III.

CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.

1. GENERAL REMARKS.

406.

Let us rid ourselves of a few superstitions which heretofore have been fashionable among philosophers!

407.

Philosophers are prejudiced _against_ appearance, change, pain, death, the things of the body, the senses, fate, bondage, and all that which has no purpose.

In the first place, they believe in: absolute knowledge, (2) in knowledge for its own sake,

(3) in virtue and happiness as necessarily related,

(4) in the recognisability of men's acts. They are led by instinctive determinations of values, in which _former_ cultures are reflected (more dangerous cultures too).

408.

What have philosophers _lacked_! (1) A sense of history, (2) a knowledge of physiology, (3) a goal in the future.--The ability to criticise without irony or moral condemnation.

409.

Philosophers have had (1) from times immemorial a wonderful capacity for the _contradictio in adjecto,_ (2) they have always trusted concepts as unconditionally as they have mistrusted the senses: it never seems to have occurred to them that notions and words are our inheritance of past ages in which thinking was neither very clear nor very exact.

What seems to dawn upon philosophers last of all: that they must no longer allow themselves to be presented with concepts already conceived, nor must they merely purify and polish up those concepts; but they must first _make_ them, _create_ them, themselves, and then present them and get people to accept them. Up to the present, people have trusted their concepts generally, as if they had been a wonderful _dowry_ from some kind of wonderland: but they constitute the inheritance of our most remote, most foolish, and most intelligent forefathers. This _piety_ towards that _which already exists in us_ is perhaps related to the _moral element in science._ What we needed above all is absolute scepticism towards all traditional concepts (like that which a certain philosopher may already have possessed--and he was Plato, of course: for he taught _the reverse_).

410.

Profoundly mistrustful towards the dogmas of the theory of knowledge, I liked to look now out of this window, now out of that, though I took good care not to become finally fixed anywhere, indeed I should have thought it dangerous to have done so--though finally: is it within the range of probabilities for an instrument to criticise its own fitness? What I noticed more particularly was, that no scientific scepticism or dogmatism has ever arisen quite free from all _arrières pensées_--that it has only a secondary value as soon as the motive lying immediately behind it is discovered.

Fundamental aspect: Kant's, Hegel's, Schopenhauer's, the sceptical and epochistical, the historifying and the pessimistic attitudes--all have a _moral_ origin. I have found no one who has dared to _criticise the moral valuations,_ and I soon turned my back upon the meagre attempts that have been made to describe the evolution of these feelings (by English and German Darwinians).

How can Spinoza's position, his denial and repudiation of the moral values, be explained? (It was the result of his Theodicy!)

411.

_Morality regarded as the highest form of protection._--Our world is _either_ the work and expression (the _modus_) of God, in which case it must be _in the highest degree perfect_ (Leibnitz's conclusion ...),--and no one doubted that he knew what perfection must be like,--and then all evil can only be _apparent_ (Spinoza is _more radical,_ he says this of good and evil), or it must be a part of God's high purpose (a consequence of a particularly great mark of favour on God's part, who thus allows man to choose between good and evil: the privilege of being no automaton; "freedom," with the ever-present danger of making a mistake and of choosing wrongly.... See Simplicius, for instance, in the commentary to Epictetus).

_Or_ our world is imperfect; evil and guilt are real, determined, and are absolutely inherent to its being; in that case it cannot be the _real_ world: consequently knowledge can only be a way of denying the world, for the latter is error which may be recognised as such. This is Schopenhauer's opinion, based upon Kantian first principles. Pascal was still more desperate: he thought that even knowledge must be corrupt and false--that _revelation_ is a necessity if only in order to recognise that the world should be denied....

412.

Owing to our habit of believing in unconditional authorities, we have grown to feel a profound need for them: indeed, this feeling is so strong that, even in an age of criticism such as Kant's was, it showed itself to be superior to the need for criticism, and, in a certain sense, was able to subject the whole work of critical acumen, and to convert it to its own use. It proved its superiority once more in the generation which followed, and which, owing to its historical instincts, naturally felt itself drawn to a relative view of all authority, when it converted even the Hegelian philosophy of evolution (history rechristened and called philosophy) to its own use, and represented history as being the self-revelation and self-surpassing of moral ideas. Since Plato, philosophy has lain under the dominion of morality. Even in Plato's predecessors, moral interpretations play a most important rôle (Anaximander declares that all things are made to perish as a punishment for their departure from pure being; Heraclitus thinks that the regularity of phenomena is a proof of the morally correct character of evolution in general).

413.

The progress of philosophy has been hindered most seriously hitherto through the influence of moral _arrières-pensées._

414.

In all ages, "fine feelings" have been regarded as arguments, "heaving breasts" have been the bellows of godliness, convictions have been the "criteria" of truth, and the need of opposition has been the note of interrogation affixed to wisdom. This falseness and fraud permeates the whole history of philosophy. But for a few respected sceptics, no instinct for intellectual Uprightness is to be found anywhere. Finally, _Kant_ guilelessly sought to make this thinker's corruption scientific by means of his concept, "_practical reason_". He expressly invented a reason which, in certain cases, would allow one _not_ to bother about reason--that is to say, in cases where the heart's desire, morality, or "duty" are the motive power.

415.

_Hegel_: his popular side, the doctrine of war and of great men. Right is on the side of the victorious: he (the victorious man) stands for the progress of mankind. His is an attempt at proving the dominion of morality by means of history.

Kant: a kingdom of moral values withdrawn from us, invisible, real.

Hegel: a demonstrable process of evolution, the actualisation of the kingdom of morality.

We shall not allow ourselves to be deceived either in Kant's or Hegel's way:--We no longer _believe,_ as they did, in morality, and therefore have no philosophies to found with the view of justifying morality. Criticism and history have no charm for us _in this_ respect: what is their charm, then?

416.

The importance of German philosophy (_Hegel,_) the thinking out of a kind of _pantheism_ which would not reckon evil, error, and suffering as arguments against godliness. _This grand initiative_ was misused by the powers that were (State, etc.) to sanction the rights of the people that happened to be paramount.

_Schopenhauer_ appears as a stubborn opponent of this idea; he is a moral man who, in order to keep in the right concerning his moral valuation, finally becomes a _denier of the world._ Ultimately he becomes a "mystic."

I myself have sought an _æsthetic_ justification of the ugliness in this world. I regarded the desire for beauty and for the persistence of certain forms as a temporary preservative and recuperative measure: what seemed to me to be fundamentally associated with pain, however, was the eternal lust of creating and the _eternal compulsion to destroy._

We call things ugly when we look at them with the desire of attributing some sense, some _new_ sense, to what has become senseless: it is the accumulated power of the creator which compels him to regard what has existed hitherto as no longer acceptable, botched, worthy of being suppressed--ugly!

417.

_My first solution of the problem: Dionysian wisdom. The joy in the destruction of the most noble thing,_ and at the sight of its gradual undoing, regarded as the joy over what is _coming and what lies in the future,_ which triumphs over _actual things, however good they may be._ Dionysian: temporary identification with the principle of life (voluptuousness of the martyr included).

_My innovations._ The Development of Pessimism: intellectual pessimism; _moral_ criticism, the dissolution of the last comfort. Knowledge, a sign of _decay,_ veils by means of an illusion all strong

## action; isolated culture is unfair and therefore strong.

(1) My _fight_ against decay and the increasing weakness of personality. I sought a new _centrum._

(2) The impossibility of this endeavour is _recognised._

(3) _I therefore travelled farther along the road of dissolution--and along it I found new sources of strength for individuals._ We _must be destroyers_!--I perceived that the state of _dissolution is one in which individual beings are able to arrive at a kind of perfection not possible hitherto, it is an image and isolated example of life in general._ To the paralysing feeling of general dissolution and imperfection, I opposed the _Eternal Recurrence._

418.

People naturally seek the picture of life in _that_ philosophy which makes them most cheerful--that is to say, in that philosophy which gives the highest sense of freedom to _their strongest instinct._ This is probably the case with me.

419.

