The Joyful Wisdom 10

The Joyful Wisdom 10

now transferred itself into innumerable private passions, and has

merely become less visible; indeed in periods of "corruption" the

quantity and quality of the expended energy of a people is probably

greater than ever, and the individual spends it lavishly, to such an

extent as could not be done formerly—he was not then rich enough to do

so! And thus it is precisely in times of "effeminacy" that tragedy

runs at large in and out of doors, it is then that ardent love and

ardent hatred are born, and the flame of knowledge flashes heavenward

in full blaze.—Thirdly, as if in amends for the reproach of

superstition and effeminacy, it is customary to say of such periods of

corruption that they are milder, and that cruelty has then greatly

diminished in comparison with the older, more credulous, and stronger

period. But to this praise I am just as little able to assent as to

that reproach: I only grant so much—namely, that cruelty now becomes

more refined, and its older forms are henceforth counter to the taste;

but the wounding and torturing by word and look reaches its highest

development in times of corruption,—it is now only that _wickedness_

is created, and the delight in wickedness. The men of the period of

corruption are witty and calumnious; they know that there are yet

other ways of murdering than by the dagger and the ambush—they know

also that all that is _well said_ is believed in.—Fourthly, it is when

"morals decay" that those beings whom one calls tyrants first make

their appearance; they are the forerunners of the _individual_, and as

it were early matured _firstlings_. Yet a little while, and this fruit

of fruits hangs ripe and yellow on the tree of a people,—and only for

the sake of such fruit did this tree exist! When the decay has reached

its worst, and likewise the conflict of all sorts of tyrants, there

always arises the Cæsar, the final tyrant, who puts an end to the

exhausted struggle for sovereignty, by making the exhaustedness work

for him. In his time the individual is usually most mature, and

consequently the "culture" is highest and most fruitful, but not on

his account nor through him: although the men of highest culture love

to flatter their Cæsar by pretending that they are _his_ creation. The

truth, however, is that they need quietness externally, because

internally they have disquietude and labour. In these times bribery

and treason are at their height: for the love of the _ego_, then first

discovered, is much more powerful than the love of the old, used-up,

hackneyed "fatherland"; and the need to be secure in one way or other

against the frightful fluctuations of fortune, opens even the nobler

hands, as soon as a richer and more powerful person shows himself

ready to put gold into them. There is then so little certainty with

regard to the future; people live only for the day: a condition of

mind which enables every deceiver to play an easy game,—people of

course only let themselves be misled and bribed "for the present," and

reserve for themselves futurity and virtue. The individuals, as is

well known, the men who only live for themselves, provide for the

moment more than do their opposites, the gregarious men, because they

consider themselves just as incalculable as the future; and similarly

they attach themselves willingly to despots, because they believe

themselves capable of activities and expedients, which can neither

reckon on being understood by the multitude, nor on finding favour

with them,—but the tyrant or the Cæsar understands the rights of the

Individual even in his excesses, and has an interest in speaking on

behalf of a bolder private morality, and even in giving his hand to

it. For he thinks of himself, and wishes people to think of him what

Napoleon once uttered in his classical style—"I have the right to

answer by an eternal 'thus I am' to everything about which complaint

is brought against me. I am apart from all the world, I accept

conditions from nobody. I wish people also to submit to my fancies,

and to take it quite as a simple matter, if I should indulge in this

or that diversion." Thus spoke Napoleon once to his wife, when she had

reasons for calling in question the fidelity of her husband.—The times

of corruption are the seasons when the apples fall from the tree: I

mean the individuals, the seed-bearers of the future, the pioneers of

the spiritual colonisation and of a new construction of national and

social unions. Corruption is only an abusive term for the _harvest

time_ of a people.

 

 

24.

