Greek and French culture of the time of Louis XIV. compared. A decided belief in oneself. A leisure-class which makes things hard for itself and exercises a great deal of self-control. The power of form, the will to form _oneself._ "Happiness" acknowledged as a purpose. Much strength and energy _behind_ all formality of manners. Pleasure at the sight of a life that is _seemingly so easy._ The _Greeks_ seemed like _children_ to the French.

95.

_The Three Centuries._

Their different kinds of _sensitiveness_ may perhaps be best expressed as follows:--

_Aristocracy_: Descartes, the reign of _reason,_ evidence showing the sovereignty of the _will_.

_Feminism_: Rousseau, the reign of _feeling,_ evidence showing the sovereignty of the senses; all lies.

_Animalism_: Schopenhauer, the reign of _passion,_ evidence showing the sovereignty of animality, more honest, but gloomy.

The seventeenth century is _aristocratic,_ all for order, haughty towards everything animal, severe in regard to the heart, "austere," and even free from sentiment, "non-German," averse to all that is burlesque and natural, generalising and maintaining an attitude of sovereignty towards the past for it believes in itself. At bottom it partakes very much of the beast of prey, and practises asceticism in order to remain master. It is the century of strength of will, as also that of strong passion.

The eighteenth century is dominated by _woman,_ it is gushing, spiritual, and flat; but with intellect at the service of aspirations and of the heart, it is a libertine in the pleasures of intellect, undermining all authorities; emotionally intoxicated, cheerful, clear, humane, and sociable, false to itself and at bottom very rascally....

The nineteenth century is more _animal,_ more subterranean, hateful, realistic, plebeian, and on that very account "better," "more honest," more submissive to "reality" of what kind soever, and _truer_; but weak of will, sad, obscurely exacting and fatalistic. It has no feeling of timidity or reverence, either in the presence of "reason" or the "heart"; thoroughly convinced of the dominion of the desires (Schopenhauer said "Will," but nothing is more characteristic of his philosophy than that it entirely lacks all actual _willing_). Even morality is reduced to an instinct ("Pity").

Auguste Comte is _the continuation of the_ eighteenth _century_ (the dominion of the heart over the head, sensuality in the theory of knowledge, altruistic exaltation).

The fact that _science_ has become as sovereign as it is to-day, proves how the nineteenth century has _emancipated itself_ from the dominion of _ideals._ A certain absence of "needs" and wishes makes our scientific curiosity and rigour possible--this is our kind of virtue.

Romanticism is the _counterstroke_ of the eighteenth century; a sort of accumulated longing for its grand style of exaltation (as a matter of fact, largely mingled with mummery and self-deception: the desire was to represent _strong nature_ and _strong passion_).

The nineteenth century instinctively goes in search of _theories_ by means of which it may feel its _fatalistic, submission to the empire of facts_ justified. Hegel's success against sentimentality and romantic idealism was already a sign of its fatalistic trend of thought, in its belief that superior reason belongs to the triumphant side, and in its justification of the actual "state" (in the place of "humanity," etc.).--Schopenhauer: we are something foolish, and at the best self-suppressive. The success of determinism, the genealogical derivation of _obligations_ which were formerly held to be absolute, the teaching of environment and adaptation, the reduction of will to a process of reflex movement, the denial of the will as a "working cause"; finally--a real process of re-christening: so little will is observed that the word itself becomes _available_ for another purpose. Further theories: the teaching of _objectivity,_ "will-less" contemplation, as the only road to truth, _as also_ to _beauty_ (also the belief in "genius," in order to have _the right to be submissive_); mechanism, the determinable rigidity of the mechanical process; so-called "Naturalism," the elimination of the choosing, directing, interpreting subject, on principle.

Kant, with his "practical reason," with his _moral fanaticism,_ is quite eighteenth century style; still completely outside the historical movement, without any notion whatsoever of the reality of his time, for instance, revolution; he is not affected by Greek philosophy; he is a phantasist of the notion of duty, a sensualist with a hidden leaning to dogmatic pampering.

_The return to Kant_ in our century means a _return to the eighteenth century,_ people desire to create themselves a right to the _old ideas_ and to the old exaltation--hence a theory of knowledge which "describes limits," that is to say, which admits _of the option of fixing a Beyond to the domain of reason._

_Hegel's_ way of thinking is not so very far removed from that of Goethe: see the latter on the subject of Spinoza, for instance. The will to deify the All and Life, in order to find both _peace_ and _happiness_ in contemplating them: Hegel looks for reason everywhere--in the presence of reason man may be _submissive_ and resigned. In Goethe we find a kind of _fatalism_ which is almost _joyous_ and _confiding,_ which neither revolts nor weakens, which strives to make a totality out of itself, in the belief that only in totality does everything seem good and justified, and find itself resolved.