German philosophy, as a whole,--Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, to mention the greatest,--is the most out-and-out _form of romanticism_ and home-sickness that has ever yet existed: it is a yearning for the best that has ever been known on earth. One is at home nowhere; that which is ultimately yearned after is a place where one can somehow feel at home; because one has been at home there before, and that place is the _Greek_ world! But it is precisely in that direction that airbridges are broken down_--save,_ of course, the rainbow of concepts! And the latter lead everywhere, to all the homes and "fatherlands" that ever existed for Greek souls! Certainly, one must be very light and thin in order to cross these bridges! But what happiness lies even in this desire for spirituality, almost for ghostliness! With it, how far one is from the "press and bustle" and the mechanical boorishness of the natural sciences, how far from the vulgar din of "modern ideas"! One wants to get back to the Greeks _via_ the Fathers of the Church, from North to South, from formulæ to forms; the passage out of antiquity--Christianity--is still a source of joy as a means of access to antiquity, as a portion of the old world itself, as a glistening mosaic of ancient concepts and ancient valuations. Arabesques, scroll-work, rococo of scholastic abstractions--always better, that is to say, finer and more slender, than the peasant and plebeian reality of Northern Europe, and still a protest on the part of higher intellectuality against the peasant war and insurrection of the mob which have become master of the intellectual taste of Northern Europe, and which had its leader in a man as great and unintellectual as Luther:--in this respect German philosophy belongs to the Counter-Reformation, it might even be looked upon as related to the Renaissance, or at least to the will to Renaissance, the will to get ahead with the discovery of antiquity, with the excavation of ancient philosophy, and above all of pre-Socratic philosophy--the most thoroughly dilapidated of all Greek temples! Possibly, in à few hundred years, people will be of the opinion that all German philosophy derived its dignity from this fact, that step by step it attempted to reclaim the soil of antiquity, and that therefore all demands for "originality" must appear both petty and foolish when compared with Germany's higher claim to having refastened the bonds which seemed for ever rent--the bonds which bound us to the Greeks, the highest type of "men" ever evolved hitherto. To-day we are once more approaching all the fundamental principles of the cosmogony which the Greek mind in Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras, was responsible for. Day by day we are growing more _Greek_; at first, as is only natural, the change remains confined to concepts and valuations, and we hover around like Greasing spirits: but it is to be hoped that some day our _body_ will also be involved! Here lies (and has always lain) my hope for the German nation.

420.

I do not wish to convert anybody to philosophy: it is both necessary and perhaps desirable that the philosopher should be a _rare_ plant. Nothing is more repugnant to me than the scholarly praise of philosophy which is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. Philosophy has not much in common with virtue. I trust I may be allowed to say that even the scientific man is a fundamentally different person from the philosopher. What I most desire is, that the genuine notion "philosopher" should not completely perish in Germany. There are so many incomplete creatures in Germany already who would fain conceal their ineptitude beneath such noble names.

421.

I must _set up the highest ideal of a philosopher._ Learning is not everything! The scholar is the sheep in the kingdom of learning; he studies because he is told to do so, and because others have done so before him.

422.

The superstition concerning _philosophers_: They are confounded with men _of science._ As if the value of things were inherent in them and required only to be held on to tightly! To what extent are their researches carried on under the influence of values which already prevail (their hatred of appearance of the body, etc.)? Schopenhauer concerning morality (scorn of Utilitarianism). Ultimately the confusion goes so far that Darwinism is regarded as philosophy, and thus at the present day power has gone over to the men of _science._ Even Frenchmen like Taine prosecute research, or mean to prosecute research, _without_ being already in possession of a standard of valuation. Prostration before "facts" of a kind of cult. As a matter of fact, they _destroy_ the existing valuations.

The _explanation_ of this misunderstanding. The man who is able to command is a rare phenomenon; he misinterprets himself. What one _wants_ to do, above all, is to disclaim all authority and to attribute it to _circumstances._ In Germany the critic's estimations belong to the history of awakening _manhood._ Lessing, etc. (Napoleon concerning Goethe). As a matter of fact, the movement is again made retrograde owing to German romanticism: and the _fame_ of German philosophy relies upon it as if it dissipated the danger of scepticism and could _demonstrate faith._ Both tendencies culminate in Hegel: at bottom, what he did was to generalise the fact of German criticism and the fact of German romanticism,--a kind of dialectical fatalism, but to the honour of intellectuality, with the actual submission of the philosopher to reality. _The critic prepares the way_: that is all!

With Schopenhauer the philosopher's mission dawns; it is felt that the object is to determine _values_; still under the dominion of eudemonism. The ideal of Pessimism.

423.

_Theory and practice._--This is a pernicious distinction, as if there were an _instinct of knowledge,_ which, without inquiring into the utility or harmfulness of a thing, blindly charged at the truth; and then that, apart from this instinct, there were the whole world of _practical_ interests.

In contradiction of this, I try to show what instincts are active behind all these _pure_ theorists,--and how the latter, as a whole, under the dominion of their instincts, fatally make for something which _to their minds_ is "truth," to their minds and _only_ to their minds. The struggle between systems, together with the struggle between epistemological scruples, is one which involves very special instincts (forms of vitality, of decline, of classes, of races, etc.).

The so-called _thirst for knowledge_ may be traced to the _lust of appropriation_ and of _conquest_: in obedience to this lust the senses, memory, and the instincts, etc., were developed. The quickest possible reduction of the phenomena, economy, the accumulation of spoil from the world of knowledge (_i.e._ that portion of the world which has been appropriated and made manageable)....

Morality is therefore such a curious science, because it is in the highest degree _practical_: the purely scientific position, scientific uprightness, is thus immediately abandoned, as soon as morality calls for replies to its questions. Morality says: I _require_ certain answers--reasons, arguments; scruples may come afterwards, or they may not come at all.

"How must one act?" If one considers that one is dealing with a supremely evolved type--a type which has been "dealt with" for countless thousands of years, and in which everything has become instinct, expediency, automatism, fatality, the _urgency_ of this moral question seems rather funny.

"How must one act?" Morality has always been a subject of misunderstanding: as a matter of fact, a certain species, which was constituted to act in a certain way, wished to justify itself by _making_ its norm paramount.

"How must one act?" this is not a cause, but an _effect._ Morality follows, the ideal comes first....

On the other hand, the appearance of moral scruples (or in other words, _the coming to consciousness of the values_ which guide action) betray a certain _morbidness_; strong ages and people do not ponder over their rights, nor over the principles of action, over instinct or over reason. _Consciousness_ is a sign that the real morality--that is to say, the certainty of instinct which leads to a definite course of action--is going to the dogs.... Every time a new _world of consciousness_ is created, the moralists are signs of a lesion, of impoverishment and of disorganisation. Those who are _deeply instinctive_ fear bandying words over duties: among them are found pyrrhonic opponents of dialectics and of knowableness in general.... A virtue is _refuted_ with a "for." ...

_Thesis_: The appearance of moralists belongs to periods when morality is declining.

_Thesis_: The moralist is a dissipator of moral instincts, however much he may appear to be their restorer.

_Thesis_: That which really prompts the action of a moralist is not a moral instinct, but the _instincts of decadence,_ translated into the forms of morality (he regards the growing uncertainty of the instincts as _corruption_).

_Thesis_: The _instincts of decadence_ which, thanks to moralists, wish to become master of the instinctive morality of stronger races and ages, are:--

(1) The instincts of the weak and of the botched;

(2) The instincts of the exceptions, of the anchorites, of the unhinged, of the abortions of quality or of the reverse;

(3) The instincts of the habitually suffering, who require a noble interpretation of their condition, and who therefore require to be as poor physiologists as possible.

424.

The humbug of the _scientific spirit._--One should not affect the spirit of science, when the time to be scientific is not yet at hand; but even the genuine investigator has to abandon vanity, and has to affect a certain kind of method which is not yet seasonable. Neither should we falsify things and thoughts, which we have arrived at differently, by means of a false arrangement of deduction and dialectics. It is thus that Kant in his "morality" falsifies his inner tendency to psychology; a more modern example of the same thing is Herbert Spencer's _Ethics._ A man should neither conceal nor misrepresent the _facts_ concerning the way in which he conceived his thoughts. The deepest and most inexhaustible books will certainly always have something of the aphoristic and impetuous character of Pascal's _Pensées_. The motive forces and valuations have lain long below the surface; that which comes uppermost is their effect.