 

_Different Dissatisfactions._—The feeble and as it were feminine

dissatisfied people have ingenuity for beautifying and deepening life;

the strong dissatisfied people—the masculine persons among them, to

continue the metaphor—have the ingenuity for improving and safeguarding

life. The former show their weakness and feminine character by willingly

letting themselves be temporarily deceived, and perhaps even by putting

up with a little ecstasy and enthusiasm on a time, but on the whole they

are never to be satisfied, and suffer from the incurability of their

dissatisfaction; moreover they are the patrons of all those who manage

to concoct opiate and narcotic comforts, and just on that account averse

to those who value the physician higher than the priest,—they thereby

encourage the _continuance_ of actual distress! If there had not been a

surplus of dissatisfied persons of this kind in Europe since the time of

the Middle Ages, the remarkable capacity of Europeans for constant

_transformation_ would perhaps not have originated at all; for the

claims of the strong dissatisfied persons are too gross, and really too

modest to resist being finally quieted down. China is an instance of a

country in which dissatisfaction on a grand scale and the capacity for

transformation have died out for many centuries; and the Socialists and

state-idolaters of Europe could easily bring things to Chinese

conditions and to a Chinese "happiness," with their measures for the

amelioration and security of life, provided that they could first of all

root out the sicklier, tenderer, more feminine dissatisfaction and

Romanticism which are still very abundant among us. Europe is an invalid

who owes her best thanks to her incurability and the eternal

transformations of her sufferings; these constant new situations, these

equally constant new dangers, pains, and make-shifts, have at last

generated an intellectual sensitiveness which is almost equal to genius,

and is in any case the mother of all genius.

 

 

25.

 

_Not Pre-ordained to Knowledge._—There is a purblind humility not at all

rare, and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once for all

unqualified for being a disciple of knowledge. It is this in fact: the

moment a man of this kind perceives anything striking, he turns as it

were on his heel, and says to himself: "You have deceived yourself!

Where have your wits been! This cannot be the truth!"—and then, instead

of looking at it and listening to it with more attention, he runs out of

the way of the striking object as if intimidated, and seeks to get it

out of his head as quickly as possible. For his fundamental rule runs

thus: "I want to see nothing that contradicts the usual opinion

concerning things! Am _I_ created for the purpose of discovering new

truths? There are already too many of the old ones."

 

 

26.

 

_What is Living?_—Living—that is to continually eliminate from ourselves

what is about to die; Living—that is to be cruel and inexorable towards

all that becomes weak and old in ourselves, and not only in ourselves.

Living—that means, therefore, to be without piety toward the dying, the

wretched and the old? To be continually a murderer?—And yet old Moses

said: "Thou shalt not kill!"

 

 

27.

 

_The Self-Renouncer._—What does the self-renouncer do? He strives after

a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher than all

men of affirmation—he _throws away many things_ that would burden his

flight, and several things among them that are not valueless, that are

not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his desire for elevation.

Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the very thing which becomes

visible in him: on that account one calls him the self-renouncer, and as

such he stands before us, enveloped in his cowl, and as the soul of a

hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which he makes upon us he is well

content: he wants to keep concealed from us his desire, his pride, his

intention of flying _above_ us.—Yes! He is wiser than we thought, and so

courteous towards us—this affirmer! For that is what he is, like us,

even in his self-renunciation.

 

 

28.

 

_Injuring with one's best Qualities._—Our strong points sometimes drive

us so far forward that we cannot any longer endure our weaknesses, and

we perish by them: we also perhaps see this result beforehand, but

nevertheless do not want it to be otherwise. We then become hard towards

that which would fain be spared in us, and our pitilessness is also our

greatness. Such an experience, which must in the end cost us our life,

is a symbol of the collective effect of great men upon others and upon

their epoch:—it is just with their best abilities, with that which only

_they_ can do, that they destroy much that is weak, uncertain, evolving,

and _willing_, and are thereby injurious. Indeed, the case may happen in

which, taken on the whole, they only do injury, because their best is

accepted and drunk up as it were solely by those who lose their

understanding and their egoism by it, as by too strong a beverage; they

become so intoxicated that they go breaking their limbs on all the wrong