96.

The period of _rationalism_--followed by a period of _sentimentality._ To what extent does Schopenhauer come under "sentimentality"? (Hegel under intellectuality?)

97.

The seventeenth century _suffers_ from _humanity_ as from a _host of contradictions_ ("_l'amas de contradictions_" that we are); it endeavours to discover man, to _co-ordinate him,_ to excavate him: whereas the eighteenth century tries to forget what is known of man's nature, in order to adapt him to its Utopia. "Superficial, soft, humane"--gushes over "humanity."

The seventeenth century tries to banish all traces of the individual in order that the artist's work may resemble life as much as possible. The eighteenth century strives _to create interest in the author_ by means of the work. The seventeenth century seeks art in art, a piece of culture; the eighteenth uses art in its propaganda for political and social reforms.

"Utopia," the "ideal man," the deification of Nature, the vanity of making one's own personality the centre of interest, subordination to the propaganda of _social ideas,_ charlatanism--all this we derive from the eighteenth century.

The style of the seventeenth century: _propre exact et libre._

The strong individual who is self-sufficient, or who appeals ardently to God--and that obtrusiveness and indiscretion of modern authors--these things are _opposites._ "Showing-oneself-off"--what a contrast to the Scholars of Port-Royal!

Alfieri had a sense for the _grand style._

The hate of the _burlesque_ (that which lacks dignity), _the lack of a sense of Nature_ belongs to the seventeenth century.

98.

_Against Rousseau.--Alas!_ man is no longer sufficiently evil; Rousseau's opponents, who say that "man is a beast of prey," are unfortunately wrong. Not the corruption of man, but the softening and moralising of him is the curse. In the sphere which Rousseau attacked most violently, the _relatively_ strongest and most successful type of man was still to be found (the type which still possessed the great passions intact: Will to Power, Will to Pleasure, the Will and Ability to Command). The man of the eighteenth century must be compared with the man of the Renaissance (also with the man of the seventeenth century in France) if the matter is to be understood at all: Rousseau is a symptom of self-contempt and of inflamed vanity--both signs that the dominating will is lacking: he moralises and seeks the _cause_ of his own misery after the style of a revengeful man in the _ruling_ classes.

99.

_Voltaire--Rousseau._--A state of nature is terrible; man is a beast of prey: our civilisation is an extraordinary _triumph_ over this beast of prey in nature--this was _Voltaires_ conclusion. He was conscious of the mildness, the refinements, the intellectual joys of the civilised state; he despised obtuseness, even in the form of virtue, and the lack of delicacy even in ascetics and monks.

The _moral depravity_ of man seemed to pre-occupy _Rousseau_; the words "unjust," "cruel," are the best possible for the purpose of exciting the instincts of the oppressed, who otherwise find themselves under the ban of the _vetitum_ and of disgrace; _so that their conscience is opposed to their indulging any insurrectional desires._ These emancipators seek one thing above all: to give their party the great accents and attitudes of _higher Nature_.

100.

_Rousseau_; the rule founded on sentiment; Nature as the source of justice; man perfects himself in proportion as he approaches _Nature_ (according to Voltaire, in proportion _as he leaves Nature behind_). The very same periods seem to the one to demonstrate the progress of _humanity_ and, to the other, the increase of injustice and inequality.

Voltaire, who still understood _umanità_ in the sense of the Renaissance, as also _virtù_ (as "higher culture"), fights for the cause of the "_honnêtes gens_" "_la bonne compagnie_" taste, science, arts, and even for the cause of progress and civilisation.

_The flare-up occurred towards 1760_: On the one hand the citizen of Geneva, on the other _le seigneur de Ferney._ It is only from that moment and henceforward that Voltaire was the man of his age, the philosopher, the representative of Toleration and of Disbelief (theretofore he had been merely _un bel esprit_). His envy and hatred of Rousseau's success forced him upwards.

"_Pour 'la canaille' un dieu rémunérateur et vengeur_"--Voltaire.

The criticism of both standpoints in regard to the _value of civilisation._ To Voltaire nothing seems finer than the _social invention_: there is no higher goal than to uphold and perfect it. _L'honnêteté_ consists precisely in respecting social usage; virtue in a certain obedience towards various necessary "prejudices" which favour the maintenance of society. _Missionary of Culture,_ aristocrat, representative of the triumphant and ruling classes and their values. But Rousseau remained a _plebeian,_ even as _hommes de lettres,_ this was _preposterous_; his shameless contempt for everything that was not himself.

The _morbid feature_ in Rousseau is the one which happens to have been most admired and _imitated._ (Lord Byron resembled him somewhat, he too screwed himself up to sublime attitudes and to revengeful rage--a sign of vulgarity; later on, when Venice restored his equilibrium, he understood what _alleviates most_ and does the _most good ... l'insouciance_.)