I guard against all the humbug of a false scientific spirit:--

(1) In respect of the manner of _demonstration,_ if it does not correspond to the genesis of the thoughts;

(2) In respect of the demands for _methods_ which, at a given period in science, may be quite impossible;

(3) In respect of the demand for _objectivity_ for cold impersonal treatment, where, as in the case of all valuations, we describe ourselves and our intimate experiences in a couple of words. There are ludicrous forms of vanity, as, for instance, Sainte-Beuve's. He actually worried himself all his life because he had shown some warmth or passion either "_pro_" or "con," and he would fein have lied that fact out of his life.

425.

"Objectivity" in the philosopher: moral indifference in regard to one's self, blindness in regard to either favourable or fetal circumstances. Unscrupulousness in the use of dangerous means; perversity and complexity of character considered as an advantage and exploited.

My profound indifference to myself: I refuse to derive any advantage from my knowledge, nor do I wish to escape any disadvantages which it may entail.--I include among these disadvantages that which is called the _perversion_ of character; this prospect is beside the point: I use my character, but I try neither to understand it nor to change it--the personal calculation of virtue has not entered my head once. It strikes me that one closes the doors of knowledge as soon as one becomes interested in one's own personal case--or even in the "Salvation of one's soul"!... One should not take one's morality too seriously, nor should one forfeit a modest right to the opposite of morality....

A sort of _heritage of morality_ is perhaps presupposed here: one feels that one can be lavish with it and fling a great deal of it out of the window without materially reducing one's means. One is never tempted to admire "beautiful souls," one always knows one's self to be their superior. The monsters of virtue should be met with inner scorn; _déniaiser la vertu_--Oh, the joy of it!

One should revolve round one's self, have no desire to be "better" or "anything else" at all than one is. One should be too interested to omit throwing the tentacles or meshes of every morality out to things.

426.

Concerning the psychology of _philosophers._ They should be psychologists--this was possible only from the nineteenth century onwards--and no longer little Jack Homers, who see three or four feet in front of them, and are almost satisfied to burrow inside themselves. We psychologists of the future are not very intent on self-contemplation: we regard it almost as a sign of degeneration when an instrument endeavours "to know itself":[10] we are instruments of knowledge and we would fain possess all the precision and ingenuousness of an instrument--consequently we may not analyse or "know" ourselves. The first sign of a great psychologist's self-preservative instinct: he never goes in search of himself, he has no eye, no interest, no inquisitiveness where he himself is concerned.... The great egoism of our dominating will insists on our completely shutting our eyes to ourselves, and on our appearing "impersonal," "disinterested"!--Oh to what a ridiculous degree we are the reverse of this!

We are no Pascals, we are not particularly interested in the "Salvation of the soul," in our own happiness, and in our own virtue.--We have neither enough time nor enough curiosity to be so concerned with ourselves. Regarded more deeply, the case is again different, we thoroughly mistrust all men who thus contemplate their own navels: because introspection seems to us a degenerate form of the psychologist's genius, as a note of interrogation affixed to the psychologist's instinct: just as a painter's eye is degenerate which is actuated by the _will_ to see for the sake of seeing.

[Footnote 10: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--Goethe invariably inveighed against the "gnoti seauton" of the Socratic school; he was of the opinion that an animal which tries to see its inner self must be sick.]

2. A CRITICISM OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

427.

The apparition of Greek philosophers since the time of Socrates is a symptom of decadence; the anti-Hellenic instincts become paramount.

The "_Sophist_" is still quite Hellenic--as are also Anaxagoras, Democritus, and the great Ionians; but only as transitional forms. The _polis_ loses its faith in the unity of its culture, in its rights of dominion over every other _polis...._ Cultures, that is to say, "the gods," are exchanged, and thus the belief in the exclusive prerogative of the _deus autochthonus_ is lost. Good and Evil of whatever origin get mixed: the boundaries separating good from evil gradually _vanish...._ This is the "Sophist." ...

On the other hand, the "philosopher" is the _reactionary_: he insists upon the _old_ virtues. He sees the reason of decay in the decay of institutions: he therefore wishes to revive _old_ institutions;--he sees decay in the decline of authority: he therefore endeavours to find _new_ authorities (he travels abroad, explores foreign literature and exotic religions....);--he will reinstate the _ideal polis,_ after the concept "polis" has become superannuated (just, as the Jews kept themselves together as a "people" after they had fallen into slavery). They become interested in all tyrants: their desire is to re-establish virtue with "_force majeure_".

Gradually everything _genuinely Hellenic_ is held responsible for the state of _decay_ (and Plato is just as ungrateful to Pericles, Homer, tragedy, and rhetoric as the prophets are to David and Saul). _The downfall of Greece is conceived as an objection to the fundamental principles of Hellenic culture: the profound error of philosophers_--Conclusion: the Greek world perishes. The cause thereof: Homer, mythology, ancient morality, etc.

The anti-Hellenic development of philosophers' valuations:--the Egyptian influence ("Life after death" made into law....);--the Semitic influence (the "dignity of the sage," the "Sheik");--the Pythagorean influence, the subterranean cults, Silence, means of terrorisation consisting of appeals to a "Beyond," _mathematics_: the religious valuation consisting of a sort of intimacy with a cosmic entity;--the sacerdotal, ascetic, and transcendental influences;--the _dialectical_ influence,--I am of opinion that even Plato already betrays revolting and pedantic meticulousness in his concepts!--Decline of good intellectual taste: the hateful noisiness of every kind of direct dialectics seems no longer to be felt.

The _two_ decadent tendencies and extremes run side by side: (a) the luxuriant and more charming kind of decadence which shows a love of pomp and art, and (b) the gloomy kind, with its religious and moral pathos, its stoical self-hardening tendency, its Platonic denial of the senses, and its preparation of the soil for the coming of Christianity.

428.

To what extent psychologists have been corrupted by the moral idiosyncrasy!--Not one of the ancient philosophers had the courage to advance the theory of the non-free will (that is to say, the theory that denies morality);--not one had the courage to identify the typical feature of happiness, of every kind of happiness "pleasure"), with the will to power: for the pleasure of power was considered immoral;--not one had the courage to regard virtue as a _result of immorality_ (as a result of a will to power) in the service of a species (or of a race, or of a _polis_); for the will to power was considered immoral.

In the whole of moral evolution, there is no sign of truth: all the conceptual elements which come into play are fictions; all the psychological tenets are false; all the forms of logic employed in this department of prevarication are sophisms. The chief feature of all moral philosophers is their total lack of intellectual cleanliness and self-control: they regard "fine feelings" as arguments: their heaving breasts seem to them the bellows of godliness.... Moral philosophy is the most suspicious period in the history of the human intellect.

The first great example: in the name of morality and under its patronage, a great wrong was committed, which as a matter of fact was in every respect an act of decadence. Sufficient stress cannot be laid upon this fact, that the great Greek philosophers not only represented the decadence of _every kind of Greek ability_, but also made it _contagious_.... This "virtue" made wholly abstract was the highest form of seduction; to make oneself abstract means to turn one's back on the world.

The moment is a very remarkable one: the Sophists are within sight of the first _criticism of morality,_ the first _knowledge_ of morality:--they classify the majority of moral valuations (in view of their dependence upon local conditions) together;--they lead one to understand that every form of morality is capable of being upheld dialectically: that is to say, they guessed that all the fundamental principles of a morality must be _sophistical_--a proposition which was afterwards proved in the grandest possible style by the ancient philosophers from Plato onwards (up to Kant);--they postulate the primary truth that there is no such thing as a "moral _per se_," a "good _per se_," and that it is madness to talk of "truth" in this respect.

Wherever was _intellectual uprightness_ to be found in those days?

