The Joyful Wisdom 11

The Joyful Wisdom 11

The Comedy of Celebrated Men._—Celebrated men who _need_ their fame,

as, for instance, all politicians, no longer select their associates and

friends without after-thoughts: from the one they want a portion of the

splendour and reflection of his virtues; from the other they want the

fear-inspiring power of certain dubious qualities in him, of which

everybody is aware; from another they steal his reputation for idleness

and basking in the sun, because it is advantageous for their own ends to

be regarded temporarily as heedless and lazy:—it conceals the fact that

they lie in ambush; they now use the visionaries, now the experts, now

the brooders, now the pedants in their neighbourhood, as their actual

selves for the time, but very soon they do not need them any longer! And

thus while their environment and outside die off continually, everything

seems to crowd into this environment, and wants to become a "character"

of it; they are like great cities in this respect. Their repute is

continually in process of mutation, like their character, for their

changing methods require this change, and they show and _exhibit_

sometimes this and sometimes that actual or fictitious quality on the

stage; their friends and associates, as we have said, belong to these

stage properties. On the other hand, that which they aim at must remain

so much the more steadfast, and burnished and resplendent in the

distance,—and this also sometimes needs its comedy and its stage-play.

 

 

31.

 

_Commerce and Nobility._—Buying and selling is now regarded as something

ordinary, like the art of reading and writing; everyone is now trained

to it even when he is not a tradesman, exercising himself daily in the

art; precisely as formerly in the period of uncivilised humanity,

everyone was a hunter and exercised himself day by day in the art of

hunting. Hunting was then something common: but just as this finally

became a privilege of the powerful and noble, and thereby lost the

character of the commonplace and the ordinary—by ceasing to be necessary

and by becoming an affair of fancy and luxury:—so it might become the

same some day with buying and selling. Conditions of society are

imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in which

the necessity for this art will become quite lost; perhaps it may then

happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of the

prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling as a

_luxury of sentiment_. It is then only that commerce would acquire

nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves just as

readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and politics:

while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then have

entirely altered. Already even politics ceases to be the business of a

gentleman; and it is possible that one day it may be found to be so

vulgar as to be brought, like all party literature and daily literature,

under the rubric: "Prostitution of the intellect."

 

 

32.

 

_Undesirable Disciples._—What shall I do with these two youths! called

out a philosopher dejectedly, who "corrupted" youths, as Socrates had

once corrupted them,—they are unwelcome disciples to me. One of them

cannot say "Nay," and the other says "Half and half" to everything.

Provided they grasped my doctrine, the former would _suffer_ too much,

for my mode of thinking requires a martial soul, willingness to cause

pain, delight in denying, and a hard skin,—he would succumb by open

wounds and internal injuries. And the other will choose the mediocre in

everything he represents, and thus make a mediocrity of the whole,—I

should like my enemy to have such a disciple.

 

 

33.

 

_Outside the Lecture-room._—"In order to prove that man after all

belongs to the good-natured animals, I would remind you how credulous he

has been for so long a time. It is now only, quite late, and after an

immense self-conquest, that he has become a _distrustful_ animal,—yes!

man is now more wicked than ever."—I do not understand this; why should

man now be more distrustful and more wicked?—"Because he now has

science,—because he needs to have it!"—

 

 

34.

 

_Historia abscondita._—Every great man has a power which operates

backward; all history is again placed on the scales on his account, and

a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their lurking-places—into

_his_ sunlight. There is absolutely no knowing what history may be some

day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in its essence! There are

yet so many retroactive powers needed!

 

 

35.

 

_Heresy and Witchcraft._—To think otherwise than is customary—that is by

no means so much the activity of a better intellect, as the activity of

strong, wicked inclinations,—severing, isolating, refractory,

mischief-loving, malicious inclinations. Heresy is the counterpart of

witchcraft, and is certainly just as little a merely harmless affair, or

a thing worthy of honour in itself. Heretics and sorcerers are two kinds

of bad men; they have it in common that they also feel themselves

wicked; their unconquerable delight is to attack and injure whatever

rules,—whether it be men or opinions. The Reformation, a kind of

duplication of the spirit of the Middle Ages at a time when it had no

longer a good conscience, produced both of these kinds of people in the

greatest profusion.

 

 

36.

 

_Last Words._—It will be recollected that the Emperor Augustus, that

terrible man, who had himself as much in his own power, and who could be

silent as well as any wise Socrates, became indiscreet about himself in

his last words; for the first time he let his mask fall, when he gave to

understand that he had carried a mask and played a comedy,—he had played

the father of his country and wisdom on the throne well, even to the

point of illusion! _Plaudite amici, comoedia finita est!_—The thought of

the dying Nero: _qualis artifex pereo!_ was also the thought of the

dying Augustus: histrionic conceit! histrionic loquacity! And the very

counterpart to the dying Socrates!—But Tiberius died silently, that most

tortured of all self-torturers,—_he_ was _genuine_ and not a

stage-player! What may have passed through his head in the end! Perhaps

this: "Life—that is a long death. I am a fool, who shortened the lives

of so many! Was _I_ created for the purpose of being a benefactor? I

should have given them eternal life: and then I could have _seen them

dying_ eternally. I had such good eyes _for that_: _qualis spectator

pereo!_" When he seemed once more to regain his powers after a long

death-struggle, it was considered advisable to smother him with

pillows,—he died a double death.

 

 

37.

 

_Owing to three Errors._—Science has been furthered during recent

centuries, partly because it was hoped that God's goodness and wisdom

would be best understood therewith and thereby—the principal motive in

the soul of great Englishmen (like Newton); partly because the absolute

utility of knowledge was believed in, and especially the most intimate

connection of morality, knowledge, and happiness—the principal motive in

the soul of great Frenchmen (like Voltaire); and partly because it was

thought that in science there was something unselfish, harmless,

self-sufficing, lovable, and truly innocent to be had, in which the evil

human impulses did not at all participate—the principal motive in the

soul of Spinoza, who felt himself divine, as a knowing being:—it is

consequently owing to three errors that science has been furthered.

 

 

38.

 

_Explosive People._—When one considers how ready are the forces of young

men for discharge, one does not wonder at seeing them decide so

unfastidiously and with so little selection for this or that cause:

_that_ which attracts them is the sight of eagerness about any cause, as

it were the sight of the burning match—not the cause itself. The more

ingenious seducers on that account operate by holding out the prospect

of an explosion to such persons, and do not urge their cause by means of

reasons; these powder-barrels are not won over by means of reasons!

 

 

39.

 

_Altered Taste._—The alteration of the general taste is more important

than the alteration of opinions; opinions, with all their proving,

refuting, and intellectual masquerade, are merely symptoms of altered

taste, and are certainly _not_ what they are still so often claimed to

be, the causes of the altered taste. How does the general taste alter?