In spite of his antecedents, Rousseau is proud of himself; but he is incensed if he is reminded of his origin....

In Rousseau there was undoubtedly some brain trouble; in Voltaire--rare health and lightsomeness. _The revengefulness of the sick_; his periods of insanity as also those of his contempt of man, and of his mistrust.

Rousseau's defence of _Providence_ (against Voltaire's Pessimism): he _had need of_ God in order to be able to curse society and civilisation; everything must be good _per se,_ because God had created it; man _alone has corrupted man._ The "good man" as a man of Nature was pure fantasy; but with the dogma of God's authorship he became something probable and even not devoid of foundation.

_Romanticism_ à la _Rousseau_: passion ("the sovereign right of passion"); "naturalness"; the fascination of madness (foolishness reckoned as greatness); the senseless vanity of the weak; the revengefulness of the masses elevated to the position of _justice_ ("in politics, for one hundred years, the leader has always been this invalid").

101.

_Kant_: makes the scepticism of Englishmen, in regard to the theory of knowledge, _possible_ for Germans.

(1) By enlisting in its cause the interest of the German's religious and moral needs: just as the new academicians used scepticism for the same reasons, as a preparation for Platonism (_vide_ Augustine); just as Pascal even used _moral_ scepticism in order to provoke (to justify) the need of belief;

(2) By complicating and entangling it with scholastic flourishes in view of making it more acceptable to the German's scientific taste in form (for Locke and Hume, alone, were too illuminating, too clear--that is to say, judged according to the German valuing instinct, "too superficial").

_Kant_: a poor psychologist and mediocre judge of human nature, made hopeless mistakes in regard to great historical values (the French Revolution); a moral fanatic _à la_ Rousseau; with a subterranean current of Christian values; a thorough dogmatist, but bored to extinction by this tendency, to the extent of wishing to tyrannise over it, but quickly tired, even of 'scepticism; and not yet affected by any cosmopolitan thought or antique beauty ... a _dawdler_ and a _go-between,_ not at all original (like _Leibnitz,_ something between mechanism and spiritualism; like _Goethe,_ something between the taste of the eighteenth century and that of the "historical sense" [which _is_ essentially a sense of exoticism]; like _German music,_ between French and Italian music; like Charles the Great, who mediated and built bridges between the Roman Empire and Nationalism--a dawdler _par excellence_).

102.

In what respect have the _Christian_ centuries with their Pessimism been _stronger_ centuries than the eighteenth--and how do they correspond with the _tragic_ age of the Greeks?

The nineteenth century _versus_ the eighteenth. How was it an heir?--how was it a step backwards from the latter? (more lacking in "spirit" and in taste)--how did it show an advance on the latter? (more gloomy, more realistic, _stronger_).

103.

How can we _explain_ the fact that we feel something in common with the _Campagna romana?_ And the high mountain chain?

Chateaubriand in a letter to M. de Fontanes in 1803 writes his first impression of the _Campagna romana._

The President de Brosses says of the _Campagna romana_: "Il fallait que Romulus fût ivre quand il songea à bâtir une ville dans un terrain aussi laid."

Even Delacroix would have nothing to do with Rome, it frightened him. He loved Venice, just as Shakespeare, Byron, and Georges Sand did. Théophile Gautier's and Richard Wagner's dislike of Rome must not be forgotten.

Lamartine has the language for Sorrento and Posilippo.

Victor Hugo raves about Spain, "parce que aucune autre nation n'a moins emprunté à l'antiquité, parce qu'elle n'a subi aucune influence classique."

104.

The _two great attempts_ that were made to overcome the eighteenth century:

_Napoleon,_ in that he called man, the soldier, and the great struggle for power, to life again, and conceived Europe as a political power.

_Goethe,_ in that he imagined a European culture which would consist of the whole heritage of what humanity had _attained to_ up to his time.

German culture in this century inspires mistrust--the music of the period lacks that complete element which liberates and binds as well, to wit--Goethe.

The pre-eminence of _music_ in the romanticists of 1830 and 1840. Delacroix. Ingres--a passionate musician (admired Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart), said to his pupils in Rome: "Si je pouvais vous rendre tous musiciens, vous y gagneriez comme peintres"--likewise Horace Vernet, who was particularly fond of Don Juan (as Mendelssohn assures us, 1831); Stendhal, too, who says of himself: "Combien de lieues ne ferais-je pas à pied, et à combien de jours de prison ne me soumetterais-je pas pour entendre _Don Juan ou le Matrimonio segreto_; et je ne sais pour quelle autre chose je ferais cet effort." He was then fifty-six years old.