The Greek culture of the Sophists had grown out of all the Greek instincts; it belongs to the culture of the age of Pericles as necessarily as Plato does not: it has its predecessors in Heraclitus, Democritus, and in the scientific types of the old philosophy; it finds expression in the elevated culture of Thucydides, for instance. And--it has ultimately shown itself to be right: every step in the science of epistemology and morality has _confirmed the attitude_ of the Sophists.... Our modern attitude of mind is, to a great extent, Heraclitean, Democritean, and Protagorean ... to say that it is _Protagorean_ is even sufficient: because Protagoras was in himself a synthesis of the two men Heraclitus and Democritus.

(_Plato_: a _great Cagliostro,_--let us think of how Epicurus judged him; how Timon, Pyrrho's friend, judged him----Is Plato's integrity by any chance beyond question?... But we at least know what he wished to have _taught_ as absolute truth--namely, things which were to him not even relative truths: the separate and immortal life of "souls.")

429.

The _Sophists_ are nothing more, nor less than realists: they elevate all the values and practices which are common property to the rank of values--they have the courage, peculiar to all strong intellects, which consists in _knowing_ their immorality....

Is it to be supposed that these small Greek independent republics, so filled with rage and envy that they would fain have devoured each other, were led by principles of humanity and honesty? Is Thucydides by any chance reproached with the words he puts into the mouths of the Athenian ambassadors when they were treating with the Melii anent the question of destruction or submission? Only the most perfect Tartuffes could have been able to speak of virtue in the midst of that dreadful strain--or if not Tartuffes, at least _detached philosophers,_ anchorites, exiles, and fleers from reality.... All of them, people who denied things in order to be able to exist.

The Sophists were Greeks: when Socrates and Plato adopted the cause of virtue and justice, they were _Jews_ or I know not what. _Grote's_ tactics in the defence of the Sophists are false: he would like to raise them to the rank of men of honour and moralisers--but it was their honour not to indulge in any humbug with grand words and virtues.

430.

The great reasonableness underlying all moral education lay in the fact that it always attempted to attain to _the certainty of an instinct_: so that neither good intentions nor good means, as such, first required to enter consciousness. Just as the soldier learns his exercises, so should man learn how to act in life. In truth this unconsciousness belongs to every kind of perfection: even the mathematician carries out his calculations unconsciously....

What, then, does Socrates' _reaction_ mean, which recommended dialectics as the way to virtue, and which was charmed when morality was unable to justify itself logically? But this is precisely what proves its _superiority_--without unconsciousness _it is worth nothing_!

In reality it means _the dissolution of Greek instincts,_ when _demonstrability_ is posited as the first condition of personal excellence in virtue. All these great "men of virtue" and of words are themselves types of dissolution.

In practice, it means that moral judgments have been torn from the conditions among which they grew and in which alone they had some sense, from their Greek and Græco-political soil, in order to be _denaturalised_ under the cover of being _made sublime._ The great concepts "good" and "just" are divorced from the first principles of which they form a part, and, as "ideas" _become free,_ degenerate into subjects for discussion. A certain truth is sought behind them; they are regarded as entities or as symbols of entities: a world is _invented_ where they are "at home," and from which they are supposed to hail.

_In short_: the scandal reaches its apotheosis in Plato.... And then it was necessary to invent the _perfectly abstract_ man also:--good, just, wise, and a dialectician to boot--in short, the _scarecrow_ of the ancient philosopher: a plant without any soil whatsoever; a human race devoid of all definite ruling instincts; a virtue which "justifies" itself with reasons. The perfectly absurd "individual" _per se_! the highest form of _Artificiality...._

Briefly, the denaturalisation of moral values resulted in the creation of a degenerate _type of man_--"the good man," "the happy man," "the wise man."--Socrates represents a moment of the most _profound perversity_ in the history of values.

431.

_Socrates._--This veering round of Greek taste in favour of dialectics is a great question. What really happened then? Socrates, the _roturier_ who was responsible for it, was thus able to triumph over a more noble taste, the taste of _the noble_:--the mob gets the upper hand along with dialectics. Previous to Socrates dialectic manners were repudiated in good society; they were regarded as indecent; the youths were Warned against them. What was the purpose of this display of reasons? Why demonstrate? Against others one could use authority. One commanded, and that sufficed. Among friends, _inter pares,_ there was tradition--_also_ a form of authority: and last but not least, one understood each other. There was no room found for dialectics. Besides, all such modes of presenting reasons were distrusted. All honest things do not carry their reasons in their hands in such fashion. It is indecent to show all the five fingers at the same time. That which can be "demonstrated" is little worth. The instinct of every party-speaker tells him that dialectics excites mistrust and carries little conviction. Nothing is more easily wiped away than the effect of a dialectician. It can only be a _last defence._ One must be in an extremity; it is necessary to have to _extort_ one's rights; otherwise one makes no use of dialectics. That is why the Jews were dialecticians, Reynard the Fox was a dialectician, and so was Socrates. As a dialectician a person has a merciless instrument in his hand: he can play the tyrant with it; he compromises when he conquers. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to demonstrate that he is not an idiot; he is made furious and helpless, while the dialectician himself remains calm and still possessed of his triumphant reasoning powers--he _paralyses_ his opponent's intellect.--The dialectician's irony is a form of mob-revenge: the ferocity of the oppressed lies in the cold knife-cuts of the syllogism....

In Plato, as in all men of excessive sensuality and wild fancies, the charm of concepts was so great, that he involuntarily honoured and deified the concept as a form of ideal. _Dialectical intoxication_: as the consciousness of being able to exercise control over one's self by means of it--as an instrument of the Will to Power.

432.

_The problem of Socrates._--The two antitheses: the _tragic_ and the _Socratic_ spirits--measured according to the law of Life.

To what extent is the Socratic spirit a decadent phenomenon? to what extent are robust health and power still revealed by the whole attitude of the scientific man, his dialectics, his ability, and his severity? (the health of the _plebeian_; whose malice, _esprit frondeur,_ whose astuteness, whose rascally depths, are held in check by his _cleverness_; the whole type is "ugly").

_Uglification_: self-derision, dialectical dryness, intelligence in the form of a _tyrant_ against the "tyrant" (instinct). Everything in Socrates is exaggeration, eccentricity, caricature; he is a buffoon with the blood of Voltaire in his veins.

He discovers a new form of _agon_; he is the first fencing-master in the superior classed of Athens; he stands for nothing else than the _highest form of cleverness_: he calls it "virtue" (he regarded it as a means of _salvation_; he did not choose to be _clever,_ cleverness was _de rigueur_); the proper thing is to control one's self in suchwise that one enters into a struggle _not_ with passions but with reasons as one's weapons (Spinoza's stratagem--the unravelment of the errors of passion);--it is desirable to discover how every one may be caught once he is goaded into a passion, and to know how illogically passion proceeds; self-mockery is practised in order to injure the very roots of the _feelings of resentment._

It is my wish to understand which idiosyncratic states form a part of the Socratic problem: its association of reason, virtue, and happiness. With this absurd doctrine of the identity of these things it succeeded _in charming_ the world: ancient philosophy could not rid itself of this doctrine....

Absolute lack of objective interest: hatred of science: the idiosyncrasy of considering one's self a problem. Acoustic hallucinations in Socrates: morbid element. When the intellect is rich and independent, it most strongly resists preoccupying itself with morality. How is it that Socrates is a _moral-maniac_?--Every "practical" philosophy immediately steps into the foreground in times of distress. When morality and religion become the chief interests of a community, they are signs of a state of distress.

433.

Intelligence, clearness, hardness, and logic as weapons against the_ wildness of the instincts_. The latter must be dangerous and must threaten ruin, otherwise no purpose can be served by developing _intelligence_ to this degree of tyranny. In order to make a _tyrant_ of intelligence the instincts must first have proved themselves tyrants. This is the problem. It was a very timely one in those days. Reason became virtue--virtue equalled happiness.