The borrowed forms, for instance: Brahms as a typical "Epigone," likewise Mendelssohn's cultured Protestantism (a former "soul" is turned into poetry posthumously ...)

--the moral and poetical substitutions in Wagner, who used _one_ art as a stop-gap to make up for what another lacked.

--the "historical sense," inspiration derived from poems, sagas.

--that characteristic transformation of which G. Flaubert is the most striking example among Frenchmen, and Richard Wagner the most striking example among Germans, shows how the romantic belief in love and the future changes into a longing for nonentity in 1830-50.

106.

How is it that German music reaches its culminating point in the age of German romanticism? How is it that German music lacks Goethe? On the other hand, how much Schiller, or more exactly, how much "Thekla"[5] is there not in Beethoven!

Schumann has Eichendorff, Uhland, Heine, Hoffman, Tieck, in him. Richard Wagner has Freischütz, Hoffmann, Grimm, the romantic Saga, the mystic Catholicism of instinct, symbolism, "the free-spiritedness of passion" (Rousseau's intention). The _Flying Dutchman_ savours of France, where _le ténébreux_ (1830) was the type of the seducer.

_The cult of music,_ the revolutionary romanticism of form. Wagner _synthesises_ German and French romanticism.

[Footnote 5: Thekla is the sentimental heroine in Schiller's _Wallenstein._--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.]

107.

From the point of view only of his value to Germany and to German culture, Richard Wagner is still a great problem, perhaps a German misfortune: in any case, however, a fatality. But what does it matter? Is he not very much more than a German event? It also seems to me that to no country on earth is he less related than to Germany; nothing was prepared there for his advent; his whole type is simply strange amongst Germans; there he stands in their midst, wonderful, misunderstood, incomprehensible. But people carefully avoid acknowledging this: they are too kind, too square-headed--too German for that. "Credo quia absurdus est": thus did the German spirit wish it to be, in this case too--hence it is content meanwhile to believe everything Richard Wagner wanted to have believed about himself. In all ages the spirit of Germany has been deficient in subtlety and divining powers concerning psychological matters. Now that it happens to be under the high pressure of patriotic nonsense and self-adoration, it is visibly growing thicker and coarser: how could it therefore be equal to the problem of Wagner!

108.

The Germans _are_ not yet anything, but they are _becoming_ something; that is why they have not yet any culture;--that is why they cannot yet have any culture!--They are not yet anything: that means they are all kinds of things. They are _becoming_ something: that means that they will one day cease from being all kinds of things. The latter is at bottom only a wish, scarcely a hope yet. Fortunately it is a wish with which one can live, a question of will, of work, of discipline, a question of training, as also of resentment, of longing, of privation, of discomfort,--yea, even of bitterness,--in short, we Germans _will_ get something out of ourselves, something that has not yet been wanted of us--we want something _more_!

That this "German, as he is not as yet"--has a right to something better than the present German "culture"; that all who wish to become something better, must wax angry when they perceive a sort of contentment, an impudent "setting-oneself-at-ease," or "a process of self-censing," in this quarter: that is my second principle, in regard to which my opinions have not yet changed.

_(c)_ SIGNS OF INCREASING STRENGTH.

109.

First Principle: everything that characterises modern men savours of decay: but side by side with the prevailing sickness there are signs of a strength and powerfulness of soul which are still untried. _The same causes which tend to promote the belittling of men,_ also force _the stronger and rarer individuals upwards to greatness._

110.

_General survey: the ambiguous_ character of our _modern world_--precisely the same symptoms might at the same time be indicative of either _decline_ or _strength._ And the signs of strength and of emancipation dearly bought, might in view of traditional (or _hereditary_) appreciations concerned with the feelings, be _misunderstood_ as indications of weakness. In short, _feeling,_ as a _means of fixing valuations,_ is not _on a level with the times._

_Generalised_: Every valuation is always _backward_; it is merely the expression of the conditions which favoured survival and growth in a much earlier age: it struggles against new conditions of existence out of which it did not arise, and which it therefore necessarily misunderstands: it hinders, and excites suspicion against, all that is new.

111.

_The problem of the nineteenth century._--To discover whether its strong and weak side belong to each other. Whether they have been cut from one and the same piece. Whether the variety of its ideals and their contradictions are conditioned by a higher purpose: whether they are something higher.--For it might be _the prerequisite of greatness,_ that growth should take place amid such violent tension. Dissatisfaction, Nihilism, _might be a good sign._

112.

_General survey._--As a matter of fact, all abundant growth involves a concomitant process of _crumbling to bits_ and _decay_: suffering and the symptoms of decline _belong_ to ages of enormous progress; every fruitful and powerful movement of mankind has always _brought about_ a concurrent Nihilistic movement. Under certain circumstances, the appearance of _the extremest_ form of Pessimism and actual _Nihilism_ might be the sign of a process of incisive and most essential growth, and of mankind's transit into completely new conditions of existence. _This is what I have understood._

113.

_A._

Starting out with a thoroughly courageous _appreciation_ of our men of to-day:--we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by appearance: this mankind is much less effective, but it gives quite different pledges of _lasting strength,_ its tempo is slower, but the rhythm itself is richer. _Healthiness_ is increasing, the real conditions of a healthy body are on the point of being known, and will gradually be created, "asceticism" is regarded with irony. The fear of extremes, a certain confidence in the "right way," no raving: a periodical self-habituation to narrower values (such as "mother-land," "science," etc.).

This whole picture, however, would still be _ambiguous_: it might be a movement either of _increase_ or _decline_ in Life.

_B._

The belief in "progress"--in lower spheres of intelligence, appears as increasing life: but this is self-deception;

in higher spheres of intelligence it is a sign of _declining_ life.

Description of the symptoms.

The unity of the aspect: uncertainty in regard to the standard of valuation.

Fear of a general "in vain."

Nihilism.

114.

As a matter of fact, we are no longer so urgently in need of an antidote against the first Nihilism: Life is no longer so uncertain, accidental, and senseless in modern Europe. All such tremendous _exaggeration_ of the value of men, of the value of evil, etc., are not so necessary now; we can endure a considerable diminution of this value, we may grant a great deal of nonsense and accident: the _power_ man has acquired now allows of a _lowering_ of the means of discipline, of which the strongest was the moral interpretation of the universe. The hypothesis "God" is much too extreme.

115.

If anything shows that our _humanisation_ is a genuine sign of _progress,_ it is the fact that we no longer require excessive contraries, that we no longer require contraries at all....

We may love the senses; for we have spiritualised them in every way and made them artistic;

We have a right to all things which hitherto have been most _calumniated._

116.

_The reversal of the order of rank._--Those pious counterfeiters--the priests--are becoming Chandala in our midst:--they occupy the position of the charlatan, of the quack, of the counterfeiter, of the sorcerer: we regard them as corrupters of the will, as the great slanderers and vindictive enemies of Life, and as the _rebels_ among the bungled and the botched. We have made our middle class out of our servant-caste--the Sudra--that is to say, our people or the body which wields the political power.

On the other hand, the Chandala of former times is paramount: the _blasphemers,_ the _immoralists,_ the independents of all kinds, the artists, the Jews, the minstrels--and, at bottom, all _disreputable_ classes are in the van.

We have elevated ourselves to _honourable_ thoughts,--even more, we determine what honour is on earth,--"nobility." ... All of us to-day are _advocates of life._--We _Immoralists_ are to-day the _strongest_ power: the other great powers are in need of us ... we re-create the world in our own image.

We have transferred the label "Chandala" to the _priests,_ the _backworldsmen,_ and to the deformed _Christian society_ which has become associated with these people, together with creatures of like origin, the pessimists, Nihilists, romanticists of pity, criminals, and men of vicious habits--the whole sphere in which the idea of "God" is that of _Saviour...._

We are proud of being no longer obliged to be liars, slanderers, and detractors of Life....

117.

_The advance_ of the nineteenth century upon the eighteenth (at bottom we _good Europeans_ are carrying on a war against the eighteenth century):

(1) "The return to Nature" is getting to be understood, ever more definitely, in a way which is quite the reverse of that in which Rousseau used the phrase--_away from idylls and operas!_

(2) Ever more decided, more anti-idealistic, more objective, more fearless, more industrious, more temperate, more suspicious of sudden changes, _anti-revolutionary_;

(3) The question of _bodily health_ is being pressed ever more decidedly in front of the health of "the soul": the latter is regarded as a condition brought about by the former, and bodily health is believed to be, at least, the prerequisite to spiritual health.

118.

If anything at all has been achieved, it is a more innocent attitude towards the senses, a happier, more favourable demeanour in regard to sensuality, resembling rather the position taken up by Goethe; a prouder feeling has also been developed in knowledge, and the "reine Thor"[6] meets with little faith.

[Footnote 6: This is a reference to Wagner's _Parsifal._ The character as is well known, is written to represent a son of heart's affliction, and a child of wisdom--humble, guileless, loving, pure, and a fool.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.]

119.

We "_objective people._"--It is not "pity" that opens up the way for _us_ to all that is most remote and most strange in life and culture; but our accessibility and ingenuousness, which precisely does not "pity," but rather takes pleasure in hundreds of things which formerly caused pain (which in former days either outraged or moved us, or in the presence of which we were either hostile or indifferent). Pain in all its various phases is now interesting to us: on that account we are certainly _not_ the more pitiful, even though the sight of pain may shake us to our foundations and move us to tears: and we are absolutely not inclined to be more helpful in view thereof.