_Solution_: Greek philosophers stand upon the same fundamental fact of their inner experiences as Socrates does; five feet from excess, from anarchy and from dissolution--all decadent men. They regard him as a doctor: Logic as will to power, as will to control self, as will to "happiness." The wildness and anarchy of Socrates' instincts is a _sign of decadence_, as is also the superfœtation of logic and clear reasoning in him. Both are abnormities, each belongs to the other. Criticism. Decadence reveals itself in this concern about "happiness" (_i.e._ about the "salvation of the soul"; _i.e. to feel that one's condition is a danger_). Its fanatical interest in "happiness" shows the pathological condition of the subconscious self: it was a vital interest. The _alternative_ which faced them all was: to be reasonable or to perish. The morality of Greek philosophers shows that they felt they were in danger.

434.

_Why everything resolved itself into mummery.--_Rudimentary psychology, which only considered the _conscious_ lapses of men (as causes), which regarded "consciousness" as an attribute of the soul, and which sought a will behind every action (_i.e._ an intention), could only answer "_Happiness_" to the question: "_What does man desire?_" (it was impossible to answer "Power," because that would have been _immoral)_;--consequently behind all men's actions there is the intention of attaining to happiness by means of them. Secondly: if man as a matter of fact does not attain to happiness, why is it? Because he mistakes the means thereto.--_What is the unfailing means of acquiring happiness?_ Answer: _virtue._--Why virtue? Because virtue is supreme rationalness, and rationalness makes mistakes in the choice of means impossible: virtue in the form of _reason_ is the way to happiness. Dialectics is the constant occupation of virtue, because it does away with passion and intellectual cloudiness.

As a matter of fact, man does _not_ desire "happiness." Pleasure is a sensation of power: if the passions are excluded, those states of the mind are also excluded which afford the greatest sensation of power and therefore of pleasure. The highest rationalism is a state of cool clearness, which is very far from being able to bring about that feeling of power which every kind of _exaltation_ involves....

The ancient philosophers combat everything that intoxicates and exalts--everything that impairs the perfect coolness and impartiality of the mind.... They were consistent with their first false principle: that consciousness was the _highest,_ the _supreme_ state of mind, the prerequisite of perfection--whereas the reverse is true....

Any kind of action is imperfect in proportion as it has been willed or conscious. The philosophers of antiquity _were the greatest duffers_ in practice, "because they condemned themselves" theoretically to _dufferdom,_.... In practice everything resolved itself into theatricalness: and he who saw through it, as Pyrrho did, for instance, thought as everybody did--that is to say, that in goodness and uprightness "paltry people" were far superior to philosophers.

All the deeper natures of antiquity were disgusted at the _philosophers of virtue_; all people saw in them was brawlers and actors. (This was the judgment passed on _Plato_ by _Epicurus_ and _Pyrrho_.)

_Result_: In practical life, in patience, goodness, and mutual assistance, paltry people were above them:--this is something like the judgment Dostoiewsky or Tolstoy claims for his muzhiks: they are more philosophical in practice, they are more courageous in their way of dealing with the exigencies of life....

435.

_A criticism of the philosopher._--Philosophers and moralists merely deceive themselves when they imagine that they escape from decadence by _opposing_ it. That lies beyond their wills: and however little they may be aware of the fact, it is generally discovered, subsequently that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

Let us examine the philosophers of Greece--Plato, for instance. He it was who separated the instincts from the polis, from the love of contest, from military efficiency, from art, beauty, the mysteries, and the belief in tradition and in ancestors.... He was the seducer of the nobles: he himself seduces through the _roturier_ Socrates.... He denied all the first principles of the "noble Greek" of sterling worth; he made dialectics an everyday practice, conspired with the tyrants, dabbled in politics for the future, and was the example of a man whose _instincts_ were the example of a man whose _instincts_ were most perfectly separated from _tradition._ He is profound and passionate in everything that is _anti-Hellenic_....

One after the other, these great philosophers represent the _typical_ forms of decadence: the moral and religious idiosyncrasy, anarchy, nihilism, (ἀδιαφορία), cynicism, hardening principles, hedonism, and reaction.

The question of "happiness," of "virtue," and of the "salvation of the soul," is the expression of _physiological contradictoriness_ in these declining natures: their instincts lack all _balance_ and _purpose._

436.

To what extent do dialectics and the faith in reason rest upon _moral_ prejudices? With Plato we are as the temporary inhabitants of an intelligible world of goodness, still in possession of a bequest from former times: divine dialectics taking its root in goodness leads to everything good (it follows, therefore, that it must lead "backwards"). Even Descartes had a notion of the fact that, according to a thoroughly Christian and moral attitude of mind, which includes a belief in a _good_ God as the Creator of all things, the truthfulness of God _guarantees_ the judgments of our senses for us. But for this religious sanction and warrant of our senses and our reason, whence should we obtain our right to trust in existence? That thinking must be a measure of reality,--that what cannot be the subject of thought, cannot _exist,_--is a coarse _non plus ultra_ of a moral blind confidence (in the essential principle of truth at the root of all things); this in itself is a mad assumption which our experience contradicts every minute. We cannot think of anything precisely as it is....

437.

The real _philosophers of Greece_ are those which came before Socrates (with Socrates something changes). They are all distinguished men, they take their stand away from the people and from usage; they have travelled; they are earnest to the point of sombreness, their eyes are calm, and they are not unacquainted with the business of state and diplomacy. They anticipated all the great concepts which coming sages were to have concerning things in general: they themselves represented these concepts, they made systems out of themselves. Nothing run give a higher idea of Greek intellect than this sudden fruitfulness in types, than this involuntary completeness in the drawing up of all the great possibilities of the philosophical ideal. I can see only one original figure in those that came afterwards: a late arrival but necessarily the last--_Pyrrho_ the nihilist. His instincts were opposed to the influences which had become ascendant in the mean-time the Socratic school, Plato, and the artistic optimism of Heraclitus. (Pyrrho goes back to Democritus _via_ Protagoras....)

***

Wise weariness: Pyrrho. To live humbly among the humble. Devoid of pride. To live in the vulgar way; to honour and believe what every one believes. To be on one's guard against science and intellect, and against everything that _puffs one out._ ... To be simply patient in the extreme, careless and mild;--_ὰπάθεια_ or, better still, πραῢτης. A Buddhist for Greece, bred amid the tumult of the Schools; born alter his time; weary; an example of the protest of weariness against the eagerness of dialecticians; the incredulity of the tired man in regard to the importance of everything. He had seen _Alexander_; he had seen the _Indian penitents._ To such late-arrivals and creatures of great subtlety, everything lowly, poor, and idiotic, is seductive. It narcoticises: it gives them relaxation (Pascal). On the other hand, they mix with the crowd, and get confounded with the rest. These weary creatures need warmth.... To overcome contradiction; to do away with contests; to have no will to excel in any way; to deny the _Greek_ instincts (Pyrrho lived with his sister, who was a midwife.) To rig out wisdom in such a way that it no longer distinguishes; to give it the ragged mantle of poverty; to perform the lowest offices, and to go to market and sell sucking-pigs.... Sweetness, clearness, indifference; no need of virtues that require attitudes; to be equal to all even in virtue: final conquest of one's self, final indifference.

Pyrrho and Epicurus;--two forms of Greek decadence; they are related in their hatred of dialectics and all _theatrical_ virtues. These two things together were then called philosophy; Pyrrho and Epicurus intentionally held that which they loved in low esteem; they chose common and even contemptible names for it, and they represented a state in which one is neither ill, healthy, lively, nor dead.... Epicurus was more _naïf,_ more idyllic, more grateful; Pyrrho had more experience of the world, had travelled more, and was more nihilistic. His life was a protest against the great _doctrine of Identity_ (Happiness = Virtue = Knowledge). The proper way of living is not promoted by science: wisdom does not make "wise." ... The proper way of living does not desire happiness, it turns away from happiness....

438.

The war against the "old faith," as Epicurus waged it, was, strictly speaking, a struggle against _pre-existing_ Christianity--the struggle against a world then already gloomy, moralised, acidified throughout with feelings of guilt, and grown old and sick.

Not the "moral corruption" of antiquity, but precisely its _moral infectedness_ was the prerequisite which enabled Christianity to become its master. Moral fanaticism (in short: Plato) destroyed paganism by transvaluing its values and poisoning its innocence. We ought at last to understand that what was then destroyed was _higher_ than what prevailed! Christianity grew on the soil of psychological corruption, and could only take root in rotten ground.