In this _deliberate_ desire to look on at all pain and error, we have grown stronger and more powerful than in the eighteenth century; it is a proof of our increase of strength (we have _drawn closer_ to the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries). But it is a profound mistake to regard our "romanticism" as a proof of our "beautified souls." We want _stronger_ sensations than all _coarser_ ages and classes have wanted. (This fact must not be confounded with the needs of neurotics and decadents; in their case, of course, there is a craving for pepper --even for cruelty.)

We are all seeking conditions _which are emancipated from_ the bourgeois, and to a greater degree from the priestly, notion of morality (every book which savours at all of priestdom and theology gives us the impression of pitiful _niaiserie_ and mental indigence). "Good company," in fact, finds everything insipid which is not forbidden and considered compromising in bourgeois circles; and the case is the same with books, music, politics, and opinions on women.

120.

_The simplification of man in the nineteenth century_ (The eighteenth century was that of elegance, subtlety, and generous feeling).--Not "return to nature"; for no natural humanity has ever existed yet. Scholastic, unnatural, and antinatural values are the rule and the beginning; man only reaches Nature after a long struggle--he never turns his "back" to her.... To be natural means, to dare to be as immoral as Nature is.

We are coarser, more direct, richer in irony towards generous feelings, even when we are beneath them.

Our _haute volée,_ the society consisting of our rich and leisured men, is more natural: people hunt each other, the love of the sexes is a kind of sport in which marriage is both a charm and an obstacle; people entertain each other and live for the sake of pleasure; bodily advantages stand in the first rank, and curiosity and daring are the rule.

Our attitude towards _knowledge_ is more natural; we are innocent in our absolute spiritual debauchery, we hate pathetic and hieratic manners, we delight in that which is most strictly prohibited, we should scarcely recognise any interest in knowledge if we were bored in acquiring it.

Our attitude to _morality_ is also more natural. Principles have become a laughing-stock; no one dares to speak of his "duty," unless in irony. But a helpful, benevolent disposition is highly valued. (Morality is located in _instinct_ and the rest is despised. Besides this there are few points of honour.)

Our attitude to _politics_ is more natural: we see problems of power, of the quantum of power, against another quantum. We do not believe in a right that does not proceed from a power which is able to uphold it. We regard all rights as conquests.

Our valuation of _great men and things_ is more natural: we regard passion as a privilege; we can conceive of nothing great which does not involve a great crime; all greatness is associated in our minds with a certain standing-beyond-the-pale in morality.

Our attitude to _Nature_ is more natural: we no longer love her for her "innocence," her "reason," her "beauty," we have made her beautifully devilish and "foolish." But instead of despising her on that account, since then we have felt more closely related to her and more familiar in her presence. She does _not_ aspire to virtue: we therefore respect her.

Our attitude towards _Art_ is more natural: we do not exact beautiful, empty lies, etc., from her; brutal positivism reigns supreme, and it ascertains things with perfect calm.

In short: there are signs showing that the European of the nineteenth century is less ashamed of his instincts; he has gone a long way towards acknowledging his unconditional naturalness and immorality, _without bitterness_: on the contrary, he is strong enough to endure this point of view alone.

To some ears this will sound as though _corruption_ had made strides: and certain it is that man has not drawn nearer to the "Nature" which Rousseau speaks about, but has gone one step farther in the civilisation before which Rousseau _stood in horror._ We have grown _stronger,_ we have drawn nearer to the seventeenth century, more

## particularly to the taste which reigned towards its close (Dancourt, Le

Sage, Renard).

121.

_Culture_ versus _Civilisation._--The culminating stages of culture and civilisation lie apart: one must not be led astray as regards the fundamental antagonism existing between culture and civilisation. From the moral standpoint, great periods in the history of culture have always been periods of corruption; while on the other hand, those periods in which man was deliberately and compulsorily _tamed_ ("civilisation") have always been periods of intolerance towards the most intellectual and most audacious natures. Civilisation desires something different from what culture strives after: their aims may perhaps be opposed....

122.

_What I warn people against_: confounding the instincts of decadence with those of _humanity_;

Confounding the _dissolving means_ of civilisation _and those which necessarily promote decadence,_ with _culture_;

Confounding _debauchery,_ and the principle, "laisser aller," with the _Will to Power_ (the latter is the exact reverse of the former).

123.

The unsolved problems which I set anew: the _problem of civilisation,_ the struggle between Rousseau and Voltaire about the year 1760. Man becomes deeper, more mistrustful, more "immoral," stronger, more self-confident--and therefore "_more natural_"; that is "progress." In this way, by a process of division of labour, the more evil strata and the milder and tamer strata of society get separated: so that _the general facts_ are not visible at first sight.... It is a sign of _strength,_ and of the self-control and fascination of the strong, that these stronger strata possess the arts in order to make their greater powers for evil felt as something "_higher_" As soon as there is "progress" there is a transvaluation of the strengthened factors into the "good."

124.

Man must have the _courage_ of his natural instincts restored to him.--

_The poor opinion_ he has of himself must be destroyed (_not_ in the sense of the individual, but in the sense of the _natural_ man ...)--

The _contradictions_ in things must be eradicated, after it has been well understood that we were responsible for them--

_Social idiosyncrasies_ must be stamped out of existence (guilt, punishment, justice, honesty, freedom, love, etc. etc.)--

An advance towards "_naturalness_": in all political questions, even in the relations between parties, even in merchants', workmen's, or contractors' parties, only _questions_ of _power_ come into play:-- "what one _can_ do" is the first question, what one ought to do is only a secondary consideration.

125.

Socialism--or the _tyranny_ of the meanest and the most brainless,--that is to say, the superficial, the envious, and the mummers, brought to its zenith,--is, as a matter, of fact, the logical conclusion of "modern ideas" and their latent anarchy: but in the genial atmosphere of democratic well-being the capacity for forming resolutions or even for coming _to an end_ at all, is paralysed. Men follow--but no longer their reason. That is why socialism is on the whole a hopelessly bitter affair: and there is nothing more amusing than to observe the discord between the poisonous and desperate faces of present-day socialists--and what wretched and nonsensical feelings does not their style reveal to us!--and the childish lamblike happiness of their hopes and desires. Nevertheless, in many places in Europe, there may be violent hand-to-hand struggles and irruptions on their account: the coming century is likely to be convulsed in more than one spot, and the Paris Commune, which finds defenders and advocates even in Germany, will seem to have been but a slight indigestion compared with what is to come. Be this as it may, there will always be too many people of property for socialism ever to signify anything more than an attack of illness: and these people of property are like one man with one faith, "one must possess something in order _to be_ some one." This, however, is the oldest and most wholesome of all instincts; I should add: "one must desire more than one has in order to _become_ more." For this is the teaching which life itself preaches to all living things: the morality of Development. To have and to wish to have more, in a word, _Growth_--that is life itself. In the teaching of socialism "a will to the denial of life" is but poorly concealed: botched men and races they must be who have devised a teaching of this sort. In fact, I even wish a few experiments might be made to show that in a socialistic society, life denies itself, and itself cuts away its own roots. The earth is big enough and man is still unexhausted enough for a practical lesson of this sort and _demonstratio ad absurdum_--even if it were accomplished only by a vast expenditure of lives--to seem worth while to me. Still, Socialism, like a restless mole beneath the foundations of a society wallowing in stupidity, will be able to achieve something useful and salutary: it delays "Peace on Earth" and the whole process of character-softening of the democratic herding animal; it forces the European to have an extra supply of intellect,--that is to say, craft and caution, and prevents his entirely abandoning the manly and warlike qualities,--it also saves Europe awhile from the _marasmus femininus_ which is threatening it.

126.

The most favourable obstacles and remedies of modernity:

(1) Compulsory _military service_ with real wars in which all joking is laid aside.

(2) _National_ thick-headedness (which simplifies and concentrates).

(3) Improved _nutrition_ (meat).

(4) Increasing _cleanliness_ and wholesomeness in the home.

(5) The predominance of _physiology_ over theology, morality, economics, and politics.

(6) Military discipline in the exaction and the practice of one's "duty" (it is no longer customary to praise).

127.

I am delighted at the military development of Europe, also at the inner anarchical conditions: the period of quietude and "Chinadom" which Galiani prophesied for this century is now over. Personal and _manly_ capacity, bodily capacity recovers its value, valuations are becoming more physical, nutrition consists ever more and more of flesh. Fine men have once more become possible. Bloodless sneaks (with mandarins at their head, as Comte imagined them) are now a matter of the past. The savage in every one of us is _acknowledged,_ even the wild animal. _Precisely on that account,_ philosophers will have a better chance. --Kant is a scarecrow!

128.

I have not yet _seen_ any reasons to feel discouraged. He who acquires and preserves a _strong will,_ together with a broad mind, has a more favourable chance now than ever he had. For the _plasticity_ of man has become exceedingly great in democratic Europe: men who learn easily, who readily adapt themselves, are the rule: the gregarious animal of a high order of intelligence is prepared. He who would command finds those who _must_ obey: I have Napoleon and Bismarck in mind, for instance. The struggle against strong and unintelligent wills, which forms the surest obstacle in one's way, is really insignificant Who would not be able to knock down these "objective" gentlemen with weak wills, such as Ranke and Renan!