439.

Science: as a disciplinary measure or as an instinct--I see a decline of the instincts in Greek philosophers: otherwise they could not have been guilty of the profound error of regarding the conscious state as the more valuable state. The intensity of consciousness stands in the inverse ratio to the ease and speed of cerebral transmission. Greek philosophy upheld the opposite view, which is always the sign of weakened instincts.

We must, in sooth, seek _perfect life_ there where it is least conscious (that is to say, there where it is least aware of its logic, its reasons, its means, its intentions, and its _utility)._ The return to the facts of _common sense,_ the facts of the common man and of "paltry people." _Honesty and intelligence_ stored up for generations of people who are quite unconscious of their principles, and who even have some fear of principles. It is not reasonable to desire a _reasoning virtue._ ... A philosopher is compromised by such a desire.

440.

When morality--that is to say, refinement, prudence, bravery, and equity--have been stored up in the same way, thanks to the moral efforts of a whole succession of generations, the collective power of this hoard of virtue projects its rays even into that sphere where honesty is most seldom present--the sphere of _intellect._ When a thing becomes conscious, it is the sign of a state of ill-ease in the organism; something new has got to be found, the organism is not satisfied or adapted, it is subject to distress, suspense, and it is hypersensitive--precisely all this is consciousness....

Gennius lies in the instincts; goodness does too. One only acts perfectly when one acts instinctively. Even from the moral point of view all thinking which is conscious is merely a process of groping, and in the majority of cases an attack on morality. Scientific honesty is always sacrificed when a thinker begins to reason: let any one try the experiment: put the wisest man in the balance, and then let him discourse upon morality....

It could also be proved that the whole of a man's _conscious_ thinking shows a much lower standard of morality than the thoughts of the same man would show if they were led by his _instincts._

441.

The struggle against Socrates, Plato, and all the Socratic schools, proceeds from the profound instinct that man _is_ not made _better_ when he is shown that virtue may be demonstrated or based upon reason.... This in the end is the niggardly fact, it was the agonal instinct in all these born dialecticians, which drove them to glorify their _personal abilities_ as the _highest of all qualities,_ and to represent every other form of goodness as conditioned by them. The _anti-scientific_ spirit of all this "philosophy": it _will never admit that it is not right._

442.

This is extraordinary. From its very earliest beginnings, Greek philosophy carries on a struggle against science with the weapons of a theory of knowledge, especially of scepticism; and why is this? It is always in favour of _morality...._ (Physicists and medical men are hated.) Socrates, Aristippus, the Megarian school, the Cynics, Epicurus and Pyrrho--a general onslaught upon knowledge in favour of _morality...._ (Hatred of dialectics also.) There is still a problem to be solved: they approach sophistry in order to be rid of science. On the other hand, the physicists are subjected to such an extent that, among their first principles, they include the theory of truth and of real being: for instance, the atom, the four elements (_juxtaposition_ of being, in order to explain its multiformity and its transformations). Contempt of _objectivity_ in interests is taught: return to practical interest, and to the personal utility of all knowledge....

The struggle against science is directed at: (1) its pathos (objectivity); (2) its means (that is to say, at its utility); (3) its results (which are considered childish). It is the same struggle which is taken up later on by the _Church_ in the name of piety: the Church inherited the whole arsenal of antiquity for her war with science. The theory of knowledge played the same part in the affair as it did in Kant's or the Indians' case. There is no desire whatever to be troubled with it, a free hand is wanted for the "purpose" that is envisaged.

Against what powers are they actually defending themselves? Against dutifulness, against obedience to law, against the compulsion of going hand in hand--I believe this is what is called _Freedom...._

This is how decadence manifests itself: the instinct of solidarity is so degenerate that solidarity itself gets to be regarded as _tyranny_: no authority or solidarity is brooked, nobody any longer desires to fall in with the rank and file, and to adopt its ignobly slow pace. The slow movement which is the tempo of science is generally hated, as are also the scientific man's indifference in regard to getting on, his long breath, and his impersonal attitude.

443.

At bottom, morality is _hostile_ to science: Socrates was so already too--and the reason is, that science considers certain things important which have no relation whatsoever to "good" and "evil," and which therefore reduce the gravity of our feelings concerning "good" and "evil." What morality requires is that the whole of a man should serve it with all his power: it considers it waste on the part of a creature that _can ill afford waste,_ when a man earnestly troubles his head about stars or plants. That is why science very quickly declined in Greece, once Socrates had inoculated scientific work with the disease of morality. The mental attitudes reached by a Democritus, a Hippocrates, and a Thucydides, have not been reached a second time.--

444.

The problem of the _philosopher_ and of the _scientific_ man.--The influence of age; depressing habits (sedentary study _à la_ Kant; over-work; inadequate nourishment of the brain; reading). A more essential question still: is it not already perhaps a _symptom_ of decadence when thinking tends to establish _generalities_?

_Objectivity regarded as the disintegration of the will_ (to be able to remain as detached as possible ...). This presupposes a tremendous adiaphora in regard to the strong passions: a kind of isolation, an exceptional position, opposition to the normal passions.

Type: desertion of _home-country_ emigrants go ever greater distances afield; growing exoticism; the voice of the old imperative dies away;--and the continual question "whither?" ("happiness") is a sign of _emancipation_ from forms of organisation, a sign of breaking loose from everything.

Problem: is the man of _science_ more of a decadent symptom than the philosopher?--as a _whole_ scientific man is not, cut loose from everything, only a part of his being is consecrated exclusively to the service of knowledge and disciplined to maintain a special attitude and point of view; in his department he is in need of _all_ the virtues of a strong race, of robust health, of great severity, manliness and intelligence. He is rather a symptom of the great multiformity of culture than of the effeteness of the latter. The decadent scholar is a _bad_ scholar. Whereas the decadent philosopher has always been reckoned hitherto as the typical philosopher.

445.

Among philosophers, nothing is more rare than _intellectual uprightness_: they perhaps say the very reverse, and even believe it. But the prerequisite of all their work is, that they can only admit of certain truths; they know what they _have_ to prove; and the fact that they must be agreed as to these "truths" is almost what makes them recognise one another as philosophers. There are, for instance, the truths of morality. But belief in morality is not a proof of morality: there are cases--and the philosopher's case is one in point--when a belief of this sort is simply a piece of _immorality_.

446.

_What is the retrograde factor in a philosopher?_--He teaches that the qualities which he happens to possess are the only qualities that exist, that they are indispensable to those who wish to attain to the "highest good" (for instance, dialectics with Plato). He would have all men raise themselves, _gradatim,_ to _his_ type as the highest. He despises what is generally esteemed--by him a gulf is cleft between the highest _priestly_ values and the values of the _world._ He knows what is true, who God is, what every one's goal should be, and the way thereto.... The typical philosopher is thus an absolute dogmatist;--if he _requires_ scepticism at all it is only in order to be able to speak dogmatically of his _principal purpose_.

447.

When the philosopher is confronted with his rival--science, for instance, he becomes a sceptic; then he appropriates a _form of knowledge_ which he denies to the man of science; he goes hand in hand with the priest so that he may not be suspected of atheism or materialism; he considers an attack made upon himself as an attack upon morals, religion, virtue, and order--he knows how to bring his opponents into ill repute by calling them "seducers" and "underminers": then he marches shoulder to shoulder with power.

The philosopher at war with other philosophers:--he does his best to compel them to appear like anarchists, disbelievers, opponents of authority. In short, when he fights, he fights exactly like a priest and like the priesthood.

3. THE TRUTHS AND ERRORS OF PHILOSOPHERS.

448.

Philosophy defined by Kant: "_The science of the limitations of reason_"!!

449.

According to Aristotle, Philosophy is the art of discovering truth. On the other hand, the Epicurians, who availed themselves of Aristotle's _sensual_ theory of knowledge, retorted in ironical opposition to the search for truth: "Philosophy is the art of _Life._"

450.

_The three great naïvetés:--_

Knowledge as a means of happiness (as if ...);

Knowledge as a means to virtue (as if ...);

Knowledge as a means to the "denial of Life"--inasmuch as it leads to disappointment--(as if ...).

451.

As if there were a "truth" which one could by some means approach!

452.

Error and ignorance are fatal.--The assumption that _truth has been found_ and that ignorance and error are at an end, constitutes one of the most seductive thoughts in the world. Granted that it be generally accepted, it paralyses the will to test, to investigate, to be cautious, and to gather experience: it may even be regarded as criminal--that is to say, as a _doubt_ concerning truth....

"Truth" is therefore more fatal than error and ignorance, because it paralyses the forces which lead to enlightenment and knowledge. The passion for _idleness_ now stands up for "truth" ("Thought is pain and misery!"), as also do order, rule, the joy of possession, the pride of wisdom--in fact, _vanity._--it is easier to _obey_ than to _examine_; it is more gratifying to think "I possess the truth," than to see only darkness in all directions; ... but, above all, it is reassuring, it lends confidence, and alleviates life--it "improves" the character inasmuch as it _reduces mistrust._" Spiritual peace," "a quiet conscience"--these things are inventions which are only possible provided "_Truth be found._"--"By their fruits ye shall know them." ... "Truth" is the truth because it makes men _better...._ The process goes on: all goodness and all success is placed to the credit of "truth."

This is the _proof by success_: the happiness, contentment, and the welfare of a community or of an individual, are now understood to be the _result of the belief in morality_.... Conversely: _failure_ is ascribed to a _lack_ of faith.

453.

The causes of error lie just as much in the _good_ as in the _bad will_ of man:--in an incalculable number of cases he conceals reality from himself, he falsifies it, so that he may not suffer from his good or bad will. God, for instance, is considered the shaper of man's destiny; he interprets his little lot as though everything were intentionally sent to him for the salvation of his soul,--this act of ignorance in "philology," which to a more subtle intellect would seem unclean and false, is done, in the majority of cases, with perfect _good faith._ Goodwill, "noble feelings," and "lofty states of the soul" are just as underhand and deceptive in the means they use as are the passions love, hatred, and revenge, which morality has repudiated and declared to be egotistic.

Errors are what mankind has had to pay for most dearly: and taking them all in all, the errors which have resulted from goodwill are those which have wrought the most harm. The illusion which makes people happy is more harmful than the illusion which is immediately followed by evil results: the latter increases keenness and mistrust, and purifies, the understanding; the former merely narcoticises....

Fine feelings and noble impulses ought, speaking physiologically, to be classified with the narcotics: their abuse is followed by precisely the same results as the abuse of any other opiate--_weak nerves_.

454.

Error is the most expensive luxury that man can indulge in: and if the error happen to be a physiological one, it is fatal to life. What has mankind paid for most dearly hitherto? For its "truths ": for every one of these were errors _in physiologicis>_....

455.

Psychological _confusions_: the _desire for belief_ is confounded with the "will to truth" (for instance, in Carlyle). But the _desire for disbelief_ has also been confounded with the "will to truth" (a need of ridding one's self of a belief for a hundred reasons: in order to carry one's point against certain "believers"). _What is it that inspires Sceptics?_ The hatred of dogmatists--or a need of repose, weariness as in Pyrrho's case.

The _advantages_ which were expected to come from truth, were the advantages resulting from a belief in _it_: for, in itself, truth could have been thoroughly painful, harmful, and even fatal. Likewise truth was combated only on account of the advantages which a victory over it would provide--for instance, emancipation from the yoke of the ruling powers.

The method of truth was _not_ based upon motives of truthfulness, but upon _motives of power, upon the desire to be superior._

_How is_ truth _proved_? By means of the feeling of increased power,--by means of utility,--by means of indispensability,--_in short, by means of its advantages_ (that is to say, hypotheses concerning what truth should be like in order that it may be embraced by us). But this involves _prejudice_: it is a sign that _truth_ does not enter the question at all....

What is the meaning of the "will to truth," for instance in the Goncourts? and in the _naturalists_?--A criticism of "objectivity."

Why should we know: why should we not prefer to be deceived?... But what was needed was always belief--and _not_ truth.... Belief is created by means which are quite _opposed_ to the method of investigation: _it even depends upon the exclusion of the latter._

456.

A certain degree of faith suffices to-day to give us an _objection_ to what is believed--it does more, it makes us question the spiritual healthiness of the believer.

457.

_Martyrs._--To combat anything that is based upon reverence, opponents must be possessed of both daring and recklessness, and be hindered by no scruples.... Now, if one considers that for thousands of years man has sanctified as truths only those things which were in reality errors, and that he has branded any criticism of them with the hall-mark of badness, one will have to acknowledge, however reluctantly, that a goodly amount of _immoral deeds_ were necessary in order to give the initiative to an attack--I mean to _reason...._ That these immoralists have always posed as the "martyrs of truth" should be forgiven them: the truth of the matter is that they did not stand up and deny owing to an instinct for truth; but because of a love of dissolution, criminal scepticism, and the love of adventure. In other cases it is personal rancour which drives them into the province of problems--they only combat certain points of view in order to be able to carry their point against certain people. But, above all, it is revenge which has become scientifically useful--the revenge of the oppressed, those who, thanks to the truth that happens to be ruling, have been pressed aside and even smothered....

Truth, that is to say the scientific method, was grasped and favoured by such as recognised that it was a useful weapon of war--an instrument of _destruction_....

In order to be honoured as opponents, they were moreover obliged to use an apparatus similar to that used by those whom they were attacking: they therefore brandished the concept "truth" as absolutely as their adversaries did--they became fanatics at least in their poses, because no other pose could be expected to be taken seriously. What still remained to be done was left to persecution, to passion, and the uncertainty of the persecuted--hatred waxed great, and the first impulse began to die away and to leave the field entirely to science. Ultimately all of them wanted to be right in the same absurd way as their opponents.... The word "conviction," "faith," the pride of martyrdom--these things are most unfavourable to knowledge. The adversaries of truth finally adopt the whole subjective manner of deciding about truth,--that is to say, by means of poses, sacrifices, and heroic resolutions,--and thus _prolong_ the _dominion_ of the anti-scientific method. As martyrs they compromise their very own deed.

458.

_The dangerous distinction between "theoretical" and "practical"_ in Kant for instance, but also in the ancient philosophers:--they behave as if pure intellectuality presented them with the problems of science and metaphysics;--they behave as if practice should be judged by a measure of its own, whatever the judgment of theory may be.

Against the first tendency I set up my _psychology of philosophers_: their strangest calculations and "intellectuality" are still but the last pallid impress of a physiological fact; spontaneity is absolutely lacking in them, everything is instinct, everything is intended to follow a certain direction from the first....

Against the second tendency I put my question: whether we know another method of acting correctly, besides that of thinking correctly; the last case _is_ action, the first presupposes thought Are we possessed of a means whereby we can judge of the value of a method of life differently from the value of a theory: through induction or comparison?... Guileless people imagine that in this respect we are better equipped, we know what is "good"--and the philosophers are content to repeat this view. We conclude that some sort of _faith_ is at work in this matter, and nothing more....

"Men must act; _consequently_ rules of conduct are necessary"--this is what even the ancient Sceptics thought. The _urgent need_ of a definite decision in this department of knowledge is used as an argument in favour of regarding something as _true_!...

"Men must not act"--said their more consistent brothers, the Buddhists, and then thought out a mode of conduct which would deliver man from the yoke of action....

To adapt one's self, to live as the "_common man_" lives, and to regard as right and proper what _he_ regards as right: this is _submission_ to the _gregarious instinct._ One must carry one's courage and severity so far as to learn to consider such submission a _disgrace._ One should not live according to two standards!... One should not separate theory and practice!...

459.

Of all that which was formerly held to be true, not one word is to be credited. Everything which was formerly disdained as unholy, forbidden, contemptible, and fatal--all these flowers now bloom on the most charming paths of truth.