129.

_Spiritual enlightenment_ is an unfailing means of making men uncertain, weak of will, and needful of succour and support; in short, of developing the herding instincts in them. That is why all great artist-rulers, hitherto (Confucius in China, the Roman Empire, Napoleon, Popedom--at a time when they had the courage of their worldliness and frankly pursued power) in whom the ruling instincts, that had prevailed until their time, culminated, also made use of the spiritual enlightenment--or at least allowed it to be supreme (after the style of the Popes of the Renaissance). The self-deception of the masses on this point, in every democracy for instance, is of the greatest possible value: all that makes men smaller and more amenable is pursued under the title "progress."

130.

The highest equity and mildness as a condition of _weakness_ (the New Testament and the early Christian community--manifesting itself in the form of utter foolishness in the Englishmen, Darwin and Wallace). Your equity, ye higher men, drives you to universal suffrage, etc.; your "humanity" urges you to be milder towards crime and stupidity. In the _end_ you will thus help stupidity and harmlessness to conquer.

_Outwardly_: Ages of terrible wars, insurrections, explosions. _Inwardly_: ever more and more weakness among men; _events_ take the _form of excitants._ The Parisian as the type of the European extreme.

_Consequences_: (1) Savages (at first, of course, in conformity with the culture that has reigned hitherto); (2) _Sovereign individuals_ (where _powerful_ barbarous _masses_ and emancipation from all that has been, are crossed). The age of greatest stupidity, brutality, and wretchedness in the masses, and _in the highest individuals._

131.

An incalculable number of higher individuals now perish: but he who _escapes their fate_ is as strong as the devil. In this respect we are reminded of the conditions which prevailed in the Renaissance.

132.

How are _Good Europeans_ such as ourselves distinguished from the patriots? In the first place, we are atheists and immoralists, but we take care to support the religions and the morality which we associate with the gregarious instinct: for by means of them, an order of men is, so to speak, being prepared, which must at some time or other fall into our hands, which must actually _crave_ for our hands.

Beyond Good and Evil,--certainly; but we insist upon the unconditional and strict preservation of herd-morality.

We reserve ourselves the right to several kinds of philosophy which it is necessary to learn: under certain circumstances, the pessimistic kind as a hammer; a European Buddhism might perhaps be indispensable.

We should probably support the development and the maturation of democratic tendencies; for it conduces to weakness of will: in "Socialism" we recognise a thorn which prevents smug ease.

Attitude towards the people.. Our prejudices; we pay attention to the results of cross-breeding.

Detached, well-to-do, strong: irony concerning the "press" and its culture. Our care: that scientific men should not become journalists. We mistrust any form of culture that tolerates news-paper reading or writing.

We make our accidental positions (as Goethe and Stendhal did), our experiences, a foreground, and we lay stress upon them, so that we may deceive concerning our backgrounds. We ourselves _wait_ and avoid putting our heart into them. They serve us as refuges, such as a wanderer might require and use--but we avoid feeling at home in them. We are ahead of our fellows in that we have had a _disciplina voluntatis._ All strength is directed to the _development of the will,_ an art which allows us to wear masks, an art of understanding _beyond_ the passions (also "super-European" thought at times).

This is our preparation before becoming the law-givers of the future and the lords of the earth; if not we, at least our children. Caution where marriage is concerned.

133.

_The twentieth century._--The Abbé Galiani says somewhere: "_La prévoyance est la cause des guerres actuelles de l'Europe. Si l'on voulait se donner la peine de ne rien prévoir, tout le monde serait tranquille, et je ne crois pas qu'on serait plus malheureux parce qu'on ne ferait pas la guerre._" As I in no way share the unwarlike views of my deceased friend Galiani, I have no fear whatever of saying something beforehand with the view of conjuring in some way the cause of wars.

A condition of excessive _consciousness,_ after the worst of earthquakes: with new questions.

134.

It is the time of the _great noon, of the most appalling enlightenment_: my particular kind of _Pessimism_: the great starting-point.

(1) Fundamental contradiction between civilisation and the elevation of man.

(2) Moral valuations regarded as a history of lies and the art of calumny in the service of the Will to Power (of the will of the _herd,_ which rises against stronger men).

(3) The conditions which determine every elevation in culture (the facilitation of a _selection_ being made at the cost of a crowd) are the _conditions_ of all growth.

(4). _The multiformity_ of the world as a question of _strength,_ which sees all things in the _perspective of their growth._ The moral Christian values to be regarded as the insurrection and mendacity of slaves (in comparison with the aristocratic values of the _ancient world). _

SECOND BOOK.

CRITICISM OF THE HIGHEST VALUES THAT HAVE PREVAILED HITHERTO.