The whole of this old morality concerns us no longer: it contains not one idea which is still worthy of respect. We have outlived it--we are no longer sufficiently coarse and guileless to be forced to allow ourselves to be lied to in this way.... In more polite language: we are too virtuous for it.... And if truth in the old sense were "true" only because the old morality said "yea" to it, and _had a right_ to say "yea" to it: it follows that no truth of the past can any longer be of use to us.... Our _criterion_ of truth is /certainly not morality: we _refute_ an assertion when we show that it is dependent upon morality and is inspired by noble feelings.

460.

All these values are empirical and conditioned. But he who believes in them and who honours them, _refuses_ to acknowledge this aspect of them. All philosophers believe in these values, and one form their reverence takes is the endeavour to make _a priori truths_ out of them. The falsifying nature of _reverence_....

Reverence is the supreme test of intellectual _honesty,_ but in the whole history of philosophy there is no such thing as intellectual honesty,--but the "love of goodness ..."

On the one hand, there is an absolute _lack of method_ in testing the value of these values; _secondly,_ there is a general disinclination either to test them or to regard them as conditioned at all.--All _anti-scientific_ instincts assembled round moral values in order to _keep science out_ of this department....

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS IN THE CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.

461.

_Why philosophers are slanderers._--The artful and blind hostility of philosophers towards the _senses_--what an amount of _mob_ and _middle-class_ qualities lie in all this hatred!

The crowd always believes that an abuse of which it feels the harmful results, constitutes an _objection_ to the thing which happens to be abused: all insurrectionary movements against principles, whether in politics or agriculture, always follow a line of argument suggested by this ulterior motive: the abuse must be shown to be necessary to, and, inherent in, the principle.

It is a _woeful_ history: mankind looks for a principle, from the standpoint of which he will be able to contemn man--he invents a world in order to be able to slander and throw mud at this world: as a matter of fact, he snatches every time at nothing, and construes this nothing as "God," as "Truth," and, in any case, as judge and detractor of _this_ existence....

If one should require a proof of how deeply and thoroughly the actually _barbarous_ needs of man, even in his present state of tameness and "civilisation," still seek gratification, one should contemplate the "leitmotifs" of the whole of the evolution of philosophy:--a sort of revenge upon reality, a surreptitious process of destroying the values by means of which men live, a _dissatisfied_ soul to which the conditions of discipline is one of torture, and which takes a

## particular pleasure in morbidly severing all the bonds that bind it to

such a condition.

The history of philosophy is the story of a _secret and mad hatred_ of the prerequisities of Life, of the feelings which make for the real values of Life, and of all partisanship in favour of Life. Philosophers have never hesitated to affirm a fanciful world, provided it contradicted this world, and furnished them with a weapon wherewith they could calumniate this world. Up to the present, philosophy has been the _grand school of slander_: and its power has been so great, that even to-day our science, which pretends to be the advocate of Life, has _accepted_ the fundamental position of slander, and treats this world as "appearance," and this chain of causes as though it were only phenomenal. What is the hatred which is active here?

I fear that it is still the _Circe of philosophers--_Morality, which plays them the trick of compelling them to be ever slanderers.... They believed in moral "truths," in these they thought they had found the highest values; what alternative had they left, save that of denying existence ever more emphatically the more they got to know about it?... For this life is _immoral...._ And it is based upon immoral first principles: and morality says _nay_ to Life.

Let us suppress the real world: and in order to do this, we must first suppress the highest values current hitherto--morals.... It is enough to show that morality itself _is immoral,_ in the same sense as that in which immorality has been condemned heretofore. If an end be thus made to the tyranny of the former values, if we have suppressed the "real world," a _new order of values_ must follow of its own accord.

The world of appearance and the world _of lies_: this constitutes the contradiction. The latter hitherto has been the "real world," "truth," "God." This is the one which we still have to suppress.

The _logic of my conception_:

(1) _Morality as the highest value_ (it is master of _all_ the phases of philosophy, even of the Sceptics). _Result_: this world is no good, it is not the "real world."

(2) _What_ is it that determines the highest value here? What, in sooth, is morality?--It is the instinct of _decadence_; it is the means whereby the exhausted and the degenerate _revenge themselves._ _Historical_ proof: philosophers have always been decadents ... in the service of _nihilistic_ religions.

(3) It is the instinct of decadence coming to the fore as _will to power._ Proof: the absolute _immorality_ of the means employed by morality throughout its history.

General aspect: the values which have been highest hitherto constitute a specific case of the will to power; morality itself is a specific case of immorality.

462.

_The principal innovations_: Instead of "moral values," nothing but _naturalistic values._ Naturalisation of morality.

In the place of "sociology," a _doctrine of the forms of dominion._

In the place of "society," the _complex whole of culture,_ which is _my_ chief interest (whether in its entirety or in parts).

In the place of the "theory of knowledge," a _doctrine which laid down the value of the passions_ (to this a hierarchy of the passions would belong: the passions _transfigured_; their _superior rank,_ their "_spirituality_").

In the place of "metaphysics" and religion, the doctrine of _Eternal Recurrence_ (this being regarded as a means to the breeding and selection of men).

463.

My precursors: Schopenhauer. To what extent I deepened pessimism, and first brought its full meaning within my grasp, by means of its most extreme opposite.

Likewise: the higher Europeans, the pioneers of _great politics._

Likewise: the Greeks and their genesis.

464.

I have named those who were unconsciously my workers and precursors. But in what direction may I turn with any hope of finding my particular kind of philosophers themselves, or at least _my yearning for new philosophers_? In that direction, alone, where a _noble_ attitude of mind prevails, an attitude of mind which believes in slavery and in manifold orders of rank, as the prerequisites of any high degree of culture. In that direction, alone, where a _creative_ attitude of mind prevails, an attitude of mind which does not regard the world of happiness and repose, the "Sabbath of Sabbaths" as an end to be desired, and which, even in peace, honours the means which lead to new wars; an attitude of mind which would prescribe laws for the future, which for the sake of the future would treat everything that exists to-day with harshness and even tyranny; a daring and "immoral" attitude of mind, which would wish to see both the good and the evil qualities in man developed to their fullest extent, because it would feel itself able to put each in its right place--that is to say, in that place in which each would need the other. But what prospect has he of finding what he seeks, who goes in search of philosophers to-day? Is it not probable that, even with the best Diogenes-lantern in his hand, he will wander about by night and day in vain? This age is possessed of the _opposite_ instincts. What it wants, above all, is comfort; secondly, it wants publicity and the deafening din of actors' voices, the big drum which appeals to its Bank-Holiday tastes; thirdly, that every one should lie on his belly in utter subjection before the greatest of all lies--which is "the equality of men"--and should honour only those virtues which _make men equal and place them in equal positions._ But in this way, the rise of the philosopher, as I understand him, is made completely impossible--despite the fact that many may regard the present tendencies as rather favourable to his advent. As a matter of fact, the whole world mourns, to-day, the hard times that philosophers _used_ to have, hemmed in between the fear of the stake, a guilty conscience, and the presumptuous wisdom of the Fathers of the Church: but the truth is, that precisely these conditions were _ever so much more favourable_ to the education of a mighty, extensive, subtle, rash, and daring intellect than the conditions prevailing to-day. At present another kind of intellect, the intellect of the demagogue, of the actor, and perhaps of the beaver- and ant-like scholar too, finds the best possible conditions for its development. But even for artists of a superior calibre the conditions are already far from favourable: for does not every one of them, almost, perish owing to his want of discipline? They are no longer tyrannised over by an outside power--by the tables of absolute values enforced by a Church or by a monarch: and thus they no longer learn to develop their "inner tyrant," their _will._ And what holds good of artists also holds good, to a greater and more fatal degree, of philosophers. Where, then, are free spirits to be found to-day? Let any one show me a free spirit to-day!

465.

Under "Spiritual freedom" I understand something very definite: it is a state in which one is a hundred times superior to philosophers and other disciples of "truth" in one's severity towards one's self, in one's uprightness, in one's courage, and in one's absolute will to say nay even when it is dangerous to say nay. I regard the philosophers that have appeared heretofore as _contemptible libertines_ hiding behind the petticoats of the female "Truth."

END OF VOL